- Jemdet Nasr
Jemdet Nasr is an archaeological site in
Iraq 'sBabil Governorate , situated to the north-east ofBabylon and Kish and east ofKutha .History
Jemdet Nasr is the type site of an
Early Bronze Age culture of southernMesopotamia , the Jemdet Nasr Period, which flourished around the30th century BC During the Jemdet Nasr period writing began in southern Mesopotamia. The earliest cylinder seals also came into use in the period. It also represents the urban revolution when the numerous small Mesopotamian settlements developed into major cities.
Archaeology
The site of Jemdet Nasr was first explored in 1926 and 1928 by a team of British and American archaeologists headed by Stephen Langdon. [ [http://www.archive.org/download/reportonexcavati13mack/reportonexcavati13mack.pdf] Ernest Mackay, Report on Excavations at Jemdet Nasr Iraq, Feild Museum ofNatural History Anthropology Memoirs, vol 1, no 1, Field Museum Press, 1931] Excavation of the site was resumed in 1988 and 1989 by Roger J. Matthews and others. [Roger Matthews, Excavations at Jemdet Nasr 1988, Iraq 51, pp 225-248, 1989] [Roger Matthews, Excavations at Jemdet Nasr 1989, Iraq 52, pp 25-39, 1990] [Roger Matthews, Jemdet Nasr: the Site and the Period, Biblical Archaeologist 55, pp 196-203, 1992] The excavators discovered a large building which contained an archive of proto-cuneiform texts with seal impressions, as well as cylinder seals. The pottery, a polychrome painted ware, found at the site is helpful in determining the layer of the Jemdet Nasr period at other sites.
The Jemdet Nasr period is now believed by the excavator R. J. Matthews to have been short, about a century, though a longer period c.3200-2900 BC is found in older scholarly literature. The Jemdet Nasr culture succeeded the earlier
Uruk culture and was contemporary with the Ninevite 5 culture of northernMesopotamia and theProto-Elamite civilization of westernIran . It represents the final stage before the Sumerian Early Dynastic Period in southern Mesopotamia.Notes
References
* Robert K. Englund, The Proto-Cuneiform Texts from Jemdet Nasr 1, Mann Verlag, Gebrueder, 1991, ISBN 3-7861-1646-6
* Roger Matthews, Secrets of the Dark Mound: Jemdet Nasr 1926-1928, Iraq Archaeological Reports 6, Aris & Phillips Ltd., 2002, ISBN 0856687359ee also
*
Cities of the Ancient Near East
*Sumer
*History of Sumer
*Uruk period External links
* [http://cdli.ucla.edu/search/result.pt?result_format=list&size=500&provenience=jemdet Jemdet Nasr tablets at CDLI]
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