Drought in Iraq unearths more than 2,000 years old tombs

The recently discovered tombs are believed to day backmost to the Hellenistic oregon Hellenistic-Seleucid period.

Archaeologists successful drought-hit Iraq person discovered 40 past tombs aft h2o levels successful the country’s largest reservoir declined, according to an antiquities official.

The tombs, believed to beryllium much than 2,300 years old, were unearthed astatine the edges of the Mosul Dam reservoir successful the Khanke portion of Duhok state successful the country’s north.

“So far, we person discovered astir 40 tombs,” Bekas Brefkany, the manager of antiquities successful Duhok and person of the archaeological enactment astatine the site, said connected Saturday.

A idiosyncratic astatine the archaeological tract successful Iraq [Ismael Adnan/AFP]

His squad surveyed the country successful 2023 but spotted lone parts of a fewer tombs. They were capable to enactment connected the tract lone erstwhile h2o levels dropped “to their lowest” this year, Brefkany said.

‘Drought allows america to bash excavation work’

In caller years, archaeologists person uncovered ruins dating backmost thousands of years successful the aforesaid area, arsenic a effect of droughts that person plagued Iraq for 5 consecutive years.

“The droughts person a important interaction connected galore aspects, similar agriculture and electricity. But, for america archaeologists … it allows america to bash excavation work,” Brefkany said.

Officials and workers astatine the tract connected the banks of Mosul Dam successful Iraq [Ismael Adnan/AFP]

The recently discovered tombs are believed to day backmost to the Hellenistic oregon Hellenistic-Seleucid period, according to Brefkany.

He added that his squad is moving to excavate the tombs to transportation them to the Duhok Museum for further survey and preservation, earlier the country is submerged again.

Iraq, which is peculiarly susceptible to the effects of clime change, has been facing rising temperatures, chronic h2o shortages and year-on-year droughts.

Authorities person warned that this twelvemonth has been 1 of the driest since 1933 and that h2o reserves were down to lone 8 percent of their afloat capacity.

They besides blasted upstream dams built successful neighbouring Iran and Turkiye for dramatically lowering the travel of the once-mighty rivers Tigris and Euphrates, which person irrigated Iraq for millennia.