Der Sin-Samas-Tempel in Assur.

• Author: Zettler, Richard L.
• Position: Book review

Der Sin-Samas-Tempel in Assur. By PE ER WERNER. Wissenschaftliche Veroffentlichungen der Deutschen Orient-Gesellschaft, vol. 122. Wiesbaden: HARRASSOWITZ VERLAG, 2009. Pp. 57, plates. [euro]58

German excavations at Babylon and Assur in the early twentieth century, sponsored by the Deutsche Orient-Gesellschaft, set a new "scientific" standard for archaeological work in what is today Iraq (Seton Lloyd, Foundations in the Dust [London, 1980], 174-78). Where earlier excavations were concerned largely with the acquisition of antiquities, particularly cuneiform tablets, German archaeologists focused on the architectural (social) contexts of those antiquities, and were meticulous in tracing the walls of fortifications, temples, palaces, and private houses. The 1903-14 excavations at Qal'at Sherqat(Assur), directed by Walter Andrae, were notable for methodological advances in digging; for example, the systematic stratigraphic excavation of a single building and long narrow search trenches (Suchgraben) that crossed the site at intervals from west to east. Such trenches, earlier used to excavate Fara (ancient Shuruppak) in 1902, constituted a sampling strategy of sorts at Assur.

German excavators were also assiduous in publication, despite the interruptions of World Wars I and H. Andrae's first three final reports appeared before the end of the excavations, and the last volumes, including a report on the Assur and Sin-Shamash temples, were published in the mid-1950s, just before his death. These publications included a wealth of detail, but presented few of the tens of thousands of artifacts from the excavations, divided between Turkey and Germany and housed in Istanbul's Archaeological Museums and Berlin's Vorderasiatisches Museum.

With Germany's re-unification, the Deutsche Orient-Gesellschaft and the Vorderasiatisches Museum initiated the Assur Project, under the direction of Johannes Renger, to update old reports and publish the small finds and cuneiform tablets from the excavations. Peter Werner's Der Sin-Samas-Tempel in Assur is a second look at a unique double temple, probably dedicated to the moon and sun gods, in the north-central part of the site. In antiquity the Sin-Shamash temple was located on the southeast side of a large square, bordered by the Old Palace and Anu-Adad Temple to the north and the Ishtar Temple/Nabu Temple to the southwest.

The Sin-Shamash temple was discovered in search trenches dug in 1912 and uncovered in extensive...