Search for traces of Sargon II’s conquest underway in northwestern Iran

They began the second phase of excavations of Rabat Tepe in late October with the aim of proving the site was the capital of the Musasir state about 3000 years ago.

“We are sure that we will find traces of the battle at the mound,” archaeological team director Reza Heidari told the Persian service of CHN on Tuesday.

Musasir was a semi-independent buffer state bordering Mannai between Assyria and Urartu. It was a vassal state of Assyria yet Urartu had some claim over it.

Experts believe that it was an ancient city probably located near the upper Great Zab River between Lake Urmia and Lake Van, in present-day Turkey. Musasir was particularly important during the first half of the 1st millennium BC and is known primarily from bas-reliefs and inscriptions of the Assyrian king Sargon II, who captured it in 714 BC.

According to one inscription, Sargon first plundered the palace and storerooms that belonged to Urzana, the king of Musasir, and then seized the even richer contents of the temple of Haldi, the god of the ancient kingdom of Urartu.

The archaeologists have unearthed unique cobblestones as well as bricks bearing bas-reliefs of naked winged goddesses during the previous excavations of Rabat Tepe.

MMS/HG

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MNA