Konrad Volk 2004

“Beschriftete Objekte aus Tall Mozan/Urkeš,”
in MDOG 136, pp. 87-101.
Webpage

This contribution aims to publish some inscribed materials found at Tell Mozan, starting from 1998 German excavations (DOG) on the site.

The first part of the paper is devoted to the presentation of some of the 250 seal impression fragments found in the so-called ‘Puššam-Haus’.
     The first impression presented is that of Puššam himself, defined as ‘Diener’ of a person called Sadarmat. G. Wilhelm contributed in the onomastic analysis and dating of this specific name, providing an in-depth philological comment (pp. 89ff.).

On pp. 94-95, a small seal impression quoting a name (unfortunately unreadable) of a merchant is presented; after this, pp. 95-98 deal with the seal impression of a person named Rimuš, carrying the title LUGAL (‘king’); a discussion about the possible equation LUGAL = endan is then offered on p. 97.

A small fragment of a clay tablet is then presented (pp. 98-99), labelled as MZ00C2-i 1055 and found in Level 7 of the ‘Puššam-Haus’: it carries just few signs and can be palaeographically dated between the late Sargonid period and the Ur III period.

Another inscribed object published in this paper (pp. 99-100) is a late Early-Dynastic period seal impression (MZ01C2-i 2070) quoting the name of the scribe (DUB.SAR) Pū-DUMUZI, of clear Semitic origin.

The very last artefacts here presented (p. 101) are some tiny fragments of seal impressions (MZ00C2-i 1976, 1004), found in ashy layers C12 and C13 (datable to the late Early-Dynastic period), preserving the name of the Semitic god ‘^da-ba’): this is another clue hinting to a Semitic onomastic and cultic influence on the city of Urkesh.