Qasr Shemamok

Last updated
Qasr Shemamok
Iraq physical map.svg
Archaeological site icon (red).svg
Shown within Iraq
Alternative nameKilizu
Location Erbil Governorate, Iraq
Coordinates 36°6′19″N43°45′9″E / 36.10528°N 43.75250°E / 36.10528; 43.75250
Typesettlement
History
Founded2nd millennium BC
PeriodsLate Bronze Age, Iron Age, Parthian, Sassanian
Site notes
Excavation dates1850, 1933, 2011-2020
ArchaeologistsAusten H. Layard, Giuseppe Furlani, Olivier Rouault, Maria Grazia Masetti-Rouault
ConditionRuined
OwnershipPublic
Public accessYes

Qasr Shemamok (also Qasr Shamamuk and earlier Kasr of Shomamok) is an ancient Near East archaeological site about 30 kilometers south of modern Erbil (ancient Arbela, possibly ancient Urbilum) in Erbil Governorate, in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq on the west back of the Shiwazor river. It is about 25 kilometers from the ancient site of Nimrud. Remains at the site date mainly to the Hurrian, Middle Assyrian, Neo-Assyrian, Parthian, Sassanian times. Under the Assyrians it was named Kilizu (or Kakzu or even Kilizi) and was a provincial capital. It is not far from the ancient sites of Kurd Qaburstan (possibly ancient Qabra), Tell Halawa, Tell Aliawa, and Tell Baqrta (which reached 80 hectares in the Early Bronze Age). [1]

Contents

Archaeology

The main tell is about 20 hectares in area and raises about 30 meters above the plain. It is cut by a gully on the northeast which it thought to be position of the ancient gate. A lower town, today almost cokpletely under irrigated cultivation, extends to the south of the tell and covers about 50 hectares. The area inside the Neo-Assyrian period city wall is about 50 hectares. The area outside the main site also shows signs of occupation. The southernmost part of the site lies under a modern village. There are bomb craters on the top of the tell, in the Area A-West excavation area, from the 2003 invasion of Iraq. [2]

The site, then known as Kasr of Shomamok, was visited by Austen H. Layard in 1850 noting it was surrounded by an embankment and was divided in two parts by a ravine or ancient watercourse. He reported that a local sheik had been excavating at the site and "had opened several deep trenches and tunnels in the mound, and had discovered chambers, some with walls of plain sundried bricks, others paneled round the lower part with slabs of reddish limestone, about 3 or 4 feet high. He had also found inscribed bricks, with inscription declaring that Sennacherib had here built a city or rather palace". Layard examined a high point about two miles from Shemamok which appeared to have been topped by a "castle" of Sennacherib. [3] [4]

Site of Qasr Shemamok (mwq` qSr shmmk (kylyzw.jpg
Site of Qasr Shemamok

In 1933 an Italian team led by Giuseppe Furlani excavated in Qasr Shemamok, at the tell and the lower town. [5] [6] [7] They dated the city wall to the Neo-Assyrian period and confirmed the identification as ancient Kilizu/Kilizi/Kakzu based on Neo-Assyrian brick inscriptions. A large Middle Assyrian, Neo-Assyrian, and Parthian necropolis found west of the mound, 42 burials in all, was excavated. [8] [9] Excavation finds, including, cylinder seals, bead, pottery vases, iron objects, terracotta figurines and two large sarcophagi were divided between the Archaeological Museum of Florence and the Baghdad Museum. The status of the latter objects is unclear. [10] [11] [12]

In 2011 a University of Lyon and Harvard University team led by Olivier Rouault and Maria Grazia Masetti-Rouault started working at the site, beginning with a surface survey. They then excavated a 68 meter long by 5 meter wide trench (Area A-East) beginning at the top of the tell (where several deposits of live machine gun ammunition were found) and bearing south through the lower town. A monumental ramp was encountered, constructed from baked bricks some of which bore an inscription of Neo-Assyrian ruler Sennacherib (705–681 BC). A clay nail of Middle Assyrian ruler Arik-den-ili (c. 1317–1306 BC) was found. A second excavation, Area B, was later opened on the northeastern part of the site. Small finds included fragments of cuneiform tablets. [13] In the northern part of the tell a palace of Middle Assyrian ruler Adad-nirari I (c. 1305–1274 BC) was found with in situ inscribed floor bearing his name. [14] [15] [16] Beneath that layer, in Area A-East, were found Hurrian cuneiform tablets and a foundation document of a Hurrian ruler. [17] [18]

From 2012 to 2020 the Erbil Plain Archaeological Survey used satellite photographs, drone photogrammetry, and surface collection to establish occupation patterns at number of sites in the region, including Qasr Shemamok. [19] Surface finds and satellite image analysis suggests that there was a 30 hectare industrial area in a northern extension to the site. The survey identified a large number of archaeological sites in the area around Qasr Shemamok. [20] [21] [22] [23]

In 2015 a local turned a cuneiform tablet (QS04b), later termed the "Terjan tablet", into the Erbil Museum. Based on similar fragments found in the Late Bronze levels of the citadel its provenance was determined to be Qasr Shemamok, dating to before the Middle Assyrian period. The tablet turned out to be a foundation tablet of the ruler Irišti-enni (a hybrid Akkadian-Hurrian name), son of Shir-enni, and marked the rebuilding of the city wall of Tu’e in the "land of Kunsihhe". It was dedicated to the storm god DINGIR.ISHKUR "who loves Tu’e". Later excavations found the earlier wall, measuring 9 meters in width and fronted by a ditch. [24] [25] [26]

A shabti (Egyptian funerary statue) fragment of the 'king-mother' Udjashu from the Thirtieth Dynasty of Egypt was found at Qasr Shemamok. [27] A sikkatu (inscribed wall peg) of Assur-dan II (c. 934–912 BC) was found at the site. [28]

History

remains of a palace built by Adad-nirari I. in Qasr Shemamok hill in Erbil 'rDy@ qSr lmlk 'dd nyrry l'wl.jpg
remains of a palace built by Adad-nirari I. in Qasr Shemamok hill in Erbil

Occupation at the site was light from the Hassuna, Halaf, Uruk, Ninivite V, Early Dynastic, Old Babylonian, through the Middle Bronze period. [29] In the early portion of the Late Bronze period the site was under Hurrian influence, possibly as part of the Mitanni Empire. After that, in Middle Assyrian times, a 50 hectare city grew at the site and became Kilizu, capital of the Assyrian Kilizu province. Occupation continued into the Neo-Assyrian period and later during Parthian, Hellenistic, and Sassanian times (restricted to the 6 hectare citadel area the tell). [17] [30]

The name of a governor of Kilizi from the reign of Ninurta-apal-Ekur (c. 1191–1179 BC) was "Ibassi-ilı ̄son of Assur-musallim". [31] The city is mentioned in the Assyrian Eponym Chronicle. In 704 it reads "T[o ...] the cities Larak, Sarrabanu, [...]; the palace of the city Kilizi was built; ... in [...]; nobles against the Kulummians.". The eponym of year 703 is "Nusha[ya, governor of the city Kilizi]". [32]

See also

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References

  1. ↑ Konstantinos Kopanias, Claudia Beuger, John MacGinnis, and Jason Ur, "The Tell Baqrta Project in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq", In The Provincial Archaeology of the Assyrian Empire, edited by John MacGinnis, Dirk Wicke, and Tina Greenfield, Pp. 117-128. Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, 2016
  2. ↑ Calini, Ilaria, Jean-Jacques Herr, and Maria Grazia Masetti-Rouault, "Craters at Qasr Shemamok (Kurdistan, Iraq)", Archéologie des Conflits / Archéologie en Conflit, pp. 225-248, 2017
  3. ↑ Austen H. Layard, "Discoveries among the ruins of Nineveh and Babylon; with travels in Armenia, Kurdistan, and the desert: being the result of a second expedition undertaken for the Trustees of the British museum", New York, Harper & brothers, 1853
  4. ↑ Grayson, A. K. and Novotny, J., "The Royal Inscriptions of Sennacherib, King of Assyria (704–681 BC), Part 2", The Royal Inscriptions of the Neo-Assyrian Period 3/2, Winona Lake, 2014
  5. ↑ Furlani, "Un’inscrizione di Sennacheribbo d’Assiria trovata a Kakzu", in Rendiconti dell’Accademia dei Lincei, serie VI. X., pp. 475–478, 1935
  6. ↑ Furlani, Giuseppe, "Sarcofagi partici di Kakzu", Iraq 1, pp.90–94, 1934
  7. ↑ Furlani, Giuseppe, "Kakzu", Archiv fûr Orientforschung 9, pp. 74–75, 1934
  8. ↑ Martini, Annarita, "The Glazed Parthian Sarcophagi of the Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Firenze: Rites and the Use of “Bathtub” Coffins", In Gremium. Studies in History, Culture and Politics 15, pp. 55–70, 2021
  9. ↑ Anastasio, Stefano, Giovanni Conti, and Laura Ulivieri (eds.), "La collezione orientale del Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Firenze, Volume I: I materiali di Qasr Shamamuk", Rome: Aracne Editrice (Studi mesopotamici 3), 2012
  10. ↑ Furlani, Giuseppe, "Kakzu-Qaṣr Šemāmok", Rivista Degli Studi Orientali, vol. 15, no. 2/3, pp. 119–42, 1934
  11. ↑ Anastasio, Stefano, "The Italian Archaeological Expedition to Qasr Shamamuk-Kilizu, Iraq, 1933. Notes on the Excavation Finds at the Iraq Museum in Baghdad", Ash-sharq: Bulletin of the Ancient Near East–Archaeological, Historical and Societal Studies 1.2, pp. 275-286, 2017
  12. ↑ Anastasio, S., "La collezione fiorentina dei materiali di Qasr Shamamuk/Kilizu (Iraq)", in Egeo, Cipro, Siria e Mesopotamia. Dal collezionismo allo scavo archeologico. In onore di Paolo Emilio Pecorella, Edited by M. C. Guidotti, F. Lo Schiavo and R. Pierobon Benoit. Livorno: Sillabe, pp. 216–229, 2007
  13. ↑ Rouault, Olivier and Masetti-Rouault, Maria Grazia, "French Excavations in Qasr Shemamok-Kilizu (Iraqi Kurdistan): The First Mission (2011)", in Tradition and Innovation in the Ancient Near East: Proceedings of the 57th Rencontre Assyriologique International at Rome, 4–8 July 2011, edited by Alfonso Archi, University Park, USA: Penn State University Press, pp. 481-490, 2015
  14. ↑ Olivier Rouault et al, "Qasr Shemamok-Kilizu (Kurdistan d’Irak), la campagne de 2013", in Lionel Marti, Olivier Rouault, Aline Tenu (ed) Études Mésopotamiennes – Mesopotamian Studies: N°2 – 2022, pp. 177-252, 2023, ISBN   9781803273723
  15. ↑ Olivier Rouault et al, "Qasr Shemamok-Kilizu (Kurdistan d’Irak), la campagne de 2014", in Lionel Marti, Olivier Rouault, Aline Tenu (ed) Études Mésopotamiennes – Mesopotamian Studies: N°2 – 2022, pp. 253-349, 2023, ISBN   9781803273723
  16. ↑ Maria Grazia Masetti-Rouault et al, "Qasr Shemamok-Kilizu (Kurdistan d’Irak), la campagnes de 2016", in Lionel Marti, Olivier Rouault, Aline Tenu (ed) Études Mésopotamiennes – Mesopotamian Studies: N°2 – 2022, pp. 350-447, 2023, ISBN   9781803273723
  17. 1 2 Masetti-Rouault, Maria Grazia, "Late Bronze and Iron Age Levels from Qasr Shemamok.: A First Evaluation of the Impact of the Assyrian Presence in the Region East of Calah", Proceedings of the 11th International Congress on the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East: Vol. 2: Field Reports. Islamic Archaeology, edited by Adelheid Otto et al., 1st ed., Harrassowitz Verlag, pp. 253–64, 2020
  18. ↑ Masetti-Rouault, Maria Grazia, "A Summary of the 5th Campaign of the French Archaeological Mission at Qasr Shemamok (Kurdistan, Iraq), 21 September–19 October 2016", Ash-sharq: Bulletin of the Ancient Near East–Archaeological, Historical and Societal Studies 1.1, pp. 112-124, 2017
  19. ↑ Ur, Jason, et al., "The Erbil Plain Archaeological Survey: Preliminary Results, 2012–2020", Iraq 83, pp. 205-243, 2021
  20. ↑ "Ur, Jason, et al., "Ancient cities and landscapes in the Kurdistan region of Iraq: The Erbil Plain Archaeological Survey 2012 season", Iraq, vol. 75, pp. 89–117, 2013
  21. ↑ "Jason Ur, "The Archaeological Renaissance in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq", Near Eastern Archaeology, vol. 80, no. 3, pp. 176–87, 2017
  22. ↑ Ur, Jason, and J. F. Osborne, "The rural landscape of the Assyrian heartland: Recent results from Arbail and Kilizu provinces", The provincial archaeology of the Assyrian Empire, pp. 163-174, 2016
  23. ↑ Schwartz, Glenn M., et al., "Kurd Qaburstan on the Erbil plain: Field research 2016–2017", pp. 189-230, 2022
  24. ↑ Rouault, Olivier, Maria Grazia Masetti-Rouault, and John MacGinnis, "Les inscriptions royales d’Irišti-enni à Qasr Shemamok", Études Mésopotamiennes–Mesopotamian Studies: N° 2–2022, pp. 448-467, 2023
  25. ↑ Parpola, S., "Assyrian Royal Ritual and Cultic Texts", State Archives of Assyria 20, Winona Lake, 2017
  26. ↑ Grazia Masetti-Rouault, Maria, "Changing gods at Qasr Shemamok: Local cults and the Assyrian Empire at the beginning of the Iron Age", Ancient Western Asia Beyond the Paradigm of Collapse and Regeneration (1200-900 BCE): Proceedings of the NYU-PSL International Colloquium, Paris Institut National d’Histoire de l’Art, April 16–17, 2019, edited by Maria Grazia Masetti-Rouault, Ilaria Calini, Robert Hawley and Lorenzo d’Alfonso, New York, USA: New York University Press, pp. 251-276, 2014
  27. ↑ Leroy, Pauline and Devauchelle, Didier, "Un ouchebti de la mère royale Oudjachou trouvé à Shemamok", Revue d'Égyptologie, no. 69, pp. 259-261, 2019
  28. ↑ Grayson, A.K., "Assyrian Royal Inscriptions (ARI) II", RANE II, Wiesbaden, 1976
  29. ↑ Calini, Ilaria, "Changing powers and material culture: The case of Qasr Shemamok", Ancient Western Asia Beyond the Paradigm of Collapse and Regeneration (1200-900 BCE): Proceedings of the NYU-PSL International Colloquium, Paris Institut National d’Histoire de l’Art, April 16–17, 2019, edited by Maria Grazia Masetti-Rouault, Ilaria Calini, Robert Hawley and Lorenzo d’Alfonso, New York, USA: New York University Press, pp. 325-360, 2024
  30. ↑ Ilaria Calini, "Ceramic Finds of the Hellenistic-Seleucid Era from Qasr Shemamok (2012 Campaign, Area A-East)", in Lionel Marti, Olivier Rouault, Aline Tenu (ed) Études Mésopotamiennes – Mesopotamian Studies: N°2 – 2022, pp. 470-512, 2023, ISBN   9781803273723
  31. ↑ Llop-Raduà, Jaume, "The Development of the Middle Assyrian Provinces", Altorientalische Forschungen, vol. 39, no. 1, pp. 87-111, 2012
  32. ↑ Grayson, A. Kirk and Novotny, Jamie. "Introduction", The Royal Inscriptions of Sennacherib, King of Assyria (704–681 BC), Part 1, University Park, USA: Penn State University Press, pp. 1-28, 2012

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