Puzrish-Dagan (modern Drehem) (Tall ad-Duraihim) is an important

archaeological site An archaeological site is a place (or group of physical sites) in which evidence of past activity is preserved (either prehistoric or recorded history, historic or contemporary), and which has been, or may be, investigated using the discipline ...

Al-Qādisiyyah Governorate Al-Qadisiyah Governorate (, ), also known as the Al-Diwaniyah Governorate (, ), is one of the governorates of Iraq. It is in the southern part of the center of the country. The estimated population of the province is about a million and a half ...

(

Iraq Iraq, officially the Republic of Iraq, is a country in West Asia. It is bordered by Saudi Arabia to Iraq–Saudi Arabia border, the south, Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq border, the east, the Persian Gulf and ...

). It is best-known for the thousands of

clay tablets In the Ancient Near East, clay tablets ( Akkadian ) were used as a writing medium, especially for writing in cuneiform, throughout the Bronze Age and well into the Iron Age. Cuneiform characters were imprinted on a wet clay tablet with a stylu ...

that are known to have come from the site through

looting Looting is the act of stealing, or the taking of goods by force, typically in the midst of a military, political, or other social crisis, such as war, natural disasters (where law and civil enforcement are temporarily ineffective), or rioting. ...

during the early twentieth century.

History of research

Puzrish-Dagan came first to the attention of scholars when

coming from the site started to appear on the antiquities market in 1909-1910. Based on information from the antiquities traders who sold the tablets, Puzrish-Dagan could be identied with modern Drehem in Iraq. Since then, some 12,000 tablets thought to have come from the site have been published. The objects are scattered across numerous collections, for example those of the

Royal Ontario Museum The Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) is a museum of art, world culture and natural history in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is one of the largest museums in North America and the largest in Canada. It attracts more than one million visitors every year ...

, the Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures, Harvard Museum, and the

Iraq Museum The Iraq Museum () is the national museum of Iraq, located in Baghdad. It is sometimes informally called the National Museum of Iraq. The Iraq Museum contains precious relics from the Mesopotamian, Abbasid, and Persian civilizations. It was loo ...

. Stephen Herbert Langdon briefly excavated there in 1924. The site was surveyed by Robert McCormick Adams as part of his important archaeological work in the region. Iraqi archaeologists excavated the site in 2007 under the direction of Ali Ubeid Shalkam. The Iraqi-Italian QADIS-project surveyed the site in 2016. From 2016 to 2019 the University of Bologna and the Iraqi State Board of Antiquities and Heritage conducted a program of coordinated remote sensing and surface surveys in the Qadisiyah province including at Drehem. It determined that the site had an extent of 60 hectares. It determined that the city was surrounded by canals, was laid out as an urban grid, had a number of administrative building, and had a harbor. The Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures has received permission to start new excavations at the site as part of their renewed work at the nearby site of

Nippur Nippur (Sumerian language, Sumerian: ''Nibru'', often logogram, logographically recorded as , EN.LÍLKI, "Enlil City;"I. E. S. Edwards, C. J. Gadd, N. G. L. Hammond, ''The Cambridge Ancient History: Prolegomena & Prehistory'': Vol. 1, Part 1, Ca ...

and carried out a preliminary survey in 2019.

The site and its environment

Puzrish-Dagan is located some southeast of Nippur, of which it has sometimes been called a

suburb A suburb (more broadly suburban area) is an area within a metropolitan area. They are oftentimes where most of a metropolitan areas jobs are located with some being predominantly residential. They can either be denser or less densely populated ...

. The site consists of two areas; a northern and a southern mound. The northern mound measures for a total area of . The southern mound is slightly larger: it measures , is high and occupies an area of . Recent remote sensing research suggest the maximum extent was about 80 hectares. Parts of the site are now obscured by modern agricultural fields and several irrigation canals cut through it. The mound has been described as a "beehive" due to the illegal looting taking place since the early 1900s. Based on the site morphology, the southern mound possibly contains a

ziggurat A ziggurat (; Cuneiform: 𒅆𒂍𒉪, Akkadian: ', D-stem of ' 'to protrude, to build high', cognate with other Semitic languages like Hebrew ''zaqar'' (זָקַר) 'protrude'), ( Persian: Chogha Zanbilچغازنجبیل) is a type of massive ...

. Both mounds probably contain large buildings over in length. Traces of the walls are still visible on the surface and the regularity of these traces suggests that the buildings were planned and built within a short period of time. The QADIS-survey has documented possible traces of a city wall, a large temple complex next to the ziggurat, ancient canals that ran alongside and through the settlement, as well as a harbor.

Occupation history

Traces of the Early Dynastic, Akkadian and

Ur III The Third Dynasty of Ur or Ur III was a Sumerian dynasty based in the city of Ur in the 22nd and 21st centuries BC (middle chronology). For a short period they were the preeminent power in Mesopotamia and their realm is sometimes referred to by ...

periods have been found at the site according to a 1967 publication of the Iraqi Directorate General of antiquities. The QADIS-survey found sherds dating to the Middle Uruk period and confirmed that the Ur III period was probably the most important settlement level at Drehem. Evidence for the Isin-Larsa as well as the Parthian and/or

Sasanian The Sasanian Empire (), officially Eranshahr ( , "Empire of the Iranians"), was an Iranian empire that was founded and ruled by the House of Sasan from 224 to 651. Enduring for over four centuries, the length of the Sasanian dynasty's reign ...

periods has also been found. The thousands of texts coming from the site all date to the Ur III period. In the absence of excavations these texts from provide the most information on the nature of the settlement at Drehem. Puzrish-Dagan was founded by king

Shulgi Shulgi ( dšul-gi,(died c. 2046 BC) formerly read as Dungi) of Ur was the second king of the Third Dynasty of Ur. He reigned for 48 years, from (Middle Chronology). His accomplishments include the completion of construction of the Great ...

as an important administrative center in the ''bala'' tax system of the Ur III period. Year name 39 of Shulgi was "The year Šulgi, king of Ur, king of the four quarters, built é-Puzriš-Dagan, a residence of Šulgi", though Drehem texts are known to start as far back as Shulgi year 26. Texts between S26 and S39 are referred to as "Early Drehem Series". The following two year names also marked this same event, which is generally treated as the founding of Puzriš-Dagan.Sallaberger, W., "Schlachtvieh aus Puzriš-Dagan. Zur Bedeutung dieses königlichen Archivs", JEOL 38, pp. 45–62, 2003/2004 Witnessed by thousands of

cuneiform Cuneiform is a Logogram, logo-Syllabary, syllabic writing system that was used to write several languages of the Ancient Near East. The script was in active use from the early Bronze Age until the beginning of the Common Era. Cuneiform script ...

tablets, livestock (cattle, sheep, and goats) of the state was centralized at Drehem and subsequently redistributed to temples, its officials and royal palaces. The temples of nearby Nippur were the main destinations of the livestock.

History of research

The site and its environment

Occupation history

See also

References

Further reading