*Please note that this talk will be held in the South Lecture Room and will not be available via Zoom.*

The Bazyan Valley in present-day Sulaymaniyah in Iraqi Kurdistan forms an imposing corridor between the plains east of the Tigris River and the Zagros Mountains. This geographic reality, imposed by the Qara Dagh mountain range, created a cultural and political border zone in this region. Since 2013, the Kani Shaie Archaeological Project, centered on the site of Kani Shaie, has been investigating the long history of human occupation in this narrow valley. The project particularly focuses on the period from 4000 to 2000 BCE when local communities came increasingly into contact with the burgeoning Mesopotamian states. This interaction culminated in a major military conflict with the Akkadian Empire, commemorated on the Victory Stele of Naram-Sin where the inhabitants of this region are identified as the Lullubi people. The following millennia, this land and its people continuously balanced economic dependence on external states with a desire for political autonomy. This talk will present recent results from archaeological fieldwork at Kani Shaie in the Bazyan Valley with a focus on two historical periods: the era of the Lullubi during the Early Bronze Age of the third millennium BCE and the integration of the region into the kingdom of Adiabene under Seleucid and Arsacid (Parthian) hegemony during the final centuries BCE.