SHURUPPAK
![](shuruppak.jpg)
Shuruppak
location in Iraq
Coordinates
: 31°46'38 N 45°30'39 E
Shuruppak
(Sumerian: ŠuruppagKI, "the healing place"), modern
Tell Fara, was an ancient Sumerian city situated about 55 kilometres
(35 mi) south of Nippur on the banks of the Euphrates in Iraq's
Al-Qadisiyyah Governorate. Shuruppak was dedicated to Ninlil, also
called Sud, the goddess of grain and the air.
Shuruppak
and its environment :
Shuruppak is located in Al-Qadisiyyah Governorate, approximately
55 kilometres (35 mi) south of Nippur. The site of extends about
a kilometer from north to south. The total area is about 120 hectares,
with about 35 hectares of the mound being more than 3 meters above
the surrounding plain, with a maximum of 9 meters.
History
of research :
![](571px-List_of_titles_of_different_occupations,_clay_tablet_from_Shuruppak,_Southern_Mesopotamia,_Iraq,_on_display_in_the_Pergamon_Museum.jpg)
List
of titles of different occupations, clay tablet from Shuruppak,
Iraq. 2nd half of the 3rd millennium BCE. Vorderasiatisches Museum,
Berlin
![](566px-Pig-shaped_rattle_from_Shuruppak,_Iraq._Baked_clay._Early_Dynastic_period,_2500-2350_BCE._Pergamon_Museum,_Berlin,_Germany.jpg)
Pig-shaped
rattle from Shuruppak, Iraq. Baked clay. Early Dynastic period,
2500 - 2350 BCE. Vorderasiatisches Museum, Berlin
After a brief survey by Hermann Volrath Hilprecht in 1900, it was
first excavated in 1902 by Robert Koldewey and Friedrich Delitzsch
of the German Oriental Society for eight months. Among other finds,
hundreds of Early Dynastic tablets were collected, which ended up
in the Berlin Museum and the Istanbul Museum. In March and April
1931, a joint team of the American Schools of Oriental Research
and the University of Pennsylvania excavated Shuruppak for a further
six week season, with Erich Schmidt as director and with epigraphist
Samuel Noah Kramer. The excavation recovered 87 tablets and fragments—mostly
from pre-Sargonic times—biconvex, and unbaked. In 1973, a
three-day surface survey of the site was conducted by Harriet P.
Martin. Consisting mainly of pottery shard collection, the survey
confirmed that Shuruppak dates at least as early as the Jemdet Nasr
period, expanded greatly in the Early Dynastic period, and was also
an element of the Akkadian Empire and the Third Dynasty of Ur.
Occupation
history :
![](605px-Sumerian_account_of_silver_for_the_govenor_(background_removed).png)
Summary
account of silver for the governor written in Sumerian Cuneiform
on a clay tablet. From Shuruppak, Iraq, circa 2500 BC. British Museum,
London
Shuruppak became a grain storage and distribution city and had more
silos than any other Sumerian city. The earliest excavated levels
at Shuruppak date to the Jemdet Nasr period about 3000 BC; it was
abandoned shortly after 2000 BC. Erich Schmidt found one Isin-Larsa
cylinder seal and several pottery plaques which may date to early
in the second millennium BC. Surface finds are predominantly Early
Dynastic.
At
the end of the Jemdet Nasr period, there was an archaeologically
attested river flood in Shuruppak. Polychrome pottery from a destruction
level below the flood deposit has been dated to the Jemdet Nasr
period that immediately preceded the Early Dynastic I period.
Metalwork
:
Several objects made of arsenical copper were found in Shuruppak
/ Fara dating from the mid-fourth to early third millennium BC (approximately
Jamdat Nasr period), which is quite early for Mesopotamia. Similar
objects were also found at Tepe Gawra (levels XII-VIII).
The
city expanded to its greatest extent at the end of the Early Dynastic
III period (2600 BC to 2350 BC) when it covered about 100 hectares.
At this stage it was destroyed by a fire which baked the clay tablets
and mudbrick walls, which then survived for millennia.
Two
possible kings of Shuruppak are mentioned in epigraphic data from
later sources found elsewhere. In the Sumerian King List a king
Ubara-Tutu is listed as the ruler of Shuruppak and the last king
"before the flood". In the Epic of Gilgamesh, a man named
Utanapishtim (also Uta-na'ishtim), son of Ubara-Tutu, is noted to
be king of Shuruppak. The names Ziusudra and Atrahasis are also
associated with him. These figures have not been supported by archaeological
finds and may well be mythical.
Source
:
https://en.wikipedia.org/
wiki/Shuruppak