In search of the lost city of Natounia

The Rabana-Merquly mountain fortress in fashionable Iraqi Kurdistan was one of many essential regional facilities of the Parthian Empire, which unfold throughout components of Iran and Mesopotamia roughly 2,000 years in the past. This can be a conclusion reached by a group of archaeologists led by Dr. Michael Brown, a researcher on the Institute for Prehistory, Protohistory and Close to Japanese Archeology on the College of Heidelberg. Together with Iraqi colleagues, Brown studied the stays of the fort. His work offers necessary insights into Parthian settlement buildings and historical past, about which there’s surprisingly little identified, says Dr. Brown, although the annals of historical past report them as a serious energy.

Additionally, Rabana-Merquly could be the misplaced metropolis of Natounia. Situated on the southwestern flank of Mount Piramagrun within the Zagros Mountains, the stone fortress of Rabana-Merquly contains not solely the practically four-kilometre-long fortifications, but in addition two smaller settlements that give it its identify. On account of its excessive place on the mountain, mapping of the location was solely potential with drones. Throughout the framework of a number of excavation campaigns carried out since 2009 and extra not too long ago between 2019 and 2022, the worldwide group of researchers was capable of examine the archaeological stays on the location. Buildings which have survived to today counsel army use and embrace the stays of a number of rectangular buildings which will have served as barracks.

The researchers additionally discovered a non secular advanced presumably devoted to the Iranian Zoroastrian goddess Anahita. Of particular significance are the rock reliefs on the entrance to the fortress, in addition to the geographical location of the fortification within the catchment space of ​​the Decrease Zab River, identified in historic instances by its Greek identify of Kapros. Researchers suspect that Rabana-Merquly could be the misplaced metropolis of Natounia. Till now, the existence of the royal metropolis often known as Natounia in Kapros, or alternatively as Natounissarokerta, has been documented solely on just a few cash relationship from the first century BC.

In accordance with a scientific interpretation, the place identify Natounissarokerta is made up of the royal identify Natounissar, the founding father of the royal Adiabene dynasty, and the Parthian phrase for moat or fortification. “This description may apply to Rabana-Merquly,” says Dr. Brown. In accordance with the Heidelberg archaeologist, the reliefs on the partitions on the entrance to the fortress may signify the founding father of town, both Natounissar or a direct descendant. The researcher explains that the aid resembles the picture of a king that was discovered some 230 kilometers away in Hatra, a spot wealthy in finds from the time of the Parthians. The Rabana-Merquly mountain fortress is situated on the jap border of Adiabene, which was dominated by the kings of a neighborhood dynasty depending on the Parthians. It might have been used, amongst different issues, to commerce with pastoralist tribes within the inside of the nation, keep diplomatic relations, or exert army stress.

“The appreciable effort that will need to have gone into planning, constructing, and sustaining a fortress of this measurement factors to authorities actions,” says Dr. Brown. Present analysis at Rabana-Merquly is being funded by the German Analysis Basis as a part of precedence program 2176, “The Iranian Highlands: resilience and integration of societies premodern”.

The goal of the analysis mission is to research the Parthian settlements and society within the Zagros highlands on either side of the Iran-Iraq border. Throughout the newest excavations at Rabana-Merquly, Dr. Brown collaborated with colleagues from the Directorate of Antiquities in Sulaymaniyah, a metropolis within the autonomous area of Iraqi Kurdistan. The outcomes of the Heidelberg investigations had been revealed within the journal Antiquity.

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