In November 2012, the SSP team surveyed along the Wadi Shamlu, which flows into the dam lake directly from the north, and discovered several new archaeological sites. Shaikh Marif was identified during this campaign ca. 500 m to the south of Gird-i Shamlu. The site consists of three tiny artificial mounds that we designated Shaikh Marif I (northern mound, SSP-37), Shaikh Marif II (western mound, SSP-43) and Shaikh Marif III (eastern mound, SSP-38). Local people simply call the cluster "Se Tapan" ("three hills" in Kurdish), although one of the mounds (SSP-37) is also called Shaikh Marif. This landscape is seasonally cultivated today, and the water of the dam lake occasionally covers almost entire of the mounds from about May to mid-August. Due to modern cultivation and erosion by this seasonally flowing water, a large amount of archaeological materials were easily observed on the surface.
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| Aerial photo of Shaikh Marif (from NNE) |
No prehistoric material could be identified at Shaikh Marif III. However, numerous Late Neolithic sherds were scattered at the other two mounds, along with materials dated to the Bronze Age, Late Iron Age, and younger periods. Most of the Neolithic sherds belong to the coarse and plant-tempered category typical for the mid-late 7th millennium BC. Others, however, were of a type not previously observed in the Shahrizor Plain. Thus, the SSP conducted a systematic surface collection around Shaikh Marif I and II.
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| Late Neolithic potsherds from Shaikh Marif |
Thanks to the kind permissions by the Slemani Antiquities and Heritage Directorate and Simone Mühl, we carried out short campaigns in October 2016 and February 2017 in order to study the Late Neolithic potsherds collected from these sites in collaboration with Olivier Nieuwenhuyse. As a result, it was assumed that Shaikh Marif I and II are the most promising sites to fill a chronological gap between the late 7th and the early 6th millennium BC.
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Orthorectified mosaic image and the topography of Shaikh Marif
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To testify this hypothesis, our project launched excavations at Shaikh
Marif. The first season's work (August-September 2022) focused on Shaikh
Marif II, and uncovered cultural deposits ca. 1 m thick on the virgin
soil, in three excavated areas (Operations A, B, and C). The date of
recovered artefacts can be estimated around 6000 BC.
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Excavations of Operation A at Shaikh Marif II, 2022 (from S)
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