Cultic resilience and inter-city engagement at the dawn of urban history: protohistoric Mesopotamia and the ‘city seals’, 3200–2750 BC

Figures & data

Table 1. Summary of Uruk III and Early Dynastic I city seal evidence.

Ancient site name	Modern site name	Attested in Uruk IV texts	Attested in Uruk III texts	Attested in Jemdet Nasr city seal	Attested in Uruk-Warka city seal	Attested in Archaic City List	Attested in Ur ED1 sealings	City seal impressions on tablets at site	City seal impressions on sealing at site
Ur	Muqayyar	x	x	x	x	x	x		x
Nippur	Niffar			x	x	x	x
Larsa	Senkereh	x	x	x	x	x	x
Uruk	Warka	x	x	x	x	x	x		x
Keš	Wilayah?			x	x	?	x
Zabala	Ibzaikh		x	x		?
Ereš	Abu Salabikh?			?		?
UR2 KU6 RAD	Uqair?			x		x	?	x
BU BU NA2	?			x		x
Kutha	Ibrahim			?
UB	Jemdet Nasr?						x	x
Šuruppak	Fara		x						x
Eridu	Abu Shahrain						x
Adab	Bismaya	x	x				x
Edinnu	?				x		x
Kiš	Ingharra		x
Der	Aqar						x

Table 2. Summary of clay objects analysed with pXRF.

Site name	Date (approx.)	Museum	Object	Qty
Jemdet Nasr	3100–2900 BC	Ashmolean Museum	Tablets	115
Jemdet Nasr	3100–2900 BC	Ashmolean Museum	Sealing	1
Uncertain provenance	3100–2900 BC	Ashmolean Museum	Tablets	3
Uruk	3100–2900 BC	Vorderasiatisches Museum	Sealings	30
Uruk	3100–2900 BC	Vorderasiatisches Museum	Tablets	4
Uncertain provenance	3100–2900 BC	Vorderasiatisches Museum	Tablets	33
Uncertain provenance	3100–2900 BC	British Museum	Tablets	8
Ur	2900–2750 BC	British Museum	Sealings	80
Fara	2900–2750 BC	Vorderasiatisches Museum	Sealings	53
			TOTAL	327

Figure 1. Map of Lower Mesopotamia with ancient river courses, showing cities featured in the city seal evidence (after Benati [2015, Figure 6], with authors’ additions).

Figure 2. Plan of Jemdet Nasr large building (after Englund [1998, fig. 3]).

Figure 3. Jemdet Nasr city sealed tablet (after Englund and Grégoire [1991, no. 163, Ashm. 1926.608, © Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford]) and city seal impression (after Matthews [1993, 37]).

Figure 4. Discriminant analysis of calibrated pXRF data from Jemdet Nasr.

Figure 5. Photo of Uqair city-sealed tablet, © Staatliche Museen zu Berlin - Vorderasiatisches Museum, Foto: Olaf M. Tessmer 3/2019 VAT 5296.

Figure 6. Discriminant analysis comparing calibrated pXRF data for tablets from Jemdet Nasr and Uqair (?).

Figure 7. Uruk clay sealing with city seal impression, W 11,456/VA10803.

Figure 8. Discriminant analysis of calibrated pXRF data from Uruk according to sealing function.

Figure 9. Archaic city list tablet, W 21,126 (after Englund and Nissen [1993, Abb. 16]).

Table 3. City identifications in Ur city seal impressions (Matthews 1993, U1–U23).

No.	Ur	Nippur	Larsa	Uruk	Kesh	Adab	Eridu	UB	UR2/?Dēr	Edinnu
1										?
2		?			?
3		?				?
4				?
5										?
6
7
8
9						?
10
11
12
13
14	?								?
15
16
17	?									?
18				?	?
19				?
20
21	?			?
22				?
23		?

Figure 10. Discriminant analysis of calibrated pXRF data from Ur according to sealing function.

Figure 11. Early Dynastic I city seal impression from Fara, VA6361 (after Martin [1988, no. 131], with authors’ additions).

Figure 12. Function of Fara door and container sealings (after Matthews [1991, Figure 2]).

Figure 13. Discriminant analysis of calibrated pXRF data from Fara according to sealing function.

Figure 14. Konar Sandal South city seal impression, KSS2008XJV002, with tentative city name readings (after Madjidzadeh and Pittman [2008, fig. 32e], with authors’ additions).

Figure 15. Findspots of Uqair tablets (after Englund [1998, Figure 4]; Lloyd and Safar [1943, pl. 31], with authors’ additions).

Figure 16. Seal impression on Uqair tablet (after Englund [1996, no. 37]).

Figure 17. Uruk III seal from Uruk (after Amiet [1980, pl. 46.655]).

Figure 18. Seal impression on Uqair tablet (after Englund [1996, no. 38]).

Benati, G. 2015. “Re-Modeling Political Economy in Early 3rd Millennium BC Mesopotamia: Patterns of Socio-Economic Organization in Archaic Ur (Tell al-Muqayyar, Iraq).” Cuneiform Digital Library Journal 2015 (2): 1–37.

 Google Scholar

Englund, R. K. 1998. “Texts from the Late Uruk Period.” In Mesopotamien: Späturuk-Zeit und Frühdynastische Zeit, edited by J. Bauer, R. K. Englund, and M. Krebernik, 15–233. Fribourg: Academic Press.

 Google Scholar

Englund, R. K., and J.-P. Grégoire. 1991. “The Proto-Cuneiform Texts from Jemdet Nasr.” Materialien zu den frühen Schriftzeugnissen des vorderen Orients 1. Berlin: Mann.

 Google Scholar

Matthews, R. 1993. “Cities, Seals and Writing: Archaic Seal Impressions from Jemdet Nasr and Ur.” Materialien zu den frühen Schriftzeugnissen des vorderen Orients 2. Berlin: Gebrüder Mann.

 Google Scholar

Englund, R. K., and H. J. Nissen. 1993. “Die lexikalischen Listen der archaischen Texte aus Uruk.” Archaische Texte aus Uruk 3. Berlin: Gebrüder Mann.

 Google Scholar

Martin, H. P. 1988. Fara: A Reconstruction of the Ancient Mesopotamian City of Shuruppak. Birmingham: Chris Martin.

 Google Scholar

Matthews, R. 1991. “Fragments of Officialdom from Fara.” Iraq 53: 1–15. doi:10.2307/4200331.

 Google Scholar

Madjidzadeh, Y., and H. Pittman. 2008. “Excavations at Konar Sandal in the Region of Jiroft in the Halil Basin: First Preliminary Report (2002–2008).” Iran 46: 69–103. doi:10.1080/05786967.2008.11864738.

 Google Scholar

Lloyd, S., and F. Safar. 1943. “Tell Uqair. Excavations by the Iraq Government Directorate of Antiquities in 1940 and 1941.” Journal of near Eastern Studies 2: 131–158. doi:10.1086/370671.

 Google Scholar

Englund, R. K. 1996. “Proto-Cuneiform Texts from Diverse Collections.” Materialien zu den frühen Schriftzeugnissen des vorderen Orients 4. Berlin: Mann.

 Google Scholar

Amiet, P. 1980. La glyptique Mésopotamienne archaïque. Paris: Éditions du Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique.

 Google Scholar