ABU
SALABIKH
![](abusalabikh%20.jpg)
Abu
Salabikh shown within Iraq
Location
: Al-Qadisiyyah
Governorate, Iraq
Region
: Mesopotamia
Coordinates
: 32°16'00
N 45°05'00 E
Type
: Settlement
History
:
Founded
: Middle
of the third millennium BCE
The
low tells at Abu Salabikh, around 20 km (12 mi) northwest of the
site of ancient Nippur in Al-Qadisiyyah Governorate, Iraq mark the
site of a small Sumerian city state of the mid third millennium
BCE, with cultural connections to the cities of Kish, Mari and Ebla.
Its contemporary name is uncertain: perhaps this was Eresh. Kesh
was suggested by Thorkild Jacobsen before excavations began. The
Euphrates was the city's highway and lifeline; when it shifted its
old bed (which was identified to the west of the Main Mound by coring
techniques), in the middle third millennium BCE, the city dwindled
away. Only eroded traces remain on the site's surface of habitation
after the Early Dynastic Period. The site consists of several mounds,
the 12 hectare wall enclosed Main (Early Dynastic), the 10 hectare
Uruk, the West, and the 8 hectare South.
Archaeology
:
Abu Salabikh was excavated by an American expedition from the Oriental
Institute of Chicago led by Donald P. Hansen in 1963 and 1965 for
a total of 8 weeks. The expedition found around 500 tablets and
fragments, containing some of the earliest ancient literature.
The
site was a British concern after 1975, under the direction of Nicholas
Postgate for the British School of Archaeology in Iraq (1975–89),
after which excavations were suspended with the Invasion of Kuwait
(1990); "plans to resume fieldwork have now been abandoned
in the light of current political conditions" Postgate reports.
The city, built on a rectilinear plan in the early Uruk period,
revealed a small but important repertory of cuneiform texts on some
500 tablets, of which the originals were stored in the Iraq Museum,
Baghdad, and were largely lost when the museum was looted in the
early stages of the Second Iraq War; fortunately they had been carefully
published. Texts, comparable in date and content with texts from
Shuruppak (modern Fara, Iraq) included school texts, literary texts,
word lists, and some administrative archives, as well as the Instructions
of Shuruppak, a well-known Sumerian "wisdom' text of which
the Abu Salabikh tablet is the oldest copy. A list of deities includes
the oldest known mention of the Semitic god Ba'al. Postgate's interdisciplinary
approach was integrated under the broad aim of describing the daily
life of a small Sumerian city, down to the lives of the simplest
illiterate inhabitants.
Source
:
https://en.wikipedia.org/
wiki/Abu_Salabikh