

Archaeological Diggings Reveal More Sumerian Secrets 15 February, 2014

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Follow @messagetoeagle MessageToEagle.com - Archaeologists excavating in Iraq have discovered more ancient Sumerian items that could offer clues to our past. "Priceless information about mankind's past lies concealed beneath Iraq's landscape, especially in the 'tells' - earth mounds - that are the remains of ancient towns, villages and farmsteads," says Dr. Robert Killick who is part of a British archaeological expediting that is excavating in Iraq.

Khaiber�s monumental building is most likely to date to between the the fall of Ur (c. 2000 BC), and the conquest of the competing city states of southern Iraq by Hammurabi, King of Babylon, about 1763 BC.

The National reports that "Dr Robert Killick, was part of the British archaeological expedition excavating a 2300BC Bronze Age grave believed to belong to a chieftain." They searched for clues to the missing body, and found a distortion in one of the walls of the grave. It opened up into a separate pit on the side of the grave, with the human skeleton laid out in a tiny bedroom-like chamber.

Left: A plaque of a nude female with a plaited hair style. Her cheeky grin still reaches out to us over two millenia. Right: A clay figurine found at the Tell Khaiber excavation site near Ur, Iraq may be an ancient image of Eber, the great grandson of Shem. Image credit: Dr. Robert Killick

"But that was nothing. Less than 1 per cent of Iraq has been excavated and studied," said Dr Killick, who worked in Iraq for more than a decade and then in the rest of the region for another two decades. "Iraq is where it all started, the cradle of civilization. Imagine the wealth of history, the stories in the ruins that have not yet been read that will give us clues into our past." "Contrary to what people believe about the current state of Iraq, most of the ancient sites have not in fact been destroyed. The majority are, thankfully, intact," he said. One of the most interesting sites to excavate is Tell Khaiber, which is about 20 kilometres from the ancient city of Ur, near Nasiriyah, in Thi Qar province. It is here, in southern Iraq, that civilization began more than 5,000 years ago. Ur, which means a city in the Sumerian and Akkadian languages - situated near the town of Nasiriya, about 365 km south of Baghdad - is one of Iraq's most imposing ancient sites. It's a region were the innovative Sumerians lived, who introduced urban living and invented writing using "Cuneiform" to cope with all the administrative and practical needs of the time.

Then came the Babylonians, whose trading and military skills forged a mighty empire.

The massive and impressive ziggurat of Nanna

Tell Khaiber is near to Ur, the birthplace of Prophet Abraham, according to the Bible, and an important city from 2,500 BC onwards. Eridu was an ancient cult center. "We picked Tell Khaiber as the archaeological remains seem intact and have not been disturbed by looters," said Dr Killick. "Satellite images show the presence of large rectangular public buildings on the two main mounds of the settlement, perhaps royal palaces or the administrative buildings of the town," said Dr Killick. "Their presence confirms the importance of Tell Khaiber in antiquity." Archaeologists hope that the contents of the rooms inside the structures will explain how the building functioned, and so will help reconstruct economic and political conditions in the settlement and its area of influence.

Old Babylonian pottery drinking cups, like the one on the left, about 20 cm high, were common. The slightly larger pot on the right has suffered from salt encrustation from lying very near the surface. It is twisted and overfired, proving that pottery making was going on at Khaiber. Credit: Ur Region Archaeology Project

"The Tell Khaiber excavation near Ur in southern Iraq is a breath of air to archaeological research in Iraq," said Dr Lamia Al Gailani, an eminent Iraqi archaeologist, who worked in the Iraq Museum in the 1960s, and again in 2003 after the looting. "Iraq used to have the best of archaeologists in the 1960s and 1970s, when archaeological excavations and research of major significance was taking place, with many international universities excavating in Iraq. Some had permanent institutes in Baghdad, such as the British School of Archaeology, the German Institute and the Italian Cultural Centre," she said.

Inscribed dog. Credits: Jane Moon is Honorary Research Fellow, Department of Archaeology, University of Manchester

"All these activities came to an end after the first Gulf War in 1991, international excavations stopped, and no new books were purchased by the Iraq Museum Library because of the sanctions," she explained. After 2003, with the fall of Saddam Hussein regime, Iraq remained unstable, and unsafe for excavations or any kind of field research. "As a result of all this, the continuing development of Iraqi archaeologists and the study of the history of ancient Iraq have come to a halt, with disastrous results. Iraqi archaeologists became completely isolated from progress in the new developments in archaeological research," said Dr Al Gailani.

The monumental ziggurat at the ancient city of Ur located in the Thi Qar province, south of Iraq. Image credit: Dr. Robert Killick



Click on image to enlarge Tell Khaiber from space and at ground level.

"But this is changing now, and the presence of international archaeologists in Iraq is essential to familiarise and train young Iraqi archaeologists and to enhance the study of Iraq's history and heritage, particularly in its role as the cradle of civilization," she said. One of the beauties of archaeology is that you never now what you will find. There is so much to uncover in the region.

What else lies just beneath the surface of Tell Khaiber? And what is the relationship to Ur? "Archaeology is unpredictable. You never know exactly what you might find - that is what is so exciting. We trust that this project will be just the beginning for a new era in the exploration of Iraq's magnificent heritage and its new generation of Iraqi archaeologists," Dr Killick said.

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