Ancient Lost City of Mardaman Uncovered in Iraq

[Judi Lynn]

By Owen Jarus, Live Science Contributor | May 11, 2018 01:53pm ET

Ruins from the lost city of Mardaman, which dates back some 4,800 years, have been discovered in the Kurdistan region of northern Iraq, archaeologists just announced.

A team from the University of Tübingen in Germany has been digging at the site for years now, but only last summer did they discover 92 cuneiform tablets hidden in a pottery vessel found in the remains of a palace.

More recently, Betina Faist, a philologist (language expert) at the University of Heidelberg in Germany, deciphered the text on the tablets, only to find the name of this ancient city: Mardaman (sometimes called Mardama).

The ruins of Mardaman, located near the modern-day town of Bassetki, suggest that the city got its start between 2800 B.C. and 2650 B.C., and reached its peak between 1900 B.C. and 1700 B.C., said Peter Pfälzner, a professor of ancient near-Eastern archaeology at the University of Tübingen. The city continued to flourish into the Neo-Assyrian period, which lasted from about 911 B.C. to 612 B.C. [In Photos: Ancient City Discovered in Iraq]

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