Sample Page

Urkesh, also transliterated Urkish (Akkadian: 𒌨𒆧𒆠 UR.KIŠ^KI, 𒌨𒋙𒀭𒄲𒆠 UR.KEŠ₃^KI; modern Tell Mozan (also Tall Mozan); Arabic: تل موزان), is a tell, or settlement mound, located in the foothills of the Taurus Mountains in Al-Hasakah Governorate, northeastern Syria. It was founded during the third millennium BC, possibly by the Hurrians, on a site which appears to have been inhabited previously for a few centuries. The city god of Urkesh was Kumarbi, father of Teshup.^[1] The site of Tell Shermola in the modern city of Amuda lies about 7 kilometers away and was where the Hurrian foundation pegs (“Urkish lions”) were thought to have been sold into the antiquities market.

There are other contemporary ancient sites in this area of upper Khabur River basin. For example, Chagar Bazar is 22 km south of Mozan. Tell Arbid is located 45 km south of Tell Mozan. Tell Brak is about 50 km to the south.

Tell Leilan is located about 50 km to the east of Urkesh. Leilan, Brak and Urkesh were particularly prominent during the Akkadian period.^[2]

There is some evidence of minor occupation in the site during the Late Chalcolithic period based on pottery and burials.^[3][4]

Seal inscriptions give evidence for a city ruler with the presumably Hurrian name of Tupkish, and his queen with the name of Uqnitum (possibly Akkadian and id so meaning “lapis lazuli”) as well as two of her servants, the cook Tuli and nurse Zamena. The queens seals were more numerous than those of the king and were used mainly to seal doors and containers.^[5][6][7] Tupkish, who ruled during the ascendancy of the Akkadian Empire, assumed the title of “king of Urkesh and Nagar“. The large palace of Tupkish, also occupied by the next two rulers before being abandoned, had a service wing and a residential wing, both with courtyards.^[8] At this time a city wall, with associated ditch, was built to encompass Urkesh, including the Lower Town.^[9] Seals of a daughter Tar’am-Agade of the Akkadian Empire ruler Naram-Sin were found at the site. They read “(Of) Naram-Sin, the king of Akkad, Tar’am-Agade, his daughter”. It is thought that she was either the head temple prietess at Urkesh, several other daughters of Naram-Sin having assumed that role in other empire cites, or was married to the king of Urkesh.^[10]

Evidence for a significant Hurrian influence at Urkesh in the late 3rd millennium BC, unlike the early 2nd millennium BC, is relatively modest. Most of the inscriptions and texts are written in the Akkadian language or in the Sumerian language. One text has been suggested as being in Hurrian. The Urkesh Lions were written in Hurrian but are of uncertain provenance, having been looted and entered into the antiquities market, and of uncertain, chronology of the ruler Tiš-atal being unknown, though likely later date. A few patronyms, including the ruler Tupkish, a Hapax legomenon, have been suggested as being Hurrian. One small Ur III period cuneiform tablet was found.^[11][12][5]

During this period the abandoned palace of Tupkish was used as a graveyard with an area of about 1860 square meters, buolt along the foundation walls. There were two periods of use, corresponding to the Isin-Larsa and Old Babylonian periods, separated by a short period of abandonment. Burial tyoes were primarily pit and jar burials, though a few built tombs and one vaulted tomb were found. Grave goods were primarily pottery though they included bronze tools and jewellery.^[13][3]

During the early second millennium BC the city passed into the hands of the rulers of Mari, a city a few hundred miles to the south. The king of Urkesh became a vassal (and apparently an appointee) of Mari. The people of Urkesh evidently resented this, as the royal archives at Mari provide evidence of their strong resistance; in one letter, the king of Mari tells his Urkesh counterpart that “I did not know that the sons of your city hate you on my account. But you are mine, even if the city of Urkesh is not.”

In the middle of the 2nd millennium, Tell Mozan was the location of a Mitanni religious site.^[14]

The city appears to have been largely abandoned circa 1350 BC, although the reason for this is unknown to archaeologists at this time.^[15]

The entire site covers around 135 hectares, mostly made up of the outer city. The high mound covers about 18 hectares (44 acres) and rises to a height of 25 meters, with 5 sub-mounds. The maximim area was reached in the 3rd millennium BC and on most of the site the 3rd millennium BC material lies just below the surface, without later occupational overburden. The high mound is surrounded by a mudbrick city wall that was roughly 8 meters wide and 7 meters high.^[16]

Soundings at the site were first made by Max Mallowan during his survey of the area. Agatha Christie, his wife, wrote that they chose not to continue at the site because it seemed to have Roman material.^[17] No trace of Roman occupation levels have been found in later excavations, however. Mallowan went on to excavate Chagar Bazar, another site to the south of Mozan/Urkesh. Excavations at Tell Mozan began in 1984 and have been conducted for at least 17 seasons up to the present time.^[18] The work has been led by Giorgio Buccellati of UCLA and Marilyn Kelly-Buccellati of California State University, Los Angeles.^{[19][20][21][22][23]} The 2007 season was primarily dedicated to working on publication material, primarily excavation units A16, J1, J3 and J4. A small sounding was done in J1 to clarify the transition between Mittani and Khabur. From 1998 to 2001 the excavations were joined by Deutsche Orient-Gesellschaft (German Oriental Society) team directed by Peter Pfrilzner of Tubingen University.^[24][25]

Important excavated structures include the royal palace of Tupkish, an associated necromantic underground structure (Abi), a monumental temple terrace with a plaza in front and a temple at the top, residential areas, burial areas, and the inner and outer city walls.^[26][27]

The temple at Urkesh sits on a raised platform at the center of the mound. The platform has a stone revetment wall and a monumental staircase gives access from the surrounding plaza. It was begun roughly in the Early Dynastic III to Akkadian Empire period. The plaza, encompassed by another wall, during the Akkadian Empire period became the site of the large palace of Tupkish. The temple itself (Area BA) is of the standard “bent-axis” form and had four major building phases with the later phases more subject to erosion. Phase 1, the old and proposed to date to Early Dynastic III, was destroyed by fire. The limited nature of later phases make uncertain if the area was still being used as a temple. The deity worshiped in the temple is uncertain and both Nergal and Kumbari have been proposed. The palace had a service area and a residence area, the later being two meters higher.^{[28][29][27][30][31]}

One of the most important fixed points of reference for chronology are impressions on door sealings of the seal of Tar’am-Agade, the daughter of Naram-Sin, which because of stratigraphy can be firmly linked to phase 3 of the AP palace occupation.^[10]

Small finds included a number of terracotta animal figurines.^[33] Finds from the excavations at Tell Mozan are on display in the Deir ez-Zor Museum.^[34]

Excavations are on hold during the Syrian Civil War since 2011. The site lies close to the Turkish border, and is protected by Kurdish troops and a team of local workers. Conservation activities continue at the site.^{[35][36][37][38]}

No year names of Urkesh rulers are known and only royal inscriptions of Tiš-atal and Atal-šen are available. Only the dating of Tupkish, in the Akkadian Empire period, is known. The known kings of Urkesh include:

• Tupkish – (c. 2250 BC) ^[39][7] One seal, “Tupkish, endan of Urkesh”, is known.^[5]

• Tiš-atal – The Urkesh lions (and associated foundation tablets (AO 19938) carry the text “Tish-atal king of Urkesh the temple of NERGAL he built. the temple, this aforementioned one, Lubadag let him protect! … let Lubadag destroy”. The reading of Nergal is uncertain and the underlying cuneiform had be transliterated as “DINGIR=-KIŠ.GAL” or as “{d}pirig-gal” and there are also suggestions that this is an logogram representing a Hurrian god such as Kumarbi. Lubadag was a minor Hurrian god.^[40][32]
• Atal-šen – A text (AO 05678) whose provenance is uncertain but thought to be Samarra reads “Of Nergal the lord of Hawalum Atal-shen, the caring shepherd, the king of Urkesh and Nawar, the son of Sadar-mat the king, (is) the builder of the temple of Nergal … Shamash and Ishtar his seed let them destroy”. Again note that Nergal is transliterated “DINGIR=-KIS^.UNU.GAL” or “(d}nergal”, that claims rulership of Urkesh and Nawar, and that that deities enforcing the text are Mesopotamian. It was not uncommon for rulers at this time to claim to have built when they were actually rebuilding. ^[41]

The rulers Shatar-mat, Ishar-klnum, Te’irru, Ann-atal, and Haziran were also suggested.^[42][43]

• Cities of the ancient Near East
• List of Mesopotamian deities
• List of Mesopotamian dynasties

• Bianchi, Alice, “Comparative studies on the pottery of sector AK of the royal building in Tell Mozan/Urkes (Syria)”, Harrassowitz, 2012
• [18]M. Kelly-Buccellati, “Urkesh and the North: Recent Discoveries”, Studies on the Civilization and Culture of the Nuzi and the Hurrians 15, General Studies and Excavations at Nuzi 11/1, pp. 3–28, 2005
• Kelly-Buccellati, Marilyn, “Women’s power and work in Ancient Urkesh”, Women in Antiquity. Routledge, pp. 48-63, 2016
• [19]Kelly-Buccellati, Marilyn, “Urkesh: The morphology and cultural landscape of the Hurrian sacred”, Ebla e la Siria dall’età del Bronzo all’età del Ferro. Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei: Atti dei convegni Lincei 304, pp. 97-115, 2016
• Giorgio Buccellati and Marilyn Kelly Buccellati, “Urkesh/Mozan Studies 3: Urkesh and the Hurrians : A Volume in Honor of Lloyd Cotsen”, Undena, 1998 ISBN 0-89003-501-6
• Canby, Jeanny Vorys, “A Figurine from Urkesh: A ‘Darling’ from Troy to Mesopotamia”, Iraq, vol. 65, pp. 171–73, 2003
• Rick Hauser, “READING FIGURINES: Animal Representations in Terra Cotta from Royal Building AK at Urkesh (Tell Mozan)”, Undena, 2006 ISBN 0-9798937-1-2
• Peter M. M. G. Akkermans and Glenn M. Schwartz, “The Archaeology of Syria: From Complex Hunter-Gatherers to Early Urban Societies (c.16,000-300 BC)”, Cambridge University Press, 2004 ISBN 0-521-79666-0
• Giorgio Buccellati, “A Lu E School Tablet from the Service Quarter of the Royal Palace AP at Urkesh”, Journal of Cuneiform Studies, vol. 55, pp. 45–48, 2003
• Frahm, Ellery, and Joshua M. Feinberg, “Environment and collapse: Eastern Anatolian obsidians at Urkesh (Tell Mozan, Syria) and the third-millennium Mesopotamian urban crisis”, Journal of Archaeological Science 40.4, pp. 1866-1878, 2013
• Frahm, Ellery, “Ceramic studies using portable XRF: From experimental tempered ceramics to imports and imitations at Tell Mozan, Syria”, Journal of archaeological science 90, pp. 12-38, 2018
• [20]Kharobi, Arwa, et al., “Le feu et la mort: des structures de combustion associées à des sépultures à Tell Mozan (Nord-Est de la Syrie) au Bronze moyen”, Paléorient, pp. 135-147, 2014
• [21]Orsi, Valentina, “The Passage from the Early Bronze to the Middle Bronze Age in Jezirah: a Parallel between Tell Mozan and Tell Barri Ceramic Sequences’”, Proceedings of the 6th International Congress on the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East, May, 5th-10th 2008,‘Sapienza’–Univeristà di Roma. Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden, pp. 863-881, 2010
• [22]Stillinger, Michele D., Joshua M. Feinberg, and Ellery Frahm, “Refining the archaeomagnetic dating curve for the Near East: new intensity data from Bronze Age ceramics at Tell Mozan, Syria”, Journal of Archaeological Science 53, pp. 345-355, 2015
• Weiss, Harvey, “Archaeology in Syria, 1994”, American Journal of Archaeology, vol. 98, no. 1, pp. 101–58, 1994

• Urkesh excavations (official website)
• Urkesh Beyond Urkesh: The Relevance of a Third Millennium BCE Hurrian City – Video – Apr 18, 2023
• Archaeobotany at Tell Mozan (Tübingen University)
• 86th Faculty Research Lecture: The Discovery of Ancient Urkesh and the Question of Meaning in Archaeology – Giorgio Buccellati, April 27, 1999 – UCLA webcast (utilizes RealPlayer)
• World Monuments Fund Tel Mozan