Bronze Age Urbanism in Upper Mesopotamia: Ritual, Power and Community

在国家科学基金会的资助下，格伦·施瓦茨博士和一个由同事和学生组成的国际团队将在伊拉克库尔德斯坦（库尔德地区政府）埃尔比勒西南部的库尔德斯坦进行两个季节的挖掘和地球物理调查。这项工作将研究美索不达米亚北部一个大型城市中心的出现和功能，作为美索不达米亚南部众所周知的城市化轨迹的对照。研究美索不达米亚的城市化及其可能的可变性是特别重要的，因为美索不达米亚是第一个产生城市和城市社会的文明。库尔德斯坦（Kurd Qaburstan）是美索不达米亚北部埃尔比勒平原上最大的遗址之一（118公顷），它有一个小山丘和一个被城墙包围的广阔的低城镇。根据表面材料，较低的城镇在公元前2000年早期被占领（古巴比伦时期，公元前2000-1600年），而高丘从公元前3000年到公元500年有人居住。初步分析表明库尔德斯坦是古卡布拉，公元前2000年埃尔比勒平原的首府。公元前1800年，美索不达米亚征服者Shamshi-Adad攻占了Qabra，并将其击败，这是两座纪念性石碑的主题，现在收藏在卢浮宫和巴格达博物馆。由于库尔德·卡布尔斯坦的下城主要可以追溯到古巴比伦时代，因此它为详细研究那个时期的美索不达米亚北部城市提供了一个极好的机会。下城的沉积堆积相对较少，因此挖掘可以暴露出一个时期内非常大的占领扩展。该项目将提供有关库尔德卡布尔斯坦（Kurd Qaburstan）北部美索不达米亚大都市的布局、社区、家庭和公共结构的新信息。因此，该项目将提供一个难得的机会，研究整个美索不达米亚城市的历史。伊丽莎白·斯通曾在美索不达米亚南部的泰尔阿布杜瓦里（Tell Abu Duwari）尝试过这样的研究，但因第一次海湾战争而中断。斯通提出了一个层次结构模型来理解美索不达米亚南部城市人口的组织结构。然而，有理由怀疑，北美索不达米亚的城市化与南美索不达米亚的城市化有着明显不同的形式，因为这两个地区之间存在生态差异。因此，该项目将测试Stone的模型，看看它是否适用于北美索不达米亚城市。该项目还将通过关注未充分研究的变量，如仪式、宗教和意识形态，来研究城市和社会政治发展。库尔德斯坦中部有一个圆锥形的土堆，很可能是一座金字塔，是寺庙建筑群的一部分。用人类学的方法挖掘这样一个建筑群，研究动物、考古植物和微地层碎片，将阐明宗教组织在早期城市化发展中的作用。将在下城实施地球物理调查，以绘制地下建筑地图，并获得第二个千年早期城镇计划的图片。这些数据也将提供有关挖掘地区的有用资料。高台的挖掘将包括一个台阶沟，以记录遗址历史的地层序列和假定的寺庙区域的水平暴露。在下城，挖掘的目标是广泛暴露古巴比伦时期的占领。回收的文物、动物骨骼和植物遗骸将由相关专家进行研究，以确定城市的经济和社会组织模式和生活方式。库尔德斯坦项目将产生一系列更广泛的影响。最广泛地说，该项目将扩大我们对古代城市主义和城市的理解，人们为什么开始在城市生活，以及城市生活是如何运作的。该项目将包括并培训来自伊拉克库尔德斯坦的同事和学生，该地区在萨达姆·侯赛因（Saddam Hussein）政权的广泛统治下，最近才开始发展自己的考古基础设施。来自美国、英国、意大利、比利时等国家的学生和同事也将参加并接受考古现场技术培训。

With funding from the National Science Foundation, Dr. Glenn Schwartz and an international team of colleagues and students will conduct two seasons of excavation and geophysical survey at Kurd Qaburstan, southwest of Erbil, in Iraqi Kurdistan (Kurdish Regional Government). This work will study the emergence and functioning of a large urban center of northern Mesopotamia, as a counterpoint to the well-known trajectories of urbanization in southern Mesopotamia. The study of Mesopotamian urbanism and its possible variability is of particular importance because Mesopotamia was the first civilization to produce cities and urban societies. One of the largest sites (118 hectares) on the Erbil plain of northern Mesopotamia, Kurd Qaburstan has a small high mound and an extensive lower town enclosed by a city wall. According to surface materials, the lower town was occupied in the early second millennium BC (Old Babylonian period, ca. 2000-1600 BC), while the high mound was inhabited from ca. 3000 BC to 500 AD. Preliminary analysis suggests that Kurd Qaburstan is ancient Qabra, capital of the Erbil plain in the second millennium BC. The capture and defeat of Qabra by the Mesopotamian conqueror Shamshi-Adad ca. 1800 BC was the subject of two monumental stone steles now housed in the Louvre and in the Baghdad Museum.Since the lower town at Kurd Qaburstan is primarily datable to the Old Babylonian era, it provides an excellent opportunity to study a northern Mesopotamian city from that period in great detail. The depositional accumulation on the lower town is relatively modest, so excavation can expose very large extensions of occupation from one period. The project will provide new information on the layout, neighborhoods, households, and public structures of a north Mesopotamian metropolis preserved below the present-day surface at Kurd Qaburstan. The project will thus provide a rare opportunity to study an entire Mesopotamian city at one point in its history. Such a study was attempted in southern Mesopotamia by Elizabeth Stone at Tell Abu Duwari but was cut short by the first Gulf War. Stone proposed a model of heterarchy to understand the organization of southern Mesopotamian urban populations. However, there is reason to suspect that north Mesopotamian urbanism took a distinctly different form from that of southern Mesopotamia, given the ecological differences between the two regions. Therefore, the project will test Stone's model to see if it is applicable to a north Mesopotamian city.The project will also study urban and socio-political development through focusing on under-researched variables like ritual, religion and ideology. In the center of Kurd Qaburstan is a conical mound likely to be a ziggurat, part of a temple complex. Excavation in such a complex with an anthropological approach, studying faunal, archaeobotanical, and microstratigraphic debris, will illuminate the functioning of religious organizations in the development of early urbanism.Geophysical survey will be implemented on the lower town to produce a map of subsurface architecture and acquire a picture of the early second millennium town plan. Such data will also supply useful information on areas for excavation. Excavation on the high tell will include a step trench to document the stratigraphic sequence of the site history and horizontal exposures of the presumed temple area. On the lower town, excavations will aim for broad exposures of Old Babylonian period occupation. The retrieved artifacts, animal bones and plant remains will be studied by relevant specialists to determine patterns of economic and social organization and lifeways in the city.The Kurd Qaburstan project will have a number of broader impacts. Most broadly, the project will expand our understanding of ancient urbanism and of cities in general, why people began to live in cities, and how city life functioned. The project will include and train colleagues and students from Iraqi Kurdistan, which is only recently developing its own archaeological infrastructure after suffering extensively under the regime of Saddam Hussein. Students and colleagues from the U.S., U.K., Italy, Belgium, and other countries will also participate and undergo training in archaeological field techniques.