3,400-year-old palace discovered in Iraqi Kurdistan thanks to drought

German and Kurdish archaeologists have discovered a3,400-year-old palace at a reservoir in northern Iraq thanks to along drought, a German university said on Thursday. The at least 2,000-square-metre building was part of the Kingdom ofMitanni, an ancient state that ruled most of Syria and Anatolia,according to the University of Tuebingen. After making the discovery last autumn, archaeologists had only threeweeks to examine the building before water levels at the reservoirrose again."We dug as fast as we could," Ivana Puljiz, a senior archaeologistfrom the University of Tuebingen, told dpa. As water levels rose, thebuilding vanished completely again.The walls, made of clay bricks, are up to two metres tall and insidearchaeologists found mural paintings in glowing red and blue colours.It was an "archaeological sensation," Puljiz said, explaining thatthese kinds of paintings are rarely found. Ten cuneiform scripts were also found inside the building. One ofthem indicated that the palace was once part of the old city ofZachiku, Puljiz said. The site belongs to the Kurdish autonomous region in northern Iraq.According to the university, Kurdish archaeologist Hassan Ahmed Kasimconsiders the discovery to be one of the most important finds in theregion in recent decades.