Stations of the Ottoman Period in Iraqi Kurdistan: Preliminary Results from the Bazhera Archaeological Project

Abstract

In 2023, an archaeological research project was initiated by the University of Udine, in cooperation with the Dohuk Directorate of Antiquities and Heritage of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, on the site of Bazhera, on the eastern bank of the Nahr al-Khazir, in the Akre district. The site consists of a partially standing building, which would have played a role in the communication system of the region during the late Islamic period, as one of the stations in support of travellers. The main objective of the project is to reconstruct the functioning of this structure, its material culture and its relationship with other archaeological remains identified on the settlement and with the surrounding landscape, in order to provide new data regarding land management and protection of a frontier region of the Ottoman empire which has been neglected by archaeological research.

Keywords

• Khans and routes of the Islamic world. Late Islamic Kurdistan. Ottoman archaeology. Ottoman material culture. Ottoman stations