HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Kuara (also known as Kisiga, Ku'ara, modern Tell al-Lahm site,
Dhi Qar Governorate Dhi Qar Governorate ( ar, ذي قار, translit=Thi Qār, ) is a governorate in southern Iraq. The provincial capital is Nasiriyah. Prior to 1976 the governorate was known as Muntafiq Governorate. Thi Qar was the heartland of the ancient Iraqi civ ...
,
Iraq Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq ...
) is an
archaeological site An archaeological site is a place (or group of physical sites) in which evidence of past activity is preserved (either prehistoric or historic or contemporary), and which has been, or may be, investigated using the discipline of archaeology an ...
in
Dhi Qar Province Dhi Qar Governorate ( ar, ذي قار, translit=Thi Qār, ) is a governorate in southern Iraq. The provincial capital is Nasiriyah. Prior to 1976 the governorate was known as Muntafiq Governorate. Thi Qar was the heartland of the ancient Iraqi civ ...
(
Iraq Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq ...
). According to the ''
Sumerian King List The ''Sumerian King List'' (abbreviated ''SKL'') or ''Chronicle of the One Monarchy'' is an ancient literary composition written in Sumerian that was likely created and redacted to legitimize the claims to power of various city-states and king ...
'', Kuara was also the home of
Dumuzid, the fisherman Dumuzid titled the Fisherman was a legendary Sumerian king of Uruk listed originating from Kuara. According to legend, in the one-hundredth year of his reign, he was captured by Enmebaragesi. Sumerian King List The primary source of informa ...
, the legendary third king of
Uruk Uruk, also known as Warka or Warkah, was an ancient city of Sumer (and later of Babylonia) situated east of the present bed of the Euphrates River on the dried-up ancient channel of the Euphrates east of modern Samawah, Muthanna Governorate, Al ...
. The city's patron deity was Meslamtaea (
Nergal Nergal ( Sumerian: d''KIŠ.UNU'' or ; ; Aramaic: ܢܸܪܓܲܠ; la, Nirgal) was a Mesopotamian god worshiped through all periods of Mesopotamian history, from Early Dynastic to Neo-Babylonian times, with a few attestations under indicating hi ...
). In
Sumerian mythology Sumerian religion was the religion practiced by the people of Sumer, the first literate civilization of ancient Mesopotamia. The Sumerians regarded their divinities as responsible for all matters pertaining to the natural and social orders. Ove ...
, Kuara was also considered the birthplace of the god
Marduk Marduk (Cuneiform: dAMAR.UTU; Sumerian: ''amar utu.k'' "calf of the sun; solar calf"; ) was a god from ancient Mesopotamia and patron deity of the city of Babylon. When Babylon became the political center of the Euphrates valley in the time of ...
(Asarluhi),
Enki , image = Enki(Ea).jpg , caption = Detail of Enki from the Adda Seal, an ancient Akkadian cylinder seal dating to circa 2300 BC , deity_of = God of creation, intelligence, crafts, water, seawater, lakewater, fertility, semen, magic, mischief ...
's son. The cults of Marduk and Ninehama were centered in Kuara.


History of archaeological research

The location was excavated for a few days in 1855 by
J. E. Taylor John George Taylor (active 1851–1861; also known as J E Taylor and J G Taylor) was a British official of the Foreign Office, and also an important early archaeologist investigating the antiquities of the Middle East. He was one of the first ar ...
. He found a few inscribed bricks, and a single cuneiform tablet. While working at
Eridu Eridu (Sumerian language, Sumerian: , NUN.KI/eridugki; Akkadian language, Akkadian: ''irîtu''; modern Arabic language, Arabic: Tell Abu Shahrain) is an archaeological site in southern Mesopotamia (modern Dhi Qar Governorate, Iraq). Eridu was l ...
for the
British Museum The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...
in 1918,
R. Campbell Thompson Reginald Campbell Thompson (21 August 1876 – 23 May 1941) was a British archaeologist, assyriologist, and cuneiformist. He excavated at Nineveh, Ur, Nebo and Carchemish among many other sites. Biography Thompson was born in Kensington, and ...
excavated there briefly finding bricks of
Nabonidus Nabonidus (Babylonian cuneiform: ''Nabû-naʾid'', meaning "May Nabu be exalted" or "Nabu is praised") was the last king of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, ruling from 556 BC to the fall of Babylon to the Achaemenid Empire under Cyrus the Great in ...
and Bur-Sin . In more modern times, Fuad Safar conducted soundings at Kuara.


Kuara and its environment

Tell al-Lahm was located on the western bank of the mouth of the
Euphrates The Euphrates () is the longest and one of the most historically important rivers of Western Asia. Tigris–Euphrates river system, Together with the Tigris, it is one of the two defining rivers of Mesopotamia ( ''the land between the rivers'') ...
, about southeast of Ur. In modern times the Euphrates is about 25 kilometers away. The site, with the extent of 350 meters by 300 meters, consists of two tells or settlement mounds, with some peripheral ridges, near a dry canal bed. One mound rises to about 15 meters while the other to about 2 meters.


Occupation history

Kuara was established ca. 2500 BC, during the Sumerian
Early Dynastic II The Early Dynastic period (abbreviated ED period or ED) is an archaeological culture in Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq) that is generally dated to c. 2900–2350 BC and was preceded by the Uruk and Jemdet Nasr periods. It saw the development of w ...
period. It was a seaport to the
Persian Gulf The Persian Gulf ( fa, خلیج فارس, translit=xalij-e fârs, lit=Gulf of Fars, ), sometimes called the ( ar, اَلْخَلِيْجُ ٱلْعَرَبِيُّ, Al-Khalīj al-ˁArabī), is a mediterranean sea in Western Asia. The bo ...
, and traded with the port of
Dilmun Dilmun, or Telmun, ( Sumerian: , later 𒉌𒌇(𒆠), ni.tukki = DILMUNki; ar, دلمون) was an ancient East Semitic-speaking civilization in Eastern Arabia mentioned from the 3rd millennium BC onwards. Based on contextual evidence, it was ...
. In 709 BC, the Assyrian king
Sargon II Sargon II ( Neo-Assyrian cuneiform: , meaning "the faithful king" or "the legitimate king") was the king of the Neo-Assyrian Empire from 722 BC to his death in battle in 705. Probably the son of Tiglath-Pileser III (745–727), Sargon is gener ...
was trying to capture Marduk-apal-iddina II, who fled to Kuara, whereupon Sargon's army laid siege and destroyed the city.Potts, Daniel T. (1997) ''Mesopotamian Civilization: The Material Foundations''. Cornell University Press. , p. 191 Alluvial soil carried by the Euphrates continually extended the land farther into the Persian Gulf; thus the modern site is far from the sea, even though it was a sea port 4500 years ago.


See also

*
Cities of the Ancient Near East The earliest cities in history were in the ancient Near East, an area covering roughly that of the modern Middle East: its history began in the 4th millennium BC and ended, depending on the interpretation of the term, either with the conquest by ...


References

{{reflist


Further reading

*H. W. F. Saggs, "A cylinder from Tell Al-Laham", ''Sumer'', 13 (1957), pp. 190–195


External links


Recent Tell al-Lahm site photographs - British Museum
Sumerian cities Archaeological sites in Iraq Former populated places in Iraq Dhi Qar Governorate