Shuruppak

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Shown within Iraq Show map of Iraq Shuruppak (Near East) Show map of Near East
Alternative name	Tell Fara
Location	Al-Qādisiyyah Governorate, Iraq
Region	Sumer
Coordinates	31°46′39″N 45°30′35″E / 31.77750°N 45.50972°E / 31.77750; 45.50972
Type	archaeological site, human settlement
Area	120 hectare
Height	9 metre
History
Periods	Jemdet Nasr period, Early Dynastic period, Akkad period, Ur III period
Site notes
Excavation dates	1900, 1902-1903, 1931, 1973, 2016-2018
Archaeologists	Robert Koldewey, Friedrich Delitzsch, Erich Schmidt, Harriet P. Martin

Shuruppak (Sumerian: 𒋢𒆳𒊒𒆠 Šuruppag^KI, SU.KUR.RU^ki, "the healing place"), modern Tell Fara, was an ancient Sumerian city situated about 55 kilometres (35 mi) south of Nippur and 30 kilometers north of ancient Uruk on the banks of the Euphrates in Iraq's Al-Qādisiyyah Governorate. Shuruppak was dedicated to Ninlil, also called Sud, the goddess of grain and the air.^[1]

"Shuruppak" is sometimes also the name of a king of the city, legendary survivor of the Flood, and supposed author of the Instructions of Shuruppak".

History

Jemdet Nasr period

The earliest excavated levels at Shuruppak date to the Jemdet Nasr period about 3000 BC. Several objects made of arsenical copper were found in Shuruppak/Fara dating to the Jemdet Nasr period (c. 2900 BC). Similar objects were also found at Tepe Gawra (levels XII-VIII).^[2]

Early Dynastic II

The city rose in importance and size, exceeding 40 hectares(0.4km²), during the Early Dynastic period.

In the Sumerian King List is a ruler, Ubara-Tutu, the last ruler "before the flood". In some versions he is followed by a son, Ziusudra.^[3] In later versions of the Epic of Gilgamesh, a man named Utnapishtim, son of Ubara-Tutu, is noted to be king of Shuruppak. This portion of Gilgamesh is thought to have been taken from another literary composition, the Myth of Atrahasis.^[4]

Early Dynastic III

The city expanded to its greatest extent at the end of the Early Dynastic III period (2600 BC to 2350 BC) when it covered about 100 hectares.^[5]

Cuneiform tablets from the Early Dynastic III period show a thriving, military oriented economy with links to cities throughout the region.^[6] It has been proposed that Fara was part of a "hexapolis" with Lagash, Nippur, Uruk, Adab, and Umma, possibly under the leadership of Kish.^[7][8]

Akkadian period

In the Akkadian Period (c. 2334-2154 BC), Shuruppak was ruled by a governor holding the title patesi. Like most cities on the Euphrates, it declined during the Akkadian Empire.^[9] A clay cone from the Akkadian Empire period found at Shurappak read "Dada, governor of Suruppak: Hala-adda, gover[nor] of Suruppak, his son, laid the ... of the city gate of the goddess Sud".^[10]

Governors: Dada; Hala-adda;

Ur III period

During Ur III period (c. 2112-2004 BC), the city was ruled by a governors (ensi₂) appointed by Ur. One is known to be Ur-nigar, son of Shulgi, first rulers of Ur III. One of the tablets found at the site is dated by a year name to the beginning of the reign of Shu-Sin, next to last ruler of Ur III.^[11] A few governors of Shurappak under the Ur III Empire are known from contemporary epigraphic remains, Ku-Nanna, Lugal-hedu, Ur-nigin-gar, and Ur-Ninkura.^[12] In much later literary compositions several purported rulers are mentioned.

Middle Bronze I

In the 2020s BC, the Ur III Empire was hit by a major drought. It is thought to have been abandoned shortly around 2000 BC.

A Isin-Larsa cylinder seal and several pottery plaques which may date to early in the second millennium BC were found at the site.^[13] Surface finds are predominantly Early Dynastic.^[14] In the 2nd year of Enlil-bani (c. 1860 – 1837 BC), ruler of Isin, a sage of Nippur is recorded as leaving an herbal medicine at Shurappak.^[15]

Flood Myth

The report of the 1930s excavation mentions a layer of flood deposits at the end of the Jemdet Nasr period at Shuruppak. Shuruppak in Mesopotamian legend is one of the "antediluvian" cities and the home of King Utnapishtim, who survives the flood by making a boat beforehand. Schmidt wrote that the flood story of the Bible, ^[16]

seems to be based on a very real event or a series of such, as suggested by the existence at Ur, at Kish, and now at Fara, of inundation deposits, which accumulated on top of human inhabitation. There is finally “the Noah story,” which may possibly symbolize the survival of the Sumerian culture and the end of the Elamite Jemdet Nasr culture.

The deposit is like that deposited by river avulsions, a process that was common in the Tigris–Euphrates river system.^[17][18]

Archaeology

Tell Fara extends about a kilometer from north to south. The total area is about 120 hectares, with about 35 hectares of the mound being more than 3 meters above the surrounding plain, with a maximum of 9 meters. The site consists of two mounds, one larger than the other, separated by an old canal bed as well as a lower town. It was visited by William Loftus in 1850.^[19] Hermann Volrath Hilprecht conducted a brief survey in 1900.^[20] He found "copper goatheads; a copper, pre-Sargonid sword; a lamp in the shape of a bird; a very archaic seal cylinder; a number of pre-Sargonid tablets, and 60 incised plates of mother of pearl".^[16] It was first excavated between 1902 and 1903 by Walter Andrae, Robert Koldewey and Friedrich Delitzsch of the German Oriental Society for eight months. They used a new "modern" system which involved excavating trenches 8 feet wide and 5 feet deep every few yards running across the entire width of the larger mound. If a building wall was found in a trench it was further explored. Preliminary identification of the site as Suruppak came from a Ur III period clay nail which mentioned "Haladda, son of Dada, the patesi of Shuruppak (written SU.KUR.RU^ki) repaired the ADUS of the Great Gate of the god Shuruppak (written ^dSU.KUR.RU-da)". Among other finds, roughly 1000 cuneiform tablets of Early Dynastic III period were collected, which ended up in the Berlin Museum and the Istanbul Museum. ^[21] About a thousand Early Dynastic clay sealings and fragments (used to secure doors and containers) were also found. Most from cylinder seals but 19 were from stamp seals.^[22] In 1903 the site was visited by Edgar James Banks who was excavating at the site of Adab, a four hour walk to the north. Banks took photographs of the German trenches and noted a 20 foot in diameter well, constructed with plano-convex bricks, in the center of the larger mound as well as an arched sewer, similarly constructed. The latter was where tablets were found. Banks also noted that the smaller mound held a cemetery.^[23]

In 1926 it was visited by Raymond P, Dougherty during his archaeological survey of the region.^[24] In March and April 1931, a joint team of the American Schools of Oriental Research and the University of Pennsylvania excavated Shuruppak for a further six week season, with Erich Schmidt as director and with epigraphist Samuel Noah Kramer being prompted by reports of illicit excavations in the area. They were able to stratify the major occupation levels as Jemdat Nasr (Fara I), Early Dynastic (Fara II), and Ur III empire (Fara III). There was an "innundation event" between Fara I and Fara II.^[16][25] The excavation recovered 87 tablets and fragments—mostly from pre-Sargonic times—biconvex, and unbaked. The tablets included reference to Shuruppak enabling confirmation of the sites original name.^[26]

In 1973, a three-day surface survey of the site was conducted by Harriet P. Martin. Consisting mainly of pottery shard collection, the survey confirmed that Shuruppak dates at least as early as the Jemdet Nasr period, expanded greatly in the Early Dynastic period, and was also an element of the Akkadian Empire and the Third Dynasty of Ur.^[27]

A surface survey and a full magnetometer survey of the site was completed was conducted between 2016 and 2018 by a team from the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich led by Adelheid Otto and Berthold Einwag. The initial work was under the regional QADIS survey.^[28] A drone was used to create a digital elevation model of the site.^[29] The researchers found thousands of robber holes left by looters which had disturbed surface in many places, with the top several meters of the main mound destroyed.^[30] They were able to use remains of the 900 meter long trench left by excavators in 1902 and 1903 to orient old excavation documents and aerial mapping with their geomagnetic results. Part of the site was inaccessible because of the spoil heaps from the excavations. A city wall was found (in Area A), which had been missed in the past.^[31][32] A harbor and quay were also found.^[33]