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Bassetki / Mardaman

Mardama

Iraq · Duhok

Ancient cityIntermittent excavation
Approximate period3,000 BCE — 600 BCEEarly Bronze Age, Middle Bronze Age and Assyrian periods See on the map ↓

In brief

Tablets found at Bassetki revealed that the settlement was ancient Mardama, previously known as Mardaman. Excavations document Bronze Age urban life and provincial administration during the Middle Assyrian period.

What was found?

  • 1Aššur-nāṣir’s tablet archive

    These are cuneiform clay tablets from the archive of the Middle Assyrian governor. The texts made it possible to identify Bassetki as ancient Mardama, formerly known as Mardaman.

  • 2Governor's residence

    The Middle Assyrian building was uncovered with its rooms and the stone-paved courtyard in front of it. The building, which also contained the archive, provides tangible evidence of the city's role in provincial administration.

  • 3Early city wall and gate

    The wall, built on bedrock, belongs to the early Nineveh V phase. Its traces of rebuilding and its gate document the settlement's early urbanization.

  • 4Monumental stone-paved courtyard

    The courtyard of the large building in the lower city is enclosed by large stone slabs and substantial walls. Researchers consider that the building may have been a temple.

  • 5Large oven and burnt grain

    Charcoal and burnt grains were found in the oven of the early Nineveh V building. According to researchers, together with the nearby storage areas, they indicate communal food production and storage.

What does it point to?

Bassetki illustrates a long history of settlement extending from early urbanization to Assyrian provincial administration. The wall, food-processing areas, and written archive make it possible to trace how defense, production, and administration were organized in different periods.

What did it teach us?

  1. It established the location of the city of Mardama/Mardaman, whose name was known from texts.
  2. It revealed that Mardama was the center of a previously unknown Assyrian province in the 13th century BCE.
  3. It showed that the settlement was a city surrounded by substantial walls in the early 3rd millennium BCE.

Record

Culture
Northern Mesopotamia and Assyria
First modern dig
2015
Team / historical
Peter Pfälzner and Hasan A. Qasim; University of Tübingen and the Duhok Directorate of Antiquities
Coordinates
36.9589°, 42.7213°

Sources

  1. uni-tuebingen.de
  2. ori.uni-heidelberg.de
  3. cdli.earth

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