Of
Hubert Filser
Ivana Puljiz sees the fallen mud brick walls first. Days later, due to the great heat in northern Iraq, the Mosul reservoir reveals more buildings of the old city from the Mittani culture. At this point, the archaeologist is sitting thousands of kilometers away at her desk at the University of Freiburg and routinely checks the satellite images of the region. When she noticed the drastic changes, she and her Tübingen colleague Peter Pfälzner contacted the Kurdish archaeologist Hasan Qasim. He drives quickly by car to the reservoir near the town of Kemune. And confirms the satellite images: Shortly before Christmas 2021, the Bronze Age city of Zachiku reappeared from the floods of the dammed Tigris, one of the most important cities of the mysterious Mittani Empire, surrounded by a city wall, around seven hectares in size. A ruling city with a palace and several large buildings, made visible by climate change.