An Assyrian Winery in Khinis, Ancient Khanusa (Kurdistan Region of Iraq

Wine production and consumption played an important role in the imperial Assyrian court, as attested by both written and iconographic sources. However, archaeological data concerning wine production in the empire’s heartland were lacking up to now. Since 2021, a project of the University of Udine in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq has been investigating a large wine production area in the hinterland of the last two capitals of the Assyrian Empire: Khorsabad and Nineveh. The site, consisting of eighteen wine presses, is located in the immediate vicinity of Tell Khinis (Assyrian Khanusa) and close to the monumental, celebratory Khinis Archaeological Complex. Here a massive irrigation canal was built by King Sennacherib in the early seventh century BC and commemorated through the carving of impressive rock-reliefs and cuneiform inscriptions. The investigation results not only show the intensive agricultural exploitation of the area and the presence of a winery at the site during the Neo-Assyrian period, but also emphasise the longue durée exploitation of an agricultural landscape that was possibly also devoted to vine cultivation later, from the Early Islamic period onwards.