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

在国家科学基金会的资助下，Glenn Schwartz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)埃尔比勒西南的库尔德卡布尔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，作为与美索不达米亚南部众所周知的城市化轨迹的对比。研究美索不达米亚的都市主义及其可能的变异性特别重要，因为美索不达米亚是第一个产生城市和城市社会的文明。库尔德卡布尔斯坦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)，有一个小高丘和一个被城墙包围的大小城镇。根据地面材料，低镇在公元前二千年早期(古巴比伦时期，约公元前2000-1600年)被占领，而高丘在公元前3000年至公元500年期间有人居住。初步分析认为，库尔德卡布尔斯坦是公元前第二个千年埃尔比勒平原的首府古卡布拉。约公元前1800年，美索不达米亚征服者沙姆西-阿达德对卡布拉的占领和击败是现在卢浮宫和巴格达博物馆两座不朽石碑的主题。由于库尔德卡布尔斯坦的较低城镇主要可以追溯到古巴比伦时代，它提供了一个非常好的机会来详细研究那个时期的美索不达米亚北部城市。较低城镇的沉积堆积相对较小，因此挖掘可以暴露出一个时期以来非常大的占领范围。该项目将提供有关美索不达米亚北部大都市的布局、社区、家庭和公共结构的新信息，该大都市保存在今天库尔德卡布尔斯坦的地表下。因此，该项目将提供一个难得的机会，在历史上的某个时候研究整个美索不达米亚城市。伊丽莎白·斯通曾试图在美索不达米亚南部进行这样的研究，但由于第一次海湾战争而中断。斯通提出了一个异质政体模型来理解美索不达米亚南部城市人口的组织。然而，有理由怀疑，鉴于美索不达米亚北部和南部的生态差异，这两个地区的城市化采取了截然不同的形式。因此，该项目将测试斯通的模型，看看它是否适用于美索不达米亚北部的城市。该项目还将通过关注仪式、宗教和意识形态等研究不足的变量来研究城市和社会政治发展。在库尔德卡布尔斯坦的中心是一个圆锥形的土堆，很可能是一个Ziggurat，这是一个寺庙建筑群的一部分。在这样一个建筑群中，用人类学的方法进行挖掘，研究动物、考古植物和微地层残骸，将阐明宗教组织在早期城市化发展中的作用。将在下城进行地球物理调查，以制作地下建筑图，并获得第二个千年早期城镇规划图。这些数据还将提供有关挖掘区域的有用信息。在High Tell上的挖掘将包括一条阶梯沟，以记录遗址历史的地层序列和推测的寺庙区域的水平暴露。在下城，挖掘将旨在广泛暴露古巴比伦时期的占领。相关专家将对找回的文物、动物骨骼和植物遗骸进行研究，以确定该市的经济和社会组织模式以及生活方式。库尔德卡布尔斯坦项目将产生一些更广泛的影响。更广泛地说，这个项目将扩大我们对古代城市主义和一般城市的理解，为什么人们开始在城市生活，以及城市生活是如何发挥作用的。该项目将包括和培训来自伊拉克库尔德斯坦的同事和学生，库尔德斯坦在萨达姆·侯赛因政权下遭受巨大苦难后，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、比利时和其他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.