Scientists have made a number of interesting discoveries in the ancient city, which served as the short-lived capital of one of the most important and powerful ancient empires.

The settlement — known as Dur-Sharrukin — is located on the site of present-day Khorsabad, a village in northern Iraq. It was built during the reign of King Sargon II, who ruled the Assyrian Empire from 721 BC until his death in 705 BC.

Sargon built a city he named after himself to serve as the new capital of the empire. But he was unexpectedly killed in battle, and his son and successor soon after moved the capital to the settlement of Nineveh. Dur-Sharrukin was gradually abandoned in the following decades and was never fully completed.

Now, a research team has announced the results of an investigation of an ancient archaeological site that has revealed evidence of previously unknown buildings and infrastructure inside the square city walls, which enclose an area of ​​more than one square mile. The findings indicate that more construction was completed at the site than originally thought.

Research in Dur-Sharrukin has been hampered by conflict in recent years. In 2015, members of the Islamic State (IS) destroyed parts of the ancient city, and shortly after, fighting broke out in the area between Kurdish and IS soldiers.

But in 2022, a team led by Jörg Fassbinder of the Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich, Germany, mapped around seven percent of the urban area using a high-resolution magnetometer. This device can identify distinctive magnetic properties in different types of soil, rock and other materials, allowing archaeologists to “see” hidden features underground.

To conduct the survey, the scientists carried the magnetometer system, which weighs around 33 pounds, by hand, walking in long straight lines to cover a total area of ​​2.79 million square feet over the course of a week. Due to the turbulent nature of the region, the team decided not to mount the magnetometer on a drone or other vehicle to avoid attracting unwanted attention.

After collecting the magnetic data, the team was able to create grayscale images of the site that revealed the outlines of several previously unknown structures. These include five huge monumental buildings, including what appears to be a 127-room villa twice the size of the White House. The survey also identified other interesting features such as possible palace gardens.

“Every day we discovered something new,” Fassbinder said in a press release.

“All this was found without excavation. Excavation is very expensive, so the archaeologists wanted to know in detail what to expect by digging. The survey saved time and money. It is an essential tool before any excavation begins.”

At one site of interest identified by the survey, the team dug a small test trench that confirmed the existence of a “very massive” building with 13-foot-thick walls made of mud bricks that appear to be up to four feet high. .

The features identified by the survey will require further investigation, but the work has already provided significant new insights into the development of the short-lived ancient capital.

The research results were presented Monday, Dec. 9, at the American Geophysical Union’s 2024 annual meeting in Washington, DC — though the findings have not yet been published in a peer-reviewed journal.