“The Urkesh Mittani Horizon: Ceramic Evidence,”
in Michele Cammarosano, Elena Devecchi and Maurizio Viano (eds.), talugaeš witteš. Ancient Near Eastern Studies Presented to Stefano de Martino on the Occasion of his 65th Birthday, Kasion. Publikationen zur ostmediterranen Antike/Publications on Eastern Mediterranean Antiquity 2, Münster: Zaphon, pp. 237-256.
See full text
This contribution, presented on the occasion of the 65th birthday of Stefano de Martino, describes the ceramic evidence at Urkesh related to the Mittani period; the author mostly focuses on pottery found on the Temple Terrace (found mainly in a late Mittanian period accumulation on the Plaza JP [see p. 245]), trying to reconstruct the Mittanian occupation at Urkesh, by analyzing ceramic samples with typical Mittanian shape, decoration, and ware types.
Section 1 focuses on the monumental Temple Terrace as the heart of the Mittanian period at Urkesh, starting from its foundation in the fourth millennium BC (LC 3 period) [with a niched building, a proto-version of Temple BA, and the revetment wall bend J5, standing in place until Mittani times], the later ED II-III architecture [with a stairway (J2) connecting the Plaza JP to Temple BA]. On the Plaza JP (“a center of a variety of activities, probably connected with the temple functions” [p. 238], the Mittanian strata stand just on top of the ED III strata, with ED III pottery mixed to Mittanian ceramics. The situation slightly changed in the Mittanian period: “At some point in the early Mittani period the buildings to the east of the staircase were abandoned and a massive brickfall coming from the mud brick buildings on the east inundated the area. The brickfall eventually covered the stairway to its mid section and even covered the revetment wall almost to its very top. This collapse was a major change in the city and its relationship to the temple terrace. Throughout its long history the city with its administration and residents had contributed a vast amount of economic and psychological energy to maintain the temple terrace complex and the associated plaza” [p. 238]. As a historical interpretation, the author adds what follows: “For the ancient inhabitants of Urkesh this massive collapse meant that the continuity of their central religious complex, that had existed and characterized the city for more than a millennium, was broken. A physical and psychological impact that the city and those who remained would never recover from” [p. 238]. In fact, during the Mittanian period,“the space was reorganized by introducing, for the first time in two thousand years, the first radical change in the approach axis to the summit: the focus of activities now shifted to the west where a new staircase was built giving access to the top of the terrace from that portion of the city that had remained immune to the great collapse in the east” [pp. 238-239]. At the end of the section, the author starts moving to ceramics: “Because of the historical development at Urkesh that I have just traced, the excavated Mittani period ceramics are much more numerous in the Temple area than that of the Akkadian or Khabur periods. This means that the ceramic catalog is fuller and more varied. The contexts include, in addition to the Temple terrace, the buildings immediately to the west of the terrace, flanking the new entrance, principally in excavation unit A18. Presumably this area now contained service quarters for this continuing ritual context, replacing those earlier structures to the east” [p. 239].
Section 2 describes the most attested vessel shapes: the catalogue is very variegated [see Urkesh Ceramic Typology: Mittani], with e.g. 5 different variations under bowl type bcrsa 813 [i.e., bowl/carinated/sharp carination: see Mari and its king Zimri-Lim), the period following the destruction of Ebla, eventually reaching the proper Mittani period, when Urkesh was located between the two Mittanian capitals of Waššukanni in the west (possibly Tell Fekheriya) and Taidu in the east (possibly Tell Hamidiyah), stressing the importance over times of the polyad god Kumarbi. Sub-section 6.2 deals with the end of Urkesh: “In the transition from Mittani to the Middle Assyrian period in Urkesh we do not have massive destruction which can be tied to a Middle Assyrian conquest. […] Urkesh was very soon abandoned. […] The end of Mittani in Urkesh came slowly with no indication of purposeful destruction of the temple terrace or the constructions connected with it. […] The city must have been depopulated gradually […]” [p. 244]. The last portion of sub-section 6.2 [p. 245] describes the accumulation of soil (“between two and three thousand cubic meters of accumulated soil (!)”) dated to the late Mittanian period where the ceramics presented in this paper come from, underlining the important of this stratum: “We see in the ceramics in these humble accumulations deposited above the once great Plaza the silent yet eloquent witness of the last days of Urkesh” [p. 245].