The Archaeology of Political Spaces

The Upper Mesopotamian Piedmont in the Second Millennium BCE

Dominik Bonatz

• Publisher: De Gruyter
• Year: 2014
• Topic: History
• eBook ISBN:
  9783110370348
• Subtopic: Ancient History
• Index: History

This book, consisting of 12 contributions, amalgamates the most recent results from archaeological research in the Upper Mesopotamian piedmont. Under the growing influence of expanding territorial states which had become established during the 2^nd millennium BC, this region experienced a substantial change in social and political life during that time. The discussion is centered around settlement shapes, developments in the material culture, as well as written documents that attest to this change. In summary, this book emphasizes the significant roll of archaeological research in the reconstruction of models concerning the formation and transformation of political space in the ancient world.

Development and Transformation of Settlements and Settlement Systems in the Khabur Headwater Region

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Rafał Koliński

20^th Century BC in the Khabur Triangle Region and the Advent of the Old Assyrian Trade with Anatolia

0. Introduction

For some time, the turn of the third millennium BC in Northern Mesopotamia has been considered a period of settlement collapse that witnessed the abandonment of the whole area (Weiss et al. 1993). Recent research in the Khabur Triangle, a region located in the central part of the Jazirah, has demonstrated that during the so-called Post-Akkadian (or Early Jazirah V) period the central part of the area at least had been settled and probably politically divided between Urkeš and Nagar, both serving as seats of local dynasties of Hurrian origin. A dark period starts with the abandonment of the Post-Akkadian levels at most of the sites in the area. As for the subsequent period, lasting approximately 100 to 200 years little or nothing is known about the archaeology of the area. Only with the advent of the Middle Bronze Age II period, in which the well-known Khabur Ware pottery appears in its technically and stylistically most developed form, do settlements in the Khabur Triangle seem to be reestablished. Yet, this process can hardly be dated with precision. At some sites Khabur Ware is contemporary with Samsī-Addu’s ‘Kingdom of North Mesopotamia’¹ (1809–1776 BC) (Barjamovic et al., 25, 29–32, fig. 10) such as at Tell Chagar Bazar, Tell Rimah, Tell Leilan, and Tell Bi’a, i.e., belong to the first quarter of 18^th century BC², but it appears as well on sites with later texts, dating after the Samsī-Addu’s death.³ On the other hand, pottery earlier than the 18^th century BC has turned out to be very difficult to identify (Faivre / Nicolle 2007, 185). In consequence, while excavations and surveys identified a considerable number of sites located in the central and the eastern part of North Mesopotamia yielding what I call Classic (i.e., Middle Bronze Age/Old Jazirah II) Khabur Ware pottery (Meijer 1986; Lyonnet 2000), no site with earlier pottery was identified, suggesting a long period of abandonment in the area.

This view stands in opposition to information provided by the so-called Old Assyrian texts. These texts cover a period of more than a century, before Samsī-Addu’s ascent to the throne in Assur, in which the Khabur Triangle area was frequented by merchants traveling from Assur towards the Euphrates crossing in the area of present-day Samsat (Veenhof 2008b) and further, up to Anatolia. It is hard to believe, that they had chosen to travel through a country that was entirely abandoned. While a reconstruction of the network of their caravan routes is still a matter of dispute, there is no doubt that a number of settlements existed on the way, serving as stopping stations after a day of travel (Nashef 1987; Joannès 1996; Forlanini 2006).

The aim of this paper is to identify pottery predating Classic Khabur Ware, pottery that could be subsequently used for the identification of settlements contemporary to the first period of the Old Assyrian trade to Anatolia (prior to 1800 BC) in the Khabur Triangle area.

1. The Old Assyrian trade

1.a Sources

The primary source for the knowledge of the Old Assyrian period are substantial archives found during initially illicit and later scientific excavations at Kültepe (ancient Kaneš), a large site located in the Kızıl Irmak valley in central Turkey. The number of tablets found at the site was estimated at ca. 23,000 in 2005 (Albayrak 2005) and has probably increased since then, as new texts are discovered during each field season. Of these tablets ca. 20 per cent have been published in copies, but only half of those were translated and commented.

A limited number of tablets (in comparison to the Kültepe/Kaneš archives) were found at some other Anatolian sites: Alişsar Höyük (63 tablets), Boğazkale (72 documents), and Kaman-Kalehöyük (one tablet) (Michel 2002).

Surprisingly, only an extremely small number of Old Assyrian texts are known from Assur, the city that formed the base for the trade. Twenty-three tablets that were identified are mainly stray texts found in Middle Assyrian archives (Donbaz 1974; Pedersén 1985, 2). This situation results from the fact that the early second millennium city was not excavated to any significant extent by either early or late 20^th century explorers. Paradoxically, nearly the same number of Old Assyrian tablets are known from Mesopotamian sites such as Nuzi (six tablets), Abu Habba/Sippar (14 tablets), Tell Asmar/Ešnunna (one tablet) Nippur (one tablet) and Mari (three tablets) (Michel 2002). Old Assyrian texts from the Jazirah are even less numerous: there are three tablets from Tell Rimah, one tablet from Tell Leilan, one tablet from Tell Hammam et-Turkman, and, if Jesper Eidem is right, an envelope fragment from Tell Arbid may also be added to this list (Eidem 2008b, 40). A small fragment of a tablet from Lidar Höyük published recently (Müller 2008) belongs to the Syrian scribal tradition and seems to be later than the Old Assyrian trade.

It has to be noted that Northern Mesopotamia also yielded a considerable number of Old Babylonian texts produced by the administrations of various local kingdoms. Archives dated to the 18^th century BC were found at Tell Bi^ca, Tell Chagar Bazar, Tell Leilan, Tell Rimah, and in Mari, as well as stray texts known from Tell Taya and Tell Hadi. Many of them use date formulas involving the name of the holder of the līmum office in Assur, which can now be converted into calendar years (cf. below), and provide an extremely useful way of dating.

1.b Chronology (table I)

The Old Assyrian texts from the lower city (kārum) area of Kültepe have been found in two levels of occupation separated by a conflagration layer. Most of the tablets came from level II. The level Ib houses were much poorer in epigraphic material but cuneiform tablets of the same date were also found in contemporary layers of the main mound (where earlier texts were not attested). All the tablets discovered at other Anatolian sites date to level Ib as well.

It is more difficult to qualify the tablets found in Mesopotamia in terms of kārum Kaneš settlement periods. There is no doubt that the texts form Hammam et-Turkman, Leilan, and Rimah, as well as most tablets from Mari and Tuttul, are contemporary with the Kaneš Ib level. This is also the case for the Sippar tablets, most of which concern the merchant Warad-Sîn, active between the forty-second year of Hammurapi (1792–1750 BC) and the eighth year of Samsu-iluna (1749–1712 BC). The tablets from Eš-nunna, Nuzi, and Nippur show a number of features of the Old Assyrian dialect, but cannot be dated safely to any of its sub-periods (Jesper Eidem, pers. comm.).

Table I | Chronology and stratigraphy of North Mesopotamia and Anatolia at the turn of the Early and during the Middle Bronze period (EJ: Early Jazirah, ED: Early Dynastic, OJ: Old Jazirah, MB: Middle Bronze, MA: Middle Assyrian, LBA: Late Bronze Age, Ch. Bazar: Chagar Bazar, M. Dyab: Tell Muhammad Diyab, KEL: Kaneš Eponym List).

The dating of kārum Kaneš II and kārum Kaneš Ib levels was until recently a subject of scholarly discussion, ⁴ including the question of the length of the abandonment period separating both levels, usually estimated to be about 30 years (Balkan 1955, 60). The situation changed with the publication of several Kaneš Eponym Lists (KEL) (Veenhof 2003; Günbatti 2008), which presently cover a period from the enthronement of Irišum I (ca. 1974 BC, cf. Veenhof 2008a, 29) and continue down to ca. 1720 BC (Günbatti 2008, 117). As KEL G, the list providing the latest līmum names, was discovered in Kültepe, there is no doubt that Assyrian trade with Anatolia did not stop before this date. The length of the kārum Kaneš Ib period is presently calculated to be ca. 113 years (from 1833 to 1720 BC) and an interval of two or three years can be assigned to the break between levels II and Ib (1835–1833 BC) (Günbatti 2008, 117).⁵ The beginning of the kārum Kaneš II settlement is more difficult to date. The oldest līmum names that appear on the tablets belong to the time of Ikūnum (1934–1921 BC) (Veenhof 2008a, 32, n. 72). There is also limited evidence suggesting that Ikūnum was personally involved in the trade (Veenhof 2003, 42). Yet, it is very likely, that the onset of commercial activities may be dated to the very beginning of Erišum’s reign, as suggested in a royal edict, whose content is repeated in an inscription found on a door-socket from the Assur temple (RIMA1: A.0.33.2). Some scholars argue that the edict was in fact a regulation, which created favorable conditions for the Old Assyrian trade and traders (Larsen 1976, 63–78). This point of view may be corroborated by a fragment of an envelope bearing an impression of Erišum’s seal found at Kültepe in 1983 (Veenhof 2003, 41; 2008a, 129). Consequently, it is clear that Assyrian trader...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Introduction
• Development and Transformation of Settlements and Settlement Systems in the Khabur Headwater Region
• Development and Transformation of Settlements and Settlement Systems in the Upper Tigris Region
• Across the Mountains
• Index