Climate Change and Drying of Dam Reveals 3,400 Year Old City Ruins

The grip of climate change on the planet has resulted in numerous drastic changes in the environment. It is untenable from the bleaching of corals in the Great Barrier Reefs to the erratic weather conditions experienced across the globe. However, amid this devastation, climate change is also responsible for revealing a buried secret that has been lost for millennia.

3,400 City Ruins Found as Climate Change Dries Up Dam

Mosul Dam, Iraq — Employees work at strengthening the Mosul Dam on the Tigris River, around 50 kilometres north of the Iraqi city of Mosul, on February 1, 2016. The United States is monitoring Iraq's largest dam for signs of further deterioration that could point to an impending catastrophic collapse, US army officers said on January 28, 2016. The Islamic State (IS) jihadist group seized the Mosul Dam briefly in 2014, leading to a lapse in maintenance that weakened an already flawed structure, and Baghdad is seeking a company to make repairs SAFIN HAMED/AFP via Getty Images

As waters and ice recede under the wrath of warming conditions, traces of a lost people and civilization that has long been forgotten emerge. In recent months, Iraq has been hit hard and battered by extreme drought with the shrinking of the Mosul reservoir to prevent crops from withering.

Amidst the crisis, ancient city ruins, submerged for decades, are again on dry land. Since the dam's creation in the 1980s before the settlement was studied and cataloged archaeologically, its re-emergence represents an opportunity for researchers to explore it. The site has now been named Kemune, reports ScienceAlert.

The ancient city ruins consist of several large structures and a palace dating back to the region's Bronze Age, roughly 3,400 years in the past. Scientists hypothesize that the ruins may be from the ancient city of Zakhiku, a center for the Mittani Empire thriving on the Tigris River banks between 1550 and 1350 BCE.

However, this isn't the first time the ancient city has risen from the depths of the dam. In 2018, the dam receded enough to provide archaeologists with a brief window to discover documents in the ruins before water levels rose and buried the city again.

Hence, when the dam was rescinded again in December of 2021, archeologists were ready to leap in and take advantage of the rare window opportunity.

In January and February of this year, Hasan Ahmen Qasim, archaeologists from the Kurdistan Archaeology Organization, Iraq, with fellow researchers Ivana Puljiz from the University of Freiburg and Peter Pfalzner from the University of Tubingen, Germany, set out to map the mysterious ancient city.

Unraveling the Mysteries of the Ancient City of Zakhiku

In addition to the previously discovered palace back in 2018, the researchers found interesting structures in the ancient city. These included large fortifications with walls and towers, a huge multi-story storage building, and an industrial complex dating back to the Mittani Empire.

Puljiz says that the huge magazine building poses significant importance due to the enormous quantities of goods it could store, most likely brought over from various regions, reports the University of Tubingen. Likewise, the preservation of the mud-brick walls of the city was astounding, especially considering that it has been submerged in water for more than 40 years.

In 1350 BCE, the once-bustling city suffered an abrupt fall during an earthquake that heavily devastated the region, toppling buildings and resulting in a protective coating of rubble over the intact walls, covering the murals and contents of buildings.