The Upper Tigris Archaeological Research Project (UTARP): An Exploration of the "Middle Ground"
FAIN: RZ-20895-02
University of Utah (Salt Lake City, UT 84112-9049)
Bradley J. Parker (Project Director: September 2001 to September 2006)
To support archaeological research at the Mesopotamian Iron Age (ca 1000-600 B.C.) site of Kenan Tepe, in southeastern Turkey.
Through the systematic excavation of large portions of an indigenous Early Iron Age town recently discovered at the site of Kenan Tepe one hundred kilometers east of Diyarbakir in southeastern Turkey, member sof the Upper Tigris Archaeological Research Project (UTARP) will investigate the dynamics of interaction between the Assyrian empire and the indigenous culture of the Upper Tigris River region during the Mesopotamian Iron Age (ca. 1000 to 600 B.C.). In doing so UTARP will not only build on the growing body of literature concerned with cultural formation and mutation processes in areas of culture contact, but will document part of the cultural heritage of an area that will soon be destroyed by flood waters that will build up behind one of the largest dams in the Middle East.