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Investigation of the Early Dynastic-Akkadian transition: Report of the 18th and 19th seasons of excavation in Area WF, Nippur

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 August 2014

McGuire Gibson  and
Augusta McMahon
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Extract

The Akkadian Period has not received the archaeological attention it deserves, despite its great historical and artistic importance. Excavated remains from the period have been more extensively reported from Syria, at such sites as Tell Brak, than from the core area of southern Iraq. The artifactual assemblage is still ill-defined, in part due to delays in the final publication of crucial excavations, including our own work at Umm al-Hafriyat and Tepe al-Atiqeh. A full assessment of the Akkadian Period also has been hindered to a significant degree, however, by errors in the dating of strata and artifacts at the key sites of Tell Asmar and Khafajah in the Diyala (see Gibson 1982), which have resulted, at these and other sites, in the disguising of early Akkadian material under the terms Protoimperial and Early Dynastic IIIB.

The excavators of the critical sequence of the Northern Palace at Tell Asmar originally assumed that the main level of the palace was pre-Akkadian because of its plano-convex bricks (Frankfort 1933: pp. 34 ff.); but subsequently they assigned this level, correctly, to the Akkadian Period (Frankfort 1934: pp. 29–39). Seton Lloyd, in his manuscript for the final monograph, maintained an Akkadian dating for the main level of the building but was persuaded to allow the date to be changed to Protoimperial for the publication (Delougaz, Hill, and Lloyd 1967: pp. 181–196). Lloyd has continued to discuss the main level of the Northern Palace as an Akkadian Period building in his own books (e.g. Lloyd 1978: p. 141). Having read the Lloyd manuscript and having witnessed the process of editorial change from the vantage point of an editorial assistant, M. Gibson was aware as early as 1963 that there were some difficulties in the interpretation of the Diyala stratigraphy, especially in the zone of transition from Early Dynastic to Akkadian.

Type
Research Article
Information
IRAQ , Volume 57 , 1995 , pp. 1 - 39
Copyright
Copyright © The British Institute for the Study of Iraq 1995 

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