Italian and Kurdish archaeologists have made what they call exciting discoveries in the Kurdistan region of Iraq:ten new rock-cut reliefs showing the Assyrian king and the gods of Assyria sculpted along a large rock-cut irrigation canal.
These are the results of the Kurdish-Italian Faida Archaeological Project, co-directed by Professor Daniele Morandi Bonacossi (University of Udine) and Professor Hasan Ahmed Qasim (Duhok Antiquities Directorate), a joint project working in the Duhok area in the northern Kurdistan region of Iraq.
In September-October 2019, the Italian-Kurdish team made an extraordinary discovery at the Faida archaeological site (20 km south of Duhok). They are ten unique Assyrian reliefs from the 8th-7th century BC. they were carved into the eastern side of an approximately 7-kilometre-long channel carved out of bedrock.
Surrounding the western spur of Mount Çiya Daka, the Faida Channel cuts through the limestone of the range and was fed by a series of karst springs - some still active today - located in several small wadis along the flank. north of the mountain.
The channel had an average width of 4 meters and today it is buried under the eroded deposits of the mountain. From the primary canal, several intakes diverted the water to secondary canals to irrigate neighboring fields and thus improve the agricultural production of the countryside in the interior of Nineveh, the last capital of the Assyrian Empire.
The canal was possibly planned by the Assyrian king Sargon (720-705 BC) and along its eastern bank the king had panels carved – almost 5 meters high and 2 meters wide – showing the ruler on either side of a line. of deities mounted on their sacred animals. Before the excavation, only the upper parts of the sculpted panel frames emerged from the colluvial deposits and in some cases it was possible to recognize the crowns of the deities represented on the buried panels.
In 1973, British archaeologist Julian Reade identified three of these panels buried along the canal, but was unable to investigate them further due to the unstable political and military situation in the region during the conflict between the Kurdish Peshmerga and the army of the Kurdistan. Baathist regime. The Faida reliefs were registered in the Iraqi Official Gazette under number 2269 (August 14, 1983).
Forty years later, in August 2012, during archaeological survey work in the Duhok region, the Italian Archaeological Mission in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq of the University of Udine, led by Daniele Morandi Bonacossi, visited the site and identified six new reliefs. In 2019, thanks to the cooperation between the Duhok Antiquities Directorate and the University of Udine, and the support of the Italian Consulate in Erbil, the Assyrian rock reliefs of Faida were finally brought to light.
Assyrian rock reliefs are extremely rare monuments. With the sole exception of the Mila Mergi stele, the last reliefs discovered in Iraq were made known to the international community almost two centuries ago – in 1845 – by the French consul in Mosul Simon Rouet, who identified the Khinis and Maltai reliefs.
The Faida reliefs depict a procession of statues of seven of the major Assyrian deities standing on podiums in the form of striding animals in the presence of the king – who is depicted twice, both on the far left and far right of each panel. . The figures are shown in profile looking to the left and thus in the same direction as the current flowing in the channel.
The deities can be identified as Ashur, the chief Assyrian god, on a dragon and a horned lion, his wife Mullissu seated on a decorated throne and supported by a lion, the moon god Sin on a horned lion, the god of wisdom Nabu on a dragon, the sun god Shamash on a horse, the weather god Adad on a horned lion and a bull, and Ishtar, the goddess of love and war, on a lion.
Today this remarkable art complex is part of a still post-war scenario, strongly threatened by vandalism, illegal excavations and the expansion of the nearby town and its productive activities that have already severely damaged it. In addition, in recent years the Faida reliefs were only 25 km from the front line.
Due to these threats, the joint Italo-Kurdish project is a salvage operation that aims not only to bring to light and study these extraordinary Assyrian reliefs (ten have already been excavated, but many others are still waiting to be identified and unearthed). ), but also to record them using new technologies, conserve them and, above all, protect this unique and exceptional archaeological site.
During the 2019 excavation season, the channel and reliefs have been excavated and cleaned, and where appropriate consolidated, and recorded using UAV technology, laser scanning and digital photogrammetry. The state of conservation of all the reliefs was evaluated and rock samples were taken. The objective of these preliminary analyzes is to plan a specific conservation treatment for the Faida reliefs.
Upon completion of the excavation and conservation work, which will continue in the coming years, an archaeological park of Assyrian Faida reliefs will be established in cooperation with the Duhok Antiquities Directorate. This will make it possible to open the channel and its rocky reliefs to local and international sustainable tourism, thus allowing a wide dissemination of its knowledge and its adequate protection.
The Faida canal, with its extraordinary reliefs, will thus join the other existing Assyrian canals, aqueducts and reliefs in the Duhok region (Khinis, Maltai and Shiru Maliktha reliefs, and the Jerwan aqueduct). This complex monumental hydraulic system built by the Assyrian king Sennacherib has been studied and documented by the Italian Archaeological Mission in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq of the University of Udine since 2012.