Not Neglecting Archaeology

[us4-he2-gal2]

Thread Orientation: On this thread I take some notes from books which actually focus on archaeology

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*****Moved from Mesopotamian General Discussion board, to Mesopotamian Archaeology sub-board, Nov.2 2013 (Admin)

Notes on Mesopotamian Archaeology

Hey everyone - as some of you may notice, in my posting here over the years I've shown a repeated preference for the philological contributions to exploring Sumerian culture, and particularly translation and interpretations of Sumerian incantations and literature - perhaps this has formed something of a 'comfort zone' . There certainly been times when I've been pleased or even thrilled by discussion of this or that archaeological discovery or contribution, but these have generally been spotted in this or that introduction to Mesopotamian civilization and I've hardly picked up a book of a specifically Archaelogical focus - All that is changing now with my review of S. Lloyd, I suppose my motivation is the fear of inadequacy, since I'm now enrolled in an ANE archaeology course for the coming semester 0_0


S. Lloyd's 1978 "The Archaeology of Mesopotamia" is on the recommended reading list for this course and luckily a copy was available at the library. As he and F. Safar were the excavators of Abu Shahrain (Eridu) in the 1960s,. we can be sure Lloyd speaks from a position of some authority.
I therefore type below some notes I've taken while reading this book, the facts I'm interested in are either new to me, or else important in some other way.






From the General Overview:



- The word 'Iraq' is that of the later Arabian conquerors who cam from the west. One encounters a cliff like ridge on the approach to the Mesopotamian plateau, hence the word translates to 'the cliff' the way the oncoming Arabs noted this land.

- About the Coastline: Lloyd believes that the Persian gulf is not retreating in the way some researchers often assert. Up until 1952 it was believed that the observed lack of settlements below the Nasiriyah line (south of Eridu) was proof that in ancient times the waters had come up this far, preventing settlement. Further more ancient writings speak of Eridu and Ur as being along the coast.
However, in 1952 two geologists proved that the position of the coast has *not* altered since ancient times. As well, fish offerings found at Eridu Temple contain bones of sea-perch which can only live in water of tidal estuaries (that is in bodies of water other than the gulf). Meaning - "perhaps the shallow depression in which Eridu lies was then part of the present lake system."

- About the climate - In addition to the excellent notes Ummia has taken elsewhere on the board, there is this description in Lloyd: "According to Geologist, there has been no perceptible change [in climate] since early times.."
Sumer temp: 110 to 130 in the shade
eight months of the year without rainfall
winter, intermittent rain storms, cold nights
spring brings floods between April and June, paradoxically too late to water the main crop )harvested in April).
As rain was in inadequate quantities and at the wrong time - this led to a reliance on human ingenuity.

- Salinization: Result from both use of salty river water and rises in water table caused by prolonged irrigation. Jacobsen found text mentioning the problem of salinization showing the problem was recognized as early as 2700 BC. May be responsible for drops in wheat production and the transfer to Barley as staple crop in 2000 BC. Sumerian agricultural manual from 2100 BC shows improved methods for combating Salinization including drainage.

- Braidwood on Climate change in Iraqi site of Jarmo: Between 1948 and 1957 Braidwood excavated at a site called Jarmo in upper Iraq - the site is extremely ancient, being equivalent to the Pre-Pottery Neolithic stage at Jericho (so perhaps 6700 BC or so). Braidwood was the first to bring in geologists and climatologists to work on the picture of Ancient. Iraq int he 50s, and their findings have been that man has made a *big* change in his neighborhood since 6700 BC. As Braidwood wrote:

"During the period of time which has elapsed since Jarmo was a village, man has been the pre-eminent environmental influence, and the effects of his handiwork are to be seen throughout the middle east. In general the role of man, of his agriculture and his flocks, has been destructive."

Braidwood finds that there is evidence of forests (ancient) "From Palestine, round through Syria and into eastern Iraq" however due to repeated clearing and cultivation over millenia "hardly a shrub remains.. the soil has gone to silt up the rivers.." On this note, Lloyd adds "here then is the source of the alluvium which creation the Mesopotamian plain." This comment is absolutely
fascinating - to think that the condition for the fertile Mesopotamian flood plain may have inadvertently been created by the environmentally destructive actions of Neolithic man over millennia ..My understanding of the variables involved in making such a claim is not sufficient to qualify Lloyds comment in any way however.


- Concerning the "Sumerian Problem": Lloyd and other archaeologist tend to disagree with philologists about the origin of the Sumerians. While philologists assign the most importence to the fact that early seattlements in south Mesopotamian seem to have names not of the Sumerian language, and so believe in an 'invasion' by the Sumerian speaking people at some point, archaeologists underplay this theory, seemingly entirely. Lloyd is more swayed by the obervation that Ubaidian and Sumerian sites seem to have a demonstratable culture and religious continuity (with lower levels of repeatedly rebulilt Sumerian temples, in Eridu for example, occupying Ubaidian layers). This suggests to him that there was no "invasion" to speak of (i.e, the Sumerians and Ubaidians are in some way in one and the same Mesopotamian cultural continium and so, one people?).

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Still to come... Notes on the Pre-literate period.

[us4-he2-gal2]

Pondering the Diyala Region

Every Mesopotamian enthusiast knows of the awesome find that the U of Chicago was able to recover from the Diyala region in the 1930s - Certainly the statues recovered from the Abu temple at Tell Asmar are immiediately recognizable:

The designation "Diyala Region" relates to the distribution of modern Iraq, and is an area north east of Baghdad:

The most significant ancient sites excavated in the area are Tell Asmar (Eshnunna in Neo-Sumerian times and later), Khafaje (ancient Tutub), Tell Agrab and Ischali. (For a map of sites click here). Something about these sites has always bothered me - that is, despite the evidence of Sumerian culture in the temples found there, the Sumerian style sculpture, building architecture, and indeed, the dedication of temples to Sumerian deities, it remains unclear to me exactly how these cities fit into the socio-political climate of southern Mesopotamia. These sites seem, with little exception, to be all but unmentioned in the literature of the south which pays its dues to Eridu, Ur, Uruk, Nippur and others (though in some cases, we seem to lack the ancient name for sites in the Diyala region). Obviously in the case of Tell Asmar (Eshnunna) the cultural and ethnic distribution would be muddled to some extent, with this particular center taking much of its stock from the semitic north but having strong religious influence not only from the south, but from the east over the Zagros mountains (as we have seen in Wiggerman's Transtigiridian snake gods..)


The worth of investigating this problem, (just who were the ancient Diyalans?) becomes even more apparent when we note how central this area has become in the modern reconstruction of the history of Sumer as a whole - owing perhaps to the methodical and advanced techniques of the Oriental Institute excavators (the OI claims that the "precision in data recording has been surpassed only in the past twenty years through use of computers"), the archaeological picture of cultural development in the Diyala region has become the standard for establishing the developmental sequences throughout Early Dynastic Mesopotamia. Where there are gaps in information in Uruk, parallel sequence from the Diyala region fill it in - even in the Jemdat Nasr period in the city which gave that era it's name, Diyala region pottery evidence is used to fill in blanks. Even the distinctions of Early Dynastic III, II and Ia/b periods have their roots in the OI's observation of the reliably dated and well documented Diyala region finds.


Some of this insight I owe to Abu Al-Soof and is article "The Relevance of the Diyala Sequence to South Sumerian Sites" (Iraq, Vol. 29, No. 2 (Autumn, 1967), pp. 133-142). Despite the obvious usefulness of the Diyala archaeology in repairing broken sequences from other parts of Mesopotamia, some reservation should be held for the Diyala sources he says "it should not necessarily always be accept as always valid for all of Southern Mesopotamia. Geographically the is periphereal, close to Babylon, but distant from the area of Sumer which seems in many instances to have been the center of cultural diffusion in the Uruk period." Scarlet-ware is a pottery type seldom found outside the Diyala region for example. Other features that may highlight the peculiarities or differention of the region are hard to prove as their absence may be explained by archaeological accident etc. In the Uruk period the area lacks the expected number of handled pottery or legged jars which are popular in other areas. As Abu Al-Soof suggests then, it may sometimes be a mistake to adjust the dating of a sequence of items in the south based on their absence or late appearance in the Diyala region (which may be the result of a cultural transfer.)





**Interrupted - post continued below***

[us4-he2-gal2]

**Post continued from above**





So, having sketched the importance of the finds in the Diyala region, the question remains: Who were the Early Dynastic Diyalians?


Culturally, they seem to have been Sumerian, but does that mean that ethnically they were the same? I'd have to assume they were Semitic like the Akkadians just from the custom of drawing the Sumerian/Semitic in somewhere around the region of Nippur - but wheres the justification (other than habit) in that?
Postgate (BASOR 1994) notes that the term King of Sumer and Akkad is confusing, as Ki-en-gi refers to the Sumerian south and had also in the time before Sargon, however, the corresponding term ki-uri, refers to the Semitic north - the problem is, that it existed before Sargon, and it's not at all clear to what it referred to, unfortunately. He continues:


"In the 25h century B.C., therefore, the two halves of the southern plain were distinguished on some basis, which could have been cultural, ethnic, linguistic, or even traditional. Despite the vaunted political unification of the country under the Akkad kings, the two entities survived long enough - at least in contemporary perception - to be included in the titulary of the Ur III kings. I suspect that there was a least a cultural divide, since there are traces of such polarization in the artifactual repertoire, and that it coincided to som degree with a language divide (Postgate 1986a: 70- Biggs 1981: 132-33). One could imagine that these were one time political entities that retaine a residual identity in traditional perceptions, especially given the legendary important of the First Dynasty of Kish and its conflict with Uruk. However, that idea is contradicted by the complete lack of any political ideology connected with the two "halves" in particular of a god or capital city."



Little did I realize what a frustration this was going to become 0_0


After Sargon, the Diyala question doesn't seem to be much a problem - it seems relatively safe to say, that the Diyala region was Semitic from the Akkadian period going forward. Of course it's not always easy to say *when* the Akkadian period was, as Donald Matthews says in his "The Early Dynastic-Akkadian Transition Part I: When Did the Akkadian Period Begin?" (Iraq 1997). First of all the dawn of Akkadian Empire and the dawn of Akkadian period don't precisely correspond: imperial political organization and a new style of writing didn't actually occur until Naram-sin, well after Sargon's death. Further Matthews considers that pottery is an unreliable and poor indicator of political change (a peoples pottery is no direct indication of regime change). However, he finds the emergence of Akkadian glyptic to be the most telling of the onset of the Akkadian period - the Akkadian intellectuals and artisans apparently had a different intellectual outset than the Sumerians, he says, representing "a new stress on depicting and symbolizing the gods, and especially the scene of "the battle of the gods."" This emerging glyptic style, Early Akkadian, is apparent at Kish, Tell Asmar and Khafaje - in and around the Diyala region therefore. While this unfortunately doesn't tell us who was there before Sargon, is establishes the Akkadian presence in that period, I believe.


Textual record is unfortunately no better help. Rikvah Harris in 1955 article "The Archive of the Sin Temple in Khafajah" (JCS), gives a summary of the recovered texts of the Diyala region: Tell Asmar, 1500 tablets, Old Akkadian period to the OB period. Kahfaje, 70 Old Akkadian and 111 OB. Ischali, 300-350 OB. Tell Agrab, 3 Old Akkadian texts. Tell Harmel, 2000 tablets.

Most of these texts remain unpublished through selections have been translated by Jacobsen, Gelb and others. In any case, given the brief survey I've just read, my impression is that none date to any early period than the Old Akkadian, and hence textual evidence seems not to be a solution in determining the ethnic make up of the Pre-Sargonic Diyalians.



Cultural Homgeneity - this is the phrase Postgate uses a little later in his paper to represent mainly shared material culture across neighboring cultures. He states: "urban sites of the third millennium B.C. in southern Mesopotamia do share a cultureal homogeneity that reflects the historically attested conditions. The fact is perhaps est attested in the earliest centuries, in Early Dynastic I, at the time of the city sealings. Laters, there seem to be traces of a crystalization into a southern and a northern group. Nevertheless, the similarities are stronger than the dissiilarites; and the concern the basics- the bricks, the everyday ceramic repertoire (pottery), houses, and burial practice."





All of this makes it difficult to understand the Diyala region people as distinct from the southern Sumerian neighbors, and I must accept a pause in pursuing the evasive question of their ethnicity. Perhaps someone will post some insight from an commentator I have been entirely overlooking - otherwise there is light on the horizen:




The Diyala Project





Headed by Clemens Reichel (a professor of archaeology at the U of Toronto) the Diyala Project is based at the Oriental Institute in Chicago and is a prolific effort to create an online web database that would showcase all of the finds from the Diyala region - why is this necessary? Well, despite the extensive usage of Diyala region pottery and other sorts of finds in creating archaeological sequences, only *certain* sorts of finds were published "architecture and some of the major finds (statuary, cylinder seals, pottery)" .. these of course are the same sort of culturally transmitive items mentioned above, The OI adds that "the great majority" of finds from the Diyala region, 12,000 in number, remain unpublished. What do these items consist of? "Among these items are stone vessels, tools, weapons, jewelry, cosmetic sets, weights, figurines, stone and metal vessels, inlays, and stamp seals (Figures 3, 4, 5). Many of these items are truly artworks, while others provide valuable information of everyday life. " In other words, perhaps the final publication of the complete finds from the region will make problems such as I'm have less acute. Heres hoping the page is finished this year!


oi.uchicago.edu/research/projects/diy/