Isin-Isan Bahriyat, vol. 4, Die Ergebnisse der Ausgrabungen: 1986-1989.

AuthorDunham, Sally

This volume continues the publication of the German excavations at Isin, southern Iraq. It gives the results of the ninth, tenth, and eleventh campaigns and is a collaborative effort written by various members of the expedition. After a brief introduction, the various excavation areas are described. Work on the Gula Temple included the discovery of a monumental staircase, probably leading to the main temple entrance on the northeast side. This stairway led up to a bastion-like projection on which a baked brick threshold indicated a passageway leading to room XXVIII of the temple. The projecting bastion forms a corner with the buttressed outer wall of the temple and, hence, suggests that the temple was set on a terrace above its surroundings (pp. 11-15). The date of the staircase seems to be the Isin I Dynasty, since fragmentary bricks of Enlil-bani were found in one row of the baked brick threshold, and a pavement with inscribed bricks of Bur-Sin rested on a thick layer of fill extending over the lower part of the staircase. In this latter fill were bricks of Ur-Ninurta (p. 14). Other work in the temple included excavations into earlier levels in rooms XXIX, XXIV, XIX, and VII. Those in room XXIX, a long narrow room in the east corner of the temple, revealed three earlier building phases which followed the uppermost (Kassite period) walls, while in the lowest level a plano-convex mud brick wall crossed the room on a diagonal, suggesting a different plan in the third millennium. Based on the brick sizes, the three phases between the Kassite and third millennium are dated to the Isin I and Old Babylonian periods (pp. 15-20). A somewhat similar continuity of plan and phasing was found in the adjacent room XXIV, except that no plano-convex brick walls were reached, although a plano-convex baked brick pavement was found in front of the northeast wall. In room XIX, identified as the cella of Ninurta by broken inscribed bricks found here in a previous campaign,(1) the inner faces of earlier walls of rectangular bricks were found to project into the room 2-2 1/2 brick lengths in front of the uppermost walls. The southwest wall showed two building phases, the upper of which is not extant on the other sides of the room. The date of these walls is not clear from the report. A podium of baked plano-convex bricks and stone plates was found in the middle of the southwest side. Northwest of this podium were remains of several different kinds of burnt wood along with beads, theriomorphic pendants, a stamp seal, frit figurines, inlay plaques, and an inscribed macehead dedicated by Manishtushu to Ninisina (pp. 28, 55, and 150). A kneeling...

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