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Settlement Patterns at Shuruppak

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 August 2014

Harriet P. Martin
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In the third millennium B.C. Shuruppak (modern Fara) was a major city located on the Euphrates in central Sumer. Today the mound of the ancient city extends for over a kilometre north to south. Including the high mound and the lower rise of one to two metres surrounding it, Shuruppak covers about 120 hectares. Only about 35 hectares rise about the 3 m contour, however, and nowhere does the mound rise much above 9 m.

There have been two major excavations at Shuruppak, by the D.O.G. in 1902—they crisscrossed the mound with trenches but recorded lamentably little stratigraphy—and by the University of Pennsylvania in 1931—when Erich Schmidt conducted limited excavations at four points on the mound. It is clear from these excavations that Shuruppak was inhabited from about 3000 to 2000 B.C.

In 1973 I visited the site and conducted a three-day surface survey with the help of my husband Christopher Martin, the British School of Archaeology in Iraq (then under the direction of Diana Kirkbride), and the Iraqi Directorate of Antiquities, with the aim of enlarging our knowledge of the settlement patterns at Shuruppak.

Type
Research Article
Information
IRAQ , Volume 45 , Issue 1 , Spring 1983 , pp. 24 - 31
Copyright
Copyright © The British Institute for the Study of Iraq 1983

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References

1 Heinrich, Ernst and Andrae, Walter (eds.), Fara. Ergebnisse der Ausgrabungen der Deutschen Orient-gesellschaft in Fara und Abu Hatab 1902/3 (Berlin, 1931)Google Scholar, and Schmidt, E., “Excavations at Fara, 1931”. University of Pennsylvania Museum Journal 22 (1931), 193–217Google Scholar.

2 It seems unlikely that this lower mound simply represents wash from the higher mound. It extends hundreds of metres from the higher mound, but still is very rich in pot sherds. In addition, the tops of drains and silos were noted several times on the low western slopes. On the low slope north of the mound an ashy patch rich in pot sherds was found (collecting point 1).

3 Adams, Robert McC. Heartland of Cities (Chicago, 1981), 106 and 121Google Scholar. Professor Adams thinks an earlier Uruk settlement is likely, but it is not clear whether this is solely on the basis of the pottery sickles or not.

4 Sherds taken as indicating Jamdat Nasr to ED I settlement are similar to those used by Professor Adams in his surveys. Ibid., 126–7.

5 Pots and sherds F 163, F 397, F 472, F 593 and F 1027 from the D.O.G. excavations. See Heinrich, , Fara, 35–7Google Scholar, Tf. 14–16. Schmidt found polychrome pottery in the lowest level in his deep sounding in DE 38/39. See Schmidt, , MJ 22 (1931), 211–14Google Scholar and Pl. XXII. Monochrome painted ware was found below the base of a silo in FG (ibid., Pl. XXIV).

6 The problem of ED II and III pottery in Sumer is discussed at length by me in “The Early Dynastic Cemetery at al-‘Ubaid, a Re-evaluation”, Iraq 44 (1982), pp. 145 ffCrossRefGoogle Scholar.

7 The shaded areas on the map of the D.O.G. excavations represent the remains of burned ED IIIa houses for the most part. See Heinrich, , Fara, 9, Tf. IGoogle Scholar. Andrae, W., “Ausgrabungen in Fara und Abu Hatab”, Mitteilungen der Deutschen Orient-Gesellschaft XVII (1903), 12Google Scholar. For the attribution of these tablets to buildings see Martin, H., “The Tablets of Shuruppak”, Le temple el le culte (Leiden, 1975), 172–83Google Scholar.

8 Schmidt, , MJ 22 (1931), 206–7, Pl. X, Fig. 1Google Scholar.

9 Heinrich, , Fara, 6–7, Tf. IGoogle Scholar.

10 The late Professor Fuad Safar identified this pottery for me as eighteenth century A.D.

11 Schmidt, , MJ 22 (1931)Google Scholar, Pl. XII: 1 and XIII: 1 and 2. This silo, Schmidt's “Pit II”, is not mentioned in his preliminary report.

12 Lugal-enzen, (Shulgi yr. 47?) in Nikol'skij, M., Documenty khoziaistvennoi otehetnosti drevnei Khaldei, Vol. II (Moscow, 1915), no. 200Google Scholar; A-hu-a (AMAR-Sin 1) in Lutz, H., Selected Cuneiform Texts (Berkeley, 1931), 177, no. 13Google Scholar; Gu-u (AMAR-Sin 2) in de Genouillac, H., Textes économiques d'Oumma de l'époqu d'Our (Paris, 1922), no. 6041Google Scholar; Ur-dNin-kur-ra (AMAR-Sin 3) in Fish, T., Catalogue of Sumerian Tablets in the John Rylands Library (Manchester, 1932), no. 281Google Scholar; Lú-bala-šag5-ga (AMAR-Sin 5) in A 4553 and A 5140; Ur-dNin-kur-ra (AMAR-Sin 8) in de Genouillac, H., La trouvaille de Drehem (Paris, 1911), no. 28Google Scholar, and in Langdon, S., Tablets from the Archives of Drehem (Paris, 1911), no. 50Google Scholar; Ur-dNin-kur-ra (Shu-Sin 2) in Jones, T. and Snyder, J., Sumerian Economic Texts from the Third Ur Dynasty (Minneapolis, 1961), no. 68Google Scholar, and with no year name in de Genouillac, La trouvaille de Drehem, no. 26; Kug-dNanna (Shu-Sin 6 and 9) in Nies, J., Ur Dynasty Tablets (Leipzig, 1920), no. 120 5–6Google Scholar, and in Schneider, N., “Die Geschäftsurkunden aus Drehem und Djoha”, Orientalia 47–9 (1930), no. 124Google Scholar; Da-da and Ha-la-, ad-da in Koldewey, R., “Auszug aus fünf Briefen Dr. Koldeweys”, MDOG XVI (1903)Google Scholar. This list does not claim to be complete. It owes much to Hallo, W. W., “Ensis of the Ur III Period” (University of Chicago, unpublished M.A. thesis, 1953), 42–4Google Scholar.

13 Goetze, A., “Shakkanakkus of the Ur III Empire”, JCS 17 (1963), 1–4Google Scholar.

14 Adams, , Heartland, 144–5Google Scholar. If a size of 85 hectares (vs. Adam's suggestion of 15 hectares) is taken as the size of Ur III Shuruppak, there is no longer any difficulty in explaining how it provided the 1,200 men listed in the Drehem text.

15 A similar phenomenon has been noted by Mr. N. Postgate at Abu Salabikh. Postgate, , Iraq 38 (1976), 157, 162CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

16 Delougaz, P. D., Hill, H. D. and Lloyd, Seton, Private Houses in the Diyala Region, Oriental Institute Publications Vol. LXXXVIII (Chicago, 1967), Pl. 23 and Pl. 32Google Scholar.

17 FP 350, unpublished.

18 Of the D.O.G. finds, only a small, lugged pot (IST 3003) can be dated to this period. Heinrich, Fara, Tf. 19i. However, since no excavation number is known for this piece, it is possible that it came from Abu Hatab rather than from Fara.