Giorgio Buccellati and Marilyn Kelly-Buccellati 1997

“Urkesh. The First Hurrian Capital,”
Biblical Archaeologist 60, pp. 77-96.

The paper starts with a quotation from the mythological story of the god Silver, quarrelled with friends about the identity of his father, Kumarbi. This myth is analysed by the present authors under an etiological perspective and in an ethnical way, directly connecting the story to Urkesh (which is quoted twice in the text), reconnecting the myth to a possible actual role played by the city in the trading of metals from the Taurus.

The authors then present the sealings from Tell Mozan (over 1000 items), strengthening the development of a royal dynastic program expressed through the medium of the glyptic, in a “use and repetition of visual images to give expression to dynastic concerns” (p. 80). Sealing of the king, the queen and of two royal courtiers are described in detail, mostly for what regards their peculiar iconography (thus, including also some uninscribed sealings).

A stylistic analysis is presented, stressing some peculiarities of Urkesh glyptic: the close connection of the inscription with the scenes (a paragraph is devoted to the analysis of the position of the text box on the sealings), the expressionistic and realistic style of the depictions (with an emphasis on specific gestures), the relationship between the motifs and the profession of the seal owners.

The function of the sealings is further investigated, underlining the local production of the seals and the peculiar role of the queen in storing activities. It is clear that “artists from Urkesh developed a new visual language” (p. 84), to strengthen the dynastic power and its succession.

Another paragraph specifically deals with the identification of Tell Mozan with ancient Urkesh, an identification valified by the rich epigraphic material.

In the last part of the paper, the architectural setting of Building AK is offered (discussing its interpretation as either a storehouse or a palace), followed by a paragraph about the Hurrian identity of Urkesh, recalling again the Kumarbi mythology and recognizing Urkesh as the major Hurrian center during the third millennium BC.

Two appendices (the first by R. Hauser) present some terracotta figurines (both anthropomorphic and zoomorphic) found at Urkesh in the Queen’s Storeroom, and a small fragment of a school lexical tablet.