Jemdet Nasr - History of Research

History of Research

In 1925, the team that was excavating at Kish received reports that clay tablets and painted pottery had been found by locals at a site called Jemdet Nasr, some 26 kilometres (16 mi) northeast of Kish. The site was subsequently visited and it was decided that an excavation was necessary. The first season at Jemdet Nasr took place in 1926, directed by Stephen Langdon, Professor of Assyriology at Oxford University and director of the excavations at Kish. The excavation lasted over a month and employed between 12 and 60 workmen. Langdon was not an archaeologist, and even by the standards of his time, as exemplified by Leonard Woolley's work at Ur, his record-keeping was very poor. As a result, much information on the exact find spots of artefacts, including the tablets, was lost. A large mudbrick building was excavated in which a large collection of proto-cuneiform clay tablets was found. The finds from this season were divided between the National Museum of Iraq in Baghdad, the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford and the Field Museum in Chicago; the latter two co-sponsors of the excavations in Kish and Jemdet Nasr. A second season was organized in 1928, lasting between 13–22 March and directed by L.Ch. Watelin, the then-field director at Kish. This time, some 120 workmen were employed. Watelin kept almost no records of his excavations at the site but from the few notes that survive he seems to have been digging in the same area as Langdon.

In 1988 and 1989, two further excavation seasons were carried out under the direction of British archaeologist Roger Matthews. The aims of the 1988 season were to conduct an archaeological survey of the site, to revisit the large building on Mound B that had been excavated by Langdon but very poorly published, and to explore a building that was visible on the surface of Mound A. During the 1989 season, again directed by Matthews, a dig-house was constructed on the site. Research focused on Mound B with the aim to further explore the ancient occupation in that area. No work was carried out on Mound A. Further excavation seasons, although planned, were prevented by the outbreak of the Gulf War in 1990 and no fieldwork has been carried out at the site since then.

The importance of the findings at Jemdet Nasr were immediately recognized after the 1920s excavations. During a large conference in Baghdad in 1930, the Jemdet Nasr period was inserted into the Mesopotamian chronology between the Uruk period and the Early Dynastic period, with Jemdet Nasr being the eponymous type site. Since then, the assemblage characteristic for the Jemdet Nasr period has been attested at other sites in south–central Iraq, including Abu Salabikh, Fara, Nippur, Ur and Uruk. The period is now generally dated to 3100–2900 BC.