Archaeological Projects
Wednesday, 6 October 2021, 12:30 pm - 2:30 pm EST / 7:30pm - 9:30 pm AST
Moderator: Dr. Jean Evans
Dr. Jean M. Evans is the Deputy Director and Chief Curator of the Oriental Institute (OI) at the University of Chicago. For the OI Centennial, she oversaw the complete renovation of the OI Museum, the first comprehensive reinstallation of the galleries in thirty years. Jean’s research focuses on the art and archaeology of ancient Iraq, primarily Sumerian temple sculpture and sacred material culture; the reception and representation of ancient Iraq; and the production of knowledge in museums and museum display. She is the author of The Lives of Sumerian Sculpture: An Archaeology of the Early Dynastic Temple (2012), and her co-edited volumes include Beyond Babylon: Art, Trade, and Diplomacy in the Second Millennium B.C. (2008) and Mesopotamian Temple Inventories in the Third and Second Millennia BCE: Integrating Archaeological, Textual, and Visual Sources (2019). Her research has been supported by fellowships from Ludwig Maximilian University, the Getty Foundation, the Academic Research Institute in Iraq, the Warburg Institute, and the German Archaeological Institute. Jean received her PhD in Art History and Archaeology from the Institute of Fine Arts at New York University, and she was a curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art from 1999-2008. She has worked on excavations in Syria at Tell Brak, Tell Mozan, Hamoukar, Tell Zeidan, and Tell Qsoubi.
The limits of Holocene Marine Transgression into Southern Mesopotamia
Speaker: Dr. Badir Albadran, University of Basrah
abstract
Due to the topographical and structural nature of the region, the southern Mesopotamian plain was subject to limited marine transgression during the Holocene. In this paper, we assert that the nature of that transgression accounts for differences between the southern reaches of the Euphrates River in the west and the southern reaches of the Tigris River in the east. The southern part of the Euphrates River is influenced by subsurface structures that result from continuous uplifting activities, while the southern part of the Tigris River is almost flat, with few comparable subsurface features. Therefore, ground level for the lower (present-day) Tigris River region is slightly lower than that of the lower Euphrates River basin. We argue that this level disparity played an important role during the last mid-Holocene marine transgression, which fully covered the lower the Tigris River basin, and made simple extensions of tidal flats towards the Euphrates River. Concurrently, the Euphrates River was exposed to large freshwater inputs from melting snowpacks in its northern sources. The resulting downstream intermixture, plus flood zone refugia provided by subsurface structures, encouraged mid-Holocene growth of population agglomerations and community structures in what is now the western (Euphrates) portion of the present-day Tigris-Euphrates-Karun delta but prevented concurrent ongoing settlement in the eastern delta.
about the author
Dr. Badir Albadran, Chancellor of Almaaqal University in Basrah, Iraq, is a geologist specializing in marine sedimentology. He earned his PhD at the University of Nice in 1986 and has since held a number of scholarly positions at the University of Basrah’s Marine Science Centre, including acting as the Chair of the Department of Marine Geology and Director of the Marine Consulting Bureau. Dr. Albadran has been published numerous times, most recently on his research of Iraq’s Southern Marshes, geology of Iraqi territorial waters, and the tidal flats of Khor Al-Zubair. He is also a member of the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission, Geological Society of Iraq, and the International Association of Sedimentologists.
Returning to Lagash: New excavations building on previous campaigns
Speaker: Dr. Holly Pittman, University of Pennsylvannia
abstract
In 2019 a new campaign of excavations began at Tell al Hiba, the ancient city of Lagash sponsored by the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology and the Metropolitan Museum of Art and in collaboration with Cambridge University, UK. These new excavations continue the work done from 1968-1990 by New York University under the direction of Donald P. Hansen. This paper will present the goals of the new excavations in the context of existing rich textual as well as artifactual and archaeological evidence.
about the speaker
Dr. Holly Pittman, Bok Family Professor in the Humanities at the University of Pennsylvania,
has excavated in Cyprus, Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran and has had primary publication responsibilities of the art and especially the glyptic art from the sites of Malyan in the Fars province of Iran; Uruk period Tell Brak; and Uruk period Hacienbi Tepe. She co-curated the traveling exhibition of the "Treasures from the Royal Tombs of Ur" from the University Museum as well as the Journey to the City galleries opened at the Penn Museum in 2018. Her recent research interests have revolved around the excavations of the sites of Konar Sandal South and North in the region of Jiroft in south-central Iran. Since 2007 she has supervised the publication of the legacy excavations at Tell al Hiba lead by Donald Hansen from 1968-1990. In 2018 she received a five year permit to initiate new excavations at the site.
Excavations at Kurd Qaburstan: Recent Results at a Second Millennium BC Urban Site on the Erbil Plain
Speaker: Dr. Glenn Schwartz, Johns Hopkins University
abstract
A team from Johns Hopkins University has conducted excavation seasons since 2013 at Kurd Qaburstan southwest of Erbil in northern Iraq. At 109 hectares, Kurd Qaburstan is one of the largest Bronze Age sites on the Erbil plain. It reached its greatest extent in the Middle Bronze period (ca. 2000-1600 BC), when the entire site was enclosed by a defensive wall and the high mound was also fortified. Given the site’s size and date, the ancient identity of Kurd Qaburstan has been hypothesized to be Qabra, capital of the Erbil region in the Middle Bronze period. Excavation has identified Middle Bronze large-scale and domestic architecture on the high mound and lower town, as well as Late Bronze (Mittani) occupation of an elite character on the high mound. Complementing the excavations, a geophysical survey has revealed the urban organization of the latest Middle Bronze phase, including the city wall, dense neighborhoods, and a monumental temple.
about the speaker
Whiting Professor of Archaeology, Johns Hopkins University
Dr. Glenn Schwartz is a Near Eastern archaeologist whose research focuses on the emergence and early history of urban societies in Syria and Mesopotamia. His current field project at Kurd Qaburstan (possibly ancient Qabra), in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq south of Erbil, focuses on the study of a large 2nd millennium BC north Mesopotamian urban center.
Schwartz's previous field project at Tell Umm el-Marra, western Syria, concentrated on the problems of origins, collapse and regeneration of an early urban center. The discovery of a cemetery of elite tombs and ritual installations at the site also allowed for broader considerations of issues of sacrifice, ancestor veneration, and human-animal relations. Before Umm el-Marra, Schwartz's fieldwork was based at the small third millennium BC village of Tell al-Raqa'i in northeastern Syria. The research focus at Tell al-Raqa'i concerned the role of small rural communities in early urban and complex societies. A monograph presenting the final report from this project edited by Schwartz was published in 2015 (Rural Archaeology in Early Urban Northern Mesopotamia: Excavations at Tell al-Raqa’i). The larger problem of rural archaeology was addressed in the book Archaeological Views from the Countryside: Village Communities in Early Complex Societies, co-edited by Schwartz and Steven Falconer. Schwartz has also done work on Syrian chronology (A Ceramic Chronology from Tell Leilan: Operation 1), on the problem of the fourth millennium colonial "Uruk expansion," and on pre-state and state societies in Syria and northern Mesopotamia.
Together with department colleague Jerrold Cooper, he co-edited The Study of the Ancient Near East in the 21st Century: The William Foxwell Albright Centennial Conference. In 2003, Schwartz and Peter Akkermans co-authored The Archaeology of Syria: From Complex Hunter-Gatherers to Urban Societies, ca. 16,000-300 BC, published by Cambridge University Press. In 2006, the University of Arizona Press published After Collapse: The Regeneration of Complex Societies, edited by Schwartz and Hopkins PhD. graduate John Nichols. The volume Sacred Killing: The Archaeology of Sacrifice in the Ancient Near East (2012) was co-edited by Schwartz and Anne Porter.
Introducing Hama: The Discovery of a Lost Neo-Assyrian Queen Laid to Rest amongst a Curious Cache of Bronze Coffins in the Nimrud Tombs
Speaker: Dr. Tracy Spurrier, University of Toronto
abstract
In 1988, while clearing debris from rooms in the Northwest Palace at the ancient Assyrian capital Kalhu (modern Nimrud), the Iraqi Department of Antiquities discovered a vaulted tomb chamber under a floor. Over the next few years, further excavations revealed the existence of several tombs belonging to the Queens of the Neo-Assyrian Empire. These tombs contained stone sarcophagi, luxurious elite goods, and an unparalleled wealth of gold and jewelry. As the excavators began work on Tomb III, which belonged to Mullissu-mukannišat-Ninua, the wife of Assurnasirpal II (883-859 BC) who built the Northwest Palace, they encountered a curious cache of three bronze coffins piled in the antechamber. When first discovered, it was thought all of the coffins contained the fragmentary remains of numerous individuals with lavish grave goods all found in secondary burial contexts. This is clearly the case for coffins 1 and 3 which each contained the partial remains of many individuals. However, the palaeopathological evidence for Coffin 2 shows that the sole occupant, a young woman found wearing a delicately crafted gold crown, was initially interred in this bronze coffin. By taking a multidisciplinary approach examining the archaeological, skeletal, and textual data from these tombs in tandem, in this paper I identify the remains of a young queen previously known in name only: Hama, wife of Shalmaneser IV. This paper also discusses the context of the bronze coffins, as well as attempts to reconstruct the post-mortem history of the individuals.
about the speaker
Tracy L. Spurrier is currently a Sessional Lecturer at the University of Toronto where in 2020 she earned her Ph.D. in Near Eastern Archaeology in the Department of Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations (NMC) writing a digital archaeology dissertation on the art and architecture of Sennacherib’s Southwest Palace at Nineveh. She has an M.A. in Near Eastern Civilizations also from the NMC Department and a B.A. in Archaeology from Boston University. Tracy has worked on archaeology excavations in Spain, Egypt, Turkey, and Syria. She was Assistant Curator at the ROM (Royal Ontario Museum) for a Mesopotamia: Inventing Our World exhibit, and her relevant publications include “Finding Hama: On the Identification of a Forgotten Queen Buried in the Nimrud Tombs” in the Journal of Near Eastern Studies (April 2017). In her spare time, Tracy does lost-wax bronze casting and is trying to figure out the method Sennacherib used to cast colossal bronze lamassu in 700 BC.
The Erbil Plain Archaeological Survey, Kurdistan Region of Iraq
Speaker: Dr. Jason Ur, Harvard University
abstract
The Erbil Plain today is the political capital of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, but its historyextends eight millennia into the past. Since 2012, a team of Kurdish Iraqi and foreignarchaeologists have been writing that history with a combination of satellite imagery andground survey. Our goals are to understand the history of settlement and landscape evolutionacross those millennia. We are particularly interested to describe the origins of settlement on the plain; the impacts of the fourth millennium BC “Uruk Expansion,” the rise of cities in the Early Bronze Age, the nature of the Assyrian Imperial heartland, the Medieval Islamic expansion, and the destruction of rural settlement in 1987. This presentation will describe the project’s goals, our field and laboratory methods, and the results from our 2012-2020 field seasons.
about the speaker
Dr. Jason Ur is Stephen Phillips Professor of Archaeology and Ethnology in the Department of Anthropology at Harvard University. He specializes in early urbanism, landscape archaeology, and remote sensing, particularly the use of declassified US intelligence imagery. He has directed field surveys in Syria, Iraq, Turkey, and Iran. He is the author of Urbanism and Cultural Landscapes in Northeastern Syria: The Tell Hamoukar Survey, 1999-2001 (2010). Since 2012, he has directed the Erbil Plain Archaeological Survey, an archaeological survey in the Kurdistan Region of northern Iraq. He is also preparing a history of Mesopotamian cities.
