Tell Brak and Nagar

Matthews, Donald; Eidem, Jesper

doi:10.2307/4200376

Cited by 8 publications

(4 citation statements)

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“…in the Habur is the time of the "Hurrian" kingdoms of Urkish/Nawar and Urkish. The "rediscovered" inscription of Talpush-atili, king of "the country of Nagar", originally found by Mallowan, comes from the beginning of this era (Matthews and Eidem 1993). It serves to strengthen the likely theory that Brak is identical with ancient Nagar and if so the "country" of this city would hardly have been completely empty of settlements.…”

Section: Changing Patterns Of Settlementmentioning

confidence: 94%

“…Brak, on the other hand, if identical with ancient Nagar/Nawar, is almost exclusively referred to as the seat of the important goddess Belet-Nagar, "the Lady of Nagar", and never as a royal capital. Late Old Babylonian evidence from Tell Leilan suggests that Nagar was subordinate to more powerful Habur states during much of the early second millennium (see Matthews and Eidem 1993).…”

Section: Changing Patterns Of Settlementmentioning

confidence: 99%

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In the Land of Nagar: a survey around Tell Brak

Eidem¹,

Warburton²

1996

Iraq

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During the campaign at Tell Brak in the spring of 1988 the present authors conducted a survey of tells in the vicinity of the site. Although comprehensive, the work was primarily intended to supplement the 1978 survey by K. Fielden, who investigated the sites surrounding the main tell at Brak itself and those on the lower Jaghjagh between the junction with the Wadi Radd and the modern town of Hassake, with a particular view to fourth and third millennium settlement (Fielden 1978/9).Within a rectangle of c. 170 km covered by the survey almost all the ancient settlements are found in a roughly triangular area half this size (its base being the lower Jaghjagh/Radd to the south and its apex immediately south of Tell Barri). Identifying this area as the “hinterland” of Brak is merely a locally suitable generalization, as Brak belongs to several systems, one being the macro-system of large urban centres scattered across the Habur Plains and adjacent areas, and another the micro-system of smaller settlements in the immediate vicinity of Brak itself. Brak was an important centre from prehistoric times until the late second millennium B.C., but its role necessarily changed through time, and the concomitant changes in the extent of the area economically and politically dependent upon it remain difficult to recognize. In this sense the area covered by our survey can be seen as partly arbitrary, partly reflecting some real limits. To the south, the French 1: 200,000 maps indicate further small sites on the southern fringe of the area visited, and further west on the lower Jaghjagh, beyond the area investigated by us, are numerous sites clustering along the banks of the wadi and its small affluents, many fairly large and with material of late fourth millennium and third millennium date. This area is relevant when studying the Brak hinterland, but it cannot be evaluated before the publication of the evidence collected by K. Fielden. The area to the north certainly overlaps, at least for certain periods, the hinterland of Tell Barri. Directly west and east of Brak, the cartographic gaps within and beyond the present survey are real or nearly so. To the west/northwest the modern village may obscure evidence, but apart from sites on the first affluent of the lower Jaghjagh there seems to be a fairly wide area here with little ancient occupation. Finally, to the east our area meets that surveyed by Meijer, and his map shows only two additional tells (Meijer 1986, Fig. 1, Nos. 269a and 269b), both Islamic. The two neighbouring sites (our Nos. 33 and 34) appear to be geomorphological features and not tells. The area covered should thus include most of the sites belonging to the micro-system of settlement around Tell Brak.

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Section: Changing Patterns Of Settlementmentioning

confidence: 94%

Section: Changing Patterns Of Settlementmentioning

confidence: 99%

In the Land of Nagar: a survey around Tell Brak

Eidem¹,

Warburton²

1996

Iraq

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“…Extensive city-states, 20-30 km apart and encompassing on average 800 km 2 each, were gradually brought through military action and treaties into larger regional entities dominated, for example, by Ebla, located just south of Aleppo, Mari, located on the Euphrates near the Syria-Iraq border, and Tell Brak, ancient Nagar, near modern Hassake on the Khabur (Archi 1993: 466-68;1995: 115;. In addition to Mari and Nagar (Matthews and Eidem 1993;Archi 1998;Eidem 1998;and Eidem, Finkel and Bonechi 2001), the Ebla texts contain references to other important northern Mesopotamian states: Harran on the upper reaches of the Balikh (Archi 1988); Emar near modern Meskene on the Òbig bendÓ of the Euphrates (Archi 1990a); and Tuttul (Tell BiÕa) at the con uence of the Euphrates and the Balikh (Archi 1990b). They also include references to an array of sm aller polities linked to the more powerful states through socio-political and economic ties.…”

Section: Late Third Millennium Abandonment Of the Khabur And Northernmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reconstructing the World of Ancient Mesopotamia: Divided Beginnings and Holistic History

Zettler¹

2003

J Econ Soc Hist Orient

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Since its inception in the nineteenth century, ancient Mesopotamian studies has recognized a division of labor between archaeologists and philologists/ historians that has often skewed histories of the Òland between the rivers.Ó Recent efforts, inspired in part by the Sumerologist Thorkild Jacobsen, offer hope for more holistic histories. Three case studies-on the Inanna temple at Nippur under the Third Dynasty of Ur, abrupt climate change in the late third millennium and its social impact as reconstructed from environmental proxy data and textual sources, and the Sumerian Agriculture GroupÕs collaborative research on subsistence -typify efforts to integrate material culture and texts. D s le d but des tudes sur la M sopotam ie ancienne au 19 me si cle, un foss sÕest creus entre les arch ologues et les philologues/ historiens, et les travaux historiques portant sur le Òpays entre les euvesÓ en ont souvent t in uenc s. De r cents efforts, inspir s en partie par le sum rologue Thorkild Jacobsen, perm ettent dÕesp rer une histoire plus compr hensive. Trois tudes de cas caract risent les efforts dÕint gration des donn es de la culture mat rielle et des documents crits: le temple dÕInanna ˆ Nippour sous la troisi me dynastie dÕUr; le brusque changem ent de climat survenu vers la n du troisi me mill naire et son impact social reconstruits ˆ partir de textes et de donn es indirectes d riv es de lÕenvironnement; en n la recherche en interdisciplinaire du Sumerian Agriculture Group sur les ressources alimentaires.

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“…Two levels post-date the Akkadian occupation of the site (1 and 2), a period which we now know corresponds in whole or in part with the late third millennium Hurrian kingdom of Urkish (?Mozan) and Nagar/Nawar (?Brak) (cf. Matthews and Eidem 1993 for a newly identified Hurrian king of Nawar on a sealing found at Brak). There is no evidence for an official Ur III presence as originally believed by Gadd and Mallowan {Iraq AA,194;Iraq 47,, but occupation of this date does exist over the whole of the tell, and indeed some distinctive southern ceramic types are found {inter alia, simple comb decoration and vertical ribbing on jar necks, see Iraq 9, Pis.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Tell Brak: a stratigraphic summary, 1976–1993

David¹,

Oates²

1994

Iraq

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The purpose of this article is to provide a brief stratigraphic summary of the 14 seasons of excavations at Tell Brak from 1976 to 1993, under the auspices of the Institute of Archaeology, University of London, and more recently, the McDonald Institute of the University of Cambridge. These excavations cover four millennia and have been carried out at a number of different parts of the site which, owing both to distance and site morphology it has not been possible to connect physically. In the course of fourteen seasons initial interpretations have inevitably changed; a major purpose of the article, therefore, is to provide an up-to-date framework within which the detail of the earlier reports can be read. Three final volumes are envisaged. The first, on the second millennium materials, is nearing completion and will be followed by one on the Akkadian and later third millennium occupation of Brak, with a third volume devoted to the prehistory of the site. This article thus constitutes an interim measure, to clarify the contexts of already published material; views presented here supersede those in all previous reports, including the previously published summary articles in Hamidiya 2 (1990). A full bibliography of preliminary reports is appended.

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Tell Brak and Nagar

Cited by 8 publications

References 7 publications

In the Land of Nagar: a survey around Tell Brak

In the Land of Nagar: a survey around Tell Brak

Reconstructing the World of Ancient Mesopotamia: Divided Beginnings and Holistic History

Tell Brak: a stratigraphic summary, 1976–1993

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