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An early sounding
The first two seasons of excavations at Tell Mozan were carried out under a "sounding" permit, intended to allow a definition of the main periods of occupation of the ancient site.
he excavations at K1 were undertaken to clarify the nature of the perimeter of the tell, and two major results ensued:
- a city wall that could be projected to encircle the ancient citadel, and
- a cache of ED III sealings which had been dumped just outside tehe city wall, thus providing a terminus ante quem for the cirty wall itself.
K1 was excavated under the direction Guy Bunnens and Arlette Robaert, as part of the first two seasons of soundings and survey in 1984 and 1985.
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The sealings
K1 is especially characterised by a closed burnt deposit (f16) which contained a number of seal impressions and ceramic sherds, dated to the mid-third millennium (Early Dynastic III or Horizon 3 in the Urkesh stratigraphic sequence). It is therefore an important unit not only for the presence of the City Wall, but also for our understanding of the occupation of the site in this period, in particular in relation to administrative practices.
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The preliminary report
A preliminary report on the excavations at K1 was published by Guy L. Bunnens and Arlette Roobaert as part of the monograph on the first two seasons (Mozan 1, pp. 61-63, 67-81).
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This digital book
Although these early excavations already represent the beginnings of the recording system still in use, much of the data are not currently available in the canonical format found in many other unit books. Nevertheless, it was deemed appropriate to here present the available material, in particular with a view to providing a ‘home’ for the Early Dynastic glyptic corpus from K1. This can be found in detailed format on the right-hand side under items and q-items, and as a glyptics synthesis on the lefthand-side (as well as in the typological ED glyptics book. Other material is instead presented on the left-hand side only, in order to offer as complete a view of K1 as possible.
The information in this digital book is a combination of the results published in that monograph, and an update of the material based on a thorough review of the available records, including scanned handwritten and printed notes and logs.
Note on current status of K1, March 2025 rL: with the exception of the LH glyptics page (which is being developed in conjunction with the ED Glyptics book), I consider K1 as complete as possible, given the currently available data.
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