Mesopotamian Fellowship Report: Jaafar Jotheri - American Society of Overseas Research (ASOR)

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Mesopotamian Fellowship Report: Jaafar Jotheri

An Archaeological Survey of the Iraqi Western Desert

Dr. Jaafar Jotheri, Department of Archaeology, University of Al-Qadisiyah

The Iraqi Western Desert has finally been archaeologically surveyed. For decades, this part of Iraq was ignored by both local and international archaeologists. Most Iraqi and international projects focus on Mesopotamia’s floodplain, steppe, and mountains, but not its western desert. One side effect of this project, funded by an ASOR Mesopotamian Fellowship, is that the Iraqi Western Desert is now attracting more local and international researchers. Local postgraduate students have started to take archaeological projects in this area for their theses, and scholars have begun visiting the desert for potential future research projects. More importantly, the Iraqi Official Heritage Authorities have started to create new records and databases for the archaeological sites in this part of Iraq. This project has put the archaeology of this desert in the spotlight and sparked much interest in future research. The dissemination of every step of this project has helped other stakeholders follow its progress and wait with interest for its outcome.

Figure 1: Location map of the ten field trip locations.

The combination of research methods this project followed has benefited the Iraqi university students and staff. For example, 16 Iraqi students (from Al-Qadisiyah, Kufa, and ThiQar Universities) have been trained in the techniques of remote sensing and GIS to identify more archaeological sites in the desert. We managed to locate and map more than 300 potential sites (enclosures, pendants, and tombs-graves-burials) in the desert using systematic and inclusive remote-sensing surveys.

Figure 2: A drone image shows a tomb-grave-burial in the Iraqi Western Desert in December 2023.

Figure 3: A drone image shows a pendant in the Iraqi Western Desert in December 2023.

Figure 4: A drone image shows Jaafar Jotheri standing close to an enclosure feature in the Iraqi Western Desert in December 2023.

Figure 5: A drone image shows a palaeolake in the Iraqi Western Desert in December 2023.

After completing the office work, we conducted fieldwork, which consisted of ten trips, each to a different part of the desert. Locations were selected based on the remote sensing results. We took five students for fieldwork training that involved identifying the sites that had already been mapped, drawing sketches of the sites, collecting lithics, taking photos, and using drone images. More than 500 lithic samples have been collected, classified, and photographed. These samples will be studied more in the university lab as they show a mix of ages from Palaeolithic to Neolithic. We used two 4×4 cars to travel in the desert, and we were accompanied by guides from the local Bedouin people who knew the roads well. Optically Stimulated Luminescence (OSL) samples were collected from the sediments under the rocks of clusters of enclosures to determine the age of construction of these features. These samples are on their way to the OSL lab. We were lucky to have Dr. Stefan Smith from the University of Helsinki and Dr. Ella Egberts from the University of Leicester with us on two field trips to the desert.

Figure 6: Jaafar Jotheri interviewed some local bedouins about their interpretation of the archaeological features in the Iraqi Western Desert in December 2023.

Figure 7: A local bedouin volunteered to repair a tomb-grave-burial feature in the Iraqi Western Desert in December 2023.

Figure 8: Jaafar Jotheri, Stefan Smith and Ella Egberts in one of the field trips in the Iraqi Western Desert in March 2024.

Figure 9: Collecting lithics in the Iraqi Western Desert in March 2024.

Although the results have not been finalized yet, I delivered three talks about the preliminary findings of this project at international conferences. The first was entitled “What Archaeology and Heritage do we have in the Iraqi Western Desert?” at the British Association of the Near Eastern Archaeology conference January 3–5 in Glasgow. The second paper, “The Natural and Cultural Heritage of the Water Springs in the Iraqi Desert,” was part of an online workshop on bioarchaeology in Mesopotamia at Kiel University, Germany. The third was “Archaeological Features from the Iraqi Western Desert,” which was delivered in person at the 5th International Scientific Conference of the Mesopotamian Archaeology held on March 6th at the University of Al-Qadisiyah. A portion of the results are being prepared for publication in an international journal, and more will be published in a local Iraqi journal. I also submitted an abstract to the ASOR annual conference that will be held this November, which I plan to attend in person.

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An Archaeological Survey of the Iraqi Western Desert

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