Some Considerations on the Archaeological Area of Tulul al Baqarat (Wasit, Iraq)

The archaeological area of of Tūlūl al-Baqarat is located about 20 km south of the modern city of al-Kūt (Wasit Governorate, Iraq) and encompasses a series of mounds with traces of settlements datable between the fourth millennium BCE and the Islamic era. The main mound (named TB1) was extensively investigated by the State Board of Antiquities and Heritage of Iraq (SBAH) from 2008 to 2010. The Italian Archaeological Mission of the Centro Ricerche Archeologiche e Scavi di Torino (CRAST) and the University of Turin, thanks to the patronage of the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation and the support of the State Board of Antiquities and Heritage of Iraq, has been active in the area since 2013 with the aim of documenting settlement patterns and the architectural layout of the main mound. The latter has been strongly compromised by natural erosion, illicit excavations and agricultural works, and is poorly understood from the archaeological point of view.