Tell Agrab

Tell Agrab (or Aqrab) is a tell or settlement mound southeast of Eshnunna in the Diyala region of Iraq. It is about 15 miles southeast of Tell Asmar, ancient Eshnunna. It has been suggested that the ancient name of the site was PA.GAR.

History

Tell Agrab was occupied during the Jemdet Nasr and Early Dynastic periods through the Akkadian and Larsa periods. It was during the Early Dynastic period that monumental building occurred, including
the Shara Temple. There is no evidence that it was occupied after the end of the third millennium BC.

Archaeology

The site of Tell Agrab is encompassed by a rectangle with a height of around . It was surrounded by a fortification wall made of plano-convex bricks and with defensive towers every 19 meters. Though it had been subject to illegal digging earlier with materials from there appearing with Baghdad antiquities dealers, the site was officially excavated between 1935 and 1937 by a team from the Oriental Institute of Chicago which was also working at Eshnunna, Khafajah and Tell Ishchali during that time. The dig was led by Seton Lloyd.

The primary excavation effort was on the large Early Dynastic temple consisting of a main sanctuary with altar and offering table and two smaller subsidiary sanctuaries on the same plan The temple was believed by the excavators to be dedicated to Shara based on a stone bowl fragment inscription "To Shara has Anunu, foreman of (yeo)men, presented (this) as a gift.". However, subsequent research suggests that it may have belonged to a local deity, Iluma'tim, while the name ^dLAGABxIGI-''gunû'' from the bowl fragment, formerly read as Shara, might instead be Išḫara, which according to Gianni Marchesi and Nicolo Marchetti is more plausible in the light of the distribution of cult centers of these two deities. Only the western end of the temple was studied, the rest being badly eroded. The temple was about square and was surrounded by a wall wide with large supporting buttresses. The presence of sling stones and a sappers tunnel indicated an attack in the Early Dynastic era. Aside from a number of treasure caches, cylinder seals, and a sculptured mace-head of gypsum ornamented with lions' head found, the most notable find was a copper chariot pulled by four onagers, one of the earliest examples known. Three cuneiform tablets in Old Akkadian were also found as well as "two small bronze statuettes of men and one of a woman (all with inlaid eyes of mother of pearl)" as well as tools and weapons made of bronze and the remains of a copper statue that would have originally been 4/5 life size. A metal hoard consisting of "silver wires, rings/coils, ornaments, beads and an enigmatic ‘gold weight'" was found in a long corridor and dated to Early Dynastic II. A single neolithic clay token was also found. A notable find was a green steatite vase, elaborately engraved.Parker, Richard A., "The Oriental Institute Archaeological Report on the Near East: Second Quarter, 1936", The American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures, vol. 53, no. 1, pp. 52–72, 1936

Gallery

File:Kneeling Nude Male Holding Vase on Head, Tell Agrab, Shara Temple, Early Dynastic period, 2900-2700 BC, calcite - Oriental Institute Museum, University of Chicago - DSC07462.JPG, Kneeling Nude Male Holding Vase on Head, Tell Agrab, Shara Temple, Early Dynastic period, 2900-2700 BC, calcite - Oriental Institute Museum, University of Chicago - DSC07462
File:Male statue from Shara Temple, Tell Agrab.jpg, Fragment of a Sumerian male statue from the Shara Temple at Tell Agrab, Iraq Museum
File:Head of a Sumerian woman from Tell Agrab, Shara Temple.jpg, Head of a Sumerian woman from the Shara Temple at Tell Agrab, Iraq Museum
File:Male head from Shara Temple, Tell Agrab, Iraq.jpg, Male head from Shara Temple, Tell Agrab, Iraq Museum
File:Female statuette, fragment, from Tell Agrab, Iraq.jpg, Female statuette from Tell Agrab, Iraq Museum
File:Gilgamesh in a Sculptured Vase, Shara Temple, Tell Agrab, Iraq.jpg, Gilgamesh wrestling two bulls, from Shara Temple, Tell Agrab, Iraq Museum
File:Model of a chariot drawn by four horses abreast. Quadriga consists of a chariot and a charioteer with four onagers. From Tell Agrab, Iraq. Early Dynastic period, 2600-2370 BCE. Iraq Museum.jpg, Quadriga consists of a chariot and a charioteer with four onagers. From Tell Agrab, Iraq. Early Dynastic period, 2600-2370 BCE. Iraq Museum
File:Cylinder seal, white marble. Two goats, two shrines, and stars. Jemdet Nasr period, 3100-2900 BCE. From Tell Agrab, Iraq. Sulaymaniyah Museum, Iraq.jpg, Cylinder seal, white marble. Two goats, two shrines, and stars. Jemdet Nasr period, 3100-2900 BCE. From Tell Agrab, Iraq. Sulaymaniyah Museum, Iraq

See also

* Cities of the ancient Near East

References

Further reading

Pinhas Delougaz, Harold D. Hill, and Seton Lloyd, "Private Houses and Graves in the Diyala Region", Oriental Institute Publications 88, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1967

Pinhas Delougaz, "Pottery from the Diyala Region", Oriental Institute Publications 63, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1952,
*Henri Frankfort, "Revelations of Early Mesopotamian Culture. New Discoveries at Tell Agrab; An Ass-drawn Chariot, and Art Relics from an Early Dynastic Temple with indications of Bull-worship and Connections with Ancient India," The Illustrated London News, November 6, pp. 792–95 and col. pl. I, 1937

Gonçalves, Vera, and Isabel Gomes de Almeida, "The Divine Feminine in Mesopotamia: the rosette/star and the reed bundle symbols in early Diyala’s glyptic (c. 3100-2600 BC)" Images, in Perceptions and Productions in and of Antiquity, pp. 156–176, 2023

Pinhas Delougaz and Seton Lloyd with chapters by Henri Frankfort and Thorkild Jacobsen, "Pre-Sargonid Temples in the Diyala Region",'' Oriental Institute Publications 58'', Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1942
*Marchesi, Gianni and Marchetti, Nicolo, "Archaeological Contexts and Chronology of Early Dynastic Statuary", Royal Statuary of Early Dynastic Mesopotamia, University Park, USA: Penn State University Press, pp. 11-96, 2011

ohn C. Sanders, "A Reappraisal of Building Circulation within the E-Hursag at Ur", in From Sherds to Landscapes: Studies on the Ancient Near East in Honor of McGuire Gibson 71, pp. 185-226, 2021
*Ch. P., "Les Fouilles de Tell-Agrab", Revue Archéologique, vol. 11, pp. 88–90, 1938
*


igro, L., “A Female Clay Figurine from Tell Agrab (Iraq) in the Vatican Museum,”] Direzi-one dei Musei Stato della Città del Vaticano, vol.22, pp. 1–11, 2002
*Repiccioli, Marco, "Il sito di Tell Agrab", in Siti storici nella Valle della Diyala, Passato e presente, Bibliografia Storica Nazionale, pp. 113-120, 2000

aren L. Wilson, "A Question of Heirlooms", in From Sherds to Landscapes: Studies on the Ancient Near East in Honor of McGuire Gibson 71, pp. 259-282, 2021

External links

Pedestalled Cup from Shara Temple - Oriental InstituteMace Head Misidentified as a Fidget Spinner - Oriental Institute - August 3, 2017

{{DEFAULTSORT:Agrab
Populated places disestablished in the 3rd millennium BC
1936 archaeological discoveries
Agrab
Agrab
Tells (archaeology)
Early Dynastic Period (Mesopotamia)