Shibaniba | |
  Shown within Iraq | |
| Alternative name | Tell Billa |
|---|---|
| Location | Nineveh Province, Iraq |
| Coordinates | 36°26′1″N43°20′54″E / 36.43361°N 43.34833°E |
| Type | settlement |
| Area | 12 ha/30 acres |
| Site notes | |
| Excavation dates | 1850, 1930–1934 |
| Archaeologists | A.H. Layard, E.A. Speiser, C. Bache |
Tell Billa (also Tell Billah, Tall Billa, and Baasheikhah) is an archaeological site near Bashiqa in Nineveh Province (Iraq) 20 kilometers northeast of Mosul.
The site consists of a large mound and covers around 30 acres (12 ha). There is some evidence of occupation as far back as the Uruk period, including some Hurrian presence in the middle second millennium. An Uruk period cylinder seal was found at the site, a presentation scene of Istar. [1] A few preliterate clay tokens were also found. [2] On Stratum V a number of copper weapons, mainly axe heads and lance butts. One lance butt was inscribed with cuneiform characters. [3]
In 2022 it was proposed that Tell Billa was the site of the Ur III period (ca 2100 BC) city Šimānum (possibly known as Asimānum during the Akkadian Empire). [4]
Beginning in Middle Assyrian times the ancient city, not far from Assur, was named Šib/manibe in the Middle Assyrian period and Šibaniba in the Neo-Assyrian period. Its earlier name is not known.
The Hurrian artifacts were identified in the excavators' Stratum 3. The comparison with the similar artifacts from Nuzi led Speiser to conclude that the Hurrians settled at Billa before they moved on to Nuzi. [5]
The majority of excavated material, however, is from the Middle Assyrian and Neo-Assyrian times, including glyptic and epigraphic material. [6] Ninety One Middle Assyrian tablets (ca. 1400-1000 BC) are attested from Tell Billa/Shibaniba. [7] Several Middle Assyrian faience items were also found at Tell Billa. [8] The name Shibaniba relates to this period of its history. [9]
Some ceramic remains of the Parthian period were found at the site. [10]
After some minor soundings done by Austen Henry Layard around 1850, Tell Billa was excavated between 1930 and 1934 by a team from the University of Pennsylvania and the American Schools of Oriental Research. [11] The excavation was led by Ephraim Avigdor Speiser with Charles Bache. [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] [17] The work was complicated by the fact that the mound was divided up among 18 owners including a Jacobite church. [18]
At the same time, these scholars explored the related nearby ancient site of Tepe Gawra, which is located about 8 km (5.0 mi) northeast of Billa. [14]
The Hurrians were a people who inhabited the Ancient Near East during the Bronze Age. They spoke the Hurrian language, and lived throughout northern Syria, upper Mesopotamia and southeastern Anatolia.
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 96.56 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.
Nuzi was an ancient Mesopotamian city southwest of the city of Arrapha, located near the Tigris river. The site consists of one medium-sized multiperiod tell and two small single period mounds.
Tushhan was a Neo-Assyrian provincial capital in the upper Tigris region. It was rebuilt by the ruler Ashurnasirpal II and survived until the end of the Neo-Assyrian period around 611 BC.
Tell Ta'yinat is a low-lying ancient tell on the east bank at the bend of the Orontes River where it flows through the Amuq valley, in the Hatay province of southeastern Turkey about 25 kilometers south east of Antakya, and lies near Tell Atchana, the site of the ancient city of Alalakh. Tell Ta'yinat has been proposed as the site of Alalaḫu, inhabited in late 3rd millennium BC, mentioned in Ebla's Palace G archive; and in later times as Kinalua, the capital city of an Iron Age Neo-Hittite kingdom. Among the findings are an Iron Age temple and several 1st millennium BC cuneiform tablets. Chatal Huyuk (Amuq) is another major site that is located in the area.
Teppe Hasanlu or Hasanlu Tepe is an archeological site of an ancient city located in northwest Iran, a short distance south of Lake Urmia. The nature of its destruction at the end of the 9th century BC essentially froze one layer of the city in time, providing researchers with extremely well preserved buildings, artifacts, and skeletal remains from the victims and enemy combatants of the attack. The site was likely associated with the Mannaeans.
Ephraim Avigdor Speiser was a Polish-born American Assyriologist and translator of the Torah. He discovered the ancient site of Tepe Gawra in 1927 and supervised its excavation between 1931 and 1938.
Tell Fekheriye is an ancient site in the Khabur river basin in al-Hasakah Governorate of northern Syria. It is securely identified as the site of Sikkan, attested since c. 2000 BC. While under an Assyrian governor c. 1000 BC it was called Sikani. Sikkan was part of the Syro-Hittite state of Bit Bahiani in the early 1st millennium BC. In the area, several mounds, called tells, can be found in close proximity: Tell Fekheriye, Ras al-Ayn, and 2.5 kilometers east of Tell Halaf, site of the Aramean and Neo-Assyrian city of Guzana. During the excavation, the Tell Fekheriye bilingual inscription was discovered at the site, which provides the source of information about Hadad-yith'i.
Tepe Gawra is an ancient Mesopotamian settlement 15 miles NNE of Mosul in northwest Iraq that was occupied between 5000 and 1500 BC. It is roughly a mile from the site of Nineveh and 2 miles E of the site of Khorsabad. It contains remains from the Halaf period, the Ubaid period, and the Uruk period. Tepe Gawra contains material relating to the Halaf-Ubaid Transitional period c. 5,500–5,000 BC.
Khafajah or Khafaje, ancient Tutub, is an archaeological site in Diyala Governorate, Iraq 7 miles (11 km) east of Baghdad. Khafajah lies on the Diyala River, a tributary of the Tigris. Occupied from the Uruk and Jemdet Nasr periods through the end of the Old Babylonian Empire, it was under the control of the Akkadian Empire and then the Third Dynasty of Ur in the 3rd millennium BC. It then became part of the empire of the city-state of Eshnunna lying 12 miles (19 km) southwest of that city, about 5 miles (8.0 km) from the ancient city of Shaduppum, and near Tell Ishchali, both which Eshnunna also controlled. It then fell to Babylonia before falling into disuse.
Tell Beydar is a village and ancient site along the Khabur river in the modern Al-Hasakah Governorate, Syria about 30 kilometers north of the modern city of Hasake. It was the Ancient Near Eastern city of Nabada. It is connected by road to Al-Darbasiyah on the Turkish border in the north.
Tell Arpachiyah is a prehistoric archaeological site in Nineveh Province (Iraq). It takes its name from a more recent village located about 4 miles (6.4 km) from Nineveh. The local name of the mound on which the site is located is Tepe Reshwa.
Edward Chiera was an Italian-American archaeologist, Assyriologist, and scholar of religions and linguistics.
The Nuzi texts are ancient documents found during an excavation of Nuzi, an ancient Mesopotamian city southwest of Kirkuk in modern Kirkuk Governorate of Iraq, located near the Tigris river. They were found on cuneiform tablets written in the Akkadian language. The site consists of one medium-sized multiperiod tell and two small single period mounds. The texts are mainly legal and business documents. They have previously been viewed as evidence for the age and veracity of certain parts of the Old Testament, especially of the Patriarchal age, but that attribution is now doubted by most scholars.
Two main types of seals were used in the Ancient Near East, the stamp seal and the cylinder seal. Stamp seals first appeared in 'administrative' contexts in central and northern Mesopotamia in the seventh millennium and were used exclusively until the fifth millennium. Cylinder seals appeared first around 3600 BC in southern Mesopotamia and south-western Iran. They gradually replaced stamp seals, becoming the tool of a rising class of bureaucrats in the early stages of state formation. Even though stamp seals were still produced in the third and second millennia, cylinder seals predominated. In the first millennium, stamp seals made a strong comeback and eventually replaced cylinder seals entirely.
Tell Taban is an archaeological site in north-eastern Syria in the Al-Hasakah Governorate. It is the site of the ancient city of Ṭābetu.
Bakr Awa is a tell, or archaeological settlement mound, in Iraq. It is located near Halabja in the Shahrizor Plain in Iraqi Kurdistan. The site is 40 metres (130 ft) high and consists of a central settlement mound surrounded by a lower city measuring 800 by 600 metres.
Dorothy Cross Jensen was an anthropologist, archaeologist, and public educator. Her research transformed both the fields of Middle Eastern archaeology and New Jersey prehistory. In 1936, she earned her Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania in Oriental Studies and Anthropology. She served as an assistant curator at the University of Pennsylvania Museum, contributing to the Tell Billa and Tepe Gawra excavations in Iraq under Professor Ephraim A Speiser. Using this research, she published "The Pottery of Tepe Gawra" which became a foundational document in the field of Middle Eastern ceramics. Her dissertation, "Moveable Property in Nuzi Documents," is described as a "classic" in her field. Committed to public education, Cross served as State Archaeologist for the New Jersey State Museum, which she was involved in for 43 years. She was also a professor at Hunter College, where she served as a Divisional Chairman of the Department of Anthropology.
Anne Draffkorn Kilmer was an American historian of the ancient Near East who served as a professor of Assyriology at the University of California, Berkeley. She was an expert in ancient Mesopotamian culture, specifically Sumero-Akkadian cuneiform texts and the history of ancient music, games, and mathematics. In 1963, she became the first woman appointed to a tenure-track position in what is now the Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures department at the University of California, Berkeley. She later became curator of the Babylonian collection in the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology, formerly the Lowie Museum. She rose to the rank of Professor, served as chair of her department three times, and acted as dean of humanities.
