Mesopotamian Archaeology

Exploring Sumer

by Geoff Emberling

To appear in the catalogue of the exhibit Before the Flood
(Barcelona and Madrid), ed. Pedro Azara (2012)

After Collapse: The Post-Akkadian Occupation in the Pisé Building, Tell Brak

by Geoff Emberling

Presented at the 2012 ICAANE meeting in Warsaw.

To be published in 2012 in a volume on the Post-Akkadian period in the Jazira, edited by Harvey Weiss (Harrassowitz).

Co-authored with Helen McDonald, Jill Weber, and Henry T. Wright

Ethnic Identity in the Earliest Mesopotamian States? The Uruk Expansion at Tell Brak, Northeastern Syria

by Geoff Emberling

Draft prepared in 2004

“From Drawing to Vision”. The Use of Mesopotamian Architecture Through the Construction of its Image

by Maria Gabriella Micale

in W. Börner, S. Uhrliz (edd.), Cultural Heritage and New Technologies. Workshop 11 “Archaeology and Computer”. Magistrat der Stadt Wien, 2007.

Beyond Aššur: New Cities and the Assyrian Politics of Landscape

by Ömür Harmansah

Harmanşah, Ömür; 2012. "Beyond Aššur: New Cities and the Assyrian Politics of Landscape," Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 365: 53-77.

This article investigates the making of Assyrian landscapes during the late second and early first millennia b.c.e.... more This article investigates the making of Assyrian landscapes during the late second and early first millennia b.c.e. From the late 14th century b.c.e. onward, the Assyrians designated the emergent core of their territorial state as the “Land of Aššur” in their royal inscriptions. However, over the course of the next several centuries, the cultural geography of the Land of Aššur was continuously redefined while gradually shifting northward from the arid environs of the city Aššur to the well-watered and resourceful landscapes around the confluence of the Tigris and the Upper and Lower Zab Rivers. Contemporaneously, the landscapes of the Upper Tigris basin (southeastern Turkey) and the Jazira witnessed extensive settlement and cultivation as Assyrian provinces and frontiers. Drawing on archaeological survey evidence and a critical reading of the textual accounts of urban foundations, this paper argues that such mobility of Assyrian landscapes was part and parcel of broader processes of environmental and settlement change in Upper Mesopotamia. Assyrian annalistic texts point to an elaborate rhetoric of landscape that portrays state interventions in the form of city foundations and building programs, construction of irrigation canals, planting of orchards, opening of new quarries, and settlement of populations. Furthermore, the making of commemorative monuments such as rock reliefs and stelae allowed the Assyrian state to inscribe symbolically charged places in foreign landscapes and incorporate them into the narratives of the empire. By drawing attention to the long-term trends of settlement in Upper Mesopotamia during the Late Bronze and Early Iron Ages and the agency of landscapes, the article contextualizes the Assyrian political rhetoric of development at the time of a highly fluid world of geographical imagination.

2012 (Gil J. Stein) “Food Preparation, Social Context, and Ethnicity in a Prehistoric Mesopotamian Colony” Pp 47-63 in: The Menial Art of Cooking: Archaeological Studies of Cooking and Food Preparation, edited by Sarah R. Graff and Enrique Rodriguez-Alegria. University Press of Colorado, Boulder, CO.

by Gil Stein

This chapter uses food preparation and consumption as a way to examine ethnicity and inter-cultural power relations in... more This chapter uses food preparation and consumption as a way to examine ethnicity and inter-cultural power relations in the worlds earliest known colonial network – that established by Mesopotamia in its surrounding regions during the Uruk period (ca. 3700-3100 BC). Food preparation and consumption often occur in different social contexts, roughly corresponding to the contrast between the domestic and more public or socially inclusive spheres. For this reason, these two activities can reflect different context-dependent assertions of social identity (gender, class, ethnicity) and different degrees of consciousness in practice (habitus vs. intentional symbolic statements). As recent analyses by New World historical archaeologists have shown, these contrasts can be especially marked in multi-ethnic culture contact situations, especially those involving cross-cultural marriage in colonial encounters.

Excavations at the site of Hacınebi along the Euphrates valley trade route in southeast Turkey. Excavations indicate that in the mid fourth millennium BC, the earliest state societies of the Uruk culture in southern Mesopotamia established a trading enclave in the midst of this local Anatolian settlement. The Uruk enclave at Hacnebi forms part of the broader phenomenon called the “Uruk expansion” – the world’s earliest known colonial network. The organization of economic, social, and political relations between Uruk settlements and local communities in the Uruk expansion remains a hotly debated topic. Evidence for long term peaceful co-existence of Mesopotamians and Anatolians at Hacınebi suggests that social and economic relations were based on strategies of alliance rather than colonialist domination. In this paper I compare several aspects of food preparation (food choice, butchery, cooking practices and cooking vessels) with the social context of food consumption. Artifacts from the more domestic social context of food preparation are strongly Anatolian in style, while those from more public contexts of consumption are predominantly of Uruk Mesopotamian styles. Significantly, local Anatolian cooking pot styles predominate even in archaeological contexts that are otherwise overwhelmingly Uruk Mesopotamian in character. The evidence is consistent with the interpretation of gendered ethnic differences between the social arenas of food preparation and consumption. I suggest that the Mesopotamian colonists at Hacınebi forged marriage alliances with local elites, forming multi-cultural households composed of Uruk males and Anatolian females.

2010 (Gil J. Stein) “Local Identities and Interaction Spheres: Modeling Regional Variation in the ‘Ubaid Horizon. Pp 23-44 In Carter, R.A. & Philip, G. (eds.), Beyond the Ubaid: Transformation and Integration in the Late Prehistoric Societies of the Middle East. Studies in Ancient Oriental Civilization no. 63. Chicago: Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago.

by Gil Stein

2001 (Gil J. Stein) “ Indigenous Social Complexity at Hacınebi (Turkey) and the Organization of Colonial Contact in the Uruk Expansion” pp. 265-305 in Mitchell Rothman (ed.) Uruk Mesopotamia and Its Neighbors: Cross-cultural Interactions in the Era of State Formation.. SAR Press, Santa Fe.

by Gil Stein

2001 (Gil J. Stein) “ Indigenous Social Complexity at Hacınebi (Turkey) and the Organization of Colonial Contact in the Uruk Expansion” pp. 265-305 in Mitchell Rothman (ed.) Uruk Mesopotamia and Its Neighbors: Cross-cultural Interactions in the Era of State Formation.. SAR Press, Santa Fe.

by Gil Stein

Marduk

by Peter Bartl

in: Eggler J., Uehlinger Ch. (eds.), Iconography of Deities and Demons in the Ancient Near East, (2009)

Online-Prepublication
Text:
more Online-Prepublication
Text:
http://www.religionswissenschaft.unizh.ch/idd/prepublications/e_idd_marduk.pdf
Figures:
http://www.religionswissenschaft.unizh.ch/idd/prepublications/e_idd_illustrations_marduk.pdf

Legal and archaeological territories of the second millennium BC in northern Mesopotamia

by Lauren Ristvet

Ristvet, L., “Legal and archaeological territories of the second millennium BC in northern Mesopotamia,” Antiquity 82: 585-599, “15 pages”

Le terrecotte di Tell Yelkhi.

by Alessandra Cellerino

LAURITO ROMINA, MEZZASALMA ALESSANDRA, VERDERAME LORENZO, 2008 «Texts and Labels: A Case Study from Neo-Sumerian Umma», in A.A.V.V. (eds.), Classifications of Knowledge in the Ancient Near East: Lexicography, Iconography, Stratigraphy, Proceedings of the 51st R.A.I., Chicago, July 18-22, 2005, Studies in Ancient Oriental Civilization (SAOC) 62, Chicago.

by Romina Laurito

LAURITO ROMINA, MEZZASALMA ALESSANDRA, VERDERAME LORENZO, 2006 «Oltre la tavoletta. Documenti archivistici dall’amministrazione mesopotamica del III millennio», in Mora C., Piacentini P., (eds.) L’ufficio e il documento. Forme, modi e strumenti dell’amministrazione in Egitto e nel Vicino Oriente Antico, Quaderni di Acme 83, Milano, Atti delle giornate di studio degli Egittologi e degli Orientalisti italiani tenutesi a Milano-Pavia il 17-19 febbraio 2005.

by Romina Laurito

LAURITO ROMINA, 2005 «Sumerian Written Clay Documents: Early Dynastic bullae and pisan-dub(-ba)in Administration», in Perna M. (ed.) Studi in onore di Enrica Fiandra, Contributi di archeologia egea e vicinorientale, Studi egei e vicinorientali, vol. 1, Napoli.

by Romina Laurito

SUBARTU: The Tell Nader and Tell Baqrta Project in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq: Preliminary Report of the 2011 Season.

by Konstantinos Kopanias

Submitted for publication in "Subartu Journal, Archaeology, Assyriology, Heritage of Kurdistan and Mesopotamia" (April 2012).

Co-authored with Claudia BEUGER, Tristan CARTER, Sherry FOX,
Angelos HADJIKOUMIS, Georgia KOURTESSI-PHILIPPAKIS,
Alexandra LIVARDA, John MACGINNIS

Preliminary Report of the Tell Nader and Tell Baqrta Project in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq: Season 2011 Preliminary Report of the Tell Nader and Tell Baqrta Project in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq: Season 2011

Menze, Bjoern H., and Jason A. Ur. 2012. Mapping Patterns of Long-Term Settlement in Northern Mesopotamia at a Large Scale. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

by Jason Ur

Email author for PDF.

The landscapes of the Near East show both the first settlements and the longest trajectories of settlement systems.... more The landscapes of the Near East show both the first settlements and the longest trajectories of settlement systems. Mounding is a characteristic property of these settlement sites, resulting from millennia of continuing settlement activity at distinguished places. So far, however, this defining feature of ancient settlements has not received much attention, or even been the subject of systematic evaluation. We propose a remote sensing approach for comprehensively mapping the pattern of human settlement at large scale and establish the largest archaeological record for a landscape in Mesopotamia, mapping about 14,000 settlement sites—spanning eight millennia—at 15-m resolution in a 23,000-km2 area in northeastern Syria. To map both low- and high-mounded places—the latter of which are often referred to as “tells”—we develop a strategy for detecting anthrosols in time series of multispectral satellite images and measure the volume of settlement sites in a digital elevation model. Using this volume as a proxy to continued occupation, we find a dependency of the long-term attractiveness of a site on local water availability, but also a strong relation to the relevance within a basin-wide exchange network that we can infer from our record and third millennium B.C. intersite routes visible on the ground until recent times. We believe it is possible to establish a nearly comprehensive map of human settlements in the fluvial plains of northern Mesopotamia and beyond, and site volume may be a key quantity to uncover long-term trends in human settlement activity from such a record.

A scenario: Fugitives from Kanesh and the origins of the Old Hittite Kingdom

by Joost Blasweiler

Bir senaryo : Kaniş’in yerinden olmuş halkı ve Antik Hitit Krallığı’nın kökeni.
İçerik:
M.Ö. yaklaşık 1710 yılında Kaniş Krallığı’nın, belkide o zamanlar Alahzina adını taşımakta olan başkenti yıkılmış ve akabinde yüzyıllar boyunca bir daha şehir olarak inşa edilmemiştir. İki yüzyıl boyunca Anadolu’da Asur ticaretinin merkezi konumundaki, kale surlarının hemen yanında kurulmuş bulunan Kaniş’in Karum Şehri de aniden terk edilerek harabeye dönmüştür. Yıkıldıktan sonraki dönemde Kaniş ülkesinde Anadolu ve Asur tüccarlarına ait kalıntılara bir daha hiç rastlanamamıştır. Hattuşa Şehri M.Ö. yaklaşık 1750 yılında Kral Anitta tarafından yıkılmış, ancak muhtemelen küçük bir yerleşim birimi varlığını sürdürmeye devam etmiştir. Arkeolog Andreas Schachner, Hattuşa (2011 – 71) adlı etkileyici kitabında şunları bildirmektedir: “Wahrscheinlich bestand dort trotz der Eroberung durch Anitta eine funktionierende Siedlung, deren Ausbau sich fur einen ambitionierenden Herscher lohnte”. M.Ö. 17. ve 16. yüzyıllar arasındaki asır değişimi civarında, büyük yeraltı tahıl silolarının ve büyük savunma duvarlarının yapımı gibi önemli inşaat faaliyetleri hayata geçirilmiştir. Bunu 16. yüzyılın başında küçük yerleşim birimlerinin büyük ve planlı genişlemeleri takip etmiştir. Bu makalede Kaniş ve Hattuşa’daki bu tarihi olayların birbirleriyle doğrudan bir bağlantısı olup olmadığı incelenmiş ve aynı zamanda Kaniş ve Kussara Krallıkları’nın Antik Hitit Krallığı ile tarihi bağı tanımlanmıştır. Bir senaryo şeklinde Kaneşli mültecilerin kil tabletlerdeki Nesili’nin gelişimi üzerindeki muhtemel etkileri ve Antik Hattuşa Krallığı’nın doğuşu kaleme alınmıştır.

About 1710 BC the capital of the kingdom of Kanesh, probably ruled at that time by Zuzu, the Great King of Alahzina, was laid waste and no longer inhabited as a town for hundreds of years Also suddenly abandoned and sacked was the karum of Kanesh, situated alongside the citadel and established for a good two hundred years as the centre of Assyrian trade in Anatolia. From the period after the destruction no Assyrian mercantile artifacts have been found in the land of Kanesh. The city of Hattusa was similarly devastated about 1750 BC by King Anitta. Nevertheless it is plausible that a small settlement persisted there. The archaeologist Andreas Schachner reports in his impressive book Hattusha (2011: 71): ‘’Wahrscheinlich bestand dort trotz der Eroberung durch Anitta eine funktionierende Siedlung, deren Ausbau sich für einen ambitionierenden Herrscher lohnte’’. Around the turn of the 17th to the 16th century important constructions were carried out, namely the building of large underground grain silos and a large defensive wall. At the start of the 16th century large and well planned enlargements to the small settlement followed. Whether these historical events in Kanesh and Hattusa are directly linked with each other is investigated in this article, and the historical relationships of the kingdoms of Kanesh and Kussara with the Old Kingdom of the Hittites are described. The possible significance of fugitives from Kanesh in the development of the Nesili language of the clay tablets and in the origins of Old Kingdom Hattusa is laid out in scenario form

Ur, J. A. 2012. "Landscapes of Movement in the Ancient Near East," in Proceedings of the 7th International Congress on the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East, 12-16 April 2010, the British Museum and UCL, London, Volume 1. Edited by R. Matthews and J. Curtis, pp. 521-538. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.

by Jason Ur

Email the author for a PDF offprint.

The archaeological sites of the Near East are now static entities, but people, animals, goods, and information moved... more The archaeological sites of the Near East are now static entities, but people, animals, goods, and information moved within and between them. The political economy involved the movement of goods and specialists between political centers. Entrepreneurs and armies moved across these same spaces. This paper reviews recent landscape research and concludes with a case study in Northern Mesopotamia, where over 6,000 km of premodern trackways in northeastern Syria and northern Iraq have been mapped. I discuss the project’s remote sensing and field methods, describe the landscape database, and draw some conclusions about society and economy in the northern Fertile Crescent in the EBA.

Colours in Late Bronze Mesopotamia. Some Hints on Wall Paintings from Dur Kurigalzu, Nuzi and Kar-Tukulti-Ninurta

by Sara Pizzimenti

in: R. Matthews et al. (eds), Proceedings of the 7th ICAANE, 12-16 April 2010, the British Museum and UCL, London, Vol. 2, Wiesbaden 2012: 303-318.

Archaeological excavations of Mesopotamian palaces usually give us a monochrome image faded by time. Rare discoveries... more Archaeological excavations of Mesopotamian palaces usually give us a monochrome image faded by time. Rare discoveries of plaster whose colours are well preserved allow us to reconstruct the original colours of these images. The second millennium BC provides more examples of palatial wall paintings belonging to the three prominent cultures of the Late Bronze period: Mitannian, Kassite and Middle-Assyrian. The respective palaces at the sites of Nuzi, Dur Kurigalzu and Kar-Tukulti-Ninurta have in fact preserved some of the wall paintings which originally decorated their rooms. By analysing these fragmentary painted plasters and the careful reconstructions made by different scholars, it is possible to note some differences in the use of colours and in drawing patterns according to the different cultures.
The aim of this paper is: a) to analyse and compare wall paintings belonging to these three main cultures and attempt to find analogies and differences, and b) to investigate, within the context of each culture, the role of colours and their significance.