Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-x4r87 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-28T22:30:16.022Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Cultural Parallels in the Metalwork of Sumer and North Mesopotamia in the Third Millennium B.C.

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 August 2014

Trevor Watkins
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

This paper contributes in small part to the re-examination of the assumed relationship between Sumer and the surrounding areas. It is concerned with metals, metal-working and metal goods, and more particularly with the weapons which begin to appear in some profusion during the third millennium both in Sumer and in other areas round about. The thesis proposed here is in two parts. On the one hand, it will be argued that between Sumer in the ED III period and north-west Mesopotamia there are striking parallels in the use of materials, the techniques of manufacture and the objects produced, parallels which suggest that the developments were simultaneous in both areas. On the other hand, it will be suggested that the northern products were not derivative or simply produced in tandem with those of Sumer, but that they show evidence of originality and equal participation in the process of innovation and development.

In view of the need for brevity this paper concentrates on a segment of the evidence, the weapons from the group of sites around Carchemish (Tell Kara Hassan, Serrin, Amarna and Hammam) whence Woolley obtained grave-groups by purchase in the early years of this century (Woolley, 1914; for more detailed information on the similar recovery of first millennium grave-groups from Deve Hüyük see Moorey, 1980: 1–4), from Carchemish itself (Woolley and Barnett, 1952: 218–26), and the metal objects from the hypogeum at Til Barsib (Thureau-Dangin and Dunand, 1936), the metal grave-goods from Woolley's excavations in the Royal Cemetery at Ur (Woolley, 1932) and the finds from the “A” cemetery at Kish (Mackay, 1925; Hrouda and Karstens, 1967; Moorey, 1978).

Type
Research Article
Information
IRAQ , Volume 45 , Issue 1 , Spring 1983 , pp. 18 - 23
Copyright
Copyright © The British Institute for the Study of Iraq 1983

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Ekholm, K., and Friedman, J., 1979. In Larsen, M. T. (ed.), Power and Propaganda {Mesopotamia 7). Copenhagen.Google Scholar
Forest, J. D., 1979. Preliminary report on the first season at Kheit Qasim, Hamrin, Iraq. Sumer 25 (1979), 502–497.Google Scholar
Hrouda, B., and Karstens, K., 1967. Zur inneren Chronologie des Friedhofes “A” in Ingharra/Chursagkalama bei Kiš. ZA 58 (1967), 256–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mackay, E., 1925. Report on the Excavations of the “A” Cemetery at Kish, Mesopotamia, Part I (Field Museum of Natural History, Anthropological Memoirs I). Chicago.Google Scholar
Mallowan, M. E. L., 1937. The Syrian City of Til-Barsib. Antiquity 11 (1937), 328–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moorey, P. R. S., 1978. Kish Excavations 1923–1933. Oxford.Google Scholar
Moorey, P. R. S., 1980. Cemeteries of the First Millennium B.C. at Deve Hüyük, near Carchemish, salvaged by T. E. Lawrence and C. L. Woolley in 1913. (Brit. Archaeol. Reports, International Series 87.) Oxford.Google Scholar
Moorey, P. R. S., 1982. The archaeological evidence for metallurgy and related technologies in Mesopotamia, c. 5500–2100 B.C. Iraq 44 (1982), 13–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moorey, P. R. S., and Schweizer, F., 1972. Copper and copper alloys in ancient Iraq, Syria and Palestine: some new analyses. Archaeometry 14 (1972), 177–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nissen, H. J., 1966. Zur Datierung des Königsfriedhofes von Ur. Bonn.Google Scholar
Palmieri, A., 1981. Excavations at Arslantepe (Malatya). An. St. 31 (1981), 101–19.Google Scholar
Renfrew, A. C., 1969. The Emergence of Civilization. London.Google Scholar
Stronach, D. B., 1957. The Development and Diffusion of Metal Types in Early Bronze Age Anatolia. An. St. 7 (1957), 89–125.Google Scholar
Thureau-Dangin, F., and Dunand, M., 1936. Til Barsib. Paris.Google Scholar
Tubb, J. N., 1982. A crescentic axehead from Amarna (Syria) and an examination of similar axe-heads from the Near East. Iraq 44 (1982), 1–12.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Watkins, T., 1974. Two unfinished spearheads in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. Levant 6 (1974), 188–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Watkins, T. (forthcoming). Sumerian weapons, warfare and warriors. Sumer.Google Scholar
Woolley, C. L., 1914. Hittite Burial Customs. LAAA 6 (1914), 87–98.Google Scholar
Woolley, C. L., 1932. Ur Excavations, Volume II: The Royal Cemetery. London.Google Scholar
Woolley, C. L., and Barnett, R. D., 1952. Carchemish, Part III. London.Google Scholar