Kurdistan’s Booming Economy

Source

A New Project of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago: The Jericho Mafjar Project

Khirbat al-Mafjar is located north of Jericho in the Palestinian territories. Famed as one of the most important "desert castles" of the early Islamic period, the site was first excavated from 1934 to 1948. These excavations revealed a palace and great bath, both of which were intensively decorated with fine mosaics and elaborate stucco figures, as well as stone sculpture and frescoes, placing Mafjar as one of the most important sites in Islamic archaeology.

11,496 companies function in Kurdistan

Erbil, Jan.4 (AKnews)- The number of the registered companies in the Kurdistan Region amounts to over 11,000 companies.
Twana Ahmed, the media secretary for the Kurdistan Region’s Council of Ministers applauded the Region for attracting the foreign investors and encouraging the local businessman, describing its policies “successful.”

Ahmed told AKnews according to the latest official figures some 11,496 companies, foreign and local, have put their assets into investment in various fields of the Region. 

Babylon: Ancient Site, Modern Problems: Painstaking Effort to Restore Iraq's Ancient Sites

Source: The New York Times

Archaeological site, dating back to Iraq’s Ancient Sumerian Era, discovered in Nassiriya

January 2, 2011 - 01:14:52

BAGHDAD / Aswat al-Iraq: An ancient archaeological site, dating back to Ancient Iraq’s Sumerian Era, was discovered in southern Iraq’s Nassiriya city, the center of Thi-Qar Province, the Director General of the High Commission for Archaeology &Heritage, Qais Rashid Hussein said on Sunday.

A Tour of Iraq’s Ancient Sites (NY Times)

Aqar Quf (photo: Shiho Fukada for The New York Times)

A Tour of Iraq’s Ancient Sites 

New York Times
By Stephen Lee Myers, Stephen Farrell and Shiho FukadaJanuary 2, 2011, 8:29 pm

"The war has long put Iraq’s ancient historic and religious sites off limits to all but the most daring of scholars, archeologists, tourists and ordinary Iraqis. Slowly, if unevenly, that may be changing.