2019 PLATT FELLOWSHIP FIELD REPORT: AMBER LEENDERS
With the support of the Platt Excavation Fellowship, I was able to travel to the Kurdistan Region of Iraq in May of 2019 and join Dr. Lisa Cooper’s team from the University of British Columbia to excavate the fascinating, multi-period site of Bestansur. Our team also included Dr. Kate Kelley, Dr. Lynn Welton, and Dr. Jill Weber.
The town of Bestansur is located in the Kurdistan province of Sulaymaniyah, a mountainous area of northeastern Iraq. The landscape is stunningly beautiful, with the lush green fields of the Shahrizor plain, the rocky slopes of the Zagros mountain range, and tributary rivers such as the Sirwan, which eventually feed into the Diyala and Tigris Rivers to the south. Although I have been on digs before, this was my first trip to the Middle East, and I felt slightly out of my element and unsure of what to expect. When we arrived on site for the first early morning of work, however, and I saw the snow-capped peaks of the Zagros mountains rising out of the clouds, I knew that I would quickly grow to love Kurdistan and its history.
We were fortunate to join a team of British archaeologists from the University of Reading, who have been excavating the site since 2012 due to their interest in its unique evidence of Neolithic occupation. It is a remarkable site, with over ten thousand years of history that include well-preserved monumental Neolithic architecture, as well as an exceptional number of human remains. It provides the earliest evidence of settled village life in this region and in fact, some of the earliest in the world! The site continually reveals valuable details about the diet, lifestyle, trade, and ritual practices of the people who occupied the settlement. It was great to observe the Reading team carry out their excavations, and to learn from them about the meticulous excavation, sampling, and recording necessary to understand Neolithic habitation and culture.
So, where does the UBC team come into this? About seven thousand years later…
All phases of a site must be excavated with equal care, so on a large site such as this it is helpful to have multiple teams working on different phases to smooth the process. Dr. Lisa Cooper’s research has mainly focused on the Neo-Assyrian occupation at Bestansur, which is some of the most significant material that superimposes the Neolithic remains on the tell. The power of the Neo-Assyrian empire grew during the 10th-7th centuries BCE, and we are interested in the ways that this might have impacted the lives of people in the Kurdistan region—an important thoroughfare in northern Mesopotamia. Bestansur’s Trench 14, just south-east of the tell, revealed significant Neo-Assyrian stone architecture and in-situ pottery in the previous 2013 and 2017 seasons, and the 2019 season had many more surprises in store. New evidence of post-Neolithic burned stone and pisé buildings on the main mound meant that this year UBC’s teams decided to divide and conquer, excavating in both Trenches 10 North and 10 West.
I excavated mainly in 10 West, but my main role on the UBC team was to map the site using our total station, and to document the trenches using photographs and photogrammetry models. Photogrammetry has become an essential part of archaeological recording; the process uses specialized software to transform a collection of photos of an object or space into a 3D model, which can then be studied further, and put in its geographical context. It’s an incredibly helpful tool for archaeology, which is a process that paradoxically destroys the things which it is studying! After archaeologists excavate an artifact or context, or dissemble architecture, photogrammetry makes it possible to study the site as it previously stood. Models the one below are especially helpful for examining things like the Sasanian/early Islamic period structures in Trench 10 West, which had to be fully excavated and removed in order to properly chronicle the history of occupation in the trench as a whole.
There were many phases of occupation on the tell. Work in Trench 10 North revealed a complex series of layers of a possible Neo-Assyrian burned building, along with features like tannour ovens and deposits of shells. In Trench 10 West, although scattered remains like tannours and hearths of the Ottoman period were encountered, features from the Sasanian/ early Islamic period were especially prevalent, these comprising curvilinear stone structures, pebbled surfaces and associated outdoor spaces. Exciting finds from this season, including intact ceramic vessels, a wide variety of animal bones, and various metal tools, can lead to more accurate knowledge about the region and the lifeways of its occupants during these often-understudied later periods.
The 2019 season expanded on the work of previous seasons, and opened up new discussions and debates about the significance of the site— during the Neo-Assyrian period, was it a valuable example of a rural agricultural community? Or could it have been an administrative center of the expanding empire? Did pastoral communities pass through or settle there in the Sasanian and Ottoman periods? Future research and excavations will clarify these and many more questions.
The incredibly warm welcome that we received from our host families and the rest of the local community was a highlight of our month; the people of Bestansur are generous, helpful, good-humoured, and fiercely competitive at soccer to boot (Team Archaeology put up a good fight, but suffered some serious losses against the local team). Many of the locals have years of experience working at this and other sites in the area, and the work of the UBC and Reading teams would not have been possible without their excellent work excavating, processing samples, washing pottery, cooking for our teams, and providing transportation and logistical support.
The experience of excavating and living in Iraqi Kurdistan was unforgettable, and has sparked my interest in this region, its people, and their culture. I am sincerely grateful to ASOR and the donors of the Platt Excavation Fellowship for this opportunity! Thank you to everyone on the team who worked so hard this season, and put the “Best” in Bestansur.
For more information about Bestansur, and the rest of the Central Zagros Archaeological Project, please visit https://www.czap.org/research/bestansur.
Amber Leenders is currently finishing her MA in Classical and Near Eastern Archaeology at the University of British Columbia. Her thesis focuses on using archival data to re-interpret the archaeology of the temples at the site of Dura-Europos, located in modern day Syria. After graduation, she hopes to continue to teach, research, and excavate in the field she loves.
Want to help more students and early career archaeologists get into the field? Donate to the cause today by selecting “Excavation Scholarships” as your gift purpose!
