Editing Eridu (section)

==Archaeology==
[[File:Eridu Context Map.jpg|thumb|left|Eridu context {{Circa|5000 BC}}]]
Eridu is located on a natural hill in a basin approximately 15 miles long and 20 feet deep, which is separated from the Euphrates by a sandstone ridge called the ''Hazem''.<ref name="Taylor1855" /> This basin, the ''As Sulaybiyat'' Depression (formerly: ''Khor en-Nejeif''), becomes a seasonal lake (Arabic: Sebkha) during the rainy season from November to April.<ref>{{cite book |editor1-last=Edwards |editor1-first=I. E.S. |title=The Cambridge Ancient History. Vol. I, Part 1: Prolegomena and Prehistory |publisher=Cambridge University Press |pages=331–332 |edition=3rd |url=https://www.academia.edu/35997578 |access-date=28 February 2023}}</ref>  During this period, it is filled by the discharge of the Wadi Khanega.  Adjacent to eastern edge of the seasonal lake are the [[Hammar Marshes]].

In the 3rd Millennium BC a canal, Id-edin-Eriduga (NUN)<sup>ki</sup> "the  canal  of  the  Eridug  plain", connected Eridu to the Euphrates river, which later shifted its course. The path of the canal is marked by several low tells with 2nd Millennium BC surface pottery and later burials.<ref>Thorkild Jacobsen, "The Waters of Ur", Toward the Image of Tammuz and Other Essays on Mesopotamian History and Culture, Cambridge, MA and London, England: Harvard University Press, pp. 231-244, 1970</ref>
The site contains 8 mounds:<ref name="Safar1981" >[http://hdl.handle.net/11401/89029] Safar, Fuad et al., "Eridu", Baghdad: Ministry of Culture and Information, 1981</ref>

*Mound 1 - Abū Šahrain, 580 meters x 540 meters in area NW to WE, 25 meters in height, Enki Temple,  Ur III Ziggurat (É-u₆-nir) Sacred Area, Early Dynastic plano-convex bricks found, Ubaid Period cemetery
*Mound 2 – 350 meters x 350 meters in area, 4.3 meters in height, 1 kilometer N of Abū Šahrain, Early Dynastic Palace, remnants of city wall built with [[Mudbrick#Ancient world|plano-convex brick]]s
*Mound 3 - 300 × 150 meters in area, 2.5 meters high, 2.2 kilometers SSW of Abū Šahrain, Isin-Larsa pottery found
*Mound 4 - 600 × 300 meters in area, 2.5 kilometers SW of Abū Šahrain, Kassite pottery found
*Mound 5 - 500 × 300 meters in area, 3 meters high, 1.5 kilometers SE of Abū Šahrain, Neo-Babylonian and Achaemenid periods
*Mound 6 - 300 × 200 meters in area, 2 meters high, 2.5 kilometers SW of Abū Šahrain
*Mound 7 - 400 × 200 meters in area, 1.5 meters high, 3 kilometers E of Abū Šahrai
*Mound 8 - Usalla, flat area, 8 kilometers NW of Abū Šahrain, Hajj Mohammed and later Ubaid

[[File:Ziggurat at Eridu (30809118442).jpg|thumb|right|Ziggurat at Eridu]]

The site was initially excavated by [[John George Taylor]], the British Vice-counsel at Basra, in 1855.<ref name="Taylor1855" >[https://archive.org/download/jstor-25228662/25228662.pdf] J. E. Taylor, "Notes on Abu Shahrein and Tell el Lahm",  Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, vol. 15, pp. 404–415, 1855</ref> Among the finds were inscribed bricks enabling the identification of the site as Eridu.<ref>Hilprecht, H. V., "First Successful Attempts In Babylonia", Explorations in Bible Lands During the 19th Century, Piscataway, NJ, USA: Gorgias Press, pp. 138-186, 2004</ref> Excavation on the main tell next occurred by [[Reginald Campbell Thompson|R. Campbell Thompson]] from April 10 until May 8 in 1918, and [[Henry Hall (Egyptologist)|H. R. Hall]] from April 21 until May 8 in 1919, who also conducted a survey in the area around the tell.<ref>Hall, H. R., "Recent Excavations of the British Museum at Tell el-Mukayyar (Ur ‘of the Chaldees’), Tell Abu Shahrein (Eridu), and Tell el-Ma‘abed or Tell el-‘Obeid, near Ur", Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries 32, pp. 22–44, 1920</ref><ref>Campbell Thompson, "The British Museum Excavations at Abu Shahrain in Mesopotamia in 1918", Archaeologia 70, pp. 101-44, 1920</ref><ref>H. R. Hall, "Notes on the Excavations of 1919 at Muqayyar, el-‘Obeid, and Abu Shahrein", Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland 56, Centenary Supplement, pp. 103–115, 1924</ref><ref>Hall, H. R., "The Excavations of 1919 at Ur, el-’Obeid, and Eridu, and the History of Early Babylonia", Man 25, Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, pp. 1–7, 1925</ref><ref>Hall, H. R., "Ur and Eridu: The British Museum Excavations of 1919", The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 9, pp. 177–95, 1923</ref><ref>Hall, H.R., "A Season's Work at Ur, Al-ʻUbaid, Abu Shahrain (Eridu) and Elsewhere. Being an Unofficial Account of the British Museum Archaeological Mission to Babylonia, 1919", London, 1930</ref> An interesting find by Hall was a piece of manufactured blue glass which he dated to {{circa|2000&nbsp;BC}}. The blue color was achieved with [[cobalt]], long before this technique emerged in Egypt.<ref>Garner, Harry, "An Early Piece of Glass from Eridu", Iraq, vol. 18, no. 2, 1956, pp. 147–49, 1956 {{doi|10.2307/4199608}}</ref>

This lump of glass is currently dated to the twenty-first century BC or even earlier, and is considered as perhaps the earliest such glass object in the world in the [[History of glass]]. It was produced during the [[Akkadian Empire]] or the early [[Ur III]] period.<ref>Gonca Dardeniz, Julian Henderson and Martin Roe 2022, Primary Evidence for Glassmaking in Late Bronze Age Alalakh/Tell Atchana (Amuq Valley, Turkey). Journal of Glass Studies, 2022, Vol. 64 (2022), pp. 11-32. Corning Museum of Glass. https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/48703400</ref>

[[File:Eridu mound4c.8.png|thumb|left|E-abzu temple of Eridu]]
Excavation there resumed from 1946 to 1949 under [[:fr:Fuad Safar|Fuad Safar]] and [[Seton Lloyd]] of the Iraqi Directorate General of Antiquities and Heritage. Among the finds were a Ubaid period terracotta boat model, complete with a socket amidship for a mast and hole for stays and rudder, [[Beveled rim bowl|bevel-rimmed bowls]], and a "lizard type" figurine like those found in a sounding under the Royal Cemetery of Ur. Soundings in the cemetery showed it to have about 1000 graves, all from the end of the Ubaid period (Temple levels VI and VII).<ref name="Safar1947" >[https://findit.library.yale.edu/images_layout/view?parentoid=15763206&increment=41] al Asil, Naji and Lloyd, Seton and Safar, Fuad, "Eridu", Sumer, vol. 3, no. 2, pp. 84–111, July 1947</ref><ref>[https://findit.library.yale.edu/images_layout/view?parentoid=15763210&increment=60] Lloyd, Seton and Safar, Fuad, "Eridu. A Preliminary Communication on the Second Season’s Excavations. 1947-1948.", Sumer, vol. 4, no. 2, pp. 115–127, September 1948</ref><ref>Fuad Safar, "The Third Season's Excavation at Eridu", Sumer, vol. 5, no. 2, pp. 159–174, 1949 (In Arabic.)</ref><ref>[https://findit.library.yale.edu/images_layout/view?parentoid=15763216&increment=32] Fuad Safar, "ERIDU A Preliminary Report on the Third Season's Excavation at Eridu, 1948-1949", Sumer, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 27–38, 1950</ref><ref>Lloyd, Seton, "Abu Shahrein: A Memorandum", Iraq 36, pp. 129–38, 1974</ref> They found a sequence of 17 Ubaid Period superseding temples and an Ubaid Period graveyard with 1000 graves of mud-brick boxes oriented to the southeast. The temple began as a 2 meter by 3 meter mud brick square with a niche. At Level XI it was rebuilt and eventually reached its final tripartite form in Level VI. In Ur III times a 300 square meter platform was constructed as a base for a ziggurat.<ref>Laneri, Nicola, "From High to Low: Reflections about the Emplacement of Religion in Ancient Mesopotamia", Naming and Mapping the Gods in the Ancient Mediterranean: Spaces, Mobilities, Imaginaries, edited by Corinne Bonnet, Thomas Galoppin, Elodie Guillon, Max Luaces, Asuman Lätzer-Lasar, Sylvain Lebreton, Fabio Porzia, Jörg Rüpke and Emiliano Rubens Urciuoli, Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, pp. 371-386, 2022</ref> These archaeological investigations showed that, according to [[A. Leo Oppenheim]], "eventually the entire south lapsed into stagnation, abandoning the political initiative to the rulers of the northern cities", probably as a result of increasing [[salinity]] produced by continuous irrigation, and the city was abandoned in 600&nbsp;BC.<ref>[https://oi.uchicago.edu/sites/oi.uchicago.edu/files/uploads/shared/docs/ancient_mesopotamia.pdf] A. Leo Oppenheim, Ancient Mesopotamia: Portrait of a Dead Civilization, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1964, revised in 1977</ref> In 1990 the site was visited by [[Andrew M. T. Moore|A. M. T. Moore]] who found two areas of surface pottery kilns not noted by the earlier excavators.<ref>Moore, A. M. T., "Pottery Kiln Sites at al ’Ubaid and Eridu", Iraq, vol. 64, pp. 69–77, 2002, {{doi|10.2307/4200519}}</ref>

In October 2014 Franco D’Agostino visited the site in preparation for the coming resumption of excavation, noting a number of inscribed [[Amar-Sin]] brick fragments on the surface.<ref>D’Agostino, Franco, "The Eridu Project (AMEr) and a Singular Brick-Inscription of Amar- Suena from Abū Šahrain", The First Ninety Years: A Sumerian Celebration in Honor of Miguel Civil, edited by Lluís Feliu, Fumi Karahashi and Gonzalo Rubio, Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, pp. 70–79, 2017</ref> In 2019, excavations at Eridu were resumed by a joint Italian, French, and Iraqi effort which included the University of Rome La Sapienza and the University of Strasbourg.<ref>Franco D'Agostino, Anne-Caroline Rendu Loisel, and Philippe Quénet, The first campaign at Eridu, April 2019 (Project AMEr), pp. 65–90, Rivista degli studi orientali : XCIII, 1/2, 2020</ref><ref>[https://www.academia.edu/21315716/The_Iraqi_Italian_Archaeological_Mission_at_the_Seven_Mounds_of_Eridu_AMEr_] Ramazzotti, Marco, "The Iraqi-Italian Archaeological Mission at The Seven Mounds of Eridu (AMEr)", The Iraqi-Italian Archaeological Mission at The Seven Mounds of Eridu (AMEr), pp. 3-29, 2015</ref><ref>Rendu Loisel, Anne-Caroline. "Another brick (-stamp) in the wall: few remarks on Amar-Suena's bricks in Eridu", Oriens antiquus: rivista di studi sul Vicino Oriente Antico e il Mediterraneo orientale: II, pp. 81-98, 2020</ref> Work has included producing new detail topographic and photogrammetric maps and is mainly focused on the Ubaid period cemetery and its associated Ubaid residential area.<ref>[https://acta.imeko.org/index.php/acta-imeko/article/view/1824/3028] Brienza, Emanuele, "Smart tools for archaeological survey in different frameworks and contexts: approaches, analysis, results", Acta IMEKO 13.3, pp. 1-11, 2024</ref>

===Artifacts===
[[File:Eridu temple 7.png|thumb|right|Large buildings, implying centralized government, started to be made. Eridu Temple, final [[Ubaid period]]]]
In March 2006, [[Giovanni Pettinato]] and S. Chiod from [[Sapienza University of Rome|Rome's La Sapienza University]] claimed to have discovered 500 Early Dynastic historical and literary cuneiform tablets on the surface at Eridu "disturbed by an explosion". The tablets were said to be from 2600 to 2100 BC (rulers Eannatum to Amar-Sin) and be part of a library. A team was sent to the site by Iraq's State Board of Antiquities and Heritage which found no tablets, only stamped bricks from Eridu and surrounding sites such as Ur. Nor was there a permit to excavate at the site issued to anyone.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Biggin |first1=S. |last2=Lawler |first2=A. |url=https://www.science.org/content/article/iraq-antiquities-find-sparks-controversy |title=Iraq Antiquities Find Sparks Controversy |work=[[Science (journal)|Science]] |date=10 April 2006 |access-date=22 August 2022}}</ref><ref>Curtis, John et al., "An Assessment of Archaeological Sites in June 2008: An Iraqi-British Project", Iraq,  vol. 70, pp. 215–237, 2008</ref> At this point Pettinato stated that they had actually found 70 inscribed bricks. This turned out to be stamped bricks used to build the modern Eridu dig-house. The dig-house had been built using bricks from the demolished Leonard Woolley’s  expedition house at Ur (clearly spelled out in the 1981 Iraqi excavation report to avoid confusion to future archaeologists.<ref>Pettinato, Giovanni, "Eridu Texts", Time and History in the Ancient Near East: Proceedings of the 56th Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale, Barcelona, July 26th-30th, 2010, edited by Lluis Feliu, J. Llop, A. Millet Albà and Joaquin Sanmartín, University Park, USA: Penn State University Press, pp. 799-802, 2013</ref> Most of the bricks
in question were returned to Ur in 1962 for use in restoration efforts.<ref name="Safar1981" />

===Architecture===
====Temple and ziggurat====
The urban nucleus of Eridu was [[Enki]]'s temple, called House of the Aquifer ([[Cuneiform]]: {{lang|sux|{{cuneiform|4|𒂍𒍪𒀊}}}}, {{Transliteration|sux|E₂.ZU.AB}}; [[Sumerian language|Sumerian]]: {{Transliteration|sux|[[É (temple)|e₂]]-abzu}}; [[Akkadian language|Akkadian]]: {{Transliteration|akk|bītu apsû}}), which in later history was called House of the Waters ([[Cuneiform]]: {{lang|sux|{{cuneiform|4|𒂍𒇉}}}}, {{Transliteration|sux|E₂.LAGAB×HAL}}; [[Sumerian language|Sumerian]]: [[É (temple)|e₂]]-engur; [[Akkadian language|Akkadian]]: ''bītu engurru''). The name refers to Enki's realm.<ref>Green, Margaret Whitney, "Eridu in Sumerian Literature", Unpublished Ph.D Dissertation,  Chicago, IL: University of Chicago, 1975</ref> His consort [[Ninhursag]] had a nearby temple at [[Ubaid period|Ubaid]].<ref>P. Delougaz, A Short Investigation of the Temple at Al-'Ubaid, Iraq, vol. 5, pp. 1-11, 1938</ref>

During the Ur III period Ur-Nammu had a ziggurat built over the remains of previous temples.

Aside from [[Enmerkar]] of Uruk (as mentioned in the ''Aratta'' epics), several later historical Sumerian kings are said in inscriptions found here to have worked on or renewed the ''e-abzu'' temple, including [[Elulu|Elili]] of Ur; [[Ur-Nammu]], [[Shulgi]] and [[Amar-Sin]] of [[Ur-III]], and [[Nur-Adad]] of [[Larsa]].<ref>AR George, "House most high: the temples of ancient Mesopotamia", Eisenbrauns, 2003 {{ISBN|0-931464-80-3}}</ref><ref>Fabrizio Serra ed., "A new foundation clay-nail of Nūr-Adad from Eridu", Oriens antiquus : rivista di studi sul Vicino Oriente Antico e il Mediterraneo orientale : I, pp. 191-196, 2019</ref>
{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Level !! Date (BC) !! Period !! Size (m) !! Note
|-
| XVIII || 5300 || - || 3×0.3 || [[Sleeper wall]]s
|-
| XVII || 5300–5000 || - || 2.8×2.8 || First cella
|-
| XVI || 5300–4500 || Early Ubaid || 3.5×3.5 ||
|-
| XV || 5000–4500  || Early Ubaid || 7.3×8.4 ||
|-
| XIV || 5000–4500  || Early Ubaid || - || No structure found
|-
| XIII || 5000–4500  || Early Ubaid || - || No structure found
|-
| XII || 5000–4500  || Early Ubaid || - || No structure found
|-
| XI || 4500–4000 || Ubaid || 4.5×12.6 || First platform
|-
| X || 4500–4000 || Ubaid || 5×13 ||
|-
| IX || 4500–4000 || Ubaid || 4×10 ||
|-
| VIII || 4500–4000 || Ubaid || 18×11 ||
|-
| VII || 4000–3800 || Ubaid || 17×12 ||
|-
| VI || 4000–3800 || Ubaid || 22×9 ||
|-
| V || 3800–3500|| Early Uruk || - || Only platform remains
|-
| IV || 3800–3500 || Early Uruk || - || Only platform remains
|-
| III || 3800–3500 || Early Uruk || - || Only platform remains
|-
| II || 3500–3200 || Early Uruk || - || Only platform remains
|-
| I || 3200 || Early Uruk || - || Only platform remains
|-
|}