Urkesh

Abstracts

Marilyn Kelly-Buccellati 1990

Marco De Pietri – November 2019

“Three Seasons of Excavation at Tell Mozan,”
in S. Eichler, M. Wäfler, D. Warburton, Tall al-Hamidiya 2, Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis: Series Archaeologica 6, Freiburg, Schweiz, Göttingen: Universitatsverlag Freiburg and Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, pp. 119-132.

Three excavation seasons at Tell Mozan (1984-1986) are reported in this contribution.
     After a geographical description of Urkesh’s landscape and position, the author summarises previous surveys and archaeological excavations undertaken by Max Mallowan [see A. Christie’s report] and defines the reason of their (i.e. of G. Buccellati and M. Kelly-Buccellati) choice to excavate at Tell Mozan: they were, in fact, interested in the Hurrian problem and mostly in better defining their actual presence in the Khabur region in the third millennium BC.

The author then describes the city wall (surrounding the High Mound and investigated in Area K), the cylinder seal impressions on door sealings found in the Royal Palace, the Temple BA (in Area B, displaying at least four different phases), the Outer City (entirely surveyed by the archaeologists led by J. Thompson-Miragliuolo), where houses and tombs have been excavated [further information in UGR, The Record].

In conclusion, “Mozan is the largest third millennium mound in the northern Khabur and as such was the most important city in the central Khabur triangle during this period. […] Mozan possessed an independent stylistic tradition related both to the southern Early Dynastic tradition and its northern counterparts […] but was independent of both” (p. 130).

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