Excavations at Tell Brak Volume 2: Nagar in the 3rd Millennium BC

Tell Brak, ancient Nagar, was one of the most important cities in northern Mesopotamia in the third millennium BC and a focus of long-distance trade. It was also, for about a century, a provincial capital of the Akkadian Empire founded by Sargon of Agade. This is the second of four volumes on the 1976-93 excavations at Tell Brak. The construction level of Naram-Sin’s Palace, discovered by Mallowan in the 1930s, has been used as a point of chronological reference to provide the first well-dated corpus of archaeological material in northern Mesopotamia belonging to the second half of the third millennium. The major Akkadian buildings at Tell Brak are the first well-preserved examples to be discovered at any site, and include a great ceremonial complex and a unique caravanserai that housed the donkey caravans bringing metals from Anatolia. During the ritual closure of these buildings beautiful silver jewellery was deposited, along with numerous copper/bronze tools and the skeletons of some of the caravan donkeys. Specialist reports provide detailed historical, geomorphological, ceramic, faunal, botanical, microstratigraphic and other data.