European archaeologists back in Iraq after years of war

Modern conflicts of Iraq especially the 2003 US-led invasion and its bloody aftermath had kept foreign researchers at bay

Members of a French-Iraqi archaeological expedition work on a dig at the site of the Sumerian city-state of Larsa, in the Qatiaah area of Iraq's southern province of Dhi Qar near the city of Nasiriyah. All images by AFP

Workers use an old rail cart to carry material as they take part in a German-Iraqi archaeological expedition to restore the white temple of Anu in the Warka (ancient Uruk) site in Iraq's Muthanna province.

After a conflict-imposed absence of decades, European archaeologists are making an enthusiastic return to Iraq to discover more of its millennia-old cultural treasures.

A worker makes traditional clay bricks.

A worker transports traditionally made clay bricks during a German-Iraqi archaeological expedition in Iraq.

Workers make traditional clay bricks as they take part in a German-Iraqi archaeological expedition to restore the white temple of Anu in the Warka (ancient Uruk) site in Iraq's Muthanna province, on November 27, 2021. - After a conflict-imposed absence of decades, European archaeologists are making an enthusiastic return to Iraq to discover more of its millennia-old cultural treasures. (Photo by Qassem al-KAABI / AFP)

Workers excavate the site of the Sumerian city-state of Larsa, in the Qatiaah area of Iraq's southern province of Dhi Qar.

Archaeologist Regis Vallet, who leads a French-Iraqi expedition team, works at the site of the Sumerian city-state of Larsa.

Members of a French-Iraqi archaeological expedition excavate at the site of the Sumerian city-state of Larsa.

Martin Sebastian Gussone from the German Archaeological Institute reviews his notes in the early morning at Iraq's ancient site of Al-Hirah, about 25 kilometres south of Najaf.

A worker mixes clay and wheat stalks to make traditional bricks during a German-Iraqi archaeological expedition.

After a conflict-imposed absence of decades, European archaeologists are making an enthusiastic return to Iraq to discover more of its millennia-old cultural treasures.

German archaeologist Margarete Van Ess inspects an artefact in the Warka (ancient Uruk) site in Iraq's Muthanna province.

European archaeologists are returning to Iraq to discover more of its millennia-old cultural treasures.

Members of a French-Iraqi archaeological expedition excavate at the site of the Sumerian city-state of Larsa, in the Qatiaah area of Iraq's southern province of Dhi Qar.

Members of a German-Iraqi archaeological expedition set up geophysical survey equipment at Iraq's ancient site of Al-Hirah, about 25 kilometres south of Najaf.

Members of a French-Iraqi archaeological expedition work on a dig.

Workers take part in a German-Iraqi archaeological expedition to restore the white temple of Anu in the Warka (ancient Uruk) site in Iraq's Muthanna prvoince.

Members of a German-Iraqi archaeological expedition work on restoring the white temple of Anu in the Warka (ancient Uruk) site in Iraq's Muthanna prvoince.

Iraqi archaeologists and workers use traditionally-made clay bricks as they take part in a German-Iraqi archaeological expedition to restore the white temple of Anu in the Warka (ancient Uruk) site in Iraq's Muthanna proinvce.

Ibrahim Salman of the German Archaeological Institute works at Iraq's ancient site of Al-Hirah.

After war and insurgency kept them away from Iraq for decades, European archaeologists are making an enthusiastic return in search of millennia-old cultural treasures.

"Come and see!" shouted an overjoyed French researcher recently at a desert dig in Larsa, southern Iraq, where the team had unearthed a 4,000-year-old cuneiform inscription.

"When you find inscriptions like that, in situ, it's moving," said Dominique Charpin, professor of Mesopotamian civilisation at the College de France in Paris.

The inscription in Sumerian was engraved on a brick fired in the 19th century BC.

Workers make traditional clay bricks as they take part in a German-Iraqi archaeological expedition to restore the white temple of Anu in the Warka site in Iraq's Muthanna province, in November. Photo: AFP

"To the god Shamash, his king Sin-iddinam, king of Larsa, king of Sumer and Akkad," Charpin translated with ease.

Behind him, a dozen other European and Iraqi archaeologists kept at work in a cordoned-off area where they were digging.

They brushed off bricks and removed earth to clear what appeared to be the pier of a bridge spanning an urban canal of Larsa, which was the capital of Mesopotamia just before Babylon, at the start of the second millennium BC.

"Larsa is one of the largest sites in Iraq, it covers more than 200 hectares ," said Regis Vallet, researcher at France's National Centre for Scientific Research, heading the Franco-Iraqi mission.

The team of 20 people have made "major discoveries", he said, including the residence of a ruler identified by about 60 cuneiform tablets that have been transferred to the national museum in Baghdad.

Vallet said Larsa is like an archaeological playground and a "paradise" for exploring ancient Mesopotamia, which hosted through the ages the empire of Akkad, the Babylonians, Alexander the Great, the Christians, the Persians and Islamic rulers.

However, the modern history of Iraq – with its succession of conflicts, especially since the 2003 US-led invasion and its bloody aftermath – has kept foreign researchers at bay.

Only since Baghdad declared victory in territorial battles against ISIS in 2017 has Iraq "largely stabilised and it has become possible again" to visit, said Vallet.

"The French came back in 2019 and the British a little earlier," he said. "The Italians came back as early as 2011."

In late 2021, said Vallet, 10 foreign missions were at work in the Dhi Qar province, where Larsa is located.

Iraq's Council of Antiquities and Heritage director Laith Majid Hussein said he is delighted to play host, and is happy that his country is back on the map for foreign expeditions.

"This benefits us scientifically," he told reporters in Baghdad, adding that he welcomes the "opportunity to train our staff after such a long interruption".

Near Najaf in central Iraq, Ibrahim Salman of the German Institute of Archaeology is focused on the site of the city of Al Ira.

Germany had previously carried out excavations here that ground to a halt with the 2003 US-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein.

Equipped with a geomagnetic measuring device, Salman's team has been at work in the one-time Christian city that had its heyday under the Lakhmids, a pre-Islamic tribal dynasty of the 5th and 6th centuries.

"Some clues lead us to believe that a church may have been located here," he explained.

He pointed to traces on the ground left by moisture, which is retained by buried structures and rises to the surface.

"The moistened earth on a strip several metres long leads us to conclude that under the feet of the archaeologist are probably the walls of an ancient church," he said.