Research led by Heidelberg University, Germany - In Search of the Lost City of Natounia: Archaeological Investigations offer up new findings on the History of Parthian Settlements in Iraq Kurdistan

Title:

In Search of the Lost City of Natounia

 

Published:

Heidelberg University, [Press Release],18 July 2022

https://www.uni-heidelberg.de/en/newsroom/in-search-of-the-lost-city-of-natounia

 

From the press release:

The mountain fortress of Rabana-Merquly in modern Iraqi Kurdistan was one of the major regional centres of the Parthian Empire, which extended over parts of Iran and Mesopotamia approximately 2,000 years ago. This is a conclusion reached by a team of archaeologists led by Dr Michael Brown, a researcher at the Institute of Prehistory, Protohistory and Near-Eastern Archaeology of Heidelberg University. Together with Iraqi colleagues, Brown studied the remains of the fortress. Their work provides important insights into the settlement structures and history of the Parthians, about whom there is surprisingly little knowledge, emphasises Dr Brown, even though the annals of history record them as a major power. Furthermore, Rabana-Merquly may be the lost city of Natounia. 

ALSO SEE

M. Brown, K. R. Raheem, H. H. Abdulla: Rabana-Merquly: a fortress in the kingdom of Adiabene in the Zagros Mountains. Antiquity (20 July 2022)

Brokerage in the borderlands: the political economy of livestock intermediaries in northern Kenya [Scholarly Article - Journal of Eastern African Studies, 16 November 2020]

Title:

Brokerage in the borderlands: the political economy of livestock intermediaries in northern Kenya

 

Authors:

Ong'ao P. Ng'asike, Tobias Hagmann & Oliver V. Wasonga

 

Published:

Journal of Eastern African Studies, 16 November 2020

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17531055.2020.1845041

 

Abstract:

This article argues that brokers are key actors in the cross-border livestock trade between Kenya and Somalia, where formal regulations are weak or absent. We elucidate the economic and social rationales for livestock brokerage as well as a series of brokering practices taking place at the intersection of profit making, kinship and trust. Besides producing social capital based on trust, brokers facilitate the formalization of livestock trading by linking livestock production sites in southern Somalia to consumer markets in Kenya. Brokers thereby take on various roles and functions that contribute to integrating markets across fragmented territories. Based on extended fieldwork conducted in and around Garissa livestock market as well as in Nairobi, the paper outlines the political economy of livestock intermediaries in the important Somali-Kenyan cross-border livestock trade.