La Cittadella di Erbil. Le attività del progetto di cooperazione italiano della Sapienzaa ad Erbil

The Citadel of Erbil is the geographical, historical and cultural heart of the new Kurdish Regional Government of Iraq. This site is considered to be one of the most important sites of the entire Middle East, continuously inhabited over several millennia, and a request for its inclusion in the UNESCO list of World Heritage Site has been recently submitted. As part of the Italian Cooperation Project "Protection and promotion of the cultural heritage of the region of Kurdistan in Iraq" of the Department of Classics of Sapienza, University of Rome, training courses and activities of training on the job for the staff of the High Commission for the Erbil Citadel Revitalization have been organized. Activities include a) training in topography, archaeological methodology and architectural restoration; b) training on the job aimed at the creation of a topographical map of the Citadel; and c) a geophysical survey of the Citadel to understanding of the tell’s archaeological stratigraphy. The completion of a topographic map is functional to the documentation of the complex, since it will provide the frame in which the collected data will be set and a useful support for the GIS platform. Geophysical survey has highlighted the presence of significant structures positioned at different depths; at the present stage of our work their dating remains uncertain, but the collected data support the hypothesis of a link of some of these structures with the ancient nucleus of the Citadel of Erbil.