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Irisaĝrig
Irisaĝrig (also Urusagrig, Iri-Saĝrig, and Al-Šarrākī) was an ancient Near East city in Iraq whose location is not known with certainty but is currently thought to be at the site of Tell al-Wilayah, on the ancient Mama-šarrat canal off the Tigris river, near the ancient site of Kesh, Tulul al-Baqarat. The city was occupied during the Early Dynastic, Akkadian, Ur III, and early Old Babylonian periods. While cuneiform tablets from the city had appeared from time to time the flood of artifacts entering the private market from looting which followed the 2003 war in Iraq included a large number from Irisaĝrig. This spurred interest by archaeologist in finding the site. The city became of popular interest because of the Hobby Lobby smuggling scandal. While there were a number of significant temples in the city the titular deity is not known. Location In 1992, Douglas Frayne proposed the site of Umm al-Hafriyyat as the location based a) on it being 4 rowing days upstream from Um ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hobby Lobby Smuggling Scandal
The Hobby Lobby smuggling scandal started in 2009 when representatives of the Hobby Lobby chain of craft stores received a large number of clay bullae and tablets originating in the ancient Near East. The artifacts were intended for the Museum of the Bible, funded by the Evangelical Christian Green family, which owns the Oklahoma-based chain. Internal staff had warned superiors that the items had dubious provenance and were potentially looted from Iraq. Several shipments of the artifacts were seized by US customs agents in 2011, triggering a struggle between Hobby Lobby and the federal government that culminated in a 2017 civil forfeiture case ''United States of America v. Approximately Four Hundred Fifty Ancient Cuneiform Tablets and Approximately Three Thousand Ancient Clay Bullae''. As a result of the case, Hobby Lobby agreed to return the artifacts and pay a fine of . U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement returned 3,800 items seized from Hobby Lobby to Iraq in May 2018. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Malgium
Malgium (also Malkum) is an ancient Mesopotamian city identified as Tell Yassir which thrived especially in the Middle Bronze Age, ca. 2000 BC - 1600 BC. Located on the river Tigris, south of where the Diyala River branches off and upstream of Maškan-šapir, it formed a small city-state in an area where the edges of the territories controlled by Larsa, Babylon and Elam converged. Inscribed in cuneiform as ma-al-gi-imKI, its chief deities were Ea and Damkina. Tell Yassir The site is a single mound covering around 15 hectares. Iraqi archaeologists conducted a surface survey. The site was heavily looted after the 2003 invasion of Iraq, to the extent that administrative and palatial structures visible from earlier satellite images could no longer be found. Along with pottery shards a number of inscribed bricks were found including those of Ur III rulers (Shulgi and Shu-Suen) and rulers of Malgium An example brick inscription: History Three of its rulers have been identified w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tell Al-Wilayah
Tell al-Wilayah is an archaeological site in the Wasit Governorate of eastern Iraq. The site has now been completely destroyed by large scale looting. It is located around 20 km southwest of the modern city of Kut and 6 kilometers southwest of Tulul al-Baqarat. History The site is dated to the Akkadian and Ur III periods. It has been suggested as the location of Kesh (Sumer), now thought to be at Tulul al-Baqarat. It has also been proposed as the site of Irisaĝrig. Archaeology There were two mounds. Tell al-Wilayah I covered 64 hectares with a height of 5 meters. Tell al-Wilayah II covered about 4.5 hectares and rose to about 5 meters above the plain. Iraqi archaeologists worked the site in 1958. Sixteen degraded whole and partial cuneiform tablets of the Old Akkadian and Ur II periods were found in robber holes, discarded by looters. Also found were two Old Akkadian clay jar sealings, and ivory figurine and two Ur III bricks, of Shu-Shin and Shulgi. A palace was found a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kesh (Sumer)
Kesh was an ancient Sumerian city and religious site, whose patron goddess was Ninhursag. Its location is uncertain; some of the possible sites put forth include Al-Ubaid, near Ur, or Tell al-Wilayah near Adab or Abu Salabikh though the consensus is now with Tell al-Wilayah. The city is known to near to and was under the control of the ancient city of Irisaĝrig. Kesh in mentioned on the Bassetki Statue of Naram-Sin. Temple Hymn There is a famous Kesh temple hymn about Ninhursag's temple in Kesh (hur-saĝ gal), where she is called Nintud. The goddess Nisaba appears as the temple's caretaker and decision maker.A cuneiform tablet fragment of the Kesh Temple Hymn (the longer version, a shorter version having been written by Enheduanna, the daughter of Sargon of Akkad) was found at Abu Salabikh. Location Robert D. Biggs suggested Kesh could have just been a variation in the spelling of Kish. From inscriptions it is known that Adab was on the Kesh Canal. More recently it has b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cities Of The Ancient Near East
The earliest cities in history were in the ancient Near East, an area covering roughly that of the modern Middle East: its history began in the 4th millennium BC and ended, depending on the interpretation of the term, either with the conquest by the Achaemenid Empire in the 6th century BC or with that by Alexander the Great in the 4th century BC. The largest cities of the Bronze Age Near East housed several tens of thousands of people. Memphis in the Early Bronze Age, with some 30,000 inhabitants, was the largest city of the time by far. Ebla is estimated to have had a population of 40,000 inhabitants in the Intermediate Bronze age. Ur in the Middle Bronze Age is estimated to have had some 65,000 inhabitants; Babylon in the Late Bronze Age similarly had a population of some 50,000–60,000. Niniveh had some 20,000–30,000, reaching 100,000 only in the Iron Age (around 700 BC). In Akkadian and Hittite orthography, URU became a determinative sign denoting a city, or combi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Iraq
Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq border, the east, the Persian Gulf and Kuwait to the southeast, Saudi Arabia to the south, Jordan to Iraq–Jordan border, the southwest and Syria to Iraq–Syria border, the west. The Capital city, capital and largest city is Baghdad. Iraq is home to diverse ethnic groups including Iraqi Arabs, Kurds, Iraqi Turkmen, Turkmens, Assyrian people, Assyrians, Armenians in Iraq, Armenians, Yazidis, Mandaeans, Iranians in Iraq, Persians and Shabaks, Shabakis with similarly diverse Geography of Iraq, geography and Wildlife of Iraq, wildlife. The vast majority of the country's 44 million residents are Muslims – the notable other faiths are Christianity in Iraq, Christianity, Yazidism, Mandaeism, Yarsanism and Zoroastrianism. The official langu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tulul Al-Baqarat
Tulul al-Baqarat or Tulūl al-Baqarāt, is an ancient Near East archaeological site in Wasit Governorate of Iraq. It is located seven kilometers to the northeast of Tell al-Wilayah (with which it was connected by an ancient canal) and 20 kilometers south of the city of Kut. The site was occupied from the 4th millennium BC to the Islamic period. It is thought to be the site of the ancient Early Dynastic city of Kesh. History Various portions of Tulul al-Baqarat were occupied from the 4th millennium BC all the way up to the 1st millennium AD. *The main mound, TB1, was occupied in the Uruk, Jemdet Nasr, Early Dynastic, Akkadian, Ur III period, Neo-Babylonian, Parthian and Islamic periods. Occupation in the 2nd millennium BC was sparse. This mound, the largest mound, measures 330 meters by 260 meters with an area of about 10 hectares and rises to about 12 meters in height. *Mound TB2 dates to the Late Islamic period. Stone inscriptions and tablets found by the Italian excavators car ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Umma
Umma ( sux, ; in modern Dhi Qar Province in Iraq, formerly also called Gishban) was an ancient city in Sumer. There is some scholarly debate about the Sumerian and Akkadian names for this site. Traditionally, Umma was identified with Tell Jokha. More recently it has been suggested that it was located at Umm al-Aqarib, less than to its northwest or was even the name of both cities. One or both were the leading city of the Early Dynastic kingdom of Gišša, with the most recent excavators putting forth that Umm al-Aqarib was prominent in EDIII but Jokha rose to preeminence later. History In the early Sumerian text ''Inanna's descent to the netherworld'', Inanna dissuades demons from the netherworld from taking Shara, patron of Umma, who was living in squalor. They eventually take Dumuzid king of Uruk instead, who lived in palatial opulence. Best known for its long frontier conflict with Lagash, as reported circa 2400 BC by Entemena, the city reached its zenith c. 2350 BC, u ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nippur
Nippur (Sumerian language, Sumerian: ''Nibru'', often logogram, logographically recorded as , EN.LÍLKI, "Enlil City;"The Cambridge Ancient History: Prolegomena & Prehistory': Vol. 1, Part 1. Accessed 15 Dec 2010. Akkadian language, Akkadian: ''Nibbur'') was an ancient Sumerian city. It was the special seat of the worship of the Sumerian god Enlil, the "Lord Wind", ruler of the cosmos, subject to An (mythology), An alone. Nippur was located in modern Nuffar in Afak District, Afak, Al-Qādisiyyah Governorate, Iraq (roughly 200 km south of Baghdad). Occupation at the site extended back to the Uruk period, the Ubaid period, and the Jemdet Nasr period. History Nippur never enjoyed political hegemony in its own right, but its control was crucial, as it was considered capable of conferring the overall "kingship" on monarchs from other city-states. It was distinctively a sacred city, important from the possession of the famous Ekur temple of Enlil. Ninurta also had his main Cult (reli ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Archaeological Looting In Iraq
Archaeological looting in Iraq took place since at least the late 19th century. The chaos following war provided the opportunity to pillage everything that was not nailed down. There were also attempts to protect the sites such as the period between April 8, 2003, when the staff vacated the Iraq Museum and April 16, 2003, when US forces arrived in sufficient numbers to "restore some semblance of order." Some 15,000 cultural artifacts disappeared in that time. Over the years approximately 14,800 were recovered from within and outside Iraq and taken under the protection of the Iraqi government. Early history Looting of ancient artifacts has a long tradition. As early as 1884, laws passed in Mesopotamia about moving and destroying antiquities. By the end of World War I, British-administrated Mesopotamia created protections for archaeological sites where looting was beginning to become a problem. They established an absolute prohibition on exporting antiquities. The British Museum wa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Der (Sumer)
Der ( Sumerian: ALUDi-e-ir , 𒌷𒂦𒀭𒆠 uruBAD3.ANki) was a Sumerian city-state at the site of modern Tell Aqar near al-Badra in Iraq's Wasit Governorate. It was east of the Tigris River on the border between Sumer and Elam. Its name was possibly Durum. History Der was occupied from the Early Dynastic period through Neo-Assyrian times. The local deity of the city was named Ishtaran, represented on Earth by his minister, the snake god Nirah. In the late 3rd millennium, during the reign of Sulgi of the Third Dynasty of Ur, Der was mentioned twice. The Sulgi year name 11 was named "Year Ishtaran of Der was brought into his temple", and year 21 was named "Year Der was destroyed". During the time of Amar-Sin, when the king launched a long military campaign against Huhnuri, prince Shu-Sin, crown prince, left his post in Der to return and hold Ur. In the second millennium, Der was mentioned in a tablet discovered at Mari sent by Yarim-Lim I of Yamhad; the tablet includes a re ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Amar-Sin
Amar-Sin ( akk, : '' DAmar D Sîn'', after the Moon God Sîn", the "𒀭" being a silent honorific for "Divine"), initially misread as Bur-Sin (c. 2046-2037 BC middle chronology, or possibly ca. 1982–1973 BC short chronology) was the third ruler of the Ur III Dynasty. He succeeded his father Shulgi (c. 2030–1982 BC). His name translates to 'bull calf of the moon-god'. Reign Year-names are known for all nine years of his reign. These record campaigns conducted against Urbilum, and several other regions with obscure names: Shashrum, Shurudhum, Bitum-Rabium, Jabru, and Huhnuri. Amar-Sin is otherwise known to have campaigned against Elamite rulers such as Arwilukpi of Marhashi, and the Ur Empire under his reign extended as far as the northern provinces of Lullubi and Hamazi, with their own governors. He also ruled over Assur through the Akkadian governor Zariqum, as confirmed by his monumental inscription. Amar-Sin's reign is notable for his attempt at regenerating the ancient ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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