The 2024 Excavation Campaign at Kani Shaie: New Data on the Earliest Early Bronze Age and the Hellenistic-Parthian Occupations

Kani Shaie is an important archaeological site in the Sulaymaniyah Province of Iraqi Kurdistan. Sitting in the center of the Bazyan Valley, it is located on a major communication axis that connects northern Mesopotamia via Kirkuk with the central Zagros Mountains of western Iran. Its main occupation spans the Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age, from ca. 6000 to 2000 BCE. Later occupation of the Late Bronze Age, Neo-Assyrian period, and the Hellenistic-Parthian period is also well- represented in the lower mounded area of the site. Throughout these millennia, Kani Shaie was a major focus of settlement within the Bazyan Valley. While never reaching more than 3ha in size, occupation in each period attests to the settlement’s function as a local center that was connected within the exchange networks of southwest Asia. As such, Kani Shaie is of particular importance to connect the archaeology of western Iran with the Mesopotamian world. In this article, we present the excavation results of the 2024 season when two impressive architectural complexes were investigated. The first dating to the beginning of the Early Bronze Age, ca. 3000 BCE, in the aftermath of the collapse of the Uruk exchange network. The second belonging to the Hellenistic-Parthian period and likely connected to the southern expansion of the Adiabene kingdom.