Archaeologists find 3.000-year old Assyrian seal at Zerzevan Castle, Turkey

Diyarbakir, Turkey At excavations end of October at an old Roman-Byzantine military settlement called Zerzevan Castle, archeologist found an Assyrian seal. Further findings were bronze rings and handiwork as pottery and lamps.

The Assyrian seal depicts a godlike figure and a bird, a tree of life and a barrel to water the tree of life. Seals as the one found in Zerzevan Castle were commonly used to authenticate documents.

Zerzevan Castle is now located in the Diyarbakir province in Turkey between the cities of Diyarbakir (Omid) and Mardin.

Further south lies another early (alternately) Roman or Persian fortification which is now the city of Nusaybin (Nisibis) which was a fortified city in antiquity in the moving border area dividing the Byzantine and Persian Empires.

The finding sets back the history of the Zerzevan complex and surroundings back by hundreds of years.

The complex at Zerzevan caste is ruined but remains of its city wall, its church buildings, canals and warehouses can still be admired.