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Cultural Parallels in the Metalwork of Sumer and North Mesopotamia in the Third Millennium B.C.

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 August 2014

Trevor Watkins
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Extract

This paper contributes in small part to the re-examination of the assumed relationship between Sumer and the surrounding areas. It is concerned with metals, metal-working and metal goods, and more particularly with the weapons which begin to appear in some profusion during the third millennium both in Sumer and in other areas round about. The thesis proposed here is in two parts. On the one hand, it will be argued that between Sumer in the ED III period and north-west Mesopotamia there are striking parallels in the use of materials, the techniques of manufacture and the objects produced, parallels which suggest that the developments were simultaneous in both areas. On the other hand, it will be suggested that the northern products were not derivative or simply produced in tandem with those of Sumer, but that they show evidence of originality and equal participation in the process of innovation and development.

In view of the need for brevity this paper concentrates on a segment of the evidence, the weapons from the group of sites around Carchemish (Tell Kara Hassan, Serrin, Amarna and Hammam) whence Woolley obtained grave-groups by purchase in the early years of this century (Woolley, 1914; for more detailed information on the similar recovery of first millennium grave-groups from Deve Hüyük see Moorey, 1980: 1–4), from Carchemish itself (Woolley and Barnett, 1952: 218–26), and the metal objects from the hypogeum at Til Barsib (Thureau-Dangin and Dunand, 1936), the metal grave-goods from Woolley's excavations in the Royal Cemetery at Ur (Woolley, 1932) and the finds from the “A” cemetery at Kish (Mackay, 1925; Hrouda and Karstens, 1967; Moorey, 1978).

Type
Research Article
Information
IRAQ , Volume 45 , Issue 1 , Spring 1983 , pp. 18 - 23
Copyright
Copyright © The British Institute for the Study of Iraq 1983

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