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Late Babylonian Kish

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 August 2014

G. J. P. McEwan
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Extract

The excavations at Kish from 1923–33 are an important episode in the annals of British archaeology—or to express it more accurately Anglo-American archaeology. For it was a combined Oxford University—Field Museum Expedition to Mesopotamia which conducted the excavations at Kish during these years. Much material was brought to light as a result of these excavations, but the reports from the period on the archaeological finds left much to be desired in terms of accuracy and completeness.

It is only in the past two decades after a long hiatus that the interpretation of the records and material from the expedition has been put on sound modern archaeological footing. This has resulted mainly from the labours of two scholars, P. R. S. Moorey of the Ashmolean Museum and McGuire Gibson of the University of Chicago. In addition to the two monographic treatments of the archaeological record of Kish, Moorey's Kish Excavations 1923–33 and Gibson's The City and Area of Kish, one of the most interesting products of these studies is Gibson's article The Archaeological Uses of Cuneiform Documents which appeared in Iraq 34 a decade ago. Using Professor Gurney's card catalogue of the tablets in the Ashmolean collection as a basis Gibson outlined the “patterns of occupation at the city of Kish” as shown by the cuneiform tablets. The most important conclusions in the article concern the texts from the Chaldean and Achaemenid periods and their effect on the assessment of the archaeological data from Late Babylonian Kish.

Type
Research Article
Information
IRAQ , Volume 45 , Issue 1 , Spring 1983 , pp. 117 - 123
Copyright
Copyright © The British Institute for the Study of Iraq 1983

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References

1 Moorey, P. R. S., Kish Excavations 1923–33 (Oxford, 1978)Google Scholar.

2 Gibson, McGuire, The City and Area of Kish (Field Research Projects, Miami, Florida, 1972)Google Scholar.

3 The Archaeological Uses of Cuneiform Documents: Patterns of Occupation at the City of Kish (Iraq 34 (1972), 113–23)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 Utilization of the Ashmolean texts is through the courtesy of the Visitors of the Ashmolean Museum. I wish here to express my gratitude to Professor O. R. Gurney and Dr. P. R. S. Moorey for their courtesy and help during my sojourns in Oxford.

5 Iraq 34, 120Google Scholar.

6 Ibid., 121.

7 The figures in parentheses give the numbers of regnal years.

8 E.g. Moorey, op. cit., 19.

9 The sole MB attestation seems to be the brick inscription of Adad-apla-iddina which mentions the é-me-te-ur-sag a-pi-in zalag-ga dza-ba4-ba4, Walker, C. F. B., Cuneiform Brick Inscriptions, no. 72, 5 ffGoogle Scholar.

10 E.g. CT 42, 22, 6 f.; 23, 14 f.; 37, 22 f.; SBH 20, 10 ff.; SBP 164, 51 f.; 208, 13f.; 226, 14 ff.; BL 73 r.41 f.

11 VAB IV, 184, 74.

12 TCS 3, 43, 454.

13 Moorey, op. cit., 19 ff.

14 Moldenke, , CTMMA II, 5, 4Google Scholar. The proposed emendation of the passage to É.(BABBAR).RA! by Delaunay in his new edition of CTMMA (p. 95, n. 5) has nothing to recommend it since the text is clearly from Kish.

15 Ash. 1924.1640, 2.

16 II R 50, 12; UET VI/2, 206, 12; SBH 18, 17; 30, 21, etc. Cf. RIA 2, 485a.

17 Moorey, op. cit., 25 f.

18 SBH 30, 21 (cf. SBH p. 152).

19 De Genouillac, , PRAK I, 18Google Scholar.

20 Moorey, op. cit., 83 ff.

21 Walker, op. cit., no. 75, 1.

22 II R 50, 13.

23 Moorey, op. cit., 85.

24 Ash. 1929.22, 2.

25 Borger, R., AfO 18 (1957–1958), 113, 8Google Scholar. The phrase is an exact Akkadian equivalent of the Sumerian temple name.

26 Ash. 1929.22, 4.

27 Ash. 1930.400a, 1 f.

28 Cf. R. McC. Adams, Settlement and Irrigation Patterns in Ancient Akkad (apud Gibson, , The City and Area of Kish, 182–208Google Scholar); Weiss, H., Kish, Akkad and Agade (JAOS 95 (1975), 434–53)Google Scholar; Gibson, , Iraq 34Google Scholar, Plates XLI–XLVII.

29 Cf. CAD M/1, 364a, which includes attestations from unpublished texts.

30 Ash. 1924.1442, 8 and 1924.1298, 1 f.

31 BiOr 27 (1970)Google Scholar, Pl. 2, 52 f. Cf. AOAT 6, 275. For the Kish attestations cf. Langdon, Kish III, Pl. 16 (142), 5; and Ash. 1924.1282, 1; 2346,5′; 1929.809,2; 1937.623,5′.

32 uruÉ mhu-us-sa-an-ni šá muhhi idpi-ti ina bi-rit gú-du 8-a kiù kiš kina-du (ABL 336, r.6 ff.).

33 Ash. 1924.942, 8 ff. describes date plantations on the banks of the Piti canal (GÚ idpi-ti). The document is dated at Babylon but describes fields in Hursagkalama and Kish.

34 Cf. Dalley, S., RA 74 (1979), 189 fGoogle Scholar. Additional Kish attestations are Ash. 1924.942, 3 and 1930.176j, 11′.

35 the ÍD kiš ki is attested in Nbk 330, 2 and Nbn 65, 6.

36 Cf. Gibson, , Iraq 34, Plates XLI and XLVGoogle Scholar.

37 A.GÀR íd kurÉ-da-Aa-ra Ash. 1924.578, 3, dated in the reign of Šamaš-šuma-ukin.

38 For the location of Bit-Dakuru see Dietrich, M., AOAT 7, 5Google Scholar. He places it in the region of Babylon with Borsippa as its centre.

39 Ash. 1924.1442, 3.5; 942, 16.21; 1678, 4.

40 Ash. 1924.1442, 6.17.

41 In Dar 194, 13 the ÍD dbí-zil-lá is one of the borders of a field in Hursagkalama, cf. perhaps Ash. 1929.148, 2. A PN iamat-dbí-zil-lá is attested in Kish texts—Ash. 1924.1281, 2; 1929.799, 3 1930.176;, 8′. Bizilla is appropriate to Hursagkalama since he/she is equated with the sukkal of Ninlil, cf. V R 46, 9, and CT 33, 1, 13.

42 Dar 194, 4; 245, 1; CT 51, 43, 2; Dalley, , CatEdinb. 69, 28Google Scholar; AOAT 4, 75, 2.

43 Walker, op. cit., no. 75, 4.

44 Ash. 1929.145, 6 (Kish III, Pl. xiii); 1924.535, 2 f. (both Bel-kaṣir); 1924.544, 6 f.; 817, 10 f. (both Zababa-x). Note also [ lúGAR].UMUŠ kiš ki, ABL 1255, 12. Probably connected with the importance of Kish as an administrative centre was its function as a judicial venue. In Ash. 1924.2287 dated at Hursagkalama in the 9th year of Nebuchadnezzar a man brings witnesses to Kish (from Hursagkalama?) for a law suit.

45 Nbn 306, 2 and 1024, 13 (lúšatammu šá kiškiu lúŠID de-ri [ki]). Note that a lúšatammu uruki-ši is already mentioned in a text from the reign of Esarhaddon, AfO 13 (1939–40), Taf. iv 3.

46 See n. 42 above.

47 See n. 14 above.

48 VS 3, 17, 2.

49 PN lúšeš-ki dza-ba4-b[a4], Ash. 1930.3473,6.,

50 E.g. Ash. 1924.1442, 5 and Kish III, Pl. xi 2.

51 Ash. 1924.1652 r.2′. Cf. the PN mmi-ti-ri-[ ], Ash. 1932.309, 4′. Further evidence of Persian influence at Kish: mza-at-tu-me-e-su lúma-gu-šu, Ash. 1924.1282, 3; mba-ga-ha-a-a lúGAL.É, Ash. 1930.353d, 4f.14; [m]ba-ga-ú-ru-ú, Ash. 1924.1044, 7; miš-ti-bu-za-nu, Ash. 1924.1570 r.g′; iar-ta-hu-ma-nu, Ash. 1932.307,5′.