Ruins of Parthian kingdom lost castle unearthed in Iraq
Researchers excavate the perimeter wall at the entrance to Rabana Valley in Kurdistan region. Photo: CNN
Baghdad (IraqiNews.com) – Iraqi and German archaeologists discovered in Kurdistan region the ruins of the ancient city of Natuniya, which was a large mountain fortress of the Kingdom of the Adiabene of the Parthian Empire.
“One of the names of this city is Natunissarokerta, which is a combination of the name of King Natunissar and the name of the castle in the old Persian language. This name complies perfectly with the city we studied,” says Michael G. Brown, a scientific researcher at the University of Heidelberg, Germany.
The Kingdom of Adiabene was one of the ancient states that existed in northern Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq) in the second half of the first millennium BC. It was initially a part of the Assyrian Empire, but in the second century BC it became a part of the Parthian kingdom until the Roman Empire’s invasion of Adiabene.
Brown indicates that the debate among historians revolves around the place where a city called Natuniya existed, in Kapros or Natunissarokerta, one of the great fortifications of Adiabene, and whether it existed in principle.
Brown explained that the only indications of Natuniya were on the unique coins found in 1955 in the ancient Armenian city of Nisibis, which was for a long time under the rule of the Kingdom of Adiabene.
Brown and his colleagues discovered the possible site of the ancient city of Natuniya during the excavations ongoing for several decades in the Zagros Mountains in Kurdistan region, where the northern regions of the kingdom of Adiabene were located.
Archaeologists discovered in 2009 in the Rabana-Mercoli area on the Lower Zab, known in antiquity as the Capros River, the ruins of a large ancient fortress located in the mountains.
Brown pointed out that the bas-reliefs and statues discovered are similar in style to the images of the supposed Adiabean kings found in the ruins of the city of Hatra, one of the Parthian cities.
According to the researchers, this similarity, as well as the location of the fortress on the Capros River, indicate that it was the city of Natuniya or an essential part of it.