Near East Kingdoms

Jemdet Nasr (City) (Sumer)

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The city states of Sumer formed one of the first great civilisations in human history (see feature link). This Near Eastern civilisation emerged a little way ahead of that of Africa's ancient Egypt, and up to a millennium before that of the Indus Valley culture. It developed out of the end of the Pottery Neolithic across the Fertile Crescent, a period which had seen Neolithic Farmer practices spread far and wide across the Near East and beyond.

As irrigation improved so the more southerly reaches of the Euphrates could at last be occupied by humans and their animals. Southern Mesopotamia (modern Iraq and the western edge of Iran) was subjected to permanent settlement, initially in the form of pastoralists but soon as farmers too. Cultures around the edges of this progression included the Hassuna and Samarra which began this settlement process, and perhaps elements of the Hissar culture in the Iranian highlands were also involved.

By the late fourth millennium BC, Sumer was divided into approximately a dozen city states which were independent of one another and which used local canals and boundary stones to mark their borders. Many early historical events in the region are found only in the Sumerian king list, which notates the rulers of the city states (and see feature link), but archaeology has also uncovered a wealth of detail.

The city of Jemdet Nasr provides the type site for the eponymous Jemdet Nasr period in Mesopotamian history (between about 3100-2900 BC). Otherwise known as the Uruk III period because it succeeded Uruk IV period dominance across the fourth millennium BC, it was one of comparative isolation. A new social structure was being built which would become a fundamental part of the successive 'Early Dynastic' period.

Also shown in modern texts as Jamdat Nasr and Jemdat Nasr, the modern site is an archaeological tell or settlement mound in Iraq's Babil governorate. The name refers to the 'small mound of Nasr', a prominent early twentieth century sheikh. The site consists of three mounds, lettered 'A-C', with 'Mound B' providing the largest occupation area.

(Information by Peter Kessler, with additional information from Mesopotamia: The Invention of the City, Gwendolyn Leick (Penguin Books, 2001), from The Sumerians: Their History, Culture, and Character, Samuel Noah Kramer ('List 1' of Sumerian rulers, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1963), from Historical Atlas of the Ancient World, 4,000,000 to 500 BC, John Heywood (Barnes & Noble, 2000), from Cultural Atlas of Mesopotamia and the Ancient Near East, Michael Road (Facts on File, 2000), from Mesopotamia: Assyrians, Sumerians, Babylonians, Enrico Ascalone (Dictionaries of Civilizations 1, University of California Press, 2007), from The Archaeology of Mesopotamia, S Lloyd (Revised Ed, London, 1984), from Early Mesopotamia: Society and Economy at the Dawn of History, J N Postgate (Routledge, 1994), and from External Links: The Sumerian Kings List, J A Black, G Cunningham, E Fluckiger-Hawker, E Robson, & G Zólyomi ('List 2' of Sumerian rulers, available via the Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature, Oxford, 1998), and Evolution of Sumerian kingship (Ancient World Magazine), and Excavations at Jemdet Nasr, 1988, R J Matthews (Iraq Vol 51, 1989, pp 225-248, British Institute for the Study of Iraq, and available via JSTOR), and Excavations at Jemdet Nasr, 1989, R J Matthews (Iraq Vol 52, 1990, pp 25-39, British Institute for the Study of Iraq, and available via JSTOR), and Defining the Style of the Period: Jemdet Nasr 1926-28, R J Matthews (Iraq Vol 54, 1992, pp 1-34, British Institute for the Study of Iraq, and available via JSTOR), and Visible Language: Inventions of Writing in the Ancient Middle East and Beyond, Christopher Woods (Ed, Home Research at the Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures), and Jemdet Nasr Site (Reading University).)

c.3900 - 3100 BC

The small city of Jemdet Nasr thrives during the Uruk IV period at this time, having been founded at some point in the preceding Ubaid period. Archaeology has not yet found a definitive start date for occupation, with the period alone being inferred from pottery finds, along with clay sickles and a fragment of a clay cone on the surface of 'Mound A'.

Jemdet Nasr's 'Mound B' was further exacavated in the 1980s, immediately prior to the First Gulf War, with the north-eastern area of that mound being examined here

Around 3900 BC the ancient Sumerian religious centre of Eridu - already a millennium old - is gradually surpassed in size by the nearby city of Uruk (at the start of the Uruk IV period), with the Eanna mound being its oldest and most continuously inhabited part until the third millennium BC.

Metalwork also appears, marking the beginning of the Chalcolithic (Copper Age) and the fading of the stone age period which had seen Neolithic Farmer practices transform human lives between about 10,000-4000 BC.

The Uruk IV period sees this city flourish as the only real urban centre in Sumer, and one which sits at the heart of a great trading and cultural centre. Settlements elsewhere are much smaller, such as at Abu Salabikh, and are especially so in the north where Nineveh and Shakhi Kora (the latter almost unknown to history), flourish at a fairly small scale.

Jemdet Nasr especially thrives during the middle Uruk period. Both 'Mound A' and 'Mound B' are occupied and, during the later Uruk, an extensive settlement must exists at 'Mound B', although details are hard to ascertain due to the lack of well-excavated archaeological materials to provide the necessary context.

c.3100 - 2900 BC

The Uruk IV influence suddenly fades around 3100 BC (or 3200 BC in some modern sources) for reasons unknown. Local traditions re-emerge in places which had previously taken on board Uruk influences, including at Shakhi Kora which is abandoned entirely. Elam's advanced city of Susa experiences an influx of immigrants who introduce great changes there.

The Uruk III or Jemdet Nasr period in Sumer is one of comparative isolation (with the city of Jemdet Nasr supplying the type site). A new social structure is built which will become a fundamental part of the successive 'Early Dynastic' period. A host of early cities are mentioned at this time, on seals which are discovered at Jemdet Nasr itself. These cities include Kesh, Kish, Larsa, Nippur, Ur, Uruk, and Zabalam.

Uruk itself is suddenly rebuilt, with construction taking place in more permanent mudbrick. The city continues to thrive in the Jemdet Nasr period but an entirely new complex of buildings is erected over the carefully-levelled remains of those of the previous period. Sumer remains culturally inward-looking for this period.

This fragment of Early Bronze Age pottery was produced in Mesopotamia around 3000 BC, as the early city-building movement there began to accelerate towards large-scale city states and a recorded history

c.2900 BC

The Jemdet Nasr period fades in favour of a new, outward-looking 'Early Dynastic' period. True writing now blossoms as it moves closer to spoken Sumerian, archives explode with mercantile records and administrative acts, and the first kings begin to appear as leading city figures take on more duties and increasing power, ostensibly as deputies of the gods themselves.

Nippur becomes the focus of Sumer's unified cult practices, in favour of Ur. Jemdet Nasr seems to suffer the burning down of a major building around 2900 BC, and the 'Early Dynastic' city is smaller that its predecessor. Archaeology has yet to establish its subsequent timeline or eventual abandonment.