Tell Khaiber

Tell Khaiber (تل خيبر) is a tell, or archaeological settlement mound, in southern Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq). It is located near the modern city of Nasiriyah and about 19 kilometers northwest of the ancient city of Ur in Dhiq Qar Province. In 2012, the site was visited by members of the Ur Region Archaeology Project (URAP), a cooperation between the British Institute for the Study of Iraq, the University of Manchester and the Iraqi State Board for Antiquities and Heritage.[1] They found that the site had escaped looting, and applied for an excavation permit. The site consists of two mounds designated as Tell Khaiber and Tell Khaiber 2 (sometimes called Tell Gurra), both roughly 300 x 250 meters in area. Most of the occupation is from the Sealand Dynasty period but pottery fragments from the Ubaid, Jemdet Nasr, and Early Dynastic periods were also found.

History

Very little is known about the Sealand Dynasty. Traditionally it was thought to exist roughly between 1700 and 1400 BC and to have replaced Babylon after its fall sometime around 1550 BC. Tell Khaiber is the first Sealand site excavated. It has been dated to circa 1500 BC.[2]

Archaeology

The two mounds were first identified in an area survey by Henry Wright in 1965, naming them Ishan Khaiber and Site 61. [3] Between 2013 and 2017, the site was excavated by a team of Iraqi and British archaeologists.[4] [5] The excavations revealed the presence of a settlement dominated by a large administrative building dating to c. 1500 BCE, or the Middle Bronze Age. [6]The building covered 4400 square meters and was surrounded by 3.5 m thick walls, with large towers having meter-thick walls, pierced by a single gate. Among the finds from this building was an archive of some 200 clay tablets and fragments. Excavated tablets from the Sealand Dynasty are uncommon but a number of unprovenances tablets in various institutions have been identified by Stephanie Dalley[7]. The tablets were written in Akkadian and deal mostly with the administration of agricultural activities. Some of the tablets contained dates, which indicated that the building was in use during the reign of Ayadaragalama, the eighth king of the Sealand Dynasty.[8]

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References
  1. "Visit to Baghdad and Southern Iraq | Ur Region Archaeology Project". www.urarchaeology.org. Retrieved 2018-06-20.
  2. Ur Region Archaeological Project - 2016 Report
  3. Wright, H. T., ‘The southern margins of Sumer: an archaeological survey of the areas of Eridu and Ur’, in R. M. Adams, Heartland of Cities (Chicago. University of Chicago Press), pp. 295–338, 1981
  4. "Who We Are | Ur Region Archaeology Project". www.urarchaeology.org. Retrieved 2018-06-20.
  5. S. Campbell et. al., Summary report on excavations at Tell Khaiber, an administrative centre of the Sealand period, 2013-2017, Sumer. A Journal of Archaeology and History in Arab World (In press)(Available for public download after 17 August 2020 )
  6. Stuart Campbell, Tell Khaiber: an administrative centre of the Sealand period, Iraq, vol. 79, pp. 21-46, December 2017
  7. Stephanie Dalley, Babylonian Tablets from the First Sealand Dynasty in the Schøyen Collection, Penn State University Press, 2009, ISBN 978-1-934309-08-7
  8. Shepperson, Mary (2017-09-01). "Castle of the Sealand kings: Discovering ancient Iraq's rebel rulers". the Guardian. Retrieved 2018-06-20.

See also
  • Cities of the ancient Near East
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