64th RAI in Innsbruck 2018

Die Ausgrabungen in Šaduppûm beweisen, dass die altbabylonische Stadt von einer Mauer umschlossen war und über ein Verwaltungsgebäude, einen Haupttempel und andere kleine Tempel, Privatwohnhäuser und Werkstätten verfügte. Šaduppûm gilt als Verwaltungszentrale eines Regierungsbezirks des Staates von Ešnunna. Bislang wurden nur ein Drittel der insgesamt 3000 entdeckten Tafeln publiziert und bearbeitet. Aus verschiedenen Veröffentlichungen geht hervor, dass Šaduppûm wegen der großen Getreidemengen, Felder- und Flurnamen, kultivierten Landparzellen, Speicher und Bewässerungsbodenbau eine landwirtschaftliche Gesellschaft darstellte. Die Texte aus Šaduppûm enthalten aber auch eine ganze Reihe von Schultexten. Lexikalische Texte enthalten Auflistungen von verschiedenen Gegenständen (wie Holzarten und Bäume, Grünpflanzen, Gefäße, Gegenstände aus Rohr, Vögel, Wolle oder Gewänder), Silbenalphabete, Götter- und geographische Listen sowie Listen von Personennamen. Die größte Textgruppe mit insgesamt 263 Tontafeln stammt aus Raum 252 und ist weitgehend administrativen, zum Teil aber auch mathematischen Inhalts. Im Raum 133 fand man 103 Texte, darunter viele Briefe (Archiv des Tutub-māgir). Im Raum 520, in dem 43 Texte gefunden wurden, entdeckte man vermutlich das Familienarchiv von Mudadum, Sohn des Mašum, das vor allem Tafeln über Immobilien enthielt. Insgesamt wurden in dem „Serai“ 298 Tontafeln gefunden. Sie verteilen sich auf 18 der insgesamt 25 Räume, wobei die Mehrzahl an nur zwei Stellen, in den Räumen 5 und 11, gefunden wurde.

Since 2016, one of the most important projects in the history of Slovak archaeology takes place in the Southern Mesopotamia. It is the archaeological project SAHI - Tell Jokha. This project is researching an important site where, according to the current state of scientific research, in the 3rd millennium BC, dominated  Sumerian settlement. As far as the history of the activities of Slovak archaeologists abroad is concerned, this can be one of their most important achievements. The first season of this project took place in 2016, from November 3 to December 17. The extensive Slovak-Iraqi archaeological research at the Tell Jokha  in Al-Rifai district in Dhi Qar province finished its second season at the end of 2017,  It took place from October 19, 2017 to December 17, 2017. The research is carried out by Slovak archaeological and historical Institute - SAHI, in cooperation with the State Board of Antiquities and Heritage (SBAH) – Iraq. The Tell Jokha  site can almost certainly be considered the Sumerian royal city of Umma. 

The Sulaimaniya Museum, the second largest in Iraq, houses many objects bearing cuneiform inscriptions. Large part of the collection consists of tablets of various contents, which are still unpublished. The presentation is aimed to present a short overview of the collection, focusing on genres and chronology. The collection including groups of tablets belonging to specific private archives provides valuable information about the society, the economy and the administration of specific regions of the Ur III period. Further, a group of Old Babylonian letters presents an interesting addition to the rich repertoire of its kind. Other objects, such as stelae, bricks, cylinder seals and a unique pair of large golden ear-rings bearing cuneiform inscriptions are of special importance in this regard. Each piece adds new information to our knowledge about ancient Mesopotamia.

The site of Gird-i Shamlu is situated in the center of the Shahrizor Plain in Halabjah province, Iraqi Kurdistan. Its archaeological remains show that this site offers significant information on the archaeological material and history of the 2^nd millennium BC. The Middle Bronze Age layers at the site are characterized by the discovery of a new ceramic form, the so called Shamlu pottery, which is named after this site and represents an intrusive element amongst the region’s material culture. This pottery follows layers with pottery types known from old Babylonian contexts in Mesopotamia. Changes of the settlement system as well as in ceramic production together with historical information might indicate movement of people between the Iranian Highland and the Mesopotamian lowland. During the latest season in autumn 2016 excavations in the lower town of Shamlu have revealed Early Bronze Age structures and artifacts datable to the Akkadian and Early Dynastic periods. The early 3^rd millennium BC architecture was destroyed by a fire and revealing finds of a local pottery tradition with a prolonging Late Chalcolithic repertoire that mixes with eastern Mesopotamian and North West Iranian Early Bronze Age key types.
The paper will summarize the results of the 2015 and 2016 excavations and discuss the implications of these results on our understanding of the regional modes of interaction between eastern Mesopotamia and the western Zagros during the 3^rd and 2^nd millennium BC.

The project of the Italian Archaeological Expedition in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (MAIPE, University of Milan) investigated, since 2013, two sites – Tell Helawa and Aliawa – located in Erbil Plain, 28 southwest of Erbil. During 2013-2015, field surveys were carried out at both sites allowing to establish the main archaeological sequences. Helawa and Aliawa show alternate periods of occupation: while Helawa appears a substantial prehistoric site abandoned in the course of the Late Chalcolithic 3, and resettled during the Late Bronze Age, Aliawa shows a main occupation dating to the Early and Middle Bronze Age, whereas during the Hellenistic, Parthian and Islamic Period the site was probably occupied by a fortress/fortified stronghold. The 2016 excavations at Helawa allowed to pinpoint the proposed sequence, revealing a Late Chalcolithic 2-3 multi-layer occupation uncovered on the high mound and in the lowest extension of the site to the north-east, where a later Middle/Late Bronze Age sequence is also documented. Aim of this paper is to present and discuss these evidence within a regional framework of analysis, focusing on the developments and the local trajectories in the Trans-Tigris area, which will be compared with data from surveys and excavations carried out in the Syrian and Iraqi Jazirah.

The presentation will deal with the results of the survey campaigns of the ‘Land of Nineveh Archaeological Project’, an interdisciplinary project carried out since 2012 by the Italian Archaeological Mission to Assyria of the University of Udine. The archaeological survey is carried out in Iraqi Kurdistan, in the area that is delimited by the Zagros foothills and the Tigris River, encompassing the fertile plain to the north-east of Nineveh, i.e. the Land behind Nineveh, which was intensively settled and played a crucial economic and cultural role in the Bronze and Iron Ages. The transformations that affected the landscape are reflected in the settlements pattern of the region, as well as in the presence of the important Assyrian irrigation system connected to the agricultural exploitation of the fertile Nineveh plain. The survey results that will be presented will illustrate the development of settlements pattern and their changes throughout the Bronze and Iron Ages, thus giving hints about the emergence and formation process of territorial powers and empires in the region.

The expansion policy of Assyria has been mainly focused, during its early stages, on the border with Babylonia along the valley of the Lower Zab. The physical transfer of the royal capitals, combined with new political and economic interests, shifted the focus on the regions included between the Upper Tigris and Upper Zab Valleys, and, later, to the western provinces. The 7th century BCE, sees the Assyrian core territories, consisting mainly of the regions of Nineveh, Erbil, and a small part of the hinterland of Assur, going through a flourishing period, characterized by infrastructural improvements related to the productivity and super-regional connectivity. However, the region of the Lower Zab, not directly connected to the border with Urartu and Mannea, became a large internal periphery, characterized by an small range agricultural economy, which persisted for centuries also after the collapse of Assyria in 612 BCE, as shown by the archaeological investigations conducted at Satu Qala and in the surrounding region of Koi Sanjaq/Koya. Recent typological analysis, conducted on the ceramic collections, combined with the radiocarbon data, confirmed the resilience of Assyrian production, noted already somewhere else, but revealed also some possible indicators for this transitional phase, to be applied in a regional context. This paper is aimed to discuss the the stratified Late Assyrian, Post Assyrian/Achaemenid, and Hellenistic results of Satu Qala, contextualized in their wider political and economic developments, given by the latest field-seasons of the Archaeological Survey of Koi Sanjaq/Koya (ASK) project.

In the last decade, numerous archaeological projects have started in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. They are all contributing to the rediscovery of a virtually terra incognita, opening up a crucial region to new investigative methods. In this scenario, the scholar community is also witnessing a re-assessment of critical periods for the history of the Ancient Near East. Among these, the Seleucid Empire (4^th – 1^st c. BCE) offers interesting insights into the formation and development of imperial control. This phase precisely coincided with a significant enlargement of the socio-political and economic life when different traditions merged in a trans-regional framework that shaped the ancient world from the Mediterranean to Central Asia. Whereas the impact of these dynamics have been studied for the urban contexts, the countryside and rural landscape still remain uncharted. And yet, the success and failure of the Seleucid Empire largely depended on its ability to create – and develop – a productive and connected countryside, which generated a high diversity system of occupation. At one end of the spectrum the known colonial foundations (i.e. Arbela), while at the other end the wide array of rural settlements and small villages that dotted the landscape.
In this sense, this paper aims to explore  the impact – and lack thereof -Seleucid imperial power on the highly fertile, though fragile steppe lands of North Mesopotamia. It builds on the examination of two sets of data from the Erbil Plain Archaeological Survey (Harvard University) and the Land of Nineveh Archaeological Project (University of Udinde), respectively operating in the plain of Erbil and in the area east of the Upper Iraqi Tigris. With the support of spatial analyses, archaeological data, and historical narratives, I aim to demonstrate how these very recent archaeological operations have challenged past ideas of periphery, hybridity, and colonization, embedding this part of North Mesopotamia within the larger framework of the globalized and connected Hellenistic world.

Groups of vessel types can identify wide ceramic regions and smaller ceramic provinces, which are the mirror of the incidence of different cultural traditions. It is possible to notice that different groups of vessel types characterized the regions to the east and west of the Tigris river during the 2^nd millennium BC. On one side, at the west of the Tigris, the ceramic tradition reflects the wide expansion of the Khabur Ware, both in the Middle Bronze Age and at the beginning of the Late Bronze Age. On the other side, at the east of the Tigris and, more precisely, in the area between the Diyala and the Lower Zab, we can talk about a properly Mesopotamian cultural tradition as explained by Armstrong and Gasche in 2014. The aim of this contribution is to highlight points of contact between the two areas through the analysis of common pottery types. Moreover, the main purpose of this investigation is the understanding of what kind of extension the ceramic regions had, and where we can identify their borders.

Excavations in Bassetki, which are jointly carried out by the University of Tübingen and the Directorate of Atiquities of Dohuk (directed by Peter Pfälzner and Hasan A. Qasim), have in the third season of 2018 yielded important results on the history of Northern Mesopotamia in the Middle-Assyrian period. Parts of an administrative building have been touched by the excavations. In the only so far excavated room, an archive of the Middle-Assyrian period was discovered, yielding 93 cuneiform texts. The building was destroyed which led to the in-situ deposition of a well-preserved inventory.
Furthermore, levels of the Neo-Assyrian period, the Mittani-Period, and the Ninevite V-Period have been uncovered which demonstrate that the site has been in use as an urban centre from the beginning of the third millennium BC until the mid of the first millennium BC. During the Early and Middle Bronze Age, the city saw its largest expansion. Through a geomagnetic prospection the layout of the large lower city could be detected. Additionally, an extra-urban area was prospected and subsequently excavated, which yielded a cemetery and a street. The city seems to have been connected to an interregional road system, particularly during the period of the Old-Assyrian trade between Mesopotamia and Anatolia.

The dunnu institution is a characteristic feature of the Middle Assyrian period. In recent studies, this institution was investigated from a historical and philological point of view. However, we have only limited archaeological data concerning the structure and organisation of dunnu settlements. This raises the question on how these settlements can be archaeologically identified and what distinguishes them from ordinary villages or farmsteads.
This paper aims at contributing further information on this research topic by presenting the preliminary results from the 2017 excavations at the rural site of Muqable III, where a joint Kurdish-German mission revealed parts of a settlement dating to the Middle Assyrian period. The exposed features include parts of two buildings one of which contained a rich inventory of objects. Being located in the Duhok province of Iraqi-Kurdistan and only 5 km away from the regional centre of Bassetki, a strong connectedness between Muqable III and Bassetki may be assumed. Therefore, the excavations at Muqable III offer not only the opportunity of studying the structure of a small rural settlement, but also have the potential of illuminating the organisation of the Middle Assyrian countryside in the hinterland of Bassetki.

The Archeological Survey of Koya (ASK) Project, conducted since 2015 by the University of Innsbruck, has the aim to investigate the developments of the regional settlement patterns of the region of Koi Sanjaq/Koya in Iraqi Kurdistan. The region, located between the valley of the Tigris and the foothills of the Zagros, represented historically a crossroads between Mesopotamia and West Iran. The archaeological evidence of the survey, in combination with the textual sources, e.g. the archives of Šušarra, the modern Shemshara, the royal correspondence of the Mari kings, and later the Assyrian records, reveals a rising density of settlements from the Middle Bronze Age onwards. Furthermore, the spatial analysis, together with investigations of the surface collections, highlighted the local character of this region, usually considered a terra incognita. This paper has the aim to present the Middle and Late Bronze Age evidence, gained in the past field-seasons of the ASK project, focusing on the morphological and technological characters of the ceramic productions. The data, compared to those of the neighbouring regions, will provide a missing link in the archaeological landscape of Northern Mesopotamia. This will allow the association of the Koya region to the ceramic regions that are already known in Northern Mesopotamia and will confirm the identity of the Koya region as a link area enclosed by the Lower and the Upper Zab.

In spring 2017, a team of the LMU Munich joined the excavations at Ur, which are directed by Prof. Elizabeth Stone (Stony Brook University). Our main aim was to get insight into the structure and use of the South Mound. Woolley had investigated the South Mound only in the area AH, where he had excavated the famous Old Babylonian domestic quarters. Our methods applied were a geophysical survey on the one hand, and the partial excavation of one particular house at the southernmost end of the city. Tablets and sealings enable to date the occupation precisely within the Isin-Larsa period. They attest also that the house was occupied by the family of an elite person, the manager of the Ningal temple, until the time when Warad-Sîn became installed at Larsa.

This paper will present the numerous epigraphic data from the 2017 excavations at Ur:

• American team : AH area 3 (archives of a Babylonian general named Abisum), AH area 4 (OB school texts and Ur III tablets);
• Munich team: house of Sin-nada, intendant of the Ningal temple.

In ancient Mesopotamia, clay tablets were the most commonly used material for writing purposes. Easily made and reasonably robust once dried out, tablets provides a perfect medium for intermediate data storage. Their long-term survival, however, was ultimately limited by environmental factors, notably their eventual susceptibility to humidity / water. As a result, those tablets that required long-terms storage were generally baked to make them more resilient. A well-attested phenomenon, the procedures employed during tablet baking in antiquity remain poorly documented and hence understudied. Few facilities in which the baking of tablets took place were ever positively identified. Ancient conflagrations during which tablets were unintentionally baked as well as modern-day conservation procedures (baking tablets in the field or in museums without recording their original state), moreover, often make it impossible to determine if a tablet actually had been baked in antiquity or not. As a result, the rationale for baking tablets that are often quoted by scholars are based more on logic and common-sense arguments than on empirical observations.
During the excavations at the Palace of the Ruler in Tell Asmar (ancient Eshnunna) by the University of Chicago’s Oriental Institute, a “chancellery” with kilns to bake tablets had been discovered but was not recognized as such. Using previously unpublished field records and textual data this paper will look at the technological as well as administrative procedures that governed this facility and show the significance that it held for the highest level of Eshnunna’s administration. By looking at the distribution of baked tablets from this palace and from elsewhere it will, moreover, show the challenges and procedures that had to be put into place to manage and ultimately dispose of classified data that had been committed to an almost indestructible medium for record-keeping.

The Construction History of the Ur III Ekur at Nippur
Bernhard Schneider (Universität Innsbruck)