Tulul al-Baqarat

History

Various portions of Tulul al-Baqarat were occupied from the 4th millennium BC all the way up to the 1st millennium AD.

• The main mound, TB1 (Tell Baqarāt 1), was occupied in the Uruk, Jemdet Nasr, Early Dynastic, Akkadian, Ur III period, Neo-Babylonian, Parthian and Islamic periods. Occupation in the 2nd millennium BC was sparse. This mound, the largest mound, measures 330 meters by 260 meters with an area of about 10 hectares and rises to about 12 meters in height. It contained a large religious on a large terrace. The complex contained three areas. The northern sector dates to the ED, Akkadian, and Ur II periods. The southern area consists of an open area with a monumental baked brick stairway leading to an upper terrace containing religious buildings. The construction of the Neo-Babylonian temple destroyed some of the earlier levels. Features exposed in the 2008-2010 excavations have been subject to significant erosion. The western area has been heavily damaged by looters and has not been explored. Mound TB1 has been proposed as the location of Kesh.
• Mound TB2 dates to the Late Islamic period. Stone inscriptions and tablets found by the Italian excavators carried the name of Naram-Sin of Akkad, Ur-Nammu (including a brick stamp on the construction of a temple for the goddess Ninhursag), Šulgi and Šū-Suen of Ur III, and Nabopolassar and Nebuchadnezzar of the Neo-Babylonians.
• Mound TB4 was occupied in the Jemdet Nasr and Early Dynastic periods based on a small sounding. It is low, about 2.5 meters, and its extent is 260 meters by 75 meters, with an area of about 2.3 hectares. It consists of two sub-mounds connected by a flat area. Bricks found were of the plano-convex type. It lies about 200 meters south of TB1.
• Mound TB5 was occupied in the late 3rd millennium BC and early 2nd millennium BC. Bricks were found dated to the 26th year of the Ur III king Shulgi i.e. "(The divine) Šulgi, mighty man, king of Ur, king of the four quarters". TB5 is, rather was, a low area 400 meters by 250 meters.
• Mounds TB7/TB8 were occupied in the Uruk, Jemdet Nasr and Early Dynastic I period. These mounds are rounded with TB7 being 280 meters in diameter (about 7.6 hectares) with a central elevation and TB8 180 meters in diameter (about 3.1 hectares) and flat topped. A large Early Uruk period building (building A), judged to be residential, with associated graves, was found at the top of TB7 which lies one kilometers south of TB1. A number of stone (chert and obsidian) tools were found on TB7, dated to the early 4th millennium BC.
• Mounds TB9/TB10 were occupied in the Sassanian and early Islamic periods.
• Mounds TB3/TB6 were occupied in the Parthian and Islamic periods.