214

ASIA

Ancient Mesopotamia
Ancient Mesopotamia, the cradle of civilization, was the birthplace of some of the earliest cities of human history, a sophisticated writing system, complex bureaucracies and literary tradition, and the highly skilled production of artifacts. The Euphrates and Tigris River basins form the backbone of this historical geography: Mesopotamialiterally land between the rivers in ancient Greek the land of cities, agricultural prosperity, scribal culture, and textile production.

esopotamian cultures ourished in exceptionally diverse landscapes, from the metal-rich mountains of southeastern Turkey to the Syrian deserts, from the forests of the Levant to the marshes of southern Iraq. Yet, Mesopotamian peoples, from their historical beginnings with urbanization and the emergence of complex societies in the late fourth millennium BCE to the arrival of Alexander the Great in 333 BCE, shared an outstandingly continuous cultural tradition. It is hard to imagine Mesopotamian civilization in isolation from its rich prehistoric cultural heritage, and its legacy in Classical and

TIMELINE OF ANCIENT MESOPOTAMIAN HISTORY

Uruk Period 35003100 BCE Jemdet Nasr Period 40003100 BCE Late Uruk Period: urbanization and earliest writing at Uruk (Warka) 31002900 BCE Beginnings of development of writing and seals Early Dynastic Period (Early Bronze Age) 29002000 BCE 27002600 BCE 26002100 BCE 23342193 BCE c. 2100 BCE 21122004 BCE 21122095 BCE Middle Bronze Age Late Bronze Age 1595 BCE Iron Age 12001175 BCE 934611 BCE 717705 BCE 612 BCE 626539 BCE 604562 BCE 550330 BCE 334 BCE Tell Asmar statues Construction of Temple Oval at Khafajah Royal Tombs of Ur Akkadian Empire Second Dynasty of Lagash and Gudea Third Dynasty of Ur Construction of first ziggurat at the time of Ur-Nammu 20001600 BCE Old Babylonian Period 16001200 BCE Sack of Babylon by the Hittites 1200330 BCE Early Iron Age Abandonment of major urban centers such as Hattusha and Ugarit Neo-Assyrian Empire Foundation of Khorsabad Sack of Nineveh by Medes and Babylonians, collapse of the Assyrian Empire Neo-Babylonian kingdom Nebuchadnezzar IIs building project at Babylon Achaemenid Empire Alexander the Great starts his conquest of Persia

Islamic civilizations in the Middle East. Yet Mesopotamian archaeology largely focuses on complex societies that populated the regions of the Tigris and Euphrates basins from the late fourth millennium BCE to the late rst. The long-term linguistic and cultural continuity across three millennia was maintained by shared memories, identities, and world views. From the very beginning, both Sumerian and Akkadianspeaking populations inhabited the Mesopotamian plains, and the ocial language of its states alternated between the two for centuries, using the same cuneiform script on clay tablets. Textual documentation on everyday life is abundant, as written documents were highly durable objects. About half a million clay tablets have been recovered in excavations across the region since the mid-nineteenth century. Most remain unpublished and unstudied.

LANDSCAPES OF THE EARLY MESOPOTAMIAN WORLD

The alluvial plains of Lower Mesopotamia (southern Iraq) and the hilly landscapes of Upper Mesopotamia (northern Syria, northern Iraq, southeastern Turkey) oer two distinct environments. The lower Mesopotamian plain is an alluvial landscape laid down by the two rivers. Here, agriculture depends on irrigation. In Upper Mesopotamia, farmers depend on rainfall. In the southern alluvium where the rst complex societies of the Near East emerged, the economy depended on irrigation agriculture, which was accomplished through a complex network of irrigation canal systems. As southern Mesopotamia lacked some vital natural resources such as good quality timber, precious and durable stones, and metals, long-distance trade was a signicant aspect of Mesopotamian urban economies. Both landscapes are spotted today with numerous mounds (tells or hyks) of ancient settlement, formed by multiple layers of occupation and rebuilding with mud-brick.

CITIES, TEMPLES, KINGS: MESOPOTAMIAN CULTURAL HISTORIES

In the second half of the fourth millennium BCE, Uruk and Nippur in the southern alluvium emerged as major ceremonial urban centers. Excavating Uruks

ANCIENT MESOPOTAMIA

215

EXTENT OF MESOPOTAMIA
Although situated in a hot, dry part of the world, Mesopotamia flourished because of its position between the Tigris and Euphrates Riversan irrigated area allowing the cultivation of grains.

MESOPOTAMIAN MUSICIANS
This stele depicting a group of musicians dates to the third millennium BCE. It was found at Tello (ancient Girsu), Iraq.

late Chalcolithic levels at the Sanctuary of Inanna, archaeologists came across the evidence of rst writing, and also complex administrative tools of exchange such as cylinder seals, monumental architecture with outstanding technologies, and a highly developed visual culture. By the mid-third millennium BCE, the Early Dynastic Period, southern Mesopotamia was populated with small regional states, with agricultural hinterlands located around an urban center. Among the archaeologically well explored ones, Eshnunna, Nippur, Ur, Lagash, and Tutub stand out as important Early Mesopotamian cities. Two major urban institutions, the temple and the palace, gradually gained power. These were primarily socioeconomic institutions that owned agricultural land and animal ocks, and sponsored craftsmen and merchants. The short-lived states of the late third millennium BCE, the Akkadian kingdom and the Third Dynasty of Ur, mark the culmination of such sociopolitical development and represent the rst territorially ambitious, bureaucratically complex states in Mesopotamia. The Akkadians had an innovative visual culture, elaborate royal ideology, and a massive production of literary and annalistic texts. Nippur became a pan-Mesopotamian cult center in the late third and early second millennia. This role gradually transferred to Babylon in the second and rst

millennia, as Babylonian culture came to dominate. The sociopolitical and economic center of gravity shifted to Upper Mesopotamia from the mid-second millennium onward, with Hittite, Mitanni, Assyrian, and Neo-Babylonian empires having their territorial expansions in the Northern Mesopotamian and Anatolian landscapes, the growth of seafaring trade networks in the Mediterranean, and the increasing diculties in maintaining agricultural production in the southern alluvium.

EPIC RUINS
An Iraqi guide points toward the White Temple, located at the base of the Anu ziggurat, at the archaeological site of Uruk. This was a city known for its ancient king, Gilgamesh, the hero of the famous epic named after him.

216

ASIA

Ur, Iraq
The southern Mesopotamian city of Ur, which is associated with the biblical city Ur of the Chaldeesreputed birthplace of Abrahamwas an impressive merchant city in the late third to early second millennium BCE, and ourished under the ambitious kings of the Third Dynasty of Ur, who built the rst-known ziggurat.

ost of the archaeological work at the site of ancient Ur, known today as Tell al Muqayyar in southern Iraq, was carried out between 1922 and 1934 by Sir Leonard Woolley, and sponsored by the University of Pennsylvania Museum and the British Museum. It became clear that the site was occupied from the Ubaid period (sixth millennium) onward for approximately 5,000 years: we know that Neo-Babylonian kings of the sixth century BCE were restoring prominent buildings at the site.

AN URBAN SPECTACLE: HOUSE OF THE MOON GOD NANNA

The last century of the third millennium (21122004 BCE) was probably Urs most prosperous period. It was the capital of the Third Dynasty of Ur; its rulers built public monuments and maintained urban spaces. The Ur III state was a powerful territorial kingdom with a complex bureaucratic system of provincial administration, taxation, and management of agricultural production and trade, recorded with unprecedented precision on thousands of tablets. The most outstanding building program was the sanctuary complex of the moon god Nanna, initiated by the rst king of the dynasty, Ur-Nammu (21122095 BCE) and completed by his son Shulgi (20952047 BCE). The sanctuary had its own enclosure wall and included the ceremonial Great Court of Nanna and the earliest archaeologically known ziggurat, built as a three-tiered solid structure of brickwork and measuring 205 ft by 140 ft (62.5 m by 43 m) at its base. Each baked brick was inscribed with Ur-Nammus name. It was also home to palatial structures, storerooms, and the Giparu, the dwelling of the entu-priestesses, the highest oce holders in the temple institution.
AIMING FOR THE MOON
The ancient Brick of Kurigalzu I, king of Babylon, records the restoration of the temple of the moon god Nanna. It was found at Ur, and dates to c. 1400 BCE.

THE AMAZING ZIGGURAT

The ziggurat at Ur was dedicated to the moon god Nanna and was first constructed around 2110 BCE. The restoration work gives us some idea of the grandeur of the original structure.

THE ROYAL TOMBS OF UR: ARTIFACTS OF COMPLEXITY

Woolleys team also excavated a cemetery, used between 2600 and 2100 BCE, of approximately 2,000 burials. Woolley designated 16 tombs royal, based

on the architectural complexity of the burial chambers, the wealth of tomb artifacts, and the evidence for sumptuous funerary rites. Some of the more impressive burials involved groups of individuals, such as musicians, servants, guards, and oxen-yoked carts and drivers, who apparently were sacriced to accompany the dead in the afterlife. The tomb artifacts are astounding in the technologies of production and diversity of materials used. Queen Puabis headdress was made of gold, lapis lazuli, and carnelian; the Great Lyre from Tomb 789 featured a gold-sheeted bulls head with an undulating beard in lapis lazuli, and a narrative panel of inlaid shell; a gold vessel in the form of an ostrich egg was inlaid with lapis lazuli, red limestone, and shell. The tombs contained ceremonial vessels, tools, weaponry, inscribed seals, musical instruments, jewelry, and furniture.

ANCIENT MESOPOTAMIA

217

Tell Asmar, Iraq

Tell Asmar, ancient Eshnunna, was a formidable Mesopotamian city of the third to early second millennium BCE, located in the Diyala River valley. The site was excavated by the University of Chicagos Oriental Institute in the 1930s and remains one of our best sources for understanding the complexity of Mesopotamian cities.

E
HERES LOOKING AT YOU
Dating back to c. 2999 BCE, this statuette of a male was found during the archaeological excavations of ancient Eshnunna, now Tell Asmar. This type of votive figurine is found throughout Mesopotamia in temple and city contexts.

arly Mesopotamian literary texts metaphorically refer to cities as the cattle-pen (tr) and the sheep-fold (ama), the archetypal enclosures of agricultural people of the southern alluvium.

THE CATTLE-PEN AND THE SHEEP-FOLD: THE EARLY MESOPOTAMIAN CITY

These metaphors for prosperity centered on the king as shepherd (sipa) who founded cities and exploited landscapes. Cities were laid out by the precious designs (gi-hur) of their gods, and endowed with divine powers (me). This complex image of the Mesopotamian city was, however, not

formed overnight. Tell Asmar presents a comprehensive image of a densely built urban landscape in the third and early second millennia BCE. Excavations uncovered residential neighborhoods and public buildings including temples, palace complexes, and the citys fortications. Eshnunnas urban ourishing coincides with a crucial transition in the history of Mesopotamian cities: the gradual appearance of the temple and the palace as two important, yet rival, socioeconomic institutions. In the Early Dynastic Period, the temple is the more powerful entity. Toward the end of the Early Dynastic Period and during the Akkadian/Ur III periods of the late third millennium BCE, the palace emerges as an equally powerful entity.

ABU TEMPLE CROWD

Early Dynastic Eshnunna was concentrated on the northwestern portion of the Tell Asmar mound, where archaeologists excavated a small temple, dedicated to a local god named Abu, with a long sequence of rebuilding, and some fascinating statues. Excavators determined three dierent architectural designsthe Archaic Shrine of the Early Dynastic I period, the Square Temple of the Early Dynastic II period, and the Single Shrine of the Early Dynastic III. The Square Temple of the mid-third millennium BCE appears to be the most prosperous and extensive phase of the building, with several cult rooms arranged around a central courtyard. One cult room contained a hoard of statues, both female and male, and of varying heights and features, that were carved from veined gypsum. One striking feature is the disproportionately large eyes, inlaid either with black limestone or lapis lazuli. Some scholars believe that prominent families may have dedicated these statues to the temple, the large eyes allowing them intense contact with the divine. North of the Abu Temple is the North Palace, where evidence for manufacturing activities, including textile production, was found. There was also an elaborate system of drains. In the late third and early second millennia BCE, Eshnunnas urban center moved to the southern sector of the mound where Akkadian, Ur III, and Isin-Larsa kings commissioned many palaces and temples.

218

ASIA

The Development of Writing

Stratigraphically the earliest seven tablets come from a structure called Temple C. However, approximately 6,000 tablets were excavated in the Late Uruk and Jemdet Nasr levels in the Sanctuary of Inanna at Uruk, primarily recovered from rubbish dumps or the lls used to create foundations for Level III buildings. This suggests that the practice of using written economic documents quickly spread with the passage of time. Yet the invention of cuneiform script was not a spontaneous invention of the scribes at the Eanna complex. In southern Mesopotamia, since the Neolithic and long before the appearance of tablets, hollow clay balls and clay tokens were used to record and administer economic transactions. Regularly shaped and sometimes incised small lumps of clay (tokens) were deposited in clay spheres that were hollow inside. The outer surfaces were then impressed with cylinder seals.

WEDGE-SHAPED WRITING
Cuneiform means wedge-shapedthe triangular tip of the stylus made small triangular signs in combination with lines. The earliest Uruk tablets, also known as archaic or proto-cuneiform tablets, present a complex system of logographic and numerical-metrological signs. Scholars have pointed out that these logograms or pictograms draw heavily on the pictorial repertoire of representations on seals and other visual media. For instance, the reed bundle that represents Inanna in pictographic writing is also attested extensively on cylinder and stamp seal impressions and alabaster vases. Approximately 900 signs were identied from this earliest phase. The incised iconographically explicit pictograms of the

REVERING THE GODS

This stone stele is dedicated to Shamash, the Sumerian and Babylonian sun god. It dates to c. 860 BCE and was erected to mark the rebuilding of the temple in Assyrian times.

One of the earliest writing systems of the ancient world was developed in southern Mesopotamia, approximately between 3300 and 2900 BCE. It is widely known as the cuneiform script, written with a reed stylus on soft damp clay tablets, which then either hardened up in Mesopotamias dry heat or, in rare cases, was baked. The earliest evidence of writing comes from the Late Uruk and Jemdet Nasr Period Levels IVa and III at the site of Uruk (Warka), in the Eanna Precinct (the sanctuary complex dedicated to the goddess Inanna) in the remains of a cultic/ administrative building. These earliest documents were composed of pictographic and numerical signs, and appear to be economic documents, testifying to the fact that writing appeared as an administrative, bureaucratic technology in the context of urbanization, increasing social and political complexity, and the appearance of monumental architecture.

KEEPING TALLY
Among the many testaments to everyday life found in Mesopotamia is this Sumerian clay tablet, dating to c. 2350 BCE, which lists an account of goats and sheep. It was found at Tello (ancient Girsu), one of the first sites in the region to be extensively excavated.

ANCIENT MESOPOTAMIA

219

ROYAL INSCRIPTIONS
This ancient Sumerian stone gate-socket bears an inscription of Ur-Gur, better known as UrNammu (who ruled Ur from 2112 to 2095 BCE ). Cuneiform script recorded important political and historical events, as well as daily economic transactions and activities relating to the temples.

archaic tablets were gradually abstracted with the increasingly ecient and dexterous use of the stylus and its multiple combinations of the basic cuneiform mark (a wedge and a line).

COMBINING PICTURES AND NUMBERS

As the archaic tablets from Uruk are entirely pictographic and numerical, they can be a means of incorporating rebus writing, phonetic/syllabic signs, and grammatical axes; Sumerian is attested as the language of writing in southern Mesopotamia. Among the tablets from Ur dating to around 2800 BCE, traces of Sumerian can be detected. Sumerian cannot be related to any other languages in world history. It was spoken in Mesopotamia until it was restricted to scholarly endeavor from the early second millennium BCE

onward. Cuneiform script was also adopted for writing Akkadian, the commonly used Semitic language of Mesopotamian history. For both Sumerian and Akkadian, in the scripts most complex form and throughout its use in history, cuneiform signs acquired multiple values, used either as syllables or as ideograms that stood for a word. The writing system necessitated a complex combination of both, making the script relatively dicult to follow. Alphabetic writing was not introduced to Mesopotamia until the Iron Age, with Aramaic, which developed out of Phoenician in c. 900 BCE. In the Iron Age in northern Syria and Anatolia, a hieroglyphic script was used in writing monumental inscriptions in Luwian by several regional states. Cuneiform was adapted to write both Aramaic and Luwian.

CYLINDER SEALS
Cylinder seals are another ubiquitous invention of Mesopotamian societies in the context of the Late Uruk urbanization, following the more widely known stamp seals. Cylinder-shaped seals were often carved out of hard and precious stones and bore complex pictorial representations (seen at right), which were impressed on clay by means of rolling. They were used to seal vessels, bundles, or doors, in addition to clay tablets or hollow clay balls. Since many of these clay elements used in transactions bear shapes and symbols that can be matched with the earliest pictograms and numerical signs in the earliest Uruk tablets, scholars have argued that they need to be seen as earlier stages in the development of the cuneiform script.

220

ASIA

Babylon, Iraq
Babylon has colored Western imaginations, beginning with Herodotus who described it as dierent from any other city in the known world. The Hanging Gardens of Babylon became one of the seven wonders in European medieval thought; the biblical account of the Tower of Babel and its confused tongues has inspired countless artists.
ut what did Babylon look like as a Mesopotamian city? Located on the bank of a branch of the Euphrates, 56 miles (90 km) southwest of Baghdad, Babylon was a vast city of the second and rst millennia BCE. Its name is the Greek spelling of the early citys Mesopotamian toponym babil(a), for which Mesopotamians developed a false etymology by reading the name Bab-ili, gate of the gods. Although attested as a town in texts of the late third millennium BCE, Babylon seems to have had its rst orescence at the time of Hammurabi (17921750 BCE), most prominent of the rulers of the First Dynasty of Babylon. Unfortunately little is known archaeologically of Hammurabis Babylon due to high levels of groundwater, which did not allow a comprehensive investigation of the Old Babylonian period. Even Hammurabis famous law code stele, which must

have been set up at a public space in Babylon, was not found here, but in Susa, the Elamite capital where it was kept along with other stone monuments taken as booty by the Elamite king ShutrukNahhunte around 1155 BCE.

ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE CITY: TINTIRBABYLON

Most of the archaeological work at Babylon has only exposed the Neo-Babylonian levels of the city, revealing the impressive building programs carried out by the sixth century BCE Babylonian kings Nebuchadnezzar II (604562 BCE) and Nabonidus (555539 BCE). The site was explored several times during the nineteenth century, but the most serious archaeological project was by a small German team, led by Robert Koldewey, between 1899 and 1914. They were interested

BABYLON RESPLENDENT
This c. 1950 illustration by Mario Larrinaga shows the splendor of the ancient city of Babylon. Two enduring symbols of the city are vividly evokedthe Tower of Babel in the background, and the legendary Hanging Gardens in the foreground.

ANCIENT MESOPOTAMIA

221

in a stratigraphic study of the citys architectural remains and a scientic documentation of what was excavated. Although excavated over a century ago, Babylon is extremely well documented. One other notable corpus of evidence for the citys ancient topography comes from an extensive cuneiform text known as TintirBabylon which is understood as a scholarly compendium that gloried Babylon as a great ceremonial center, through a detailed description of the citys public monuments. This invaluable source not only tells us names of various neighborhoods, districts, and buildings in the city, but also presents a coherent, albeit politicized, image of the city through the eyes of its inhabitants.

BABYLONIAN LAW
A transcription of the Law Code of Hammurabi, one of the worlds earliest-known systems of law. Scholars believe that the law stele would have been placed in a prominent position in the city. It was taken to Susa, Persia, around 1155 BCE.

NEBUCHADNEZZARS BABYLON: AKITU FESTIVAL AND A CEREMONIAL SPECTACLE

The Neo-Babylonian city was famous for its series of multiple-layered fortications and spectacular gates. The Euphrates River cut the city into the Eastern and Western halves. There was a large outer city on the Eastern bank, taking the river as part of its fortied enclosure. The Eastern and Western districts of the inner core of Babylon were connected by a bridge southwest of the sanctuary complex of Mardukthe supreme god of the Babylonian pantheonwhich was the largest and most spectacular architectural monument of the city in the Iron Age. Nebuchadnezzar II rebuilt the embankments, the moat enveloping the inner city, and the massive outwork structures that made up a complex hydraulic system. The monuments of the city center seem to have been structured around a spectacular processional street that linked Marduks sanctuary to the akitu house, a cult complex outside the city walls. This processional street became the stage set during the most important annual social event in the city: the akitu festival. Akitu, also known as the New Years Festival, was celebrated annually at the time of the spring equinox, and involved a sacred procession of the cult image of Marduk to the akitu house. The event was comparable to Roman triumphal processions. The processional street and the Ishtar Gate through which it passed were decorated with animals of Marduk in spectacular wall reliefs composed of glazed molded bricks, representing lions, dragons (muhuu), and bulls. The two palaces of the Neo-Babylonian kings were built at the northwestern edge of the citadel and overlooked the Euphrates canal, an architectural tradition well known from Assyrian cities. They were arranged around a series of ceremonial courtyards, also clad with glazed molded brick decorations. Babylons architectural landscape in the Iron Age appears as a place of urban spectacle where cultic and political ideologies merged together, with such force that it left a long-lasting imprint in human memory.

THE ISHTAR GATE

The Ishtar gate was an enormous baked brick structure rising more than 40 ft (12 m) high. A double gate, it encompassed the whole span of the citys fortifications, and was flanked by monumental towers, enclosure walls of the Southern and Northern Palaces and the Eastern Outworks. Marduks sanctuary, known as esagil, housed the famous ziggurat of Marduk, which inspired the myths about the Tower of Babel. The sanctuary acted as an assembly ground for all Mesopotamian deities during the akitu festival. The Ishtar Gate, originally built by King Nebuchadnezzar II in c. 575 BCE, was the main entrance to the inner city. The original fragments are in Berlin; this image shows Saddam Husseins replica.

222

ASIA

Khorsabad, Iraq
Ancient Assyrians were ambitious city builders. Throughout the prosperous centuries of the Assyrian Empire (934611 BCE), they built numerous cities in the Upper Tigris Basin of northern Iraq. The construction of Khorsabad, ancient Dur-arrukn (Fortress of Sargon), by King Sargon II (721705 BCE) was one of the most ambitious building projects of the time.

planned urban utopia, the city of Khorsabad was built from scratch on virgin soil, with the collaborative eort of craftsmen and workers from all Assyrias provinces. During the 300 years of Neo-Assyrian rule, the landscapes of Upper Mesopotamia were transformed through the construction and rebuilding of cities, carving of canals, planting of orchards, and marking of territories with rock reliefs. In the making of the Land of Aur, these ambitious urban construction projects in the Upper and Middle Tigris Basins were fundamental: Tukulti-Ninurta Is Tulul ul Aqar, Aur-nasir-pal IIs Nimrud, Sargon IIs Khorsabad, and Sennacheribs Nineveh are the most notable of these, as they each marked the shift of the political and ceremonial center of the empire to new cities.

THE CULTURAL BIOGRAPHY OF A CITY

SET IN STONE
This bas-relief from the palace of King Sargon II in Khorsabad dates to the eighth century BCE. Sargon II extended Assyrian influence and consolidated much of the work of his predecessor, Shalmaneser V.

Khorsabad was founded about 12 miles (20 km) northeast of Nineveh, on a minor tributary of the Tigris. Started around 717 BCE, the project was unnished at the time of Sargons death in 705 BCE, when the Assyrian capital moved again to Nineveh. Archaeologically we know a great deal about Sargons project, possibly more than any other Assyrian city. There is a wealth of textual sources associated with Sargon specically about the construction process. Letters between Sargon and building overseers demonstrate the kings involvement with construction details, while suggesting that the city wall and its gates were divided up among craftsmen and builders from provinces across the empire, who were

BUILDING URBAN CENTERS

Construction of each urban center during the Late Assyrian period was a massive and festive undertaking: opening new stone quarries, procuring building materials, bringing in skilled craftsmen and a large labor force, introducing new building technologies, instituting new cult festivals, and finally providing a big feast for all. Assyrian cities are known for their extensive use of cut-stone masonry and wall slabs: palaces, temples, gates, and other public spaces were lined with stone slabs known as orthostats, which were extensively carved with bas-relief representations and royal inscriptions. Stone monuments such as obelisks and steles presented city-dwellers with an ideological version of the societys mythical and political history.

often responsible for procuring their own materials. The construction was literally a collective enterprise. The site has been extensively archaeologically explored. Due to its relatively short life (about 100 years), its stratigraphy is straightforward, its architecture well preserved. Nineteenth century colonialist explorations by the French consuls at Mosul (Paul Emile Botta in 18431844 and Victor Place in 18521854) were mainly directed at recovering wall reliefs and sculptures for the Louvre Museum in Paris. Unfortunately, a large number of stone reliefs from Sargons palace sank to the bottom of the Tigris River near Qurna while being transported. These reliefs are only known from the drawings of Flix Thomas, Places draftsman. Excavations of Khorsabad between 1929 and 1935 by the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago concentrated on Sargons palatial complex and the main citadel, Palace F, as well as the citys defensive system. The

ANCIENT MESOPOTAMIA

223

Iraqi Directorate General of Antiquities initiated work there in 1957, excavating the temple of Sebittu.

AN IMPERIAL URBAN LANDSCAPE

The city of Khorsabad was almost square in shape. The overall layout demonstrates a concern for creating large and well-dened public spaces in a systematic way. There were seven evenly placed monumental gates. The citadel was constructed on the northeastern edge of the city and housed Sargons palace complex, the Nabu Temple, and elite residences. It was a common Assyrian practice to build palace compounds at the edge of the citadel, often overlooking a river or landscape. Palace F, a smaller complex, was also built separately on the southwest citadel wall on a terrace. Archaeologists identify this complex as the state treasury. The palace complex, which was named -gal-gabari-nu-tuku-a or palace without rival, and the Nabu Temple were built on a higher level on articial terraces of rough limestone and mud-brick; they were connected to each other by a corbeled stone bridge. The temple of Nabu, god of writing and wisdom, was an outstanding complex with 45 rooms arranged around ve courtyards. The temples major facade was clad with brightly colored glazed bricks depicting lions, eagles, bulls, and g trees. The palace itself was a giant ceremonial, residential, and administrative complex of about 240 rooms, arranged around three large courtyards. The entrance was through three monumental gateways anked by pairs of colossal human-headed winged bulls, carved out of ne gypsum. The ceremonial courtyards, reception halls, and many other rooms

in the palace complex were lined with nely dressed stone slabs beautifully carved with reliefs. Outside the palace complex, but intricately connected with the palace forecourt, was the southwest sector, a cult complex with three monumental sanctuaries to Sin, Shamash, and Ningal, and smaller shrines to Ea, Adad, and Ninurta. A ziggurat rose to the northwest of the complex. The palace layout illustrates a departure from the earlier more modestscale Assyrian palatial projects, incorporating administrative, ceremonial, and residential activities into a coherent architectural ensemble.

NIMRUDS PALACES
An 1853 engraving by James Fergusson, based on information from the English archaeologist Sir Austen Henry Layard, shows the palaces of Ashurbanipal II (883859 BCE ). Layard (1817 1894) was one of the early excavators of the Assyrian site.

WRITING IT ALL DOWN

An Assyrian cuneiform tablet clearly shows the famous wedgeshaped script. Cuneiform was used for about 3,000 years, and was the dominant script throughout Mesopotamia.