ASVNET AND ESAFNET NETWORKS
MESOPOTAMIAN ARCHEOLOGY
Date last revised: 6 January 1988
LONG-SOUGHT TABLETS OF ANCIENT ARCHIVE DISCOVERED IN SYRIA
A collection of 1,100 inscribed clay tablets, containing letters to the late
rulers of an ancient city destroyed in 1726 B.C., has been discovered in
northeastern Syria by a Yale University archaeological project. The tablets
are from the royal archive of Shubat Enlil, one of three great, lost capitals
of the Near East. They had been sought by archaeologists since word of their
existence came to light on clay tablets discovered in 1933 at the ancient
Syrian city of Mari.
The royal archive was unearthed last fall in an enormous palace being
excavated at Tell Leilan by a team led by Harvey Weiss, an associate professor
of Near Eastern archeology. By deciphering the cuneiform inscriptions, Weiss
and his colleagues hope to read the history of the final days of Shubat Enlil,
which was the capital of a powerful but little-known northern Mesopotamian
kingdom stretching from the Euphrates River to the Iranian frontier.
Some of the tablets already deciphered contain one of the earliest
descriptions of a monarch's use of a cavalry to police the countryside. Weiss
said some are letters from neighboring rulers to the king of Shubat Enlil
suggesting the kingdoms exchange captured spies. Others, revealing Shubat
Enlil's diplomatic relations, show the declining power of Babylon to the south
and the growing influence of the western Syrian kingdom of Aleppo.
Weiss said that all of the correspondence dates from about 1740 to 1726 B.C.,
the period just before Shubat Enlil was destroyed by Samsu-Iluna of Babylon,
successor of the famous Babylonian king Hammurabi. But other artifacts found
in the palace suggest that still-unexcavated chambers may contain tablets from
the reign of the Assyrian king Shamshi-Adad, who ruled Shubat Enlil from 1813
to 1781 B.C., during its heyday.
Weiss said he first surveyed Tell Leilan in 1979--a tell is a mound that
contains the remains of ancient cities. In 1985, Weiss and colleagues began
excavating one room of the palace and discovered 13 tablets whose inscriptions
proved that Tell Leilan was the ruins of one of the lost cities. He said
other artifacts from the site date from as early as 5000 B.C., and fragments
of city walls and buildings show it had become an urban center by about 2600
B.C.
UNCOVERING THE PLEASURES OF THE ANCIENTS by Todd Richissin
Archaeologists in the seaside town or Ashkelon, Israel have uncovered a
1600 year old brothel complete with a heart-shaped pillars, an ancient version
of a hot tub and a broken sign beckoning visitors, "Enter in, enjoy, and
.""And...what?" will remain a mystery. The rest of the sentence, written
in Greek in red letters, has crumbled to fragments and dust. Archaeologist
say additional finds at the site, including heated bathhouses and erotic
art,indicate that the brothel was built in this ancient Greco-Roman resort in
about the 4th century.
"I guess people have been having a good time here for quite a while,"
said Douglas Esse of the University of Chicago, who is associate director of
theexcavation. The site is adjacent to Mediterranean beaches that are as
popularwith vacationers today as they were with the ancients.
The brothel was part of a large villa that contained a complex of baths
andsmall rooms. Steps at the site lead to one oblong bath about the size of
a modern hot tub in which a half-dozen people could sit. It is surrounded
by heart-shaped pillars, which are believed to have supported a canopy, Esse
said. The 130-member archaeological team, composed mostly of volunteers from
15 American and Canadian universities, found fragments of oil lamps decorated
with erotic art which were located a few yards away from the bath. "We managed
to reconstruct about 12 of the lamps, six or seven of which included
erotic scenes," Esse said. "This kind of art isn't unusual for the time
period, but the quantity of it certainly is."
The site still poses many unanswered questions, Esse said, including
the significance of the graveyard for dog, nearly a millennium older than
the brothel, that was discovered about 100 yards away. Esse, an expert on
Syrian and early Palestine archaeology, said he knows of only two other
ancient dog cemeteries - in Iraq and Turkey. Neither is as large as the one
in Ashkelon. The complete skeletons of about 50 adult dogs have been found,
and the remainsof 100 other dogs and puppies have been discovered
meticulously buried at thesite during the period of Persian rule int the 5th
century BC.
"The Persians buried these dogs so that every bone in their tails
was preserved," Esse said. "It's such an unusual thing that we don't
have parallels to draw from yet. We've only just begun to expose the
whole cemetery."
Ashkelon, which has been inhabited for about 9000 years, developed into
a flourishing port city and agricultural center under the Phoenicians, It
is mentioned in the Bible as one of the Philistines' five main cities, and
it became a power of ancient Israel. The dig, now in its third season, is
being financed by New York City businessman Leo Levy and is headed by
Harvard University Prof. Lawrence Stager.
