ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Cultivation on farmland in a mountainous area of northern Erbil province has led to the discovery of a small mass grave containing human skeletons believed to date back to the Iron Age.
The 1.5-meter-deep grave, found in a field in Khalifan village of Sidakan district, Bradost area on Tuesday, contains the remains of 11 humans and one horse, along with two pottery vessels.
“I was plowing the land when I noticed the emergence of a hole. I checked it with a flashlight and realized it looked like a room,” Jalal Ozeir, the farmer who made the discovery, told Rudaw on Wednesday. “I had never cultivated this land before, and there had never been a grave here. No one has ever lived in this area, even in our ancestors’ time. This just appeared.”
The recovered skeletons and pottery have been transferred to an archaeological center for examination.
Following the discovery, archaeological teams have been called in to conduct further searches in hopes of uncovering additional possible human remains and relics.
“The boat-shaped grave dates back around 2,500-2,600 years,” said Abdulwahab Sulaiman, head of the Soran archaeology department in Erbil province. “We determined this based on the pottery buried alongside the skeletons.”
Sulaiman added, “We believe the grave may have belonged to a local king, accompanied by ten men," and dated back to the Iron Age.
The Kurdistan Region has a rich archaeological history.
More than 1,150 heritage and archaeological sites have been registered in the Soran administration of Erbil province, including around 180 in the Bradost area alone.
Bradost area is located northeast of Erbil.