The Tigris-Euphrates Archaeological Reconnaissance Project: Final Report of the Cizre Dam and Cizre-Silopi Plain Survey Areas

Abstract

The Turkish Government is currently implementing a substantial development program for southeastern Anatolia (the Güneydoğu Anadolu Projesi) that has already seen the building of a number of dams on the Euphrates and Tigris rivers and their tributaries. Another dam is now being erected just a few kilometers north of the modern town of Cizre. When completed, the dam’s reservoir will rise to the 409.4 m level and flood an area of ca. 21 square kilometers. Additionally, its water will be used to irrigate as much as 121,000 square hectares in the nearby Cizre-Silopi plain area. Spurred by these development plans, a multi-year effort was mounted between 1988 and 1990 to document the range of archaeological and historical sites that could be destroyed or damaged by these plans. What follows is the final report of surveys in the areas affected by the Cizre Dam and its associated irrigation schemes. This report supersedes, and in many cases corrects, earlier preliminary reports of our work in the Cizre-Silopi region. Additionally, parts of it also complement new work conducted by Dr. Gülriz Kozbe (2008) and her team over much of the same area. Fieldwork took place over the course of 6 weeks, spread out between 1988 and 1989, and was made possible by the Department of Monuments and Museums of the Turkish Republic and the Salvage and Investigation of Historical and Archaeological Finds (TEKDAM) of Middle Eastern Technical University in Ankara. Research funds were obtained from a variety of private and governmental research foundations in the United States.