Have you ever wondered about the imaginary place of Atlantis? Was the 'lost city' really swallowed by the Bermuda Triangle? These speculations about Atlantis being somewhere deep down Bermuda will always be intriguing for us.
What will be your reaction if a treasure emerges out of a river on its own in front of you and then goes into hiding again by an increase in the water level? This is the story of one such incident that has taken place not once but twice on the banks of River Tigris, and will leave your mind blown, thinking "heavens above is that even possible?"
The Mosul Dam reservoir on the bank of river Tigris is the largest dam in Iraq, 3.4 km in length and 113 m in height. The dam was built in 1986 and has been a topic of controversies ever since. And the discovery that was unveiled in 2010 added to the headlines that the dam has been making ever since its construction.
The building of the Mosul Dam was allotted to a German-Italian construction company which started building the dam in 1981 and the work of constructions continued late till 1986 when the dam was finally inaugurated and started under the ownership of Ministry of Water Resources.
When the plan for the construction of the dam was established, the engineers were aware of the characteristics of the weak rocks which were to be the foundation of the dam. The rocks consisted mainly of marls and limestones and many cavities were found during the excavations. So what could have sustained under such a weak construction that would startle the whole world?
Kurdistan is a mountainous region and the Tigris-Euphrates river system is essential for Iraq's water supply, and dams are one of the most common resources to help irrigation. But the Tigris river has proved to be much more than just a resource for the history as well the present of Iraq with the treasure that is kept hidden inside it.
Each member of the construction company was aware of the problems that would occur after the building of the dam since the riverbed is made up of gypsum and anhydrite, which means it is a potentially unstable place to construct a dam. But the work moved forward due to political pressure on the location and the schedule.
Though Iraq is known as the 'land of two rivers', because of Tigris and Euphrates, the region of Kurdistan in Iraq has faced drought-like situations due to very less rainfall and therefore a fall in the water level of the rivers.
When the construction of the dam was near its start, Kurdistan faced a flood alert as the water level had risen beyond the danger-level. At that time, the amount of rainfall in the whole of Iraq was high, and that is what must've led to the submergence of the treasure in the river which was discovered after so many years.
While there were flood alerts in the 1980s, the later years were in total contrast to the condition and drought was expected in Iraq. With the climate changes, the conditions started to change and everything had turned upside-down around 2010.
Whenever we try altering the natural resources for our selfish benefits, Nature reverts to it. The disturbance that we cause to Nature is sure to have a consequence, and that has been exactly why the commencing of the Mosul Dam brought flood alerts and not much later, even a drought along with it.
For the first time maybe, a drought would yield much more than stress, suffering, and inconvenience. During difficult and tough situations like a drought, there was a discovery that made headlines worldwide.
With the drought in 2010, when the water level reduced like never before, the amazing discovery that arose from the bed of the Tigris which was witnessed by the archeologists was as mesmerizing as watching a phoenix rise from its own ashes.
Soon after the discovery was made, it hit the headlines and the whole world witnessed the captivating treasure. But with the discovery that the archeologists were busy intruding the depths, the ISIS started looming threats and that caused a barrier in the archeologists' research.
When the water levels fell down, something long and huge emerged from inside the river that had been immersed inside it since a very long time. But before the archeologists could make a proper investigation into the discovery, the water level rose again with the unexpected nonseasonal rainfalls, and the captivating discovery soon drowned inside the river yet again.
After 2010, there was no clue of the sensational discovery until 2018 when the water level went down another time. The precious finding appeared again and the archeologists rushed to explore it. But nature did not provide them with much time in this turn as well.
In 2018, the archeologists had hardly made any solid confirmations when the discovery was submerged yet again in water, leaving everybody with the question about when or if at all it will be revealing itself again.
Since 2018, the archeologists all over the world have been waiting intensely for the priceless treasure to unveil itself again because they believe that it could be one of the greatest discoveries of the decade. "The find is one of the most important archeological discoveries in the region in recent decades," Kurdish archeologist Hasan Ahmed Qasim said in a press release.
The Mosul Dam has brought fame, power, and status to Iraq. But the engineers are also struggling and battling a possible and expected collapse of the dam any time soon in the future. And that would not just mean a loss of all the resources that had been put in the making of the dam but much more than that.
The falling and failure of the dam would lead to devastation for more than one million people who live around the Mosul Dam and have built houses with their hard-earned money and cannot leave the place where everything of theirs is invested in and would always have to be at the risk of either getting drowned or displaced.
The dam is a risk to a lot of lives but the government tries to console the public that the dam is necessary because it plays an important role in reserving gallons of water for irrigation in nearby farms and it provides electricity to the nearby areas as well.
The Mosul Dam has not just been helpful in providing electricity. The importance of the dam increased when it was used to release water from its reservoirs when rainfall had reached its lowest in 2018. This opening of the reservoir was what led to the discovery of the beautiful treasure hidden inside the water which was...
Low water levels revealed a massive building, more like a palace inside the water. The people who witnessed the emergence of this palace were dumbstruck at the sight of it, which was almost absent and never known about by the people living around the riverbank since so many years. But whose palace was it? Who lived in it? And why was it inside the water?
A palace named as Kemune Palace by the archeologists revealed itself from the river Tigris and is thought to be 3400-years-old. And even though the building had revealed itself, the archeologists were in a dilemma as to when it would hide under the water again and how much time was in their pocket to discover it.
The archeologists knew that they hardly had the month of September and October to study the site because the end of October would bring in winters and with it, rainfall as well, which would conceal the palace again.
The researchers started discovering the palace and they studied eight rooms in detail out of the ten rooms that were visible to them. It is on the basis of the study of these eight rooms that the archeologists established that the Kemune Palace was from the Mitanni Empire.
Almost nothing or very little has ever been known or discovered about the Mitanni Empire. The main reason why the discovery of the palace had been so crucial to the archeologists was that they would be able to research in-depth about this mysterious empire with the help of the palace.
The land of Iraq is often called the 'cradle of civilization' because the oldest civilization in the world, the Sumerian Civilization was formed here. The Babylonian Empire that ruled in the 1800s BC was the next greatest civilization that was also formed on the ground of Iraq. And now was the revelation of yet another civilization.
The palace is believed to have been 65 feet away from the river when it was initially built. It must have had an elevated terrace as per the studies and the whole palace was surrounded by unusually thick mud bricks, being as thick as 2 meters for the stabilization of the construction.
In the eight rooms that the archeologists studied and searched inside, they found wall paintings in shades of blue and red which were unlike anything seen before. There has only been one more location near the Kemune Palace where these kinds of wall paintings have been found and so were very rare.
In addition to the wall paintings exclusively of the Mitanni Period, the archeologists also found ten clay tablets covered in cuneiform writings, the oldest form of writings in the world, known for their wedge-shaped marks made by tools like blunt reeds.
"From the texts, we hope to gain information on the inner structure of the Mittani empire, its economic organization, and the relationship of the Mittani capital with the administrative centers in the neighboring regions," Ivana Puljiz, an archeologist from the University of Tübingen's Institute for Ancient Near Eastern Studies told CNN.
The Mitanni Empire extended from the Mediterranean's Eastern Coast across parts of Syria, Turkey, and Iraq. The Empire is said to have been established and existed in the 15th and 14th century BC.
The Empire of Mitanni started to rise when the Old Babylonian Empire had reached its decline. The former started to gain power and became stronger as the latter started becoming weak. The Empire became so great and strong at one point that it was a part of the 'Great Power Club' in inclusion to Egypt, Assyria, Babylonia and the kingdom of Hatti.
By dominating the Habur, Euphrates and the Tigris, the people of Mitanni tried and to a certain extent were successful in making their empire stronger. The Empire is said to have extended during the reign of King Shaushtatar who was in power around 1430 B.C.
King Tushratta was the last independently ruling king of the Mitanni Empire and died in 1360 BC. And it was during the reigning period of Tushratta that Wassukkani was sacked by the Hittite king Suppiluliumas I, which eventually led to the fall and decline of the Mitanni period.
King Tushratta was assassinated by no one else but his own son who convinced a group of people to murder their own king. A civil war was followed after this devastating event and Tushratta's son Shattiwaza was made the king to the throne. But now there was no one who could save the decline of the Empire.
Mitanni soon became the forgotten empire after the Hittites and Assyrians attacked the Empire one after the other and they had no refuge support. When Assyrians attacked the Mittani Empire, they destroyed all the chronologies, texts, scraps, everything that the Mitanni Empire owned and that is why nothing has been really known about the Empire.
For archeologists, the loss of everything that was owned by the Mitanni Empire was a big loss after which they never really had much in their hands to search for the civilization upon. In that case, the emergence of the Kemune Palace was the lost hope of the archeologists.
Of the ten tablets that had been found in the Kemune Palace, a few have been translated which have provided us with some clues. It can be possible that the city was once named Zakhiku that may have stood for up to 400 years or even more.
It is sad to see how humanity is in a race with itself and people have become so self-centered that they are so clueless about what goes around them and what happens to things or people around them. Nobody is bothered anymore about something that does not concern them.
The archeologists try so hard to go into the depths of things that have become extinct or are on the verge of decline. The profession of an archeologist is a difficult path but these people bring details to us about things in the world that we never even knew existed around us, altering and adding to the past.
Without history, there would have been no meaning to each individuals' life. History gives us a feeling and sense of belonging. We know what we are made of, what the culture around us is, and the significance of it. It is important for us to know how we, the humans, reached the present.
The discoveries like the Kemune Palace are beneficial because, with the help of such discoveries, a lot more is added to the story of our ancestors and us. The revelation of the Kemune Palace has been an astounding discovery that has added up to the less known facts about the Mitanni Empire and we hope the palace emerges from the river soon again so that more can be revealed about the history of the civilizations.