Ancient Mesopotamia

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The Gawra cultural period arose in northern Mesopotamia between about 3500-2900 BC, as early urban society in the Near East was finding its feet. Alternative dates for this culture have it emerging around 4000 BC and ending at about 3500 BC, and relatively little data exists for it.

Gawra cultural spread was largely limited. It encompassed the north and east of northern Mesopotamia (modern northern Iraq, south-eastern Turkey, and eastern Syria). However, for about six hundred years it flourished in competition with much more powerful cultures from the south.

The starting point for its story is the widespread Ubaid culture (see 'related links' in the sidebar). This serves as the point at which prehistoric Neolithic society crossed a developmental threshold to enter early Chalcolithic/Bronze Age urban civilisation and create the earliest written records.

The Ubaid culture was dominant between about 5300-3900 BC in southern Mesopotamia (modern central and southern Iraq and the western edges of Iran). It also reached across much of northern Mesopotamia.

This oversaw a steady stream of progress towards full-blown metal usage. The late Ubaid period witnessed the beginning of the Chalcolithic (Copper Age), from the Greek khalkos, meaning 'copper', and lithos, meaning 'stone'. This period saw the appearance of early metal tools alongside traditional stone tools.

The Ubaid faded around 3900 BC, to be replaced in the south by the Uruk IV period (see links). This witnessed an enthusiastic adoption of the city - and particularly one city: Uruk - as the primary means of supporting a rapidly-increasing farming population.

The Uruk IV spread its influence far and wide: towards the east (into ancient Elam, modern south-western Iran), and to the north as far as Syria and southern Anatolia (Turkey). However, it largely failed to enter the north and east of northern Mesopotamia, with the outskirts of the settlement of Tepe Gawra seemingly being where it was halted.

Tepe Gawra was a small, well-established early city which sat to the east of the River Tigris, close to Nineveh (and today's Mosul). The site was excavated between AD 1931-1938 by archaeologists from the University of Pennsylvania, one of many sites in which the university took an interest.

Tepe Gawra was continuously occupied from its first settlement in the middle of the Halaf period (about 5050 BC - see links) to around the middle of the second millennium BC. The occupation levels built up over centuries to form a tell or settlement mound.

Virgin soil was not reached during excavations, so there exists the possibility of earlier settlement during the Pottery Neolithic period, albeit probably only on a small scale. There were also a few short gaps in occupation after initial settlement, but findings here meant this site gave its name to the associated cultural period, between about 3500-2900 BC.

Some of the earliest cities, such as Sippar, Borsippa, and Kish in the north, and Ur, Uruk, and Eridu in the south, formed the endpoints of what became the complex Sumerian network of cities and canals (click or tap on map to view full sized)

The Gawra period dominated northern and eastern Mesopotamia, apparently excluding the Uruk IV, but having already accepted southern Mesopotamia's Ubaid cultural influence.

That influence can be seen in various examples, such as the Ubaidian-inspired temple at Gawra which faces out onto an open courtyard. This is the earliest example of a building type with walls which were decorated with pilasters and recesses, a Mesopotamian temple type which remained dominant throughout subsequent centuries. Those in the south were generally demolished and rebuilt by later generations, so finding one here was fortuitous.

Tepe Gawra also illustrates the northern Mesopotamian transition from early Chalcolithic farming villages to complex settlements with mudbrick houses, stamp seals, the first metal objects, and monumental architecture.

A number of spring-fed streams ran through or near the site during its occupation, which would have provided enough water for daily requirements. Today these are all dry due to modern pumping and deep wells to support olive groves which now surround the mound.

This period contains abundant evidence for variations in wealth levels and social positions, both of which now fully emerged, as can be seen in the grave goods which were found in a number of mudbrick and stone tombs.

Three such tombs were particularly rich, containing a range of goods which made use of gold, electrum, lapis lazuli, and ivory. All such materials had to be imported.

Several temples have been excavated, but perhaps the most distinctive building of this phase is a circular structure which was known to the excavators as the 'Round House'. It has a diameter of about eighteen metres, a thick outer wall, and seventeen rooms. Its function remains unknown.

Uruk was already a major city by 3300 BC, and it was here that Sumerian civilisation seems to have reached its creative and social peak, with many familiar urban human themes and groupings seemingly emerging here

Having kept out the Uruk IV, the Gawra also maintained its own cultural identity by resisting the south's subsequent Ur III/Jemdet Nasr period (see links). When that faded and was replaced, the Gawra also faded and was replaced.

Coinciding with its ending around 2900 BC, true writing was emerging in southern Mesopotamia at the dawn of the 'Early Dynastic' period there. This time Tepe Gawra's population embraced elements of the new phenomenon (or at least witnessed them being imposed - precise circumstances are not known).

However, Tepe Gawra still shows differences. True writing and the advanced civilisation of the south did not fully reach the north until much later, with the area essentially remaining the same until about 1700 BC when non-Semite-speakers (presumably Kassites) and Hurrians integrated into the city, and early Assyrians were only just beginning to develop the cities of Ashur and Nineveh.

Occupation at Tepe Gawra ceased around 1500 BC, in conjunction with a region-wide decline and a depopulation of a number of settlements.

Main Sources

Gwendolyn Leick - Mesopotamia: The Invention of the City (Penguin Books, 2001)

Marc van der Mieroop - History of the Ancient Near East c.3000-323 BC (Blackwell Publishing, 2004, 2007)

Encyclopaedia Britannica

Tepe Gawra Period, The Oriental Institute (University of Chicago)

Additional Sources

Amélie Kuhrt - The Ancient Near East, c.3000-330 BC  (Routledge, 2000, Vol I & II)

Clemens Reichel - Political Change and Cultural Continuity in Eshnunna from the Ur III to the Old Babylonian Period (Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at the University of Chicago, 11 June 1996)

Enrico Ascalone - Mesopotamia: Assyrians, Sumerians, Babylonians (Dictionaries of Civilizations 1, University of California Press, 2007)

J N Postgate - Early Mesopotamia: Society and Economy at the Dawn of History (Routledge, 1994)

John Heywood - Historical Atlas of the Ancient World, 4,000,000 to 500 BC (Barnes & Noble, 2000)

Michael Road - Cultural Atlas of Mesopotamia and the Ancient Near East (Facts on File, 2000)

Online Sources

Ancient World Magazine

Pennsylvania Sumerian Dictionary Project (published between 2003-2021, part of the Babylonian section of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Anthropology and Archaeology)

Maps and text copyright © P L Kessler. An original feature for the History Files.