Eridu was a Sumerian city located at Tell Abu Shahrain, also Abu Shahrein or Tell Abu Shahrayn, an archaeological site in Lower Mesopotamia. It is located in Dhi Qar Governorate, Iraq, near the modern city of Basra. Eridu is traditionally considered the earliest city in southern Mesopotamia based on the Sumerian King List. Located 24 kilometers south-southwest of the ancient site of Ur, Eridu was the southernmost of a conglomeration of Sumerian cities that grew around temples, almost in sight of one another. The city gods of Eridu were Enki and his consort Damkina. Enki, later known as Ea, was considered to have founded the city. His temple was called E-Abzu, as Enki was believed to live in Abzu, an aquifer from which all life was thought to stem. According to Sumerian temple hymns, another name for the temple of Ea/Enki was called Esira (Esirra).
"... The temple is constructed with gold and lapis lazuli, Its foundation on the nether-sea (apsu) is filled in. By the river of Sippar (Euphrates) it stands. O Apsu pure place of propriety, Esira, may thy king stand within thee. ..."
Nippur was an ancient Sumerian city. It was the special seat of the worship of the Sumerian god Enlil, the "Lord Wind", ruler of the cosmos, subject to An alone. Nippur was located in modern Nuffar 5 miles north of modern Afak, Al-Qādisiyyah Governorate, Iraq. It is roughly 200 kilometers south of modern Baghdad and about 96.54 km southeast of the ancient city of Babylon. Occupation at the site extended back to the Ubaid period, the Uruk period, and the Jemdet Nasr period. The origin of the ancient name is unknown but different proposals have been made.
The Kassites were a people of the ancient Near East. They controlled Babylonia after the fall of the Old Babylonian Empire from c. 1531 BC until c. 1155 BC.
The Old Babylonian Empire, or First Babylonian Empire, is dated to c. 1894–1595 BC, and comes after the end of Sumerian power with the destruction of the Third Dynasty of Ur, and the subsequent Isin-Larsa period. The chronology of the first dynasty of Babylonia is debated; there is a Babylonian King List A and also a Babylonian King List B, with generally longer regnal lengths. In this chronology, the regnal years of List A are used due to their wide usage.
Adab was an ancient Sumerian city between Girsu and Nippur, lying about 35 kilometers southeast of the latter. It was located at the site of modern Bismaya or Bismya in the Al-Qādisiyyah Governorate of Iraq. The site was occupied at least as early as the 3rd Millenium BC, through the Early Dynastic, Akkadian Empire, and Ur III empire periods, into the Kassite period in the mid-2nd millennium BC. It is known that there were temples of Ninhursag/Digirmah, Iskur, Asgi, Inanna and Enki at Adab and that the city-god of Adab was Parag'ellilegarra (Panigingarra) "The Sovereign Appointed by Ellil".
Anshan modern Tall-e Malyan, also Tall-i Malyan, was an Elamite and ancient Persian city. It was located in the Zagros Mountains in southwestern Iran, approximately 46 kilometres (29 mi) north of Shiraz and 43 kilometres (27 mi) west of Persepolis in the Beyza/Ramjerd plain, in the province of Fars.
Chagar Bazar is a tell, or settlement mound, in northern Al-Hasakah Governorate, Syria. It is a short distance from the major ancient city of Nagar. The site was occupied from the Halaf period until the middle of the 2nd millennium BC.
Chia Jani is an archaeological site in Iran's Kermanshah Province. It is located near the village of Palang Gerd, on the Qouchemi stream, which flows to the Ravand River about 3 km (1.9 mi) south, in the south central part of the Islamabad Plain in the west-central Zagros Mountains.
Kamyar Abdi is an Iranian anthropologist and professor of Near Eastern archaeology at Shahid Beheshti University. After studying theoretical physics for a year, he began his undergraduate studies in archaeology at Tehran University, leading to a master's degree. Afterwards, he enrolled in the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago in 1994 to study Near Eastern archaeology, history, and languages. Abdi received his PhD in Anthropological Archaeology from the University of Michigan in 2002, under the supervision of Henry T. Wright. Prior to joining the Shahid Beheshti University in Tehran, he taught and researched in many institutions, namely Dartmouth College, Harvard University, University of California, Irvine and the British Museum. He was a research associate at the Iranian Center for Research on Humanities and Cultural Studies. In addition to many editorial memberships in national and international journals, Abdi has been affiliated with national and international councils and associations, as well as executive experiences such as directing the American Institute of Iranian Studies. Abdi has carried out many archaeological surveys and excavations in Iran, financially supported by domestic and international organizations, including the NSF, NGS, AllS, and lCAR. The outcomes of his research have played an outstanding role in assisting the scientific community with resolving many questions pertinent to Near Eastern archaeology from prehistory and the Bronze Age to the Achaemenid period. He has also participated in archaeological field projects in Turkey, lraq, US, Mexico, and Guatemala. Abdi has published many articles and books in English and Persian, and has translated a large number of books and articles from Western languages into Persian. In the meantime, he continues to train undergraduate and graduate students and supervise graduate student thesis and dissertations.
Wezmeh Cave is an archaeological site near Islamabad Gharb, western Iran, around 470 km (290 mi) southwest of the capital Tehran. The site was discovered in 1999 and excavated in 2001 by a team of Iranian archaeologists under the leadership of Dr. Kamyar Abdi. Wezmeh cave was re-excavated by a team under direction of Fereidoun Biglari in 2019.
Tell Shemshāra is an archaeological site located along the Little Zab in Sulaymaniyah Governorate, in the Iraqi Kurdistan autonomous administrative division of Iraq. The site was inundated by Lake Dukan until recently.
Choghā Mīsh (Persian language; چغامیش čoġā mīš) dating back to about 6800 BC, is the site of a Chalcolithic settlement located in the Khuzistan Province Iran on the eastern Susiana Plain. It was occupied at the beginning of 6800 BC and continuously from the Neolithic up to the Proto-Literate period, thus spanning the time periods from Archaic through Proto-Elamite period. After the decline of the site about 4400 BC, the nearby Susa, on the western Susiana Plain, became culturally dominant in this area. Chogha Mish is located just to the east of Dez River, and about 25 kilometers to the east from the ancient Susa. The similar, though much smaller site of Chogha Bonut lies six kilometers to the west.
Beveled rim bowls are small, undecorated, mass-produced clay bowls most common in the 4th millennium BC during the Late Chalcolithic period. They constitute roughly three quarters of all ceramics found in Uruk culture sites, are therefore a unique and reliable indicator of the presence of the Uruk culture in ancient Mesopotamia.
Bakr Awa is a tell, or archaeological settlement mound, in Sulaymaniyah Province, Iraq. It is located near Halabja in the Shahrizor Plain in Iraqi Kurdistan. It is in the foothills of the Zagros Mountains not far from the headwaters of the Diyala River. The site is 40 meters high and consists of a central settlement mound surrounded by a lower city measuring 800 by 600 metres. Other sites in the area include Tell Kunara, Tell Bazmusian, and Tell Shemshara.
Tell Khaiber is a tell, or archaeological settlement mound, in southern Mesopotamia. It is located thirteen kilometers west of the modern city of Nasiriyah, about 19 kilometers northwest of the ancient city of Ur in Dhiq Qar Province and 25 kilometers south of the ancient city of Larsa. In 2012, the site was visited by members of the Ur Region Archaeology Project (URAP), a cooperation between the British Institute for the Study of Iraq, the University of Manchester and the Iraqi State Board for Antiquities and Heritage. They found that the site had escaped looting, and applied for an excavation permit.
Wezmeh Child or Wezmeh 1 represented by an isolated unerupted human maxillary right premolar tooth of an individual between 6–10 years old. It was found with large numbers of animal fossil remains in a cave site called Wezmeh near Islamabad Gharb, western Iran, around 470 km (290 mi) southwest of the capital Tehran. The site was discovered in 1999. The premolar is relatively large compared with both Holocene and Late Pleistocene P3 and P4. Researchers analyzed it by non-destructive gamma spectrometry that resulted in a date of around 25,000 years BP. But later analysis showed that the gamma spectrometry dates the date was minimum age and the tooth is substantially older. Endostructural features and quantified crown tissue proportions and semilandmark-based geometric morphometric analyses of the enamel-dentine junction aligns it closely with Neanderthals and shows that it is distinct from the fossil and extant modern human pattern. Therefore, it is the first direct evidence of Neanderthal presence in the Iranian Zagros. Given that the cave was a carnivore den during late Pleistocene, it is probable that the Wezmeh Child was killed, or had its remains scavenged, by carnivores who used the cave as den. Within an approximate 30 km radius of the Cave, 13 Middle Paleolithic sites have been recorded; among them, the nearest sites are located about 10 km to the northwest. The tooth is on display at Paleolithic gallery of National Museum of Iran
Tell al-Dhiba'i,, is an archaeological site in Baghdad Governorate (Iraq). It lies within the borders of modern Baghdad near Tell Muhammad and 3 kilometers northeast of Shaduppum, more specifically in the neighborhood of New Baghdad. Uzarzalulu/Zaralulu has been proposed as the original name of the city. An alternative proposal is Šadlaš. Known rulers of Šadlaš are Sumu-Amnānum, Sumu-numḫim and Sumu-Šamaš. The city was occupied mainly during the Isin-Larsa period and Old Babylonian period. Not to be confused with the Sassanian period site Tell al-Dhiba'i near Uruk.
Kurd Qaburstan, is an ancient Near East archaeological site in the Erbil Governorate, in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, 22 kilometers southwest of Erbil. It is considered one of the most important archaeological sites in the region. The site is strategically located between the Upper and Lower Zab rivers. The modern village of Yedi Kizlar is adjacent to and covers a portion of the southeastern lower town. The site is primarily a single-period site dating to the early 2nd millennium BC, the Middle Bronze Age. There is also a compact Late Bronze Age occupation on the high mound. Kurd Qaburstan has been proposed as the location of the ancient city of Qabra. The site is located near Tell Halawa, Tell Aliawa, Tell Baqrta, and Qasr Shemamok (Kilizi), other prominent sites on the Erbil plain.
Tell Muhammad, is an ancient Near East archaeological site currently in the outskirts of Baghdad, along the Tigris river in the Diyala region. It is a very short distance from the site of Tell Harmal to the north and not far from the site of Tell al-Dhiba'i to the northeast. The ancient name of the site is unknown though Diniktum has been suggested. The lost city of Akkad has also been proposed. Based on a year name found on one of the cuneiform tablets the name Banaia has also been proposed.
Tell Yelkhi, is an ancient Near East archaeological site in Diyala Governorate (Iraq). It was examined as part of the Hamrin Dam salvage excavation before it flooded. Other sites a part of that rescue excavation included, Me-Turan, Tell Gubah, Tell Songor, Tellul Hamediyat, Tell Rubeidheh, Tell Madhur, Tell Imlihiye, Tell Rashid, Tell Saadiya and Tell Abada. Some of these sites, including Tell Yelkhi, periodically emerge from the water. The site of Tell Yelhi was settled in the early 3rd millennium BC and occupation continued through the Kassite period late in the 2nd millennium BC. Its name in ancient times is not yet known though Awalki has been suggested.
