NUZI
![](nuzi.jpg)
Nuzi
/ Yorghan Tepe shown within Iraq
Location
: Kirkuk Governorate, Iraq
Region
:
Mesopotamia
Coordinates
: 35°22'11.9 N 44°15'17.7 E
Type
: tell
Nuzi
(or Nuzu; Akkadian Gasur; modern Yorghan Tepe, Iraq) was an ancient
Mesopotamian city southwest of the city of Arrapha (modern Kirkuk),
located near the Tigris river. The site consists of one medium-sized
multiperiod tell and two small single period mounds.
History
:
The site showed occupation as far back as the Late Uruk Period.
The city, then named Gasur, was founded in the third millennium
during the time of the Akkadian Empire. In the middle of the second
millennium the Hurrians gained control of the town and renamed it
Nuzi. The history of the site during the intervening period is unclear,
though the presence of a few cuneiform tablets from the Old Assyrian
Empire indicates that trade with nearby Assur was taking place.
After the fall of the Hurrian kingdom of Mitanni to Ashur-uballit
I of the Middle Assyrian Empire, Nuzi went into gradual decline.
Note that while the Hurrian period is well known from full excavation
of those strata, the earlier history is not as reliable because
of less substantive digging. The history of Nuzi is closely interrelated
with that of the nearby towns of Eshnunna and Khafajah.
Archaeology
:
While tablets from Yorghan Tepe began appearing back as far as 1896,
the first serious archaeological efforts began in 1925 after Gertrude
Bell noticed tablets appearing in the markets of Baghdad. The dig
was mainly worked by Edward Chiera, Robert Pfeiffer, and Richard
Starr under the auspices of the Iraq Museum and the Baghdad School
of the American Schools of Oriental Research and later the Harvard
University and Fogg Art Museum. Excavations continued through 1931
with the site showing 15 occupation levels. The hundreds of tablets
and other finds recovered were published in a series of volumes
with ongoing publications.
To
date, around 5,000 tablets are known, mostly held at the Oriental
Institute, the Harvard Semitic Museum and the Iraq Museum in Baghdad.
Many are routine legal and business documents with about one quarter
concerning the business transactions of a single family. The vast
majority of finds come from the Hurrian period during the second
millennium BC with the remainder dating back to the town's founding
during the Akkadian Empire. An archive contemporary with the Hurrian
archive at Nuzi has been excavated from the "Green Palace"
at the site of Tell al-Fakhar, 35 kilometres (22 mi) southwest of
Nuzi.
![](592px-CD-001a-Tablette_de_Ga-Sur.jpg)
Sketch
of the Nuzi map with French legends
Perhaps the most famous item found is the Nuzi map, the oldest known
map discovered. Although the majority of the tablet is preserved,
it is unknown exactly what the Nuzi map shows. The Nuzi map is actually
one of the so-called Gasur texts, and predates the invasion of the
city of Gasur by the Hurrians, who renamed it Nuzi. The cache of
economic and business documents among which the map was found date
to the Old Akkadian period (ca. 2360–2180 BC). Gasur was a
thriving commercial center, and the texts reveal a diverse business
community with far-reaching commercial activities. It is possible
that Ebla was a trading partner, and that the tablet, rather than
a record of land-holdings, might indeed be a road map. The tablet,
which is approximately 6 × 6.5 cm., is inscribed only on the
obverse. It shows the city of Maskan-dur-ebla in the lower left
corner, as well and a canal/river and two mountain ranges.
Nuzi,
a provincial town in the 14th century BC :
The best-known period in the history of Yorghan Tepe is by far one
of the city of Nuzi in the 15th-14th centuries BC. The tablets of
this period indicate that Nuzi was a small provincial town of northern
Mesopotamia at this time in an area populated mostly by Assyrians
and Hurrians, the latter a people well known though poorly documented,
and that would be even less if not for the information uncovered
at this site.
Administration
:
Nuzi was a provincial town of Arrapha. It was administered by a
governor (šaknu) from the palace. The palace, situated in the
center of the mound, had many rooms arranged around a central courtyard.
The functions of some of those rooms have been identified: reception
areas, apartments, offices, kitchens, stores. The walls were painted,
as was seen in fragments unearthed in the ruins of the building.
Archives
that have been exhumed tell us about the royal family, as well as
the organization of the internal administration of the palace and
its dependencies, and the payments various workers received. Junior
officers of the royal administration had such titles as sukkallu
(often translated as "vizier", the second governor), "district
manager" (halsuhlu), and "mayor" (hazannu). Justice
was rendered by these officers, but also by judges (dayanu) installed
in the districts.
Free
subjects of the state were liable to a conscription, the Ilku, which
consisted of a requirement to perform various types of military
and civilian services, such as working the land.
Source
:
https://en.wikipedia.org/
wiki/Nuzi