Rural communities in the Sasanian Empire - Excavations in Qalrakh and Kazhaw in Iraqi Kurdistan
Hybrid lecture by Dr. Alexander Tamm | University of Erlangen-Nuremberg
Abstract For a long time, the Sasanian Empire was one of the greatest adversaries of the Roman empires. This is hardly reflected in the level of archaeological field work. In many cases, it is primarily larger urban centres, sanctuaries and palaces and, particularly in recent years, fortifications that have been uncovered. The material culture of smaller communities – villages, small fortifications in the hinterland, etc. – which certainly formed the backbone of the still largely agrarian Sasanian society, has hardly been researched.
As part of a cooperative project between the Universities of Frankfurt and Erlangen-Nuremberg and the Department of Antiquities of the Autonomous Region of Iraqi Kurdistan, this gap is to be closed by means of new field work and the evaluation of various older excavations and surveys.
The two settlement mounds of Kazhaw and Qalrakh in the Shahrizor Plain are just such small settlements – a village in Qalrakh, a small fortress and a possible monastery in Kazhaw. The talk will present the results of the recent excavations and some conclusions that can already be drawn at this early stage on what different aspects of life were organised in such small communities, e.g., "what sources of income were there in small villages", "how far did contacts extend", or "how was the construction of a small fortress organised".
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