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International audience

During the past years both the political instability and the uncontrolled economic development in the Middle East caused several threats to the cultural heritage, including widespread looting and destruction of hundreds of archaeological sites, looting of museums, flooding of ancient settlements due to the construction of dams, damages to monuments and sites during armed conflicts. Notwithstanding the ongoing difficult condition of fieldwork, a new phase of archaeological research has begun with projects of landscape archaeology, excavations and extensive surveys carried out especially in Iraqi Kurdistan, allowing a detailed reconstruction of the settlement dynamics and historical development in the trans-Tigridian region, from the prehistory to the Islamic period. A new archaeological renaissance contributing to the process of peace-building through the empowerment of strong ties between the local communities and the cultural heritage.

ment and movement of goods is recorded by the use of cylinder seals on sealings and on pottery vessels. In the palace were found around two hundred clay sealings with cylinder-seal impressions and more than fifty storage jars with seal impressions. Cretulae come from various functional contexts, with significant concentrations only in the northern storerooms and central archive, whilst seal-impressed jars were scattered in various quarters, including the northern warehouse, the units of the Central Quarter devoted to processing foodstuffs, and the ‘ kitchen’ which opened at the bottom of the Ceremonial Staircase. The third category of indicators of administrative management of goods is represented by balance weights, a fundamental tool enabling the palace administration to check and record disbursement and incoming quantities of precious materials and objects. More than forty stone weights were retrieved in the palace, with at least two significant concentrations that permit the localization The extraordinary state of preservation of the Royal Palace G of Ebla (c. 2400-2300 BC) with a large amount of materials sealed by the destruction levels and the presence of central and temporary archives in several rooms of the official wings of the palatial complex allow a detailed analysis of the distribution and types of the various indicators of exchange and the control of exchange. Economic written documents, sealings (cretulae, bullae and jar-sealings) and balance weights attest to the economic activities conducted within the palace and provide integrated information regarding administrative procedures. Together with these indicators, unworked precious materials (in particular lapis lazuli), imported items, and objects manufactured from imported materials show the palace administration’s control over luxury goods production and Ebla’s extended interregional exchange network. In addition to the administrative archives (with thousands of tablets), the manage- of weight sets. The evaluation of the archaeological indicators, based on the distribution and associations of these various categories of object, makes readily identifiable the ‘ places’ appointed to house single or multiple parts of the procedural chain of administrative activity : the final stage in the codification of economic transactions consisted of written cuneiform texts on clay tablets ; the interim level of recording is represented by the cretulae used to seal goods of various sorts ; and the most crucial steps in recording, when goods enter or leave the palace, are distinguished by various forms of weighing operation., L’ état de conservation extraordinaire du Palais Royal G d’Ebla (c. 2400-2300 BC), avec une grande quantité de matériaux scellés par les niveaux de destruction, ainsi que la présence des archives centrales et temporaires dans plusieurs salles des ailes officielles du complexe palatial, permettent une analyse détaillée de la distribution et des types d’indicateurs et de contrôle des échanges. Documents économiques écrits, scellés (cretulae, bullae et scellements de jarres) et poids, témoignent des activités économiques menées dans le palais et fournissent des informations combinées sur les procédures administratives. En plus de ces documents, les matières premières précieuses brutes (en particulier le lapislazuli), les produits importés, tout comme les objets fabriqués à partir de matériaux importés, montrent le contrôle de l’administration palatiale sur la production de biens de luxe et l’étendue du réseau d’échanges interrégionaux d’Ebla. En plus des archives administratives (qui comprennent des milliers de tablettes), la gestion et la circulation des marchandises sont consignées sur des empreintes de sceaux cylindriques et sur le matériel céramique. Dans le palais ont été trouvées près de deux cents empreintes de sceaux cylindres sur argile et plus de cinquante jarres de stockage avec empreintes de sceaux. Les cretulae proviennent de différents contextes fonctionnels, avec des concentrations importantes uniquement dans les magasins nord et les archives centrales, tandis que des jarres portant des scellés étaient dispersées dans différentes zones, y compris l’entrepôt nord, les unités du Quartier Central consacré au traitement des denrées alimentaires, et la «cuisine » qui ouvre sur la partie basse de l’Escalier Cérémoniel. La troisième catégorie d’indicateurs de gestion administrative des produits est représentée par des poids, un outil très important pour que l’administration du palais puisse vérifier et enregistrer les quantités de matières premières précieuses et d’objets sortis ou entrés. Plus de quarante poids en pierre ont été retrouvés dans le palais, avec au moins deux concentrations importantes qui permettent la localisation de jeux de poids. L’ évaluation des indicateurs archéologiques, considérant leur distribution et leurs association, rend facilement identifiables les «lieux » désignés pour abriter des pièces individuelles ou multiples de la chaîne opératoire des activités administratives : la dernière étape dans la codification des transactions économiques consistait en textes cunéiformes écrits sur des tablettes d’argile ; le niveau intermédiaire de l’enregistrement est représenté par les cretulae utilisées pour sceller des produits de différents types ; et les étapes les plus cruciales dans l’enregistrement, lorsque les marchandises entrent ou sortent du palais, se distinguent par diverses formes de pesage., Peyronel Luca. Tablets, Sealings and Weights at Ebla: Administrative and Economic Procedures at the beginning of the Archaic State in Syria. In: Archéo-Nil. Revue de la société pour l'étude des cultures prépharaoniques de la vallée du Nil, n°26, 2016. Naissance de l'état, naissance de l’administration : le rôle de l'écriture en Égypte, au Proche-Orient et en Chine / Emergence of the state and development of the administration: the role of writing in Egypt, Near East and China. pp. 49-66.

Abstract The mandate of the United Nations Special Rapporteur in the field of cultural rights marked its 10th anniversary in 2019. To celebrate this milestone, the Special Rapporteur, Ms. Karima Bennoune, invited all stakeholders to contribute to a consultation aimed at taking stock of the impact of the cultural rights mandate since its creation and at identifying issues relating to cultural rights. RASHID International, led by Chief Legal Officer Seán Fobbe, contributed a special report outlining the work we do in enhancing cultural rights in Iraq. About RASHID International RASHID International is a worldwide network of archaeologists and cultural heritage experts dedicated to safeguarding and promoting the cultural heritage of Iraq, ancient Mesopotamia. To assist our Iraqi colleagues, we collect and share information, research and expert knowledge, work to raise public awareness, and both develop and execute strategies to protect heritage sites and other cultural property through international cooperation, advocacy and technical assistance. RASHID International is registered as a non-profit organisation in Germany and enjoys charitable tax-exempt status under German law. We are an organisation in special consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council since 2019. Learn more about our work at www.rashid-international.org All of our research is available open access here: https://zenodo.org/communities/rashid-international/ &nbsp

The 2013 season of fieldwork of the Italian Archaeological Expedition in the Helawa/Aliawa Area (MAIPE-Missione Archeologica Italiana nella Piana di Erbil, Kurdistan) was conducted by the University IULM of Milan, with the cooperation of IBAM-CNR of Lecce and the Sapienza University of Rome. The investigation focused on a small part of the South-Western Erbil plain and included two main mounds, Helawa (South) and Aliawa (North). A complete topographic plan was created starting from the measurements taken with differential GPS (for DEM and GIS elaboration). The collection of materials on the surface enabled us to make a preliminary assessment of the main periods of occupation at the site, spanning from the Late Neolithic (Halaf and Ubaid periods, 6th millennium BC) to the Middle Assyrian period (13th-12th century BC). The project of acquisition of topographic and archaeological records from the intensive survey conducted on the site involved the use of open source tools. All data were organized in a GIS system based on QuantumGIS and metadata are now stored in a PostgreSQL/PostGIS database, allowing for the subsequent phases of mapping elaboration. The topographic work produced a complete archaeological space-map, with distribution of materials on the surface, sections of the site, a digital elevation model and all the data collected during the survey entered in a webGIS. This paper illustrates the state-of-the-art of this GIS project, and introduces future developments like the web data-entry interface written in PHP, and the webGIS based on GeoServer and GeoExplorer.

International audience; Recent data from the sites of Girdi Qala and Logardan (Sulaymaniyah Province, Iraqi Kurdistan) are starting to change the picture of Uruk culture expansion. In the central Zagros piedmont, this phenomenon began as early as the south-Mesopotamian Early Uruk (local Late Chalcolithic 2). At Girdi Qala, the Uruk presence is documented by several firing structures which show that Uruk pottery was made on-site by resident craftsmen. At Logardan, different architectural phases of a large monumental complex have been identified on a wide mud-brick terrace in a dominant position, on the edge of the natural hill. Both the craft area and the monumental constructions date back to the beginning of the 4th millennium BCE, as demonstrated by the pottery assemblage, closely similar to the Early Uruk repertoire from Eridu or Susa. Nevertheless, during the first half of the 4th millennium BCE, the area did not yield materials belonging exclusively to south-Mesopotamian Uruk settlers. On the contrary, at Girdi Qala and Logardan, as also in the whole region east of the Tigris River, material culture documents above all a widespread presence of indigenous populations, who had very close relations with Uruk people since the beginning of the 4th millennium. These discoveries lead us to revise traditional conceptions of the Uruk expansion, based on the simplistic dichotomy between local populations and southern settlers. In the same way, several questions raise about nature and reasons of the so-called ‘colonial’ phenomenon, that was rooted in south-Mesopotamian social and economic dynamics.