Kunara
Identified in 2011 during a field walking survey, the Kunara site contains the remains of several public buildings and a wealth of varied artefacts belonging to a small town in the Zagros Piedmont. The evidence suggests the site was a busy centre engaged in long-distance trade, with a highly developed administrative system by the end of the 3rd millennium.
An active urban centre
The public buildings displayed a variety of complex technical construction techniques suggesting great care was taken in building them. Many pottery finds were discovered along with a cylinder seal, a seal and some forty cuneiform tablets and fragments. Although severely damaged by fire, an initial reading suggests they record the receipt and issuing of different types of flour.
At the heart of a small State
At the end of the 3rd millennium, Kunara was the local or even regional centre of a small State called Lullubum. Lullubum had extensive relations with its Mesopotamian and Iranian neighbours, as attested by epigraphic, ceramic, sigillographic and lithic sources. One of the main challenges of the research begun in 2012 is to understand this major site, Lullubum, its local traditions and cultural, political and military contacts.
Peramagron mission
Directed by Christine Kepinski, and then Aline Tenu, the mission included scientists from various teams within the CNRS and the Université de Paris I, PhD students, post-doctoral students and members of Eveha. It works in close cooperation with archaeologists from the Department of Antiquities of the University of Soulaimaniah and takes part in multiple training programmes. It is supported by the French Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs, on the advice of the Commission des Fouilles.
Combating the theft and illicit trafficking of cultural property is one of the priorities of the French Ministry of Culture, which pays close attention to these issues, in line with its regulatory responsibility to control the movement of cultural property.
Radio programme
Aline Tenu, project manager at the CNRS, presents the research she directs on the Kunara site on Carbone 14, a radio programme broadcast on 31 March 2019 on France Culture, presented by Vincent Charpentier
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