4 - 5 pm (CET)

Prof. Dr. Nicola Laneri (University of Catania)

Venue:

Chronoi House, Otto-von-Simson-Straße 7, 14195 Berlin

In 2022, a team from the University of Catania resumed archaeological work at the site of Tell Muhammad, a 2nd millennium BCE settlement located in the southern suburbs of the modern city of Baghdad and characterized by the presence of a sacred area dating to the late Old Babylonian period.

Tell Muhammad has a long stratigraphic sequence that begins during the Ur III period, at the end of the 3rd millennium BCE, and ends during the Kassite period (c. 16th - 13th centuries BCE). 

Moreover, the long history of research began in the mid-19th century, when F. Jones and A. H. Layard discovered a series of objects, among which the two copper-alloy hollow mace heads with the inscription "E.GAL ha-am-mu-ra-bi" (i.e., "the palace/fortress of Hammurabi") gave the site a probable Old Babylonian presence during the kingdom of Hammurabi. After the excavations carried out by the Iraqi State Board of Antiquities and Heritage between 1978 and 1985, which brought to light the sacred area along with hundreds of cuneiform tablets probably dating to the end of the Old Babylonian period, some of which have a chronological reference to the 'Fall of Babylon', dated according to the Middle Chronology to 1595 BCE.

The talk will present a preliminary report on the data obtained during the first two seasons of excavation at Tell Muhammad and a revision of the Old Babylonian chronological framework.

This talk is part of the project Synchronwelten: Synchronizations and Synchronicities as Historical and Archaeological Practice.