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Ancient City Seals
At the end of the Uruk period in the ancient Near East c. 3100 BC there was a widespread re-alignment and reformulation of power structure in the ancient Near East entering the following Jemdet Nasr period, also called the Uruk III period (c. 3100–2900 BC). Based on recovered "city seals", primarily from Jemdat Nasr, it is thought that a consortium of twenty cities engaged in a trading system built around the primary Uruk female deity. In the Early Dynastic I period (c. 2900–2700 BC) another political re-alignment occurred, though restricted primarily to Mesopotamia. A standard list of cities found on clay sealings led to the proposal that there was a Early Dynastic I period "Kengir League" of cities centered around Nippur which encompassed a joint trading system with an underlying religious basis (centered on the chief god Enlil), similar in nature to the later bala taxation system. Uruk has also been proposed as the central city. While the concept has received support there i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Uruk Period
The Uruk period (; also known as Protoliterate period) existed from the protohistory, protohistoric Chalcolithic to Early Bronze Age period in the history of Mesopotamia, after the Ubaid period and before the Jemdet Nasr period. Named after the Sumerian city of Uruk, this period saw the emergence of urban life in Mesopotamia and the Sumer, Sumerian civilization. The late Uruk period (34th to 32nd centuries) saw the gradual emergence of the cuneiform script and corresponds to the Early Bronze Age; it has also been described as the "Protoliterate period". It was during this period that pottery painting declined as copper started to become popular, along with cylinder seals. Dating and periodization The term "Uruk period" was coined at a conference in Baghdad in 1930, along with the preceding Ubaid period and following Jemdet Nasr period. The chronology of the Uruk period is highly debated and still very uncertain. It is known that it covered most of the 4th millennium BC. But t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Zabalam
Zabala, also Zabalam ( ''zabalamki'', Sumerian - ''MUŠ3.UNUki'', modern Tell Ibzeikh (also Tell el-Buzekh or Tell Ibzaykh), Dhi Qar Governorate, Iraq) was a city of ancient Sumer in Mesopotamia, located in what is now the Dhi Qar governorate in Iraq. In early archaeology this location was also called Tel el-Buzekh. Locally it is called Tell Bzikh. Zabala was at the crossing of the ancient Iturungal and Ninagina canals, 10 kilometers to the northwest of Umma. The city's deity was Inanna of Zabala. A cuneiform tablet from Zabala contains one of only a few metro-mathematical tables of area measures from the Early Dynastic Period. History The first mentions of Zabala are in seals from the Jemdet Nasr period including a list of early sites - Ur, Nippur, Larsa, Uruk, Kes, and Zabalam. The earliest historical record, a bowl inscription, indicates that Zabala was under the control of Lugalzagesi of Umma. This is further supported by tablets from that period. The city is also known to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Zame Hymns
''Zame Hymns'' or ''Zami Hymns'' are a sequence of 70 Sumerian language, Sumerian hymns from the Early Dynastic Period (Mesopotamia), Early Dynastic period discovered in Abu Salabikh. Their conventional title is modern, and reflects the recurring use of the formula ''zame'', "praise". They are the oldest known Mesopotamian collection of hymns, and some of the oldest literary cuneiform texts overall. No copies have been discovered outside Abu Salabikh, and it is possible that they reflect a local tradition. However, partial parallels have been identified in texts associated with other sites such as Shuruppak, Fara and Kesh (Sumer), Kesh. The sequence consists of 70 hymns, each of which is dedicated to a deity associated with a specific location. Most of them belonged to the Mesopotamian pantheon, pantheon of southern Mesopotamia, with Upper Mesopotamia, northern deities being less numerous and these from more distant areas like Ebla, Mari, Syria, Mari and Susa absent altogether. Whi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hanseatic League
The Hanseatic League was a Middle Ages, medieval commercial and defensive network of merchant guilds and market towns in Central Europe, Central and Northern Europe, Northern Europe. Growing from a few Northern Germany, North German towns in the late 12th century, the League expanded between the 13th and 15th centuries and ultimately encompassed nearly 200 settlements across eight modern-day countries, ranging from Tallinn in Estonia in the east, Bergen (Bjørgvin) in Norway to the North to the Netherlands in the west, and extended inland as far as Cologne, Prussia (region), the Prussian regions and Kraków, Poland. The League began as a collection of loosely associated groups of German traders and towns aiming to expand their commercial interests, including protection against robbery. Over time, these arrangements evolved into the League, offering traders toll privileges and protection on affiliated territory and trade routes. Economic interdependence and familial connections am ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 the Achaemenid Empire in the 6th century BC or with that by Alexander the Great in the 4th century BC. The largest cities of the Bronze Age Near East housed several tens of thousands of people. Memphis in the Early Bronze Age, with some 30,000 inhabitants, was the largest city of the time by far. Ebla is estimated to have had a population of 40,000 inhabitants in the Intermediate Bronze age. Ur in the Middle Bronze Age is estimated to have had some 65,000 inhabitants; Babylon in the Late Bronze Age similarly had a population of some 50,000–60,000. Niniveh had some 20,000–30,000, reaching 100,000 only in the Iron Age (around 700 BC). In Akkadian and Hittite orthography, URU became a determinative sign denoting a city, or combine ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Konar Sandal
Konar Sandal is a Bronze Age archaeological site, situated in the valley of the Halil River just south of Jiroft, Kermān Province, Iran. Archaeology The site consists of two mounds a few kilometers apart, called Konar Sandal North and Konal Sandal South with a height of 13 and 21 meters, respectively. Konar Sandal North, the larger of the two, has an area of about 300 meters by 300 meters. The site was first visited by Aurel Stein in 1936. The site was examined in the 1980s as part of an areal survey. Modern palm agriculture has destroyed the many small mounds in and around the main mounds that the survey identified and there is notable damage from looting. After objects from the site began appearing on the antiquities market in 2001, professional excavation were conducted from 2002 until 2008 by a team led by Yousef Majidzadeh.Madjidzadeh Y. and Pittman H., "Excavations at Konar Sandal in the Region of Jiroft in the Halil Basin: First Preliminary Report (2002-2008)", Iran 46, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nanaya
Nanaya ( Sumerian , DNA.NA.A; also transcribed as "Nanāy", "Nanaja", "Nanāja", '"Nanāya", or "Nanai"; antiquated transcription: "Nanâ"; in Greek: ''Ναναια'' or ''Νανα''; , ) was a Mesopotamian goddess of love closely associated with Inanna. While she is well attested in Mesopotamian textual sources from many periods, from the times of the Third Dynasty of Ur to the Fall of Babylon and beyond, and was among the most commonly-worshipped goddesses through much of Mesopotamian history, both her origin and the meaning of her name are unknown. It has been proposed that she originated either as a minor Akkadian goddess or as a hypostasis of Sumerian Inanna, but the evidence is inconclusive. Her primary role was that of a goddess of love, and she was associated with eroticism and sensuality, though she was also a patron of lovers, including rejected or betrayed ones. Especially in early scholarship, she was often assumed to be a goddess of the planet Venus like Inanna ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Uruk
Uruk, the archeological site known today as Warka, was an ancient city in the Near East, located east of the current bed of the Euphrates River, on an ancient, now-dried channel of the river in Muthanna Governorate, Iraq. The site lies 93 kilometers (58 miles) northwest of ancient Ur, 108 kilometers (67 miles) southeast of ancient Nippur, and 24 kilometers (15 miles) northwest of ancient Larsa. It is east of modern Samawah. Uruk is the type site for the Uruk period. Uruk played a leading role in the early urbanization of Sumer in the mid-4th millennium BC. By the final phase of the Uruk period around 3100 BC, the city may have had 40,000 residents, with 80,000–90,000 people living in its environs, making it the largest urban area in the world at the time. Gilgamesh, according to the chronology presented in the '' Sumerian King List'' (''SKL''), ruled Uruk in the 27th century BC. After the end of the Early Dynastic period, with the rise of the Akkadian Empire, the ci ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Larsa
Larsa (, read ''Larsamki''), also referred to as Larancha/Laranchon (Gk. Λαραγχων) by Berossus, Berossos and connected with the biblical Arioch, Ellasar, was an important city-state of ancient Sumer, the center of the Cult (religious practice), cult of the sun god Utu with his temple E-babbar. It lies some southeast of Uruk in Iraq's Dhi Qar Governorate, near the east bank of the Shatt-en-Nil canal at the site of the modern settlement Tell as-Senkereh or Sankarah. Larsa is thought to be the source of a number of tablets involving Babylonian mathematics, including the Plimpton 322 tablet that contains patterns of Pythagorean triples. History Larsa is found (as UD.UNUG) on Proto-cuneiform lexical lists from the Uruk 4 period (late 4th millennium BC). A few Proto-cuneiform tablets were also found there. Three Neolithic clay tokens, from a slightly early period, were also found at Larsa. For most of its history Larsa was primarily a cult site for the god Utu. In the early p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jemdet Nasr Period
The Jemdet Nasr Period (also Jemdat Nasr period) is an archaeological culture in southern Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq). It is generally dated from 3100 to 2900 BC. It is named after the type site Tell Jemdet Nasr, where the assemblage typical for this period was first recognized. Its geographical distribution is limited to south-central Iraq. The culture of the proto-historical Jemdet Nasr period is a local development out of the preceding Uruk period and continues into the Early Dynastic I period. History of research In the early 1900s, clay tablets with an archaic form of the Sumerian cuneiform script began to appear in the antiquities market. A collection of 36 tablets was bought by the German excavators of Shuruppak (Tell Fara) in 1903. While they thought that the tablets came from Tell Jemdet Nasr, it was later shown that they probably came from nearby Tell Uqair. Similar tablets were offered for sale by a French antiquities dealer in 1915, and these were again reporte ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
X-ray Fluorescence
X-ray fluorescence (XRF) is the emission of characteristic "secondary" (or fluorescent) X-rays from a material that has been excited by being bombarded with high-energy X-rays or gamma rays. The phenomenon is widely used for elemental analysis and analytical chemistry, chemical analysis, particularly in the investigation of metals, glass, ceramics and building materials, and for research in geochemistry, forensic science, archaeology and art objects such as paintings. Underlying physics When materials are exposed to short-wavelength X-rays or to gamma rays, ionization of their component atoms may take place. Ionization consists of the ejection of one or more electrons from the atom, and may occur if the atom is exposed to radiation with an energy greater than its ionization energy. X-rays and gamma rays can be energetic enough to expel tightly held electrons from the inner atomic orbital, orbitals of the atom. The removal of an electron in this way makes the electronic structu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tell Uqair
Tell Uqair (Tell 'Uquair, Tell Aqair) is a Tell (archaeology), tell or settlement mound northeast of ancient Babylon, about 25 kilometers north-northeast of the ancient city of Kish (Sumer), Kish, just north of Kutha, and about south of Baghdad in modern Babil Governorate, Iraq. It was occupied in the Ubaid period (c. 5500–3700 BC) and the Uruk period (c. 4000–3100 BC). It has been proposed as the site of the 3rd millennium BC city of Urum. Archaeology Tell Uqair is a small mound just north of, and in sight of, Tell Ibrahim, the large mound marking the site of ancient Kutha. It lies about halfway between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. The topography consists of two contiguous mounds, north (Mound B) and south (Mound A), separated by what is apparently the bed of an ancient canal. At maximum the hills are 6 meters above the terrain line (aside from a small 10 meter prominence on the west end of Mound A), with many levels having been eroded from the tops. The site has a tot ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
