Mosul Dam reservoir, where the palace was found, has naturally brought forth a host of archaeologists. The palace is said to belong to the Mittani empire, one of the least researched and talked about empires in the Middle East. And, knowledge of this empire, might be conducive to knowing more about the history of the land, as Kurdish-German mentioned.
Hasan Ahmed Qasim, the lead Kurdish archaeologist spoke about the importance of this excavation. In an interview with the press, he mentioned how this was quite possibly the most important archaeological find of the recent decades.
The palace, at its pinnacle would have stood 65 feet above water. A mud brick structure on the terrace to provide stability to the building was probably added later to the imposing structure.
Ivana Puljiz from the University of Tubingen’s Institute for Ancient Near Eastern Studies, highlights the palace as a building that was carefully designed with 2 metres thick mud wall and was called Kemune. This archaeologist further mentions most of the rooms had plastered walls, and most of these walls are above 2 metres in height.
In an email to CNN, Puljiz writes about the presence of wall painting in the walls of the palace. This is considered to be a ‘sensation’ in the field of archaeology and interestingly, this is just the second instance of a wall painting found while excavating the Mittani period.
Along with the paintings, ten clay tablets with cuneiform in them has been found and sent to Germany for translation. As Puljiz believes, these would help the experts understand the socio-political and economic conditions of the land under the Mittani empire. It would also help understand the neighborly relations that this empire had with other regions.