Excavations in Iraq, 1979–80

Extract

As shown in the following pages there has been considerable archaeological activity in Iraq over the last two years. The rescue operation mounted by the State Organization for Antiquities and Heritage in the Hamrin Basin has continued during the whole of this period, although on fewer sites, and a considerable number of new sites have been discovered and excavated in the Haditha Dam area. Rescue work has also continued in areas threatened by city development or road building, and our list of sites for these two years is almost as long as for 1977 and 1978.

Our thanks go, as ever, to the President of the State Organization, Dr. Muayad Sa'id Damerji, for permission to include these summary reports in Iraq, and to all those excavators and others who have helped us in assembling them. As well as the individual directors, we would like to thank Dr. Behnam Abu as-Soof and Dr. Muhammad Baqir al-Husseini, respectively Directors of the Hamrin and Haditha Projects, for their assistance. We would also like to take the opportunity of apologizing to those expeditions whose results we have been unable to include for lack of time or because of difficulty in communication: the chief casualty is the important work at Basra, now under the direction of Dr. Abd-as-Sittar al-'Azzawi, Director-General for the South of Iraq, and the reports on a number of other sites are less detailed than we would have wished.