Provenience: Susarra (mod. Tell Shemshara) History

The site of Tall Šimšārah, Middle Bronze Age Šušarra, lies on the right bank of the Lesser Zab just west of the Sungāsur Gorge, a narrow gap carved by the river through the mountain range that separates the Bišdar and Rānīah plains. The main mound constitutes an elongated oval that rises six metres above the surrounding plain, with a higher conical mound at its northern end reaching 19 metres at the summit.

Settlement history

Archaeological investigations indicate Šušarrā to have been inhabited at least from around the 7^th millennium BCE. Sparse traces of occupation dating to the 3^rd millennium BCE give way to an extensive and architecturally imposing townscape in the beginning of the 2^nd millennium BCE. At this time, Šušarrā formed one of the principal towns within the Rānīah Plain, and contained a palace belonging to the local lord along, perhaps, with a small temple precinct on the main mound (Eidem 1992, 13). The surrounding land was referred to in Old Babylonian texts as māt Utê, ‘the land of the gatekeeper’, an apt allusion to the strategic location of the valley below the passes of the Zagros mountain range. There is little indication of occupation post-dating the Middle Bronze Age settlement up until the Medieval settlements of the 14^th century CE, except for brief references to Late Bronze Age pottery found on one of the adjacent mounds (Læssøe 1963, 139-140).

Archaeological research

The Danish excavations took place over three months in the summer of 1957, and focused primarily on the high mound where an extensive sounding investigated a total of 16 levels (XVI-IX). The earliest of these date back to the 7^th-6^th millennium BCE, characterised by Hassuna and Samarra wares (published in full in Mortensen 1970). Sparse pottery finds may indicate occupation also in the Uruk period. Textual references to a place named Šašrum during the Third Dynasty of Ur very likely refer to Šušarrā, and suggests the site to have been inhabited also towards the end of the 3rd millennium BCE (cf. Eidem 1992, 13 with further references). On the main mound, the prehistoric levels are followed by a series of occupational sequences dating to the Middle Bronze Age, namely levels VIII-IV (ca. 2000-1700 BCE). The three uppermost strata are Medieval Islamic in date, and overlies the most recent Middle Bronze Age phase. This rather punctuated settlement sequence is likely an indication of occupational movement back and forth between the high mound and the surrounding tells. Brief investigations on the lower southern part of the main mound towards the end of the 1957 season exposed a small transect of a Level V Middle Bronze Age palace, dated on textual evidence retrieved there to the first quarter of the 18^th century BCE. This is associated with Levels VIII-IV in the high mound sounding, though no detailed study of the material remains are available to further elucidate this connection (Eidem 1992, 11). Further work by Iraqi teams in 1958 and 1959 focused primarily on the palatial structure and cleared extensive tracts of the building. This work remains largely unpublished, however (Læssøe 1960). Details on the archaeological context of the Middle Bronze Age phases VIII-IV are, on the whole, available only in a preliminary form (see Læssøe 1959) with summaries in the introduction to the primary editions of the tablet finds (especially Eidem 1992, 11-13, Eidem and Læssøe 2001, 13-16).

New excavations at Šušarrā, carried out under the direction of Jesper Eidem of the Netherlands Institute for the Near East since 2012, has investigated several phases of the palatial structure on the main mound, probably reaching back into the 19^th or 20^th century BCE. In addition to the main mound investigated by Danish and Iraqi archaeologists in the 1950s, recent investigations propose the site to be comprised by multiple additional mounds, namely a similar oblong mound on the west and a smaller outlier on the north, making for a total 10 ha.

Textual finds

Published finds of cuneiform tablets from Šušarrā derive exclusively from the Level V (early 18^th century BCE) palace structure on the lower southern part of the main mound (but note a recently found administrative tablet from an earlier, likely 19^th century BCE context). The cuneiform assemblage was retrieved over two separate field seasons. A fortnight’s work towards the end of the 1957 season of the Danish Dokan Expedition uncovered a combined assemblage of letters and administrative texts from Room 2 in a structure reached trough a small sounding on the lower central part of the main mound (Eidem’s Archive 1, cf. Eidem 1992, 14). This group was comprised of 91 letters (published in Eidem and Læssøe 2001), 42 administrative texts, and three fragments of unknown type. Expanding excavations on the lower part of the mound, Iraqi archaeologists unearthed a further 106 administrative texts and one letter from Rooms 27 and 34 in the following years (Eidem’s Archive 2). The archaeological context of this assemblage is relatively poorly documented (see for a preliminary report Læssøe 1960, also the review in Eidem 1992, 14-15), but the texts evidently derive from the same palatial structure, and are further contemporary with the 1957 texts based on internal information. Room 27 contained 36 administrative texts. Room 33 contained 70 administrative texts and one letter. Læssøe’s description of the archaeological context, corroborated by preliminary ground plans of the Phase V palace now available (see http://www.nino-leiden.nl/projects/rania-plain-tell-shemshara), indicates Archive 2, found in Room 2, to have been stored in a room east of a large, central courtyard. Archive 1, in contrast, was placed in two rooms on the south side of the courtyard (Læssøe 1960, 13).