The site was occupied in the Early Bronze, Middle Bronze, Mittani, Middle Assyrian, Neo-Assyrian, Hellenistic, Islamic, and Modern periods. It may be the ancient city of Mardaman.
Since 2016, archaeological excavations have been conducted in Bassetki by the Institute for Ancient Near Eastern Studies team from the University of Tübingen and Hasan Qasim from the Directorate of Antiquities in Dohuk.[4][5][3][6] They revealed a large Bronze Age city established in c. 3000 BC which flourished for more than 1,200 years.[3] From c. 2700 BC the city had a wall protecting the upper part of the city from invaders.[3] The city had an extensive road network, several residential districts and a palatial building. A contemporary cemetery was located outside the city. The city was connected to other regions of Mesopotamia and Anatolia by an overland roadway dating from c. 1800 BC. The archeologists also discovered settlement layers dating from the Akkadian Empire, which also encompassed the territory of modern Iraq. The finds were announced by the University of Tübingen on 3 November 2016.[7]
In the summer of 2017, archaeologists from the University of Tübingen in Germany uncovered, on the eastern slope (Area C), a collection of 3,200 year-old cuneiform tablets hidden inside a collection of ceramic jugs. These tablets reveal the location of the ancient lost royal city of Mardaman that may have once stood where Bassetki lies today. The tablets date back to c. 1250 BC when the area was part of the Middle Assyrian Empire.[8] In the same room of the governor's building a number of Faience objects were found including bowls, ornaments, and tokens. Faience was apparently both produced and stored in the room.[9]
^Peter Pfälzner and Hasan A Qasim, The first and second seasons of the german-kurdish excavations at Bassetki in 2015 and 2016, Zeitschrift für Orient-Archäologie, vol. 10, pp. 10-43, 2017
^Peter Pfälzner et al., Urban developments in northeastern Mesopotamia from the ninevite V to the neo-assyrian periods: excavations at Bassetki, Zeitschrift für Orient-Archäologie, vol. 11, pp. 42-87, 2018
^Puljiz, Ivana. "Faience for the empire: A Study of Standardized Production in the Middle Assyrian State" Zeitschrift für Assyriologie und Vorderasiatische Archäologie, vol. 111, no. 1, 2021, pp. 100-122
^Pfälzner, P./H. A. Qasim (2020): From Akkadian Maridaban to Middle-Assyrian Mardama. Excavations at Bassetki in 2018 and 2019, ZOrA 13, pp. 12-89
^Pfälzner P., Qasim H.A., Sconzo P. and Puljiz I., "Report on the first season of German-Kurdish excavations at Muqable in 2015", Zeitschrift für Orient-Archäologie 10, pp. 44-96, 2017
^Puljiz, I./H. A. Qasim (2018): Exploring the Middle Assyrian countryside in the Middle Tigris region. The 2017 season of excavations at Muqable III, ZOrA 11, 88–109
^Puljiz, I./H. A. Qasim (2020): The Middle Assyrian rural complex of Muqable, ZOrA 13, pp. 90-126
