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News from Iraq

Intact Temple Library Found at Sippar

Archaeologists dream of opening a door and discovering an archive—the words, in a sense the voice—of an ancient people. That’s what happened at ancient Sippar in Iraq, where the temple library, overlooked by 19th-century excavators, has emerged. The ancient city of Sippar (today called Abu Habba by nearby villagers) is located about 25 miles southwest of Baghdad. A center of learning in the ancient world, Sippar was first excavated by Hormuzd Rassam in 1881, and by the French excavator Père Vincent Scheil in 1882. Subsequently, for almost a century, Sippar was neglected. Then in 1977 a commission of scientific excavations was formed in the Department of Archaeology at the University of Baghdad. The commission assumed responsibility for training students in scientific methods of excavation so they would be prepared to resume excavation at Sippar as well as to conduct a survey of archaeological sites in the surrounding area.

Excavation at Sippar, directed by Dr. Walid al-Jadir of the University of Baghdad, resumed in the early 1980s. In January 1986 the excavators found themselves in a room in the temple of Shamash, the deified sun and principal god of Sippar, beyond which Rassam had not penetrated. Leading off this room, unsuspected by Rassam, was another small room containing a library of clay tablets still ranged on the largely intact shelves.

The 3-foot-wide library doorway opens into a room about 14 feet long and 9 feet wide. Built out from the room’s two short walls to right and left, as well as on the long back wall, are a series of niches.

Arranged in rows, one above the other, the niches are about 7 inches high, 12 inches wide and 28 inches deep. Like the walls from which they project, these small compartments are made of mudbrick. Reeds plaster the inside of the niches, giving them a roughly semicircular shape. Four rows of niches line each of the two side walls, and six rows appear along the back wall. The lowest level of niches is about 14 inches above the floor. Three levels of niches are completely preserved; a fourth level above them, probably the top one, is damaged at the left side but preserved at the right and back. Thus, the room originally contained 56 niches.

In the niches, clay tablets were stacked on their long sides like books, two or three rows deep, up to 60 per niche—making a total of more than 2,000 tablets originally stored in the library. Some of the tablets are badly encrusted with salt; baking will be necessary to remove the salt. The tablets are of different sizes, although all are quite large. They have been inscribed with extreme care in very small cuneiform script, indicating that the scribes were expert in writing. The tablets constitute a library of texts written in Sumerian and Akkadian. Presumably they reflect the standard scribal curriculum—the traditional body of literary texts in cuneiform that student scribes at that time were expected to learn.

It is not the number of tablets found at Sippar that is remarkable. Larger collections of cuneiform texts have been discovered at Ebla, at Emar and at Tell Leilan, all in Syria. Nor is the date of the library, probably the sixth century B.C., the source of the great excitement generated by the discovery. At Sippar, the library’s organization was preserved; this is not true of other great Mesopotamian libraries. For example, from the careful work of archaeologists, we have learned a great deal about the encyclopedic library that Assurbanipal put together in his palace at Nineveh (668–624 B.C.); but archaeologists found no clues at Nineveh to the cataloging of this library. At Ebla, only traces of ordering were discovered. The Sippar excavations promise to show how a neo-Babylonian (1000–500 B.C.) library was organized and what texts it contained.

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Above all it is the Sippar library’s collection of literary texts that has captured the attention of the scholarly world. Professor William Hallo of Yale University observes that we have access to many ancient archives with records of daily life—of commerce and laws. But our knowledge of the “thoughts that agitated people’s minds” is limited, and it is this understanding that will be enriched by the literary texts found at Sippar.

Among the tablets so far examined, the vast majority are, in the broad sense, literary. Some are stated to be copies of “originals” from Babylon, Nippur and other centers. Some are copies of inscriptions on stone or metal, stelae and other tablets. One list of temple property in the Nippur region, kept perhaps as a curiosity, bears a date in the seventh year of Adad-apla-iddina (1061 B.C.). One literary text has a colophon dated in the second year of Neriglissar (558 B.C.); and one small economic text bears the date of the first year of Cambyses (529 B.C.), which gives the most secure date at present for the library.

Inscriptions so far identified include the prologue of the Code of Hammurabi^a and a Hammurabi inscription commemorating the building of the walls of Sippar.^b

Describing the library at Sippar as “one of the most important discoveries in this century,” the Iraqi newspaper Al-Thawra said on April 10, 1986, that “The archaeological commission is taking the scientific means to preserve this scientific treasure, at the first stages, in preparation for the study of these documents. They will be subsequently published.”

During the summer of 1990 in Baghdad, the 37th annual meeting of the Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale will bring together archaeologists, historians and philologists of the ancient Near East. There can be little doubt that the visiting scholars will expect to see the extraordinary library at Sippar and to hear about progress made in preserving, reading and publishing the tablets.

Mashkan-shapir—Lost Mesopotamian City Rediscovered

On January 13, 1989, Elizabeth Stone had been excavating at Tell Abu Duwari in southern Iraq for just a few weeks. As she walked slowly along the traces of a newly discovered ancient city wall, she spotted cuneiform writing on clay fragments lying on the ground—right on the surface. Startled, the archaeologist paused and reached down for the sherds. Stone’s astonishment increased as she read. “When the great lord, the hero, Nergal, in his overflowing heart verily caused his city Mashkan-shapir to rise and determined to build its wall. … ”

Stone realized that she had discovered the lost Mesopotamian city of Mashkan-shapir—a city-state capital and important trading center that, 4,000 years ago, rivaled King Hammurabi’s nearby city of Babylon. 052Located about 90 miles southeast of Baghdad, Mashkan-shapir had lain unoccupied—and undetected in the surrounding desert—since its destruction about 1720 B.C.

Associate professor of anthropology at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, Stone and her husband, Paul Zimansky, assistant professor of archaeology at Boston University, co-direct the Mashkan-shapir excavation team. Funded by the National Geographic Society and the American Schools of Oriental Research, the team intends to excavate extensively the major areas of the 138-acre walled city. Testifying to the size of the challenge before them, Zimansky observes, “We’d be happy to spend the rest of our lives digging at Mashkan-shapir.”

Unlike the great majority of Near East tells—many-layered mounds of different occupations—Mashkan-shapir flourished for only one period, from about 2050 to 1720 B.C. “That makes it extremely rare and valuable,” says Stone. “Layer upon layer of later occupation cover most of these ancient sites. With our [city’s] original layout intact, we hope to find a lot more about how the world’s oldest cities functioned and were organized.”

After only six weeks of digging, the excavation team has already discovered a religious quarter with temples and statuary; a cemetery where the dead were buried in huge jars; a 400-foot-long palace; quays; harbors; and an elaborate canal system that linked Mashkan-shapir to both the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.

Because the war in Iraq made aerial photography a security risk, the intrepid Zimansky lofted an automatic camera on a kite. The resulting photos, along with satellite images, revealed an ancient riverbed—the city had probably been located on a joint Tigris-Euphrates channel—and other important natural and constructed features. Two northwest-southeast canals brought water into the city. These canals were linked by two other canals, with harbors at the two north intersections. Contemporaneous cuneiform texts record that Mashkan-shapir had an armada of 240 boats—which must have been moored in these harbors. The trapezoid created by the four canals defines the sectors of the ancient city, where 15,000 people once lived.

In the religious quarter, below the south canal, mudbrick and baked brick platforms probably supported temples dedicated to the city’s god, Nergal, lord of death and king of the nether world. Near one of the platforms, the archaeologists found fragments of terra-cotta statues, some life-size, of humans, lions and a horse. The cemetery, in the central sector, has yielded beads, copper amulets and weapons that were buried with the dead. Unusual model chariots have been discovered in great numbers in the western sector, where the palace is located. The shields on these clay vehicles display either Nergal himself or scythes—confirming Nergal as the original grim reaper.

Evidence of Mashkan-shapir’s major industry, pottery and copper/bronze manufacturing, has surfaced in nearly every sector of the city, suggesting that each sector had its own potter and smith. “The concept of neighborhoods could have been very important in Mesopotamian cities,” says Stone. “We want to test that hypothesis.” Millions of pottery sherds have been found, as well as decorated clay plaques, the chariot models and copper and bronze objects, including grinding stones and mortars and pestles.

But the prize finds of the fledgling dig remain the cuneiform fragments. In all, nearly 150 fragments have been found. Originally they made up more than 10 different, barrel-shaped cylinders, each 12 inches long. Struck to commemorate the vast city wall, they had been buried in its foundation, near the south gate.

Prosperous and strategically located on a north-south trade route, Mashkan-shapir was so admired by King Hammurabi that he mentioned it in the prologue to his famous code of law. In self-aggrandizing language typical of such inscriptions, the king declares, “Hammurabi, the shepherd, called by Enlil, am I; … the one who granted life to Mashkan-shabrim … ”

After Hammurabi died, about 1750 B.C., war and revolt wrecked his empire. About 1720 B.C. Mashkan-shapir and neighboring cities were burned. With its dikes and dams destroyed, the canals of Mashkan-shapir filled with silt, and the deserted capital succumbed to the desert.

Special Interests

Two New Journals

If you would like to place Biblical archaeology in a larger context, Mediterranean Historical Review may be the journal for you. Mediterranean Historical Review encourages the study of issues that transcend particular places and historical periods. Recent articles of interest to students of Biblical archaeology include “Archaeology and History at Tel Michal” by Ze’ev Herzog and “Caesarea Maritima and the Building of Harbours in Late Antiquity” by Robert L. Hohlfelder.

Published twice a year, Mediterranean Historical Review is edited by Shlomo Ben-Ami and Irad Malkin of Tel Aviv University. To subscribe, send £20 (or a check for the equivalent in U.S. dollars) to: Frank Cass & Co., Ltd., Gainsborough House, 11 Gainborough Road, London Ell 1RS, England.

In the last 25 years, archaeologists have made many important discoveries pertaining to the era of Persian domination in the Near East (sixth to fourth centuries B.C.), yet comparatively little scholarly work has been published on this subject. A new journal, Transeuphratène: Studies on Syria, Palestine and Cyprus in the Persian Period, will provide a needed forum for publication, in French, English, German and Italian, of scholarly research on the history, archaeology, epigraphy and other aspects of the Persian period. The first volume (about 200 pages), edited by Dr. Josette Elayi and Dr. Jean Sapin, was published in March 1989. It may be ordered by sending 235 francs (or the equivalent amount in U.S. dollars) to Editions Gabalda, 18, rue Pierre et Marie Curie, 75005 Paris, France.

Dig Opportunity

Volunteers Needed: Can You Leave Tomorrow?

A late prehistoric settlement in Israel has fallen victim to a movie cliché. In an area of low ridges and sand dunes near Kibbutz Palmahim, on the Mediterranean coast about nine miles south of Tel Aviv, the blowing winds and shifting sands have buried the ancient site under a dune. The Israel Department of Antiquities and Museums plans to launch, this June and July, a large-sale salvage excavation of the settlement, which dates to the fourth millennium B.C. and includes remains from Chalcolithic and Early Bronze I periods of occupation.

Led by archaeologist Eliot Braun, the project seeks a limited number of volunteers, who must be at least 17 years old and willing to work for a minimum of two weeks. Room and board will be provided free of charge. Volunteers pay only a nonrefundable registration fee of $35 and provide their own health insurance.

For more information, write to Ms. Harriet Menahem, c/o Israel Department of Antiquities and Museums, P.O. Box 586, Jerusalem 91004, Israel; or phone 972-2-278-211.

Correction

In the May/June 1989 issue (BAR 15:02), the photographs credited to David Ilan, which appeared on the cover and in “The Rampant Rape of Israel’s Archaeological Sites,” should have been credited to Gil Yarom of the Anti-Plunder Task Force of the Israel Department of Antiquities and Museums.