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Kemune (thought to be the ancient city of Zakhiku) is an archaeological site discovered during a low water level in the reservoir of the Mosul Dam in the Nineveh Governorate, part of the Iraqi Kurdistan in 2013.Sconzo, Paola, Francesca Simi, and Andrea Titolo, "Drowned Landscapes: The Rediscovered Archaeological Heritage of the Mosul Dam Reservoir", Bulletin of the American Society of Overseas Research 389.1, pp. 165-189, 2023 The Mitanni era city was destroyed by an earthquake around 1350 BC.
In 2021 extremely low water levels in the reservoir, due to a severe drought, again exposed the site and, in January and February 2022 the Kurdistan Archaeology Organization and University of Tübingen conducted additional emergency rescue excavations.
In addition to mapping the majority of the site, about 100 cuneiform Clay tablet were recovered. The tablets date from the early Middle Assyrian period, just after the destruction of the city by an earthquake. The site has now again flooded. The site held a palace constructed on the banks of the Tigris River during the days of the Mitanni rule over Assyria. The remains of the palace conserved to a height of about seven meters. According to Dr. Ivana Puljiz, the two usage phases are clearly noticeable, indicating that the building has been in use for a very long time. Archaeologists unearthed several rooms inside the palace and partially reviewed eight of them. They also uncovered big, fired bricks that were used as floor slabs in some places. Ten cuneiform clay tablets belonged to Mittani people and were translated by Betina Faist of Heidelberg University. According to one of the tablets, Kemune was probably the ancient city of Zakhiku.[2]de Martino, Stefano, "The Mittanian Cuneiform Documents: The Interplay between Content, Language, Material, Format, and Sealing Practices", The Ancient World Revisited: Material Dimensions of Written Artefacts 37, pp. 207-219, 2024 Well-preserved Mural were also found in some rooms, which are two meters thick and more than two meters high.
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