Bassetki facts for kids

Bassetki is a small village in Iraq, in Dohuk Governorate of autonomous Iraqi Kurdistan. Several important archaeological finds were made there.

Archaeological finds

In 1975 a fragment of a figure of Naram-Sin of Akkad was found near Bassetki. The statue is now called the Bassetki Statue. 

In August–October 2016,  the Institute for Ancient Near Eastern Studies from the University of Tübingen and Hasan Qasim from the Directorate of Antiquities in Dohuk did archaeological work near Bassetki. They found the remains of a large Bronze Age city.  The city was started around 3000 B.C. It lasted for more than 1,200 years. From around 2700 B.C., the city had a wall protecting the upper part of the city from invaders. The city had a large road network, many residential districts and a palace. A contemporary cemetery was located outside the city. The city was connected to other regions of Mesopotamia and Anatolia by a roadway dating from around 1800 B.C. The archeologists also discovered settlement layers dating from the Akkadian Empire.  The finds were announced by the University of Tübingen on 3 November 2016.

In the summer of 2017, archaeologists from the University of Tübingen in Germany uncovered a collection of Assyrian cuneiform tablets hidden inside a collection of ceramic jugs. These tablets are 3,200 years old. They indicate that the ancient lost royal city of Mardaman was where Bassetki is today.