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A Dog and a Donkey Excavated at Tell Brak

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 August 2014

Juliet Clutton-Brock
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Extract

During the 1987 season of excavations at Tell Brak under the direction of David and Joan Oates, the skeleton of a small equid was revealed on the floor of what was probably the courtyard of a large public building believed to date to the Akkadian period (locus FS 565). Poplar beams from an adjacent courtyard have provided radiocarbon dates of 3990 ± 50 and 3960 ± 50 BP (BM-2554 and -2556, see p. 213), 2580–2455 cal B.C.

Associated with the equid skeleton was a small number of bones of domestic pig, cattle, sheep/goat, and a Demoiselle crane (Anthropoides virgo; identified by G. Cowles, Bird Section, BM(NH)).

Excavation of the bones showed that not only was the skeleton exceptionally well preserved but that the soft parts of the body were moulded in the earth (Plates XXIX a-b). The lungs and stomach could be easily discerned and the coiled intestines were represented by strings of coprolites. The “soft parts” were covered with what appeared to be a surface film of orange-green material. Everything was lifted with as much care as possible by the excavation conservator, Mrs. Risë Taylor-Andreasen, using Paraloid B72 (methyl methacrylate/ethyl acrylate) and UHU (cellulose nitrate) as consolidants where essential.

Type
Research Article
Information
IRAQ , Volume 51 , 1989 , pp. 217 - 224
Copyright
Copyright © The British Institute for the Study of Iraq 1990

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References

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