Khafajah

Khafajah was excavated for 7 seasons between 1930 and 1937 by an Oriental Institute of Chicago team led by Henri Frankfort with Thorkild Jacobsen, Conrad Preusser and Pinhas Delougaz.[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8] For two seasons, in 1937 and 1938, the site was worked by a joint team of the American Schools of Oriental Research and the University of Pennsylvania led by Delougaz.[9] Among the small finds was an Akkadian period die.[10] and a terracotta incantation bowl written in "typical Jewish Babylonian Aramaic of the Sasanian period".[11]

The site consists of four mounds, labeled A through D. The main one, Mound A, extends back as far as the Uruk period and contained an oval temple, a temple of the god Sin, and a temple of Nintu. About 70 Akkadian Period cuneiform tablets were found there. Most of the tablets were administrative in nature and were apportioned half to the Oriental Institute and half to the Baghdad Museum.[12] The Dur-Samsuiluna fort was found on mounds B and C. Mound D was surrounded by a 6.5 meter thick fortification wall with towers at inflection points and a fortified gate. A large number of baked clay mase heads were found in front of the gate. There were no private homes within the walls[13] It contained a temple for the god Sin where the archive tablets where found in two heaps.[14] The construction of this temple began in 3300-2900 BC (late Uruk or Jemdet-Nasr period), and at least 10 architectural phases have been identified in the subsequent rebuilding that continued. The temple’s last phase was during the Early Dynastic III period.[15]

Votive wall plaque from Khafajah showing a wine drinking scene, Iraq, 2600-2370 BCE. Iraq Museum

The history of Khafajah is known in somewhat more detail for a period of several decades as a result of the discovery of 112 clay tablets (one now lost) in a temple of Sin. The tablets constitute part of an official archive and include mostly loan and legal documents. The Oriental Institute of Chicago holds 57 of the tablets with the remainder being in the Iraq Museum.[18][19][20] Some Early Dynastic Sumerian statues from Khafajah are on the Oriental Institute's list of Lost Treasures from Iraq (after April 9, 2003); however, they have been housed at the Sulaymaniyah Museum since 1961 (see the gallery below).[21]

The Iraq Museum's Sumerian Gallery displays several Sumerian statues from the Temple of Sin and the Temple of Nintu (V and VI), including part of a hoard found at the Nintu Temple.

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  Female worshiper, Sin Temple, Khafajah, Iraq Museum
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  Female worshiper, Sin Temple, Khafajah, Iraq Museum
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  Statue from the Sin Temple, Khafajah, Iraq Museum
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  Statue from the Temple of Sin at Khafajah, Iraq Museum
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  Statue from the Hoard of Nintu Temple V at Khafajah, Iraq Museum
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  Statue from the Hoard of Nintu Temple V at Khafajah, Iraq Museum
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  Male statue from Hoard in Nintu Temple V at Khafajah, Iraq Museum
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  Statue from Nintu Temple VI at Khafajah, Iraq Museum
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  Male statuette, Nintu Temple VI, Khafajah, Iraq Museum
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  Male statuette, Sin Temple IX, Khafajah, Iraq Museum
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  Male statuette, Nintu Temple VI, Khafajah, Iraq Museum
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  Limestone human head found at Khafajah, Early Dynastic II (c. 2700 BC)
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  Cylinder seal found at Khafajah, Jemdet Nasr period, (3100–2900 BC)
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  Three Sumerian statues, Early Dynastic Period, 2900-2350 BC, from Khafajah, Iraq. The Sulaymaniyah Museum
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  Head of a Sumerian female, from Khafajah, excavated by the Oriental Institute, Early Dynastic III, c. 2400 BC. The Sulaymaniyah Museum
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  Headless statue of a Sumerian man, from Khafajah, Early Dynastic Period, 2900-2350 BC. The Sulaymaniyah Museum

• Tell Ishchali
• Cities of the ancient Near East

• Ch. P., "Les Fouilles de Khafaje", Revue Archéologique, vol. 11, pp. 90–90, 1938
• Ch. P., "Fouilles de Khafaje", Revue Archéologique, vol. 13, pp. 262–262, 1939
• Pinhas Delougaz, "Pottery from the Diyala Region", Oriental Institute Publications 63, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1952, ISBN 0-226-14233-7
• Evans, J., "Thinking through assemblages: donors and the Sin Temple at Khafajah", in Ancient Near Eastern Temple Inventories in the Third and Second Millennia BCE: Integrating Archaeological, Textual, and Visual Sources (Münchener Abhandlungen zum Alten Orient 4), Gladbeck, pp. 13-26, 2019
• Henrickson, Elizabeth F., "Functional Analysis of Elite Residences in the Late Early Dynastic of the Diyala Region: House D and the Walled Quarter at Khafajah and the Palaces at Tell Asmar", Mesopotamia Torino 17, pp. 5-33, 1982
• Pinhas Delougaz and Seton Lloyd with chapters by Henri Frankfort and Thorkild Jacobsen, "Pre-Sargonid Temples in the Diyala Region", Oriental Institute Publications 58, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1942
• Henri Frankfort, "Stratified Cylinder Seals from the Diyala Region", Oriental Institute Publications 72, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1955
• Henri Frankfort., "More Sculpture from the Diyala Region", Oriental Institute Publications 60, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1943
• Henri Frankfort, "Sculpture of the Third Millennium B.C. from Tell Asmar and Khafajah, Oriental Institute Publication 44, 1939
• Henri Frankfort, "The Oldest Stone Statuette Ever Found in Western Asia, and Other Relics of Ancient Sumerian Culture of a Period Probably before 3000 B.c.: Earliest Temple at Khafaje", The Illustrated London News, pp. 524-526 and col. pl. I, September 26 1936
• Henri Frankfort, "Two Iraq Sites over 5000 Years Old: Fresh Discoveries at Tell Asmar, Source Of First-known Sumerian Cult-Statues, and at Khafaje, Which Later Yeilded Similar Types of Early Religious Sculpture", The Illustrated London News, pp. 726-32 and col. pl. I, September 14 1935
• Henri Frankfort, ""A Moon-God's Temple with Art Relics of about 3000 BC : New Discoveries at Khafaje, Mesopotamia", The Illustrated London News, pp. 840-841, November 13 1937
• Kempinski, A., "The Sin Temple at Khafaje and the En-Gedi Temple", Israel Exploration Journal, vol. 22, no. 1, pp. 10–15, 1972
• Margueron, Jean-Claude, "Notes d’archéologie et d’architecture orientales 16. De la strate à la couche architecturale : réexamen de la stratigraphie de Tuttub/KhafajéI - L’architecture civile", Syria, vol. 89, pp. 59–84, 2012
• Quenet, Philippe, "Reconstructing the Temple Oval of Khafajah. Insight into the Emergence of Multi-Stepped Terraces", in The Old Babylonian Diyala: Research since the 1930s ans Prospects, 2018.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Khafajah.

• Oriental Institute slides of the site
• Archaeology of Khafah write-up at Brown University
• Two wrestlers balancing vessels (jars) on their heads- ca. 2600 B.C at Oriental Institute
• Bowl with mosaic inlays on outside - ca. 3000 B.C at Oriental Institute
• Plaque, decorated with three registers of relief, showing banquet scene with musicians - ca. 2600 B.C at Oriental Institute
• Sumerian Temple Architecture in Early Mesopotamia. Rice University (OpenStax Project)