Towards a Radiocarbon-Based Chronology of Urban Northern Mesopotamia in the Early to Mid-Second Millenium BC: Initial Results from Kurd Qaburstan
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Date
2023-06
Publication Type
Journal Article
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yes
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Abstract
Radiocarbon (C-14) data for 2nd millennium BC urban sites in northern Mesopotamia have been lacking until recently. This article presents a preliminary dataset and Bayesian model addressing the Middle and early Late Bronze Age (Old Babylonian and pre/early Mittani) strata of Kurd Qaburstan-one of the largest archaeological sites on the Erbil plain of Iraqi Kurdistan. The results place the large, densely occupied and fortified Middle Bronze Age city in the first part of the 18th century BC, an outcome consistent with the site's tentative identification as ancient Qabra. A long occupation gap (up to two centuries) probably ensued, before a smaller town confined to the high mound and part of the northeastern lower town resumed in the late 16th and early 15th centuries BC, possibly before this region became part of the Late Bronze Age kingdom of Mittani.
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published
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Book title
Journal / series
Volume
65 (3)
Pages / Article No.
755 - 770
Publisher
Cambridge University Press
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Edition / version
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Software
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Date collected
Date created
Subject
chronology; Kurd Qaburstan; Late Bronze Age; Middle Bronze Age; northern Mesopotamia; Qabra; radiocarbon dating
Organisational unit
08619 - Labor für Ionenstrahlphysik (LIP) / Laboratory of Ion Beam Physics (LIP)