The nature of its destruction at the end of the 9th century BC essentially froze one layer of the city in time, providing researchers with extremely well preserved buildings, artifacts, and skeletal remains from the victims and enemy combatants of the attack.

Hasanlu Tepe is the largest site in the Gadar River valley and dominates the small plain known as Solduz.

[8][9][10][11][12] The project was directed by Robert H. Dyson Jr. and is considered today to have been an important training ground for a generation of highly successful Near Eastern archaeologists.

The Hasanlu Publications Project was initiated in 2007 to produce the official monograph-length final reports on the excavation.

[25] Starting in the Middle Bronze III period or Hasanlu VIa (1600–1450 BC), there are important changes in material culture.

In the Late Bronze Age or Hasanlu Period V, Monochrome Burnished Ware came to dominate the ceramic assemblages of the Ushnu and Solduz valleys of the southern Lake Urmia Basin.

In previous scholarship, it was believed that there was an abrupt change in material culture due to the arrival of iron-using population to the area before the Hasanlu IVc period.

[28] The High Mound of Hasanlu was almost certainly fortified during this period, and an internal gateway, large residential structures, and possibly a temple were located in this citadel.

This structure derives its name from the fact that evidence for metalworking, primarily the casting of copper/bronze objects, was found there.

The continued presence in significant quantities of Assyrian goods or copies, alongside objects of local manufacture, attest to continued cultural contact with Assyria at this time; iron first appears in bulk at Hansanlu at around the same time Assyria seized control of the metal trade in Asia Minor.

By the time we hear about it, it is already a fully developed state – the circumstances attending its rise in the 2nd millennium are obscure.

[31] Urartu’s expansion during this period brought the area south of Lake Urmia under its influence, although material finds at Hasanlu suggest that the city may have remained independent.

[32] Nevertheless, Hansanlu was catastrophically destroyed, We know a great deal about Iron II/Hasanlu IVb because of the violent sacking and burning at around 800 BC, probably by the Urartians.

Some have suggested that the Iron II culture of Hasanlu, which has close ties to Mesopotamia and northern Syria, indicates the settlement came under the control of a foreign power, or experienced an influx of new occupants, or perhaps made internal changes to its political system.

[36] Diakonov suggested that the Mannaeans, who inhabited the region around Lake Urmia in northwestern Iran during the early first millennium BCE, were likely Hurrian speakers[37][38]