This third and final part in a series of articles on the archaeological heritage of the Duhok Region of Iraqi Kurdistan will look at the heritage and its role in the life of local society from the aspect of destruction left by the Saddam regime. The decades of Saddam’s rule left an indelible mark on the social and cultural map of Northern Iraq, especially on the Kurdistan Region. His attempts at collectivization, sometimes in the name of modernization, sometimes as a punitive military measure against the local population, redrew the settlement pattern of the region, changed the traditional economic and social structure and destroyed much of the built heritage. Some of this were historical monuments like the medieval monastery of Seje described below. Others, like village mosques, churches, local shrines, graves of saints, even houses where generations grew up, were of importance “only” for the local communities. These buildings were not discussed by scholarly studies, and they mainly remained unrecognized by academic research. However, their annihilation represented a rupture in the cultural fabric of the region, a loss keenly felt to this day. This is the case of the old Yezidi village of Khanke and the shrine of Bayazid.
Petrographical and Diagenesis Characterestics of Benavi Ironstone in Kurdistan Region- Northern Iraq
