The project deals with the archaeological exploration of the ancient city of Nigin, modern Tell Zurghul, in Southern Iraq (Dhi Qar Province). The city is well known in cuneiform texts dated to the Early Dynastic and Neo-Sumerian Period (from the second half of the 3rd millennium BC). The Sumerian city was an important religious centre: indeed, during the kingdom of Gudea of Lagash, Nigin was the city of the goddess Nanshe and it was mainly important for the existence of an imposing temple that was, according to Gudea's own words, like a "mountain rising above the houses/the water".
According to the accounts of the explorers of the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th century, the entire area was characterised by marshes and the site of Tell Zurghul could sometimes be reached only by boat.
The ancient environment of the area was also characterised by the rich presence of artificial canals, principally coming from the Tigris; the ancient city, at least in the late 6th and in the 5th millennium BC, actually rose up next to the sea with marine incursion leading to formation of a (freshwater) inner delta in the "heartland" basin and freshwater lagoon. This special environmental condition surely affected and favoured the process of the urbanization, marshes and canals were waterways of communication as well as the primary dietary protein source was dried fish (fish was also regularly consumed and used in religious offerings and banquets).
For these very special conditions and features, the Iraqi State Board of Antiquities and Heritage (SBAH) has recently ranked the site of Tell Zurghul among the top 5% archaeological sites: according to the evaluation and assessment of the Iraqi SBAH Tell Zurghul as well as the area of the ancient state of Lagash deserves the highest attention by future archaeological explorations since the site is part of the on-going promotion of nominating of the Iraqi marshes to the Global Heritage List of UNESCO.
The project will develop the following methods, according to the main actions of the research:
1. Further samples and core drills: The goals are: a) to provide a total new evaluation of the morphology of the site that can be then confronted with other Mesopotamian sites in the South; b) to study the shape and development of natural and archaeological deposits in relation with the presence of water aiming at constructing large 3D textured models of these poorly structured environments; c) to offer a cost-effective support for performing continuous monitoring of these sites and to enable comparative analysis that will allow to devise better preservation plans. These models will be used to test the reconstruction of the original stratigraphy, i.e. the original superimposition of the deposits of soil: this action will be performed in collaboration with geologists from Sapienza and Perugia, engineers from Sapienza and geologists from the Iraqi University of Basra;
2. The use of Raman and Micro-Raman in archaeology allows to get information on the chemical and physical nature and composition of raw materials. Energy dispersive X-ray fluorescence technology (ED-XRF) provides one of the simplest, most accurate and most economic analytical methods for the determination of the chemical composition of many types of materials. It is non-destructive and reliable, it requires no sample preparation and is suitable for solid, liquid and powdered samples. It can be used for a wide range of elements, from sodium (11) to uranium (92) and provides detection limits at the ppm level; it can also measure concentrations of up to 100% easily and simultaneously. Portable XRF spectrometers, as well as Raman spectrometers, can be used directly in the field, or in the most challenging field location. In addition, optical systems able to collect luminescent signal belonging to the samples, will be realized in order to date the artefacts in substitution of the Thermoluminescence destructive technique. This action will be performed in collaboration with the Department of Physics of the University of Cagliari.
3. The archaeological investigation of Tell Zurghul, particularly in the occupational layers dated to the 5th (Ubaid) and the very beginning of the 3rd (Jemdet Nasr) millennia BC, can definitely give new data on the development of the urbanism from the Middle Chalcolithic to the Early Bronze Age. In particular, new landscape investigations and surveys of the southern regions (Hammar, Dhi-Qar and Basra provinces) allow completion of the knowledge of the occupation of central and southern Mesopotamia that was so far based upon the archaeological sites that had been already surveyed in the past, in the 1950s-1980s. Conversely, if environment has been affected by human interventions (with even drastic changes of the landscape of the regions), it is also true that the environment acts as a positive element in the selection, creation and development of urban settlements: southern Mesopotamia can in fact be seen as a good example of such an interaction showing where urban centres have been founded and how they were related to and depended on natural conditions. The landscape of water (what we could in fact label as a waterscape) of southern Mesopotamia encompassed not only the main rivers of the alluvium (Euphrates and Tigris that once run more closely in the centre of southern Mesopotamia) but also the large quantities of either natural or artificial channels and the marshes as well as the northernmost location of the sea coast. This action will be performed in collaboration with US expedition at al-Hiba/Lagash of the University of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia), the University of Cambridge (UK) and the University of South Caroline (US).