Adab (city)

Bismaya is not to be confused with the small, later (Old Babylonian and Sassanian periods) archaeological site named Tell Bismaya, 9 kilometers (5.6 miles) east of the confluence of the Diyala and the Tigris rivers, excavated by Iraqi archaeologists in the 1980s or Tell Basmaya, southeast of modern Baghdad, excavated by Iraqi archaeologists in 2013-2014.

Archaeology

The 400-hectare site consists of a number of mounds distributed over an area about 1.5 kilometres (0.93 mi) long and 3 kilometres (1.9 mi) wide, consisting of a number of low ridges, nowhere exceeding 12 metres (39 ft) in height, lying somewhat nearer to the Tigris than the Euphrates, about a day's journey to the southeast of Nippur. It was surrounded by a double wall. In total there are twelve mounds of which two (Mounds X and XII) are the result of sand dredged from the Iturungal canal, though some rooms and 20 tablets were found on the northern extension of X. Persons reported working on mound XIV and mound XVI but there is no record where they lay. Some private houses were noted outside the east wall. Notable mounds were

• Mound I - Palace, Isin/Larsa - Old Babylonian Periods. About 33 meters by 25 meters. Several hundred mostly fragmentary tablets
• Mound II - Cemetery and House by Bath. Seven burials (5 intramural graves, 2 tombs).
• Mound III - Administrative and light industrial near west corner. Early Dynastic, Akkadian, and Ur III levels. Most tablets found there date to reign of Akkadian Empire ruler Shar-kali-sharri.
• Mound IV - The Library. Over 2,000 tablets found here, originally held in reed baskets with labels. Akkadian period administrative center.
• Mound V - E-Sar/E-mah Temple. Mound 11 meters high and 90 meters in circumference. Ten occupation levels, atop pure sand, ranging from Early Dynastic I to Ur III. Inscribed bricks of Kurigalzu indicated restoration in the Kassite period. Two consecutive temples were built with the first ritually sealed before construction of the second.
• Mound VI - Large walls with inscribed bricks of Amar-Sin. Thought to be a temple.

Initial examinations of the site of Bismaya were by William Hayes Ward of the Wolfe Expedition in 1885 and by John Punnett Peters of the University of Pennsylvania in 1890, each spending a day there and finding one cuneiform tablet and a few fragments. Walter Andrae visited Bismaya in 1902, found a tablet fragment and produced a sketch map of the site.

Excavations were conducted there on behalf of the University of Chicago and led by Edgar James Banks for a total of six months beginning on Christmas Day of 1903 until May 25, 1904. Work resumed on September 19, 1904 but was stopped after 8 1/2 days by the Ottoman authorities. Excavation resumed on March 13, 1905 under the direction of Victor S. Persons and continued until the end of June, 1905. During the excavation of a city gate thousands of sling balls (some stone, most of baked clay), some flattened, were found which the excavator interpreted as the result of a battle. While Banks was better trained than the earlier generation of antiquarians and treasure hunters and used more modern archaeological methods the excavations suffered seriously from having never been properly published. The Banks expedition to Bismaya was well documented by the standards of the time and many objects photographed though no final report was ever produced due to personal disputes. In 2012, the Oriental Institute re-examined the records and objects returned to the institute by Banks and produced a "re-excavation" report. One issue is that Banks and Persons purchased objects from Adab locally while there and it is uncertain which object held at the museum were excavated vs being bought.

On Mound V, on what was originally thought to be an island but has since been understood to have resulted from a shift in the canal bed, stood the temple, E-mah, with a ziggurat. The temple had two occupational phases. E-Sar, the first (Earlier Temple), constructed of plano-convex bricks, was from the Early Dynastic period. That temple was later filled in with mud bricks and sealed off with a course of baked brick and bitumen pavement. A foundation deposit of Adab ruler E-iginimpa'e dated to Early Dynastic IIIa was found on that pavement containing "inscribed adze-shaped copper object (A543) with a copper spike (A542) inserted into the hole at its end and two tablets, one of copper alloy (A1160) and one of white stone (A1159)".

𒀭𒈤 𒂍𒅆𒉏𒉺𒌓𒁺 𒃻𒑐𒋼𒋛 𒌓𒉣𒆠 𒂍𒈤 𒈬𒈾𒆕 𒌫𒁉𒆠𒂠 𒋼𒁀𒋛

^d-mah/ e2-igi-nim-pa-e3/ GAR-ensi/ adab{ki}/ e2-mah mu-na-du/ ur2-be2 ki-sze3/ temen ba-si

"For the goddess Digirmah, E-iginimpa'e, ensi-GAR of Adab, built the E-Mah for her, and buried foundation deposits below its base"

The second temple (Later Temple) was faced by baked bricks, some with an inscription of the Ur III ruler Shulgi naming it the temple of the goddess Ninhursag.

Adab was evidently once a city of considerable importance, but deserted at a very early period, since the ruins found close to the surface of the mounds belong to Shulgi and Ur-Nammu, kings of the Third Dynasty of Ur in the latter part of the third millennium BC, based on inscribed bricks excavated at Bismaya. Immediately below these, as at Nippur, were found artifacts dating to the reign of Naram-Sin and Sargon or the Akkadian Empire, c. 2300 BC. Below these there were still 10.5 metres (34 ft) of stratified remains, constituting seven-eighths of the total depth of the ruins. A large palace was found in the central area with a very large well lined with plan-convex bricks, marking it as being from the Early Dynastic period.

Besides the remains of buildings, walls, and graves, Banks discovered a large number of inscribed clay tablets of a very early period, bronze and stone tablets, bronze implements and the like. Of the tablets, 543 went to the Oriental Institute and roughly 1100, mostly purchased from the locals rather than excavated, went to the Istanbul Museum. The latter are still unpublished and are unavailable for study. Brick stamps, found by Banks during his excavation of Adab state that the Akkadian ruler Naram-Sin built a temple to Inanna at Adab, but the temple was not found during the dig, and is not known for certain to be E-shar. The two most notable discoveries were a complete statue in white marble, apparently the earliest yet found in Mesopotamia, now in the Istanbul Archaeology Museums, bearing the inscription, translated by Banks as "E-mach, King Da-udu, King of, Ud-Nun", now known as the statue of Lugal-dalu and a temple refuse heap, consisting of great quantities of fragments of vases in marble, alabaster, onyx, porphyry and granite, some of which were inscribed, and others engraved and inlaid with ivory and precious stones.

Of the Adab tablets that ended up at the University of Chicago, sponsor of the excavations, all have been published and also made available in digital form online. After the end of excavation, on a later personal trip the region in 1913, Banks purchased thousands of tablets from a number of sites, many from Adab, and sold them sold piecemeal to various owners over years. Some have made their way into publication. Many more have subsequently made their way into the antiquities market from illegal looting of the site and some have also been published. A number ended up in the collection of the Cornell University.

In response to widespread looting which began after the war 1991, the Iraq State Board of Antiquities and Heritage conducted an excavation at Adab in 2001. The site has now been largely destroyed by systematic looting which increased after the war in 2003, so further excavation is unlikely. On the order of a thousand tablets from that looting, all from the Sargonic Period, have been sold to various collectors and many are being published, though missing archaeological context. Of the 9,000 published tablets from the Sargonic Period (Early Dynastic IIIb, Early Sargonic, Middle Sargonic and Classic Sargonic) about 2,300 came from Adab.

From 2016 to 2019, the University of Bologna and the Iraqi State Board of Antiquities and Heritage led by Nicolò Marchetti conducted a program, the Qadis survey, of coordinated remote sensing and surface surveys in the Qadisiyah province including at Bismaya (QD049). Results included a "Preliminary reconstruction of the urban layout and hydraulic landscape around Bismaya/Adab in the ED III and Akkadian periods". A previously unknown palace was discovered and the extent of looting identified. It was determined that the city was surrounded by canals. The overall occupation of the site in the Early Dynastic III period was determined to have been 462 hectares. The Qadis survey showed that Adab had a 24-hectare central harbor, with a maximum length of 240 meters and a maximum width of 215 meters. The harbor was connected to the Tigris river via a 100-meter–wide canal. In 2001 a statue became available to the Baghdad Museum which was inscribed "Temple Builder, of the goddess Nin-SU(?)-KID(?): Epa'e, King of Adab".