Iraq
Kunara – 2017

The 2017 excavation campaign took place from 15 September to 14 October 2017. It had to be cut short because of the regional situation. The three sites opened in 2015 and 2016 (B, C and E) continued to be excavated in extension.
On site E, the excavation extended south of the small house of 26 m2 identified in 2016 and east of the monumental building located in 2015. A vast space recognized on more than 40 m2 (but whose southern and eastern limits are not yet known) and free of any installation has been cleared. The house next to the large building was therefore not included in the urban network. The floor of this space did not deliver any material.
The southeast corner of the monumental building was discovered this year: its eastern façade was about 20 m long. For the moment, its function remains unknown but research is scheduled for 2018.
The eastern façade of the monumental building on site B was also recognised over its entire length (40 m). Only the rooms on the outer edge of the building are known: they clearly belong to two distinct areas. To the south-east, the thresholds of the doors are well marked, unlike to the north-east occupied by a large circulation area. Moulds used for the manufacture of metal blades were discovered there.
Two large areas were excavated on site C: the buildings to the north and the semi-buried cellar to the south. The excavation focused on a room of the latter which delivered nearly 70 cuneiform tablets and fragments. These documents, which are generally very poorly preserved, belong to the same “flour office” as the tablets discovered in the same building during the two previous campaigns.
In the north, the organization of the two buildings was better understood. A room, identified in 2015, was also fully excavated: covering 90 m², facilities suggest that it was an open-air space. A very abundant ceramic material comes from this place.
Kunara is an important site from the end of the 3rd millennium B.C. Its public buildings were carefully built with original methods combining stone bases and massive earth superstructures (different forms of cob and adobe). Research has also pointed out that the builders of Kunara had been able to compensate for ground irregularities by adapting the height and thickness of the basements.
Aline TENU, CNRS Research Fellow