LEIDEN, NETHERLANDS—Column bases thought to be from a temple dedicated to Haldi, the supreme god of the kingdom of Urartu, have been uncovered by villagers in the Kurdistan region of northern Iraq, where doctoral student Dlshad Marf Zamua of Leiden University has been conducting fieldwork. The 2,500-year-old temple was located in the city of Musasir, known as a “holy city founded in bedrock,” and “the city of the raven.” To the south of where the borders of Iraq, Iran, and Turkey intersect, Marf Zamua has also found several life-sized statues of bearded males carved from limestone, basalt, and sandstone that were originally erected above burials. Some of the figures hold a cup in their right hands, with their left hands on their bellies. “One of them holds a hand ax. Another one put on a dagger,” he told Live Science. The statues date to the seventh or sixth century B.C., after Musasir fell to the Assyrians.
