NEAF Public Lecture Series

Wednesday 21 August 2019

Dr Amanda Dusting, The University of New England

Darband-i Rania: Gateway to the Zagros

Located at the northeast corner of Lake Dokan in Iraqi Kurdistan, the Darband-i Rania pass through the Zagros from Mesopotamia to Persia has been a central location through the millennia. The Darband-i Rania Archaeological Project (DIRAP), part of the British Museum’s Iraq Emergency Heritage Training Scheme, is investigating three strategically placed sites controlling access into the region. Murad Rasu is a small multi-phase township occupied from the Uruk through to the Islamic periods (ca. 3500 BCE–850 CE), while Usu Aska, is a Neo Assyrian fortress (ca. 7th BCE), and Qalatga Darband a large walled city of the Hellenistic/Parthian periods (ca. 2nd BCE–2nd CE). None had been excavated previously, and all are under threat due to modern development, making excavation a matter of urgency.

Dr Amanda Dusting joined the project as supervisor and instructor in 2016 and has been involved in all four seasons of excavation and training. Here she will present new findings from recent work, exploring a little known and difficult to access region, crucial to all the major empires of ancient Mesopotamia.

Amanda Dusting completed her PhD on Persian Achaemenid imperial architecture at Sydney University in 2014. She has worked extensively across the Middle East and East Mediterranean worlds over the last twenty years, in Iran and Iraq, Syria and Jordan, Sicily, Italy and Cyprus. She is an Honorary Adjunct Lecturer at UNE (Armidale), and an Excavation Director in historical archaeology in Sydney.

Price: NEAF Members: $30 | Non-Members: $40 | NEAF Student Member: $15

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Hosted by the Near Eastern Archaeology Foundation (NEAF)

Enquiries and RSVP:
P | +61 2 9351 4151
F | +61 9114 0921
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Please RSVP by 21 June 2019 | A light supper will follow the lecture at 7.30pm
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