Ricerc@Sapienza

The Paikuli Project started in 2006, after the 2nd Gulf war, under the direction of the applicant. At the time, the Project was run by IsIAO on behalf of Task Force Iraq (MAECI) and it came to be hosted by Sapienza, at the Department of Scienze dell'Antichità in 2011. Since the very beginnings, all the activities implemented in the Kurdish region of Iraq included both a scientific core - the study of archaeology and epigraphy of the region - and a capacity building component, aiming at improving the best practices of the institutions involved in cultural heritage management. The activities of the present proposal focus on the site of Paikuli, a ceremonial area centring on a tower built by the Sasanian king Narseh (293-302 CE) that carries a long and historically important bilingual inscription celebrating the king's victory in the dynastic war against Wahram III. The first season of excavation, carried out in 2006, was accompanied and followed by several documentation campaigns, both on-site and at the Museum of Sulaimaniyah, according to security conditions of the area. In 2012, in order to create an archaeological map of the area, the project started an intensive survey of the entire valley where the Paikuli complex lays. Simultaneously, an intensive documentation of the site has been carried out to a significant extent to investigate the site in a broader diachronic and spatial context, through archaeological surveys and stratigraphic excavations. For the 2019 Spring Campaign, we plan to continue the topographic documentation and open stratigraphic trenches in the area of the main structure (Area A), in an area with secondary structures (Area B) and in the cemetery and possibly settlement area (Area C). Connected with the archaeological map, we also plan to study the historical landscape and human impact on it. All new discoveries will be made available to the scientific community and the wider public through open source scientific and popular dissemination.