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A RADIOCARBON DATE FROM EARLY DYNASTIC KISH AND THE STRATIGRAPHY AND CHRONOLOGY OF THE YWN SOUNDING AT TELL INGHARRA

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 January 2016

Federico Zaina
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Abstract

Between 1927 and 1930 a joint expedition by the University of Oxford and the Field Museum of Chicago to the site of Kish opened a series of soundings (ZY, Y, YW and YWN) on the mound of Tell Ingharra in order to investigate the earliest periods of the settlement. This paper presents a detailed analysis of the YWN sounding utilizing previously unpublished documentation and excavated objects, and offers a new interpretation of the evidence. In addition, a new radiocarbon date assigns the latest phase from the sounding to the ED IIIb to Akkadian transition and it can be compared usefully with existing dates from several central and north Mesopotamian sites.

Type
Research Article
Information
IRAQ , Volume 77 , December 2015 , pp. 225 - 234
Copyright
© The British Institute for the Study of Iraq 2015 

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Footnotes

1

The radiocarbon dating of the Kish bone sample was funded by a grant from the John Fell Fund, University of Oxford, for which I am very grateful. Special thanks go to Paul Collins (Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford) for actively supporting this work by providing access to the Kish collections, arranging the radiocarbon dating, and for numerous suggestions on this paper. I am particularly grateful to Nicolò Marchetti (Alma Mater Studiorum - Università di Bologna) and to my PhD supervisors Frances Pinnock (Sapienza - Università di Roma) and Pascal Butterlin (Université Paris 1 - Panthéon Sorbonne) for their guidance and support. I also wish to acknowledge Gianni Marchesi (Alma Mater Studiorum - Università di Bologna) and Aage Westenholz (Københavns Universitet) for their fruitful suggestions on the interpretation of the texts and Giacomo Benati (Alma Mater Studiorum - Università di Bologna) for several comments. William Parkinson (Field Museum of Chicago) gave me permission to publish some drawings of unpublished materials housed in their stores. Thanks are also due to Silvia Bernardoni (Studio KULLA, Bologna, for figures 1–3), and Claudia Cappuccino (Alma Mater Studiorum - Università di Bologna, for figures 4.1–8). The author is responsible for figures 4.9–13.

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