2007.ancient.mesopotamia archaeologica

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214 A S I A

Ancient MesopotamiaAncient Mesopotamia, “the cradle of civilization,” was the birthplace of some of the earliest cities of human history, a sophisticated writing system, complex bureaucracies and literary tradition, and the highly skilled production of artifacts. Th e Euphrates and Tigris River basins form the backbone of this historical geography: Mesopotamia—literally “land between the rivers” in ancient Greek—the land of cities, agricultural prosperity, scribal culture, and textile production.

Mesopotamian cultures fl ourished in exceptionally diverse landscapes, from the metal-rich mountains of southeastern

Turkey to the Syrian deserts, from the forests of the Levant to the marshes of southern Iraq. Yet, Mesopotamian peoples, from their historical beginnings with urbanization and the emergence of complex societies in the late fourth millennium BCE to the arrival of Alexander the Great in 333 BCE, shared an outstandingly continuous cultural tradition. It is hard to imagine Mesopotamian civilization in isolation from its rich prehistoric cultural heritage, and its legacy in Classical and

Islamic civilizations in the Middle East. Yet Meso-potamian archaeology largely focuses on complex societies that populated the regions of the Tigris and Euphrates basins from the late fourth millennium BCE to the late fi rst. Th e long-term linguistic and cultural continuity across three millennia was maintained by shared memories, identities, and world views. From the very beginning, both Sumerian and Akkadian-speaking populations inhabited the Mesopotamian plains, and the offi cial language of its states alter-nated between the two for centuries, using the same cuneiform script on clay tablets. Textual documentation on everyday life is abundant, as written documents were highly durable objects. About half a million clay tablets have been recovered in excavations across the region since the mid-nineteenth century. Most remain unpublished and unstudied.

LANDSCAPES OF THE EARLY MESOPOTAMIAN WORLDTh e alluvial plains of Lower Mesopotamia (southern Iraq) and the hilly landscapes of Upper Mesopotamia (northern Syria, northern Iraq, southeastern Turkey) off er two distinct environments. Th e lower Meso-potamian plain is an alluvial landscape laid down by the two rivers. Here, agriculture depends on irrigation. In Upper Mesopotamia, farmers depend on rainfall. In the southern alluvium where the fi rst complex societies of the Near East emerged, the economy depended on irrigation agriculture, which was accomplished through a complex network of irrigation canal systems. As southern Mesopotamia lacked some vital natural resources such as good quality timber, precious and durable stones, and metals, long-distance trade was a signifi cant aspect of Mesopotamian urban economies.

Both landscapes are spotted today with numerous mounds (tells or höyüks) of ancient settlement, formed by multiple layers of occupation and rebuilding with mud-brick.

CITIES, TEMPLES, KINGS: MESOPOTAMIAN CULTURAL HISTORIESIn the second half of the fourth millennium BCE, Uruk and Nippur in the southern alluvium emerged as major ceremonial urban centers. Excavating Uruk’s

TIMELINE OF ANCIENT MESOPOTAMIAN HISTORYUruk Period 4000–3100 BCE

3500–3100 BCE Late Uruk Period: urbanization and earliest writing at Uruk (Warka)

Jemdet Nasr Period 3100–2900 BCE

Beginnings of development of writing and seals

Early Dynastic Period (Early Bronze Age) 2900–2000 BCE

2700–2600 BCE Tell Asmar statues Construction of Temple Oval at Khafajah

2600–2100 BCE Royal Tombs of Ur

2334–2193 BCE Akkadian Empire

c. 2100 BCE Second Dynasty of Lagash and Gudea

2112–2004 BCE Third Dynasty of Ur

2112–2095 BCE Construction of fi rst ziggurat at the time of Ur-Nammu

Middle Bronze Age 2000–1600 BCE

Old Babylonian Period

Late Bronze Age 1600–1200 BCE

1595 BCE Sack of Babylon by the Hittites

Iron Age 1200–330 BCE

Early Iron Age

1200–1175 BCE Abandonment of major urban centers such as Hattusha and Ugarit

934–611 BCE Neo-Assyrian Empire

717–705 BCE Foundation of Khorsabad

612 BCE Sack of Nineveh by Medes and Babylonians, collapse of the Assyrian Empire

626–539 BCE Neo-Babylonian kingdom

604–562 BCE Nebuchadnezzar II’s building project at Babylon

550–330 BCE Achaemenid Empire

334 BCE Alexander the Great starts his conquest of Persia

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A N C I E N T M E S O P OTA M I A 215

MESOPOTAMIAN MUSICIANS

This stele depicting a group of

musicians dates to the third

millennium BCE. It was found

at Tello (ancient Girsu), Iraq.

late Chalcolithic levels at the Sanctuary of Inanna, archaeologists came across the evidence of fi rst writing, and also complex administrative tools of exchange such as cylinder seals, monumental architecture with outstanding technologies, and a highly developed visual culture. By the mid-third millennium BCE, the “Early Dynastic Period,” southern Mesopotamia was populated with small regional states, with agricultural hinterlands located around an urban center. Among the archaeologically well explored ones, Eshnunna, Nippur, Ur, Lagash, and Tutub stand out as important Early Mesopotamian cities. Two major urban institutions, the temple and the palace, gradually gained power. Th ese were primarily socioeconomic institutions that owned agricultural land and animal fl ocks, and sponsored craftsmen and merchants.

Th e short-lived states of the late third millennium BCE, the Akkadian kingdom and the Th ird Dynasty of Ur, mark the culmination of such sociopolitical development and represent the fi rst territorially ambitious, bureaucratically complex states in Mesopotamia. Th e Akkadians had an innovative visual culture, elaborate royal ideology, and a massive production of literary and annalistic texts. Nippur became a pan-Mesopotamian cult center in the late third and early second millennia. Th is role gradually transferred to Babylon in the second and fi rst

millennia, as Babylonian culture came to dominate. Th e sociopolitical and economic center of gravity shifted to Upper Mesopotamia from the mid-second millennium onward, with Hittite, Mitanni, Assyrian, and Neo-Babylonian empires having their territorial expansions in the Northern Mesopotamian and Anatolian landscapes, the growth of seafaring trade networks in the Mediterranean, and the increasing diffi culties in maintaining agricultural production in the southern alluvium.

EPIC RUINS

An Iraqi guide points toward the

White Temple, located at the

base of the Anu ziggurat, at the

archaeological site of Uruk. This

was a city known for its ancient

king, Gilgamesh, the hero of the

famous epic named after him.

EXTENT OF MESOPOTAMIA

Although situated in a hot, dry

part of the world, Mesopotamia

flourished because of its position

between the Tigris and Euphrates

Rivers—an irrigated area allowing

the cultivation of grains.



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216 A S I A

Ur, IraqTh e southern Mesopotamian city of Ur, which is associated with the biblical city Ur of the Chaldees—reputed birthplace of Abraham—was an impressive merchant city in the late third to early second millennium BCE, and fl ourished under the ambitious kings of the Th ird Dynasty of Ur, who built the fi rst-known ziggurat.

Most of the archaeological work at the site of ancient Ur, known today as Tell al Muqayyar in

southern Iraq, was carried out between 1922 and 1934 by Sir Leonard Woolley, and sponsored by the University of Pennsylvania Museum and the British Museum. It became clear that the site was occupied from the Ubaid period (sixth millennium) onward for approximately 5,000 years: we know that Neo-Babylonian kings of the sixth century BCE were restoring prominent buildings at the site.

AN URBAN SPECTACLE: HOUSE OF THE MOON GOD NANNATh e last century of the third millennium (2112–2004 BCE) was probably Ur’s most prosperous period. It was the capital of the Th ird Dynasty of Ur; its rulers built public monuments and maintained urban spaces. Th e Ur III state was a powerful territorial kingdom with a complex bureaucratic system of provincial administration, taxation, and management of agricultural production and trade, recorded with unprecedented precision on thousands of tablets.

Th e most outstanding building program was the sanctuary complex of the moon god Nanna, initiated by the fi rst king of the dynasty, Ur-Nammu (2112–2095 BCE) and completed by his son Shulgi (2095–2047 BCE). Th e sanctuary had its own enclosure wall and included the ceremonial Great Court of Nanna and the earliest archaeologically known ziggurat, built as a three-tiered solid structure of brickwork and measuring 205 ft by 140 ft (62.5 m by 43 m) at its base. Each baked brick was inscribed with Ur-Nammu’s name. It was also home to palatial structures, storerooms, and the Giparu, the dwelling of the entu-priestesses, the highest offi ce holders in the temple institution.

THE ROYAL TOMBS OF UR: ARTIFACTS OF COMPLEXITYWoolley’s team also excavated a cemetery, used between 2600 and 2100 BCE, of approximately 2,000 burials. Woolley designated 16 tombs “royal,” based

on the architectural complexity of the burial chambers, the wealth of tomb artifacts, and the evidence for sumptuous funerary rites. Some of the more impressive burials involved groups of individuals, such as musicians, servants, guards, and oxen-yoked carts and drivers, who apparently were sacrifi ced to accompany the dead in the afterlife. Th e tomb artifacts are astounding in the technologies of production and diversity of mat-erials used. Queen Puabi’s headdress was made of gold, lapis lazuli, and carnelian; the Great Lyre from Tomb 789 featured a gold-sheeted bull’s head with an undulating beard in lapis lazuli, and a narrative panel of inlaid shell; a gold vessel in the form of an ostrich egg was inlaid with lapis lazuli, red limestone, and shell. Th e tombs contained ceremonial vessels, tools, weaponry, inscribed seals, musical instruments, jewelry, and furniture.

AIMING FOR THE MOON

The ancient Brick of Kurigalzu I,

king of Babylon, records the

restoration of the temple of the

moon god Nanna. It was found

at Ur, and dates to c. 1400 BCE.

THE AMAZING ZIGGURAT

The ziggurat at Ur was dedicated to the moon god Nanna and was first

constructed around 2110 BCE. The restoration work gives us some idea of

the grandeur of the original structure.





Early Mesopotamian literary texts metaphorically refer to cities as the “cattle-pen” (tùr) and the “sheep-fold” (amaš), the archetypal enclosures

of agricultural people of the southern alluvium.

THE CATTLE-PEN AND THE SHEEP-FOLD: THE EARLY MESOPOTAMIAN CITYTh ese metaphors for prosperity centered on the king as “shepherd” (sipa) who founded cities and exploited landscapes. Cities were laid out by the “precious designs” (giš-hur) of their gods, and endowed with “divine powers” (me). Th is complex image of the Mesopotamian city was, however, not

formed overnight. Tell Asmar presents a compre-hensive image of a densely built urban landscape in the third and early second millennia BCE. Excavations uncovered residential neighborhoods and public buildings including temples, palace complexes, and the city’s fortifi cations.

Eshnunna’s urban fl ourishing coincides with a crucial transition in the history of Mesopotamian cities: the gradual appearance of the temple and the palace as two important, yet rival, socioeconomic institutions. In the Early Dynastic Period, the temple is the more powerful entity. Toward the end of the Early Dynastic Period and during the Akkadian/Ur III periods of the late third millennium BCE, the palace emerges as an equally powerful entity.

ABU TEMPLE CROWDEarly Dynastic Eshnunna was concentrated on the northwestern portion of the Tell Asmar mound, where archaeologists excavated a small temple, dedicated to a local god named Abu, with a long sequence of rebuilding, and some fascinating statues. Excavators determined three diff erent architectural designs—the “Archaic Shrine” of the Early Dynastic I period, the “Square Temple” of the Early Dynastic II period, and the “Single Shrine” of the Early Dynastic III. Th e “Square Temple” of the mid-third millennium BCE appears to be the most prosperous and extensive phase of the building, with several cult rooms arranged around a central courtyard. One cult room contained a hoard of statues, both female and male, and of varying heights and features, that were carved from veined gypsum. One striking feature is the disproportionately large eyes, inlaid either with black limestone or lapis lazuli. Some scholars believe that prominent families may have dedicated these statues to the temple, the large eyes allowing them intense contact with the divine. North of the Abu Temple is the North Palace, where evidence for manufacturing activities, including textile production, was found. Th ere was also an elaborate system of drains. In the late third and early second millennia BCE, Eshnunna’s urban center moved to the southern sector of the mound where Akkadian, Ur III, and Isin-Larsa kings commissioned many palaces and temples.

HERE’S LOOKING AT YOU

Dating back to c. 2999 BCE, this

statuette of a male was found

during the archaeological excava-

tions of ancient Eshnunna, now Tell

Asmar. This type of votive figurine

is found throughout Mesopotamia

in temple and city contexts.

Tell Asmar, IraqTell Asmar, ancient Eshnunna, was a formidable Mesopotamian city of the third to early second millennium BCE, located in the Diyala River valley. Th e site was excavated by the University of Chicago’s Oriental Institute in the 1930s and remains one of our best sources for understanding the complexity of Mesopotamian cities.


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The Development of Writing

218 A S I A

One of the earliest writing systems of the ancient world was developed in southern Mesopotamia, approximately between 3300 and 2900 BCE. It is widely known as the cuneiform script, written with a reed stylus on soft damp clay tablets, which then either hardened up in Mesopotamia’s dry heat or, in rare cases, was baked. Th e earliest evidence of writing comes from the Late Uruk and Jemdet Nasr Period Levels IVa and III at the site of Uruk (Warka), in the Eanna Precinct (the sanctuary complex dedicated to the goddess Inanna) in the remains of a cultic/administrative building. Th ese earliest documents were composed of pictographic and numerical signs, and appear to be economic documents, testifying to the fact that writing appeared as an administrative, bureaucratic technology in the context of urbanization, increasing social and political complexity, and the appearance of monumental architecture.

REVERING THE GODS

This stone stele is dedicated

to Shamash, the Sumerian and

Babylonian sun god. It dates to

c. 860 BCE and was erected to mark

the rebuilding of the temple in

Assyrian times.

KEEPING TALLY

Among the many testaments to everyday life found in Mesopotamia

is this Sumerian clay tablet, dating to c. 2350 BCE, which lists an

account of goats and sheep. It was found at Tello (ancient Girsu),

one of the first sites in the region to be extensively excavated.

Stratigraphically the earliest seven tablets come from a structure called Temple C. However, approximately 6,000 tablets were excavated in the Late Uruk and Jemdet Nasr levels in the Sanctuary of Inanna at Uruk, primarily recovered from rubbish dumps or the fi lls used to create foundations for Level III buildings. Th is suggests that the practice of using written economic documents quickly spread with the passage of time. Yet the invention of cuneiform script was not a spontaneous invention of the scribes at the Eanna complex. In southern Mesopotamia, since the Neolithic and long before the appearance of tablets, hollow clay balls and clay tokens were used to record and administer economic transactions. Regularly shaped and sometimes incised small lumps of clay (tokens) were deposited in clay spheres that were hollow inside. Th e outer surfaces were then impressed with cylinder seals.

WEDGE-SHAPED WRITINGCuneiform means “wedge-shaped”—the triangular tip of the stylus made small triangular signs in com-bination with lines. Th e earliest Uruk tablets, also known as “archaic” or “proto-cuneiform” tablets, present a complex system of logographic and numerical-metrological signs. Scholars have pointed out that these logograms or pictograms draw heavily on the pictorial repertoire of representations on seals and other visual media. For instance, the reed bundle that represents Inanna in pictographic writing is also attested extensively on cylinder and stamp seal impressions and alabaster vases. Approximately 900 signs were identifi ed from this earliest phase. Th e incised iconographically explicit pictograms of the


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archaic tablets were gradually abstracted with the increasingly effi cient and dexterous use of the stylus and its multiple combinations of the basic cuneiform mark (a wedge and a line).

COMBINING PICTURES AND NUMBERSAs the archaic tablets from Uruk are entirely picto-graphic and numerical, they can be a means of incor-porating rebus writing, phonetic/syllabic signs, and grammatical affi xes; Sumerian is attested as the lang-uage of writing in southern Mesopotamia. Among the tablets from Ur dating to around 2800 BCE, traces of Sumerian can be detected. Sumerian cannot be related to any other languages in world history. It was spoken in Mesopotamia until it was restricted to scholarly endeavor from the early second millennium BCE

onward. Cuneiform script was also adopted for writing Akkadian, the commonly used Semitic language of Mesopotamian history.

For both Sumerian and Akkadian, in the script’s most complex form and throughout its use in history, cuneiform signs acquired multiple values, used either as syllables or as ideograms that stood for a word. Th e writing system necessitated a complex combination of both, making the script relatively diffi cult to follow. Alphabetic writing was not introduced to Meso-potamia until the Iron Age, with Aramaic, which developed out of Phoenician in c. 900 BCE. In the Iron Age in northern Syria and Anatolia, a hieroglyphic script was used in writing monumental inscriptions in Luwian by several regional states. Cuneiform was adapted to write both Aramaic and Luwian.

ROYAL INSCRIPTIONS

This ancient Sumerian stone

gate-socket bears an inscription

of Ur-Gur, better known as Ur-

Nammu (who ruled Ur from 2112

to 2095 BCE). Cuneiform script

recorded important political

and historical events, as well as

daily economic transactions and

activities relating to the temples.

CYLINDER SEALSCylinder seals are another ubiquitous invention

of Mesopotamian societies in the context of

the Late Uruk urbanization, following the more

widely known stamp seals. Cylinder-shaped

seals were often carved out of hard and precious

stones and bore complex pictorial represen-

tations (seen at right), which were impressed

on clay by means of rolling. They were used to

seal vessels, bundles, or doors, in addition to

clay tablets or hollow clay balls. Since many of

these clay elements used in transactions bear

shapes and symbols that can be matched with

the earliest pictograms and numerical signs in

the earliest Uruk tablets, scholars have argued

that they need to be seen as earlier stages in

the development of the cuneiform script.




220 A S I A

Babylon, IraqBabylon has colored Western imaginations, beginning with Herodotus who described it as “diff erent from any other city in the known world.” Th e Hanging Gardens of Babylon became one of the seven wonders in European medieval thought; the biblical account of the Tower of Babel and its “confused tongues” has inspired countless artists.

BABYLON RESPLENDENT

This c. 1950 illustration by Mario

Larrinaga shows the splendor of

the ancient city of Babylon. Two

enduring symbols of the city are

vividly evoked—the Tower of

Babel in the background, and

the legendary Hanging Gardens

in the foreground.

But what did Babylon look like as a Meso-potamian city? Located on the bank of a branch of the Euphrates, 56 miles (90 km)

southwest of Baghdad, Babylon was a vast city of the second and fi rst millennia BCE. Its name is the Greek spelling of the early city’s Mesopotamian toponym babil(a), for which Mesopotamians devel-oped a false etymology by reading the name Bab-ili, “gate of the gods.” Although attested as a town in texts of the late third millennium BCE, Babylon seems to have had its fi rst fl orescence at the time of Hammurabi (1792–1750 BCE), most prominent of the rulers of the First Dynasty of Babylon. Unfortunately little is known archaeologically of Hammurabi’s Babylon due to high levels of groundwater, which did not allow a comprehensive investigation of the Old Babylonian period. Even Hammurabi’s famous “law code” stele, which must

have been set up at a public space in Babylon, was not found here, but in Susa, the Elamite capital where it was kept along with other stone monu-ments taken as booty by the Elamite king Shutruk-Nahhunte around 1155 BCE.

ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE CITY: TINTIR–BABYLONMost of the archaeological work at Babylon has only exposed the Neo-Babylonian levels of the city, revealing the impressive building programs carried out by the sixth century BCE Babylonian kings Nebuchadnezzar II (604–562 BCE) and Nabonidus (555–539 BCE). Th e site was explored several times during the nineteenth century, but the most serious archaeological project was by a small German team, led by Robert Koldewey, between 1899 and 1914. Th ey were interested





THE ISHTAR GATEThe Ishtar gate was an enormous baked brick structure rising more than 40 ft (12 m) high.

A double gate, it encompassed the whole span of the city’s fortifi cations, and was fl anked

by monumental towers, enclosure walls of the Southern and Northern Palaces and the

Eastern Outworks. Marduk’s sanctuary, known as esagil, housed the famous ziggurat of

Marduk, which inspired the myths about the Tower of Babel. The sanctuary acted as an

assembly ground for all Mesopotamian deities during the akitu festival.

The Ishtar Gate, originally built by King Nebuchadnezzar II in c. 575 BCE, was the main entrance

to the inner city. The original fragments are in Berlin; this image shows Saddam Hussein’s replica.

in a strati graphic study of the city’s architectural remains and a scientifi c documentation of what was excavated. Although excavated over a century ago, Babylon is extremely well documented.

One other notable corpus of evidence for the city’s ancient topography comes from an extensive cunei-form text known as “Tintir–Babylon” which is understood as a scholarly compendium that glorifi ed Babylon as a great ceremonial center, through a detailed description of the city’s public monuments. Th is invaluable source not only tells us names of various neighborhoods, districts, and buildings in the city, but also presents a coherent, albeit politicized, image of the city through the eyes of its inhabitants.

NEBUCHADNEZZAR’S BABYLON: AKITU FESTIVAL AND A CEREMONIAL SPECTACLETh e Neo-Babylonian city was famous for its series of multiple-layered fortifi cations and spectacular gates. Th e Euphrates River cut the city into the East-ern and Western halves. Th ere was a large outer city on the Eastern bank, taking the river as part of its fortifi ed enclosure. Th e Eastern and Western districts of the inner core of Babylon were connected by a bridge southwest of the sanctuary complex of Marduk—the supreme god of the Babylonian pantheon—which was the largest and most spectacular architectural monu-ment of the city in the Iron Age. Nebuchadnezzar II rebuilt the embankments, the moat enveloping the inner city, and the massive outwork structures that made up a complex hydraulic system.

Th e monuments of the city center seem to have been structured around a spectacular processional street that linked Marduk’s sanctuary to the “akitu” house, a cult complex outside the city walls. Th is processional street became the stage set during the most important annual social event in the city: the akitu festival. Akitu, also known as the “New Year’s Festival,” was celebrated annually at the time of the spring equinox, and involved a sacred procession of the cult image of Marduk to the akitu house. Th e event was comparable to Roman triumphal processions. Th e processional street and the Ishtar Gate through which it passed were decorated with “animals of Marduk” in spectacular wall reliefs composed of glazed molded bricks, representing lions, dragons (mušhuššu), and bulls.

Th e two palaces of the Neo-Babylonian kings were built at the northwestern edge of the citadel and overlooked the Euphrates canal, an architectural tradition well known from Assyrian cities. Th ey were arranged around a series of ceremonial courtyards, also clad with glazed molded brick decorations. Babylon’s architectural landscape in the Iron Age appears as a place of urban spectacle where cultic and political ideologies merged together, with such force that it left a long-lasting imprint in human memory.

BABYLONIAN LAW

A transcription of the Law Code

of Hammurabi, one of the world’s

earliest-known systems of law.

Scholars believe that the law stele

would have been placed in a promi-

nent position in the city. It was taken

to Susa, Persia, around 1155 BCE.




222 A S I A

Khorsabad, IraqAncient Assyrians were ambitious city builders. Th roughout the prosperous centuries of the Assyrian Empire (934–611 BCE), they built numerous cities in the Upper Tigris Basin of northern Iraq. Th e construction of Khorsabad, ancient Dur-Šarrukēn (“Fortress of Sargon”), by King Sargon II (721–705 BCE) was one of the most ambitious building projects of the time.

SET IN STONE

This bas-relief from the palace of

King Sargon II in Khorsabad dates

to the eighth century BCE. Sargon II

extended Assyrian influence and

consolidated much of the work of

his predecessor, Shalmaneser V.

A planned urban utopia, the city of Khorsabad was built from scratch on virgin soil, with the collaborative eff ort of craftsmen and workers

from all Assyria’s provinces. During the 300 years of Neo-Assyrian rule, the

landscapes of Upper Mesopotamia were trans formed through the construction and rebuilding of cities, carving of canals, planting of orchards, and marking of territories with rock reliefs. In the making of the “Land of Aššur,” these ambitious urban construction projects in the Upper and Middle Tigris Basins were fundamental: Tukulti-Ninurta I’s Tulul ul ‘Aqar, Aššur-nasir-pal II’s Nimrud, Sargon II’s Khorsabad, and Sennacherib’s Nineveh are the most notable of these, as they each marked the shift of the political and ceremonial center of the empire to new cities.

THE CULTURAL BIOGRAPHY OF A CITYKhorsabad was founded about 12½ miles (20 km) northeast of Nineveh, on a minor tributary of the Tigris. Started around 717 BCE, the project was unfi nished at the time of Sargon’s death in 705 BCE, when the Assyrian capital moved again to Nineveh. Archaeologically we know a great deal about Sargon’s project, possibly more than any other Assyrian city. Th ere is a wealth of textual sources associated with Sargon specifi cally about the construction process. Letters between Sargon and building overseers demonstrate the king’s involvement with con-struction details, while suggesting that the city wall and its gates were divided up among craftsmen and builders from provinces across the empire, who were

often responsible for procuring their own materials. Th e construction was literally a collective enterprise.

Th e site has been extensively archaeologically explored. Due to its relatively short life (about 100 years), its stratigraphy is straightforward, its architecture well preserved. Nineteenth century colonialist explorations by the French consuls at Mosul (Paul Emile Botta in 1843–1844 and Victor Place in 1852–1854) were mainly directed at recovering wall reliefs and sculptures for the Louvre Museum in Paris. Unfortunately, a large number of stone reliefs from Sargon’s palace sank to the bottom of the Tigris River near Qurna while being transported. Th ese reliefs are only known from the drawings of Félix Th omas, Place’s draftsman. Excavations of Khorsabad between 1929 and 1935 by the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago concentrated on Sargon’s palatial complex and the main citadel, Palace F, as well as the city’s defensive system. Th e

BUILDING URBAN CENTERSConstruction of each urban center during the Late Assyrian period was a massive and

festive undertaking: opening new stone quarries, procuring building materials, bringing

in skilled craftsmen and a large labor force, introducing new building technologies,

instituting new cult festivals, and fi nally providing a big feast for all. Assyrian cities are

known for their extensive use of cut-stone masonry and wall slabs: palaces, temples,

gates, and other public spaces were lined with stone slabs known as orthostats, which

were extensively carved with bas-relief representations and royal inscriptions. Stone

monuments such as obelisks and steles presented city-dwellers with an ideological

version of the society’s mythical and political history.





Iraqi Directorate General of Antiquities initiated work there in 1957, excavating the temple of Sebittu.

AN IMPERIAL URBAN LANDSCAPETh e city of Khorsabad was almost square in shape. Th e overall layout demonstrates a concern for creating large and well-defi ned public spaces in a systematic way. Th ere were seven evenly placed monumental gates. Th e citadel was constructed on the northeastern edge of the city and housed Sargon’s palace complex, the Nabu Temple, and elite residences. It was a common Assyrian practice to build palace compounds at the edge of the citadel, often overlooking a river or landscape. Palace F, a smaller complex, was also built separately on the southwest citadel wall on a terrace. Archaeologists identify this complex as the state treasury.

Th e palace complex, which was named é-gal-gaba-ri-nu-tuku-a or “palace without rival,” and the Nabu Temple were built on a higher level on artifi cial terraces of rough limestone and mud-brick; they were connected to each other by a corbeled stone bridge. Th e temple of Nabu, god of writing and wisdom, was an outstanding complex with 45 rooms arranged around fi ve courtyards. Th e temple’s major facade was clad with brightly colored glazed bricks depicting lions, eagles, bulls, and fi g trees.

Th e palace itself was a giant ceremonial, resid-ential, and administrative complex of about 240 rooms, arranged around three large courtyards. Th e entrance was through three monumental gateways fl anked by pairs of colossal human-headed winged bulls, carved out of fi ne gypsum. Th e ceremonial courtyards, reception halls, and many other rooms

in the palace complex were lined with fi nely dressed stone slabs beautifully carved with reliefs.

Outside the palace complex, but intricately connected with the palace forecourt, was the south-west sector, a cult complex with three monumental sanctuaries to Sin, Shamash, and Ningal, and smaller shrines to Ea, Adad, and Ninurta. A ziggurat rose to the northwest of the complex. Th e palace layout illustrates a departure from the earlier more modest-scale Assyrian palatial projects, incorporating admin-istrative, ceremonial, and residential activities into a coherent architectural ensemble.

NIMRUD’S PALACES

An 1853 engraving by James

Fergusson, based on information

from the English archaeologist

Sir Austen Henry Layard, shows

the palaces of Ashurbanipal II

(883–859 BCE). Layard (1817–

1894) was one of the early

excavators of the Assyrian site.

WRITING IT ALL DOWN

An Assyrian cuneiform tablet

clearly shows the famous wedge-

shaped script. Cuneiform was

used for about 3,000 years,

and was the dominant script

throughout Mesopotamia.


2007.ancient.mesopotamia archaeologica

Documents

millennium bce

bce iron age

bce late uruk period

bce sack of babylon

bce beginnings of development

bce middle bronze age

bce old babylonian period

bce jemdet nasr period