A Re-Evaluation of the Akkad Period in the Diyala Region on the Basis of Recent Excavations at Nippur and in the Hamrin

Gibson, McGuire

doi:10.2307/504524

Cited by 12 publications

(8 citation statements)

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“…152 no. B.225.540; the level was assigned to the Early Akkadian Period by Gibson [1982]). The link between the "Akkadian" beaker and the small jar with an everted neck is particularly influential in assigning PG 888 to Group 2a.…”

Section: Methodological Approachmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Royal Cemetery at Ur During the Second Half of the Third Millennium B.C.: Pottery Analysis Through the Use of Archival Data, a Case Study

Volpi¹

2020

Iraq

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The Royal Cemetery at Ur, with its almost two thousand graves, is one of the most impressive archaeological settings in southern Mesopotamia. Although most of the graves have been assigned to the Early Dynastic Period, more than three hundred graves have been dated to a timeframe from the Late Akkadian Period to the end of the third millennium B.C. However, the precise dating of many of these graves is under debate because stratigraphic data are often lacking, and the material culture used for dating has mainly been cylinder seals and other small finds. Due to the poor quality of the data published by Woolley, pottery has rarely been used to establish chronological determinants that could be useful in dating the graves. Thanks to the Ur Digitization Project, the field records from the Ur excavations are now available online. Among them are the Field Notes, which often contain pottery drawings, reproduced to scale. This paper re-analyses some of the graves in the Royal Cemetery at Ur that have been dated to the final part of the third millennium B.C. This analysis is based on a typological approach to the pottery assemblages that allows revised chronological determinants for dating selected grave contexts.

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Section: Methodological Approachmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Royal Cemetery at Ur During the Second Half of the Third Millennium B.C.: Pottery Analysis Through the Use of Archival Data, a Case Study

Volpi¹

2020

Iraq

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“…Correlative evidence linking artifacts from the much deeper Abu Temple excavations (down to elevations dated to late prehistoric levels) and the artifacts recovered from the earlier elevations of the Private Houses Area also suggest that this residential area would have been long‐lived and extensive from at least the beginning of the Early Dynastic period onward but may have had its origins alongside the Abu Temple in late prehistory (Truex, forthcoming). Reexamination of diagnostic pottery, diagnostic artifacts such as cylinder seals and sealings with specific motifs and styles, and changes in mudbrick architecture (e.g., brick type but also construction techniques using bricks; Delougaz ; Delougaz, Hill, and Lloyd ), served as my methods for reassessment of chronology (Gibson , , ) and reestablishment as well as modification of correspondence between the late 3rd millennium BCE occupation levels in the Private Houses Area and the occupation levels of the Northern Palace Building.…”

Section: Household Chronology: the Private Houses In Relation To The mentioning

confidence: 99%

3 Households and Institutions: A Late 3rd Millennium BCE Neighborhood at Tell Asmar, Iraq (Ancient Eshnunna)

Truex

2019

Archaeological Papers of the American

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To test the value of the neighborhood and community concepts for understanding the archaeology of neighborhoods in the urban landscapes of the late Early Dynastic city-states and the Akkadian state in ancient Mesopotamia, this chapter examines socioeconomic changes in the material culture across occupation levels in a residential area at Tell Asmar (ancient Eshnunna), Iraq and investigates processes by which the area became a more uniformly elite set of households. Tell Asmar was one of several major urban settlements in the lower Diyala River region, with occupation of the site extending back into late prehistory. The research dataset comprises a limited subset of archaeological evidence recovered from the Tell Asmar Northern Palace Area and the Private Houses Area by the 1930s Oriental Institute of Chicago Diyala Expedition excavations and concentrates on late 3rd millennium BCE residential occupation levels, architecture, and artifacts, as well as ancient texts. A detailed analysis compares one household with a life cycle that spanned the late 3rd millennium with the households of three late Akkadian houses that appeared alongside the architectural reorganization of the Northern Palace Building. This chapter seeks not only to explore the roles of private households within an urban Mesopotamian neighborhood but also to show that the Private Houses Area and the Northern Palace Building continually evolved as a neighborhood because residents were constantly negotiating and maintaining interconnected private and official relationships, and as one community, they shared in the growth, decline, and resurgence that connected them to broader socioeconomic and political developments.

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“…The redefinition of the Diyala sequence (Gibson 1982) hinges on the evidence of seal impressions and seals. Although it may be less sensitive to style changes than glyptic, pottery when subjected to seriation, because of the great numbers of sherds involved, is a powerful tool for assessing relative date within a sequence.…”

Section: The Early Dynastic-akkadian Transition Part Ii: the Authors'mentioning

confidence: 99%

The Early Dynastic-Akkadian transition, Part 2. The authors' response

Gibson¹,

McMahon²

1997

Iraq

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Dr Matthews was kind enough to show us a draft of the preceding article before publication so that we could reply, for which we thank him. Our original article was intended as a review of the problem of the Early Dynastic to Akkadian transition and as a quick general overview of the WF excavation at Nippur, rather than the final statement on either. The point of the article was not to define the Akkadian Period but to make steps towards the identification of an assemblage of material culture (pottery, tablets, objects, and seals) found in levels which are dated to the historical Akkadian Period. That assemblage included pottery types, but we did not suggest that a single pottery type or a few types alone should be the basis for dating; nor would we prefer, as is implied by Matthews, to define a period by pottery as opposed to other objects. What the Nippur WF excavation gave us was a well-stratified sequence of artifacts; and we were careful when suggesting the level at which we might have entered the Akkadian (historical) period not to be adamant about the date of the pertinent level and to precede it with a “transitional” level (Level XVII) which might have been either Early Dynastic or Akkadian. Perhaps we should have been more cautious and extended that transitional label to cover Level XVI as well.

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A Re-Evaluation of the Akkad Period in the Diyala Region on the Basis of Recent Excavations at Nippur and in the Hamrin

Cited by 12 publications

References 0 publications

The Royal Cemetery at Ur During the Second Half of the Third Millennium B.C.: Pottery Analysis Through the Use of Archival Data, a Case Study

The Royal Cemetery at Ur During the Second Half of the Third Millennium B.C.: Pottery Analysis Through the Use of Archival Data, a Case Study

3 Households and Institutions: A Late 3rd Millennium BCE Neighborhood at Tell Asmar, Iraq (Ancient Eshnunna)

The Early Dynastic-Akkadian transition, Part 2. The authors' response

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