Tell Khaiber

Very little is known about the Sealand Dynasty. Traditionally it was thought to exist roughly between 1700 and 1400 BC and to have replaced Babylon after its fall sometime around 1550 BC. Tell Khaiber is the first Sealand site excavated. It has been dated to circa 1500 BC.[2] Pottery shards from earlier periods including Late Uruk and Jemdet Nasr were widely found on the site but pre-second millennium remains are below the current water table.[3]

The site consists of two mounds designated as Tell Khaiber 1 and Tell Khaiber 2 (sometimes called Tell Gurra), both roughly 300 x 250 meters in area. Most of the Tell Khaiber 1 occupation is from the Sealand Dynasty period but pottery fragments from the Ubaid, Jemdet Nasr, and Early Dynastic periods were also found. Three baked bricks stamped with Ur III king Amar-Sin are thought to be imported from another site. Tell Khaiber 2 dates to the Kassite period.[4] They lay on an ancient branch of the Euphrates River.

The two mounds were first identified in an area survey by Henry Wright in 1965, naming them Ishan Khaiber (site 60) and Tell Gurra (site 61).[5] In the 1976 Iraqi Directorate of Antiquities atlas of archaeological sites both mounds were named Ishan Khaiber (sites 107 and 108).[6] Between 2013 and 2017, the site was excavated by a team of Iraqi and British archaeologists.[7][8][9] The excavations revealed the presence of a settlement dominated by a large administrative building dating to c. 1500 BCE, or the Middle Bronze Age.[10][11] The building, 53 meters by 83 meters (53m × 27.5m in its initial phase), referred to by the excavators as "the Fortified Building, covered 4400 square meters and was surrounded by 3.5 m thick walls, with large towers having meter-thick walls, pierced by a single gate. Among the finds from this building was an archive of 145 clay tablets and fragments, after joins were made, in Level 2 of the southernmost corner. Eighty tablets, mostly lists and accounts, were found in room 300 with most of the rest, mostly letters were found in room 309. Four tablets were found under a later wall between the two rooms showing that a scribal tradition carried on for some time. Excavated tablets from the Sealand Dynasty are uncommon but a number of unprovenances tablets in various institutions have been identified by Stephanie Dalley.[12] The tablets were written in the Old Babylonian variant of Akkadian, though some Sumerian language school tablets were also found, and deal mostly with the administration of agricultural activities.[13] Some of the tablets contained dates ("Year: Aya-dara-galama became king"), which indicated that the building was in use during the reign of Ayadaragalama, the eighth king of the Sealand Dynasty.[14] Three private homes lying southeast of the public building were also investigated. A stratified sequence for 1st Sealand ceramics was also developed.[15][16]

The site lies in the marshlands in the south of Iraq east of the ancient city of Ur in the Hammar Marshes.[17] The similar site of Tell Lehem (Tell el-Leḥem) is located 30 kilometers to the west. It was occupied in the Old Babylonian period, First Sealand dynasty, and Kassite dynasty period. Uruk period pottery shards were also found on the surface. It covers an area of about 30 hectares with two mounds divided by a river. It was excavated by a team from the Iraqi State Board of Antiquities and Heritage for three seasons from 2011 to 2013. The excavation reports for all three seasons were written but have not yet been published. [18] Each season was led by Taha Karim, Hussein Flaih and Raed Hamed Abd Allah, and Mohammed Salih Attia respectively. Two large buildings were excavated at the top of the tell. A 59 meter by 35 meter Western Building constructed of limestone with a central courtyard and spiral columns was excavated. Several cuneiform tablets were found nearby. An Eastern Building was also excavated with niches, buttresses, and an altar, marking it as a temple. A large building of a domestic nature was also excavated. Twenty five graves of various periods, looted in antiquity, were found with the domestic building. [19] An archive of cuneiform tablets from the Sealand period was found but has not yet been published.[20] The site has been subject to looting.[21]

• Cities of the ancient Near East

• Calderbank, Daniel, "Gulf Connections at Tell Khaiber, Interpreting Standardised Pottery Styles in the Sealand Period’", in Otto, Adelheid, Michael Herles, and Kai Kaniuth (eds.), Proceedings of the 11th International Congress on the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East, München, Volume 2 (Wiesebaden: Harassowitz), pp. 31–42, 2020
• Chowdhury, Manasij Pal; Campbell, Stuart; Buckley, Michael (2021). "Proteomic analysis of archaeological ceramics from Tell Khaiber, southern Iraq". Journal of Archaeological Science. 132: 105414. doi:10.1016/j.jas.2021.105414. S2CID 236243360.
• Chapin, Michael Arthur, "'My-Mother-Is-Precious': Names and Naming Practices in the First Dynasty of the Sealand (ca. 1500 BCE)", Dissertation, Johns Hopkins University, 2023
• Dalley, Stephanie, "The First Sealand Dynasty: Literacy, Economy, and the Likely Location of Dūr-Enlil (ē) in Southern Mesopotamia at the end of the Old Babylonian Period", In S. Paulus & T. Clayden (Ed.), Babylonia under the Sealand and Kassite Dynasties, pp. 9-27, De Gruyter, 2020

• Tell Khaiber tablet corpus at Upenn
• ASOR ANE Today article on Tell Khaiber 2018
• UK and Iraqi archaeologists work to preserve the past
• Facebook page for the dig