Tell Khaiber

Tell Khaiber (تل خيبر) is a tell, or archaeological settlement mound, in southern Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq). It is located thirteen kilometers west of the modern city of Nasiriyah, about 19 kilometers northwest of the ancient city of Ur in Dhiq Qar Province and 25 kilometers south of the ancient city of Larsa. In 2012, the site was visited by members of the Ur Region Archaeology Project (URAP), a cooperation between the British Institute for the Study of Iraq, the University of Manchester and the Iraqi State Board for Antiquities and Heritage.[1] They found that the site had escaped looting, and applied for an excavation permit.

Tell Khaiber
تل خيبر
Tell Khaiber is located in Iraq
Tell Khaiber
Shown within Iraq
Tell Khaiber is located in Near East
Tell Khaiber
Tell Khaiber (Near East)
LocationDhi Qar Governorate, Iraq
RegionMesopotamia
Coordinates31°3′36.07463″N 45°56′1.43372″E
Typetell
History
PeriodsUbaid period, Early Dynastic period, Jemdet Nasr period, Kassites
Site notes
Excavation dates2013; 2014; 2015; 2016; 2017
ArchaeologistsStuart Campbell

History

Very little is known about the Sealand Dynasty. Traditionally it was thought to exist roughly between 1700 and 1400 BC and to have replaced Babylon after its fall sometime around 1550 BC. Tell Khaiber is the first Sealand site excavated. It has been dated to circa 1500 BC.[2] Pottery shards from earlier periods including Late Uruk and Jemdet Nasr were widely found on the site but pre-second millenium remains are below the current water table.[3]

Archaeology

The site consists of two mounds designated as Tell Khaiber 1 and Tell Khaiber 2 (sometimes called Tell Gurra), both roughly 300 x 250 meters in area. Most of the Tell Khaiber 1 occupation is from the Sealand Dynasty period but pottery fragments from the Ubaid, Jemdet Nasr, and Early Dynastic periods were also found. Three baked bricks stamped with Ur III king Amar-Sin are thought to be imported from another site. Tell Khaiber 2 dates to the Kassite period. They lay on an ancient branch of the Euphrates River.

The two mounds were first identified in an area survey by Henry Wright in 1965, naming them Ishan Khaiber (site 60) and Tell Gurra (site 61).[4] In the 1976 Iraqi Directorate of Antiquities atlas of archaeological sites both mounds were named Ishan Khaiber (sites 107 and 108).[5] Between 2013 and 2017, the site was excavated by a team of Iraqi and British archaeologists.[6][7] The excavations revealed the presence of a settlement dominated by a large administrative building dating to c. 1500 BCE, or the Middle Bronze Age.[8][9] The building, 53 meters by 83 meters (53m × 27.5m in its initial phase), covered 4400 square meters and was surrounded by 3.5 m thick walls, with large towers having meter-thick walls, pierced by a single gate. Among the finds from this building was an archive of 152 clay tablets and fragments, after joins were made. Excavated tablets from the Sealand Dynasty are uncommon but a number of unprovenances tablets in various institutions have been identified by Stephanie Dalley.[10] The tablets were written in Akkadian, though some Sumerian language school tablets were also found, and deal mostly with the administration of agricultural activities.[11] Some of the tablets contained dates ("Year: Aya-dara-galama became king"), which indicated that the building was in use during the reign of Ayadaragalama, the eighth king of the Sealand Dynasty.[12] Three private homes lying southeast of the public building were also investigated. A stratified sequence for 1st Sealand ceramics was also developed.[13][14]

See also

References
  1. "Visit to Baghdad and Southern Iraq | Ur Region Archaeology Project". www.urarchaeology.org. Retrieved 2018-06-20.
  2. Ur Region Archaeological Project - 2016 Report
  3. Calderbank, Daniel and Moon, Jane. "A Ceramic Assemblage of the Early Literate Periods from Sumer". At the Dawn of History: Ancient Near Eastern Studies in Honour of J. N. Postgate, edited by Yağmur Heffron, Adam Stone and Martin Worthington, University Park, USA: Penn State University Press, 2021, pp. 73-84
  4. Wright, H. T., ‘The southern margins of Sumer: an archaeological survey of the areas of Eridu and Ur’, in R. M. Adams, Heartland of Cities (Chicago. University of Chicago Press), pp. 295–338, 1981
  5. Ahmad Salman, Atlas of the Archaeological Sites of Iraq, , vol. I-II, Directorate General of Antiquities, Ministry of Information, Iraq 1976,
  6. "Who We Are | Ur Region Archaeology Project". www.urarchaeology.org. Retrieved 2018-06-20.
  7. Text - Supplement - Campbell, S.; Killick, R.; Moon, J.; Calderbank, D.; Robson, E. (2021). "Summary report on excavations at Tell Khaiber, an administrative centre of the Sealand period, 2013-2017". Sumer. A Journal of Archaeology and History in Arab World. 65: 15–46. ISSN 0081-9271.
  8. Campbell, S.; Moon, J.; Killick, R.; Robson, E.; Calderbank, D.; Shepperson, M.; Slater, F. (2017-05-31). "Tell Khaiber: an administrative centre of the Sealand period". Iraq. 78 (1): 21–46. doi:10.1017/irq.2017.1. ISSN 0021-0889. S2CID 132207350.
  9. Shepperson, Mary (2020). "An Architectural Analysis of the Sealand Building at Tell Khaiber, Southern Iraq". Iraq. 82: 207–226. doi:10.1017/irq.2020.8. ISSN 0021-0889. S2CID 229305169.
  10. Dalley, Stephanie (2009). Babylonian tablets from the first Sealand dynasty in the Schøyen Collection. Bethesda, Maryland. ISBN 978-1-934309-08-7. OCLC 319318905.
  11. Robson, E. (2019), Johnston, C. (ed.), "Information flows in rural Babylonia, c.1500 BC", The Concept of the Book: The Production, Progression and Dissemination of Information, London, UK: School of Advanced Study, retrieved 2021-12-15
  12. Shepperson, Mary (2017-09-01). "Castle of the Sealand kings: Discovering ancient Iraq's rebel rulers". the Guardian. Retrieved 2018-06-20.
  13. Daniel Calderbank, "Pottery from Tell Khaiber : A Craft Tradition of the First Sealand Dynasty", Moonrise Press Ltd, 11 Oct 2021, ISBN 9781910169025
  14. Calderbank, Daniel, "Dispersed Communities of Practice During the First Dynasty of the Sealand: The Pottery from Tell Khaiber, Southern Iraq", Babylonia under the Sealand and Kassite Dynasties, edited by Susanne Paulus and Tim Clayden, Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, pp. 58-87, 2020

Sources
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