Gird-i Matrab is located in the Erbil Plain, about 30 km South of the regional capital of the Kurdish Region of Iraq. It is a multi-mounded site comprising six low mounds orbiting a seventh, central, and slightly higher mound. The site was identified in 2012 by the Erbil Plain Archaeological Survey (EPAS).
The first settlement is dated to the Late Early Chalcolithic period (late 6th – early 5th millennium BCE) and survived into the late Uruk period (late 4th millennium BCE) when it was abandoned, only to be re-occupied during the late Iron Age (mid-1st millennium BCE). However, it was during the Seleucid (4th- 2nd centuries BCE) and Parthian (2nd century BCE—early 3rd century CE) periods that the site experienced a significant demographic expansion, eventually extending over an area of approximately 25 hectares before being last abandoned.
In September 2021, the GMAP team, in collaboration with Harvard and Emory Universities (USA), conducted geophysical surveys (magnetometry) at Mound 2. Here, the surveys identified part of the Hellenistic quarter that has been excavated since 2022 (Area A).
The excavations revealed various mudbrick structures with stone foundations and identified several interconnected functional spaces: a kitchen, a storage room, and two other service areas. These are likely a connecting corridor to the southern part of Area A—yet to be excavated—and another of smaller dimensions. The excavated rooms open to the north onto a courtyard that yielded two kilns and a tannur (clay oven), perfectly preserved and functionally and spatially connected to the kitchen area. This and another adjacent room have excellently preserved floors made of cobblestones, potsherds and pieces of animal bones. Beneath the beaten earth floor of the courtyard, the remains of a child approximately one year old were found in an enchytrismòs burial, in jar. Radiocarbon (C14) analysis on various bone samples dated the complex to a period between 350 and 280 BCE.
In 2023, the GMAP team also initiated the exploration of prehistoric levels by opening a step-trench on Mound 1. The study revealed several Late Chalcolithic occupation phases, dating between the early 5th millennium BCE and the end of the 4th millennium BCE. These phases are characterised by domestic units made of mudbricks, hearths for cooking food, and kilns for pottery production. Ceramic material is abundant and perfectly in line with the region’s cultural horizon. To date, the earliest phase of the Matrab settlement dates to the LC-1 period (Late Chalcolithic 1), a phase that presents substantial levels of destruction. The filling of this layer yielded numerous clay bullets, which are very common in Ubaid period contexts (late 6th millennium BCE) and early Late Chalcolithic contexts (mid-5th millennium BCE).
