Kunara, une ville du IIIe millénaire dans les piémonts du Zagros. Rapport préliminaire sur la troisième campagne de fouilles (2015)

Aline Tenu (1) , Mark Altaweel (2) , Philippe Clancier (1) , Florine Marchand (3) , Nordine Ouraghi (4) , Bérengère Perello (5) , Cécile Verdellet (1)

1 ArScAn - Archéologies et Sciences de l'Antiquité
2 UCL - University College of London [London]
3 ULB - Université libre de Bruxelles
4 EVEHA (Etudes et valorisations archeologiques)
5 Archéorient - ARCHEORIENT - Environnements et sociétés de l'Orient ancien

Kunara is located in the vicinity of the modern city of Suleymanieh (Iraqi Kurdistan). It covers 7-10 ha and comprises an upper town to the west and a lower town. It was surrounded by paleao-channels that could have been used for irrigation purposes. The excavations started in 2012. The aim of this paper is to present the results of the third campaign conducted in 2015. Three areas were opened (B, C, E) in the lower town, and yielded remains dated to the third part of the 3 rd millennium B.C. In Area E, a monumental building was discovered, mainly characterized by a wall at least 1.35 m wide. In Area B, a public edifice was excavated, surrounded by at least three secondary buildings, and accessible by a ramp, and Area C conveyed the remains of two buildings associated with exterior floors and with a sunken cellar. In the latter, eight cuneiform tables were found. They are badly damaged, but two of them recorded entries and deliveries of different kinds of flour. Kunara presents elaborated building techniques. Walls were carefully built, usually on stone footings, with various kinds of earth superstructures in mudbrick and cob. The wide use of several cob techniques is unusual. The pottery shows that the ancient inhabitants of Kunara developed their own production influenced by the major trends attested elsewhere in Mesopotamia. Lithic artefacts are made in flint and in obsidian ; obsidian was probably imported from Anatolia. A jar sealing found in Area C shows great similarities with Akkadian glyptic. Kunara was thus a local or a regional centre in this region, at that time called the Lullubum

Mots clés: monumental architecture; pottery; lithic; Kurdistan; 3 rd Millennium; cuneiform tablets

Domaines: Sciences de l'Homme et Société; Archéologie et Préhistoire; Histoire

Aline Tenu, Mark Altaweel, Philippe Clancier, Florine Marchand, Nordine Ouraghi, et al.. Kunara, une ville du IIIe millénaire dans les piémonts du Zagros. Rapport préliminaire sur la troisième campagne de fouilles (2015). Akkadica, 2016, 137 (2), pp.109 - 182. ⟨halshs-02367919⟩