Riddles in time and space
(PHYSorg.com Archaeology & Fossils)

When archaeologist Simone Mühl returned to the site of her excavations in last summer, she could hardly believe her eyes. The whole area was under water. When she had last seen it, the low mound at the center of the site was surrounded by fields of grain. Now fishing boats were anchored around it. `It was a fascinating sight, for I had never seen the mound like that before,` she says. Gird-i Shamlu lies in the plain of Shahrizor in Iraqi Kurdistan, in the foothills of the Zagros Mountains close to the border with Iran. In the center of the plain is an artificial lake created by the damming of rivers in the valley. By August, when the digging season starts, much of the water that is released from the reservoir beginning in early summer, has usually been absorbed, and the irrigated surface can again be used for agriculture by the local inhabitants.