Bijân Island is an island in the middle
Euphrates
The Euphrates () is the longest and one of the most historically important rivers of Western Asia. Tigris–Euphrates river system, Together with the Tigris, it is one of the two defining rivers of Mesopotamia ( ''the land between the rivers'') ...
, in the historical land of
Suhum
Suhum, Sūḫu, or Suhi was an ancient geographic region around the middle course of the Euphrates River, south of Mari.
=History=
Its known history covers the period from the Middle Bronze Age (c. 2000-1700/1600 BCE) to the Iron Age (c. ...
(present-day
Iraq
Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq ...
). It belongs to a group of islands on which archaeological sites have been recorded.
[Maria Krogulska]
''Bijan'', „Polish Archaeology in the Mediterranean”, 1, 1990
/ref>
Archaeological research
Salvage archaeological research on Bijân Island was conducted in the framework of the international Haditha (Qadisiya) Dam Salvage Project. The region was to be flooded as a result of the construction of a dam on the Euphrates; it is now Lake Qadisiya
A man-made reservoir in Al-Anbar, Iraq, Lake Qadisiyah ( ar, بحيرة القادسية) sits on the north side of the Haditha Dam.
Qadisiyah was formed by the damming of the Euphrates river above Haditha, Iraq. It has of shoreline and provide ...
.[{{Cite web, title=Bijan, url=https://pcma.uw.edu.pl/en/2019/04/16/bijan/, website=pcma.uw.edu.pl, access-date=2020-05-28] At the request of the Iraqi Department of Antiquities, several Iraqi and foreign archaeological expeditions worked in the area from 1979 to 1983. One of the first and most active teams was organized by the (then the Polish Centre of Mediterranean Archaeology of the University of Warsaw in Cairo) under the direction of Michał Gawlikowski and, later, Maria Krogulska. The expedition conducted eight excavation seasons during five years.
Description of the site
The oldest recorded structures, dated to the beginning of the 1st millennium BC, are walls of large limestone blocks, 5–6 m thick. In the Neo-Assyrian
The Neo-Assyrian Empire was the fourth and penultimate stage of ancient Assyrian history and the final and greatest phase of Assyria as an independent state. Beginning with the accession of Adad-nirari II in 911 BC, the Neo-Assyrian Empire grew t ...
period (7th century BC), a mud-brick fortress was built on the island and later expanded. After a 600-year-long hiatus in the settlement, occupation of the site continued in the Parthian Parthian may be:
Historical
* A demonym "of Parthia", a region of north-eastern of Greater Iran
* Parthian Empire (247 BC – 224 AD)
* Parthian language, a now-extinct Middle Iranian language
* Parthian shot, an archery skill famously employed by ...
, Roman
Roman or Romans most often refers to:
*Rome, the capital city of Italy
*Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD
*Roman people, the people of ancient Rome
*''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a letter ...
, and early Islamic periods.[Zsolt Kiss, ''50 lat polskich wykopalisk w Egipcie i na Bliskim Wschodzie,'' 1986. (''in Polish'')] The most important discoveries include a bronze Parthian censer with a horse-shaped handle, a ceramic bowl with a magical inscription in Aramaic, Roman coins and lamps, and pottery and glass dated to the Abbasid (early Islamic) period.
References
* Marta Mierzejewska
Abbasid basins from Bijan Island. Polish Archaeology in the Mediterranean, 23/1 (2014), 643–662
* Maria Krogulska & Andrzej Reiche. “The Parthians on Bijan Island”, in: Ch. Kepinski, O. Lecomte, A. Tenu (eds.), Studia Euphratica. Le moyen Euphrat iraquien révélé par les fouilles préventives de Haditha (Travaux de la Maison René-Ginouvès 3), Paris: De Bocard, 2006, 339–365
* Maria Krogulska
Bijan. Polish Archaeology in the Mediterranean, 1 (1990), 10–13
* Maria Krogulska. Bijan – Lamps from the “Roman” layer. Mesopotamia, 22 (1987), 91–100
* Zsolt Kiss, 50 lat polskich wykopalisk w Egipcie i na Bliskim Wschodzie, 1986
External links
Bijan – description on the PCMA UW website
Footnotes
Archaeological sites in Iraq
Mesopotamia
History of Mesopotamia