- Image of a seated bull in black marble, discovered in Uruk. Jemdet Nasr period (c. 3000 BC). Louvre, Paris.
Jemdet Nasr — an archaeological site in Iraq. Located in the Iraqi province of Babil, northeast of the ancient cities of Babylon and Kish and east of Kuta. Possibly the world's earliest monuments of writing are represented here.
History
Jemdet Nasr is the type archaeological site for the Early Bronze Age culture of southern Mesopotamia, also called the Jemdet Nasr period (or Uruk III period). The period was short-lived, dated to around the 30th century BC (according to the boldest estimates — from the 32nd to the 29th centuries BC). It was during this period that writing emerged in southern Mesopotamia and cylinder seals first appeared. The urban revolution also took place: numerous small settlements of Mesopotamia turned into large cities.
Archaeology
Jemdet Nasr was first explored in 1926 and 1928 by a group of British and American archaeologists, first led by Stephen Langdon and later by Henry Field. The finds were divided: the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford University and the National Museum of Iraq in Baghdad received epigraphic objects, while most of the pottery was sent to the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago. Even by the standards of the time, the excavations were exceptionally poorly documented and analyzed. Currently, attempts are being made to retrospectively analyze information about archaeological objects and layers.
In 1988 and 1989, excavations resumed — they were conducted by Roger Matthews and others. During the new excavations, a large building was discovered that housed an archive of proto-Sumerian cuneiform texts and seal impressions, as well as the cylinder seals themselves. The polychrome painted pottery characteristic of the Jemdet Nasr period helped determine the chronology of the Jemdet Nasr period during excavations of other sites.
The Jemdet Nasr period is a further development of the Uruk period culture and is synchronous with the Nineveh 5 culture of northern Mesopotamia and the Proto-Elamite civilization in western Iran. It represents the last stage before the emergence of the Early Dynastic state in Sumer.
Finds of Jemdet Nasr-type pottery have been made far beyond Iraq, including in Oman (Hafit period).
Lusatian culture