Tell Dehaila

Iraq / Di Qar / an-Nasiriyah /
 archaeological site, ancient civilization, tell (mound)
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Tell Dehaila (Tall ad-Duḥaylah) is an unexcavated archaeological site in southern Iraq, located some 26 km northwest of ancient Eridu and some 30 km west of ancient Ur. The size and fortified features of the site have been used by al-Dafar al-Hamdani to posit that this is the location of ancient Eurukug, the hometown and probable capital of the First Dynasty of the Sealand, which ruled the southernmost portion of Mesopotamia c. 1725-c. 1450 BC. Less hypothetically, the site (which was situated on the Eridu canal of the Euphrates) does appear to have been a significant administrative center during this period, and was possibly settled by displaced citizens of Ur after the sacking of their city by Samsu-iluna of Babylon in 1738 BC (according to the so-called "Middle Chronology").

A. al-Dafar al-Hamdani, Shadow States: The Archaeology of Power in the Marshes of Southern Mesopotamia. Doctoral Dissertation submitted at Stony Brook University, 2015.

O. Boivin, The First Dynasty of the Sealand in Mesopotamia, Berlin, 2018.
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Coordinates:   30°58'7"N   45°47'22"E

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  • The Iraqi-Russian Multidisciplinary Project, led by Shahmardan Amirov and Alexei Jankowski-Diakonoff, surveyed the site in 2019 and started excavation there in 2020. During the second excavation season in 2021, a monumental mudbrick wall structure (4 m wide) was discovered in the central part of the city. The ceramic material is predominantly Old Babylonian, but there are also signs of a probably non-urban Iron Age (Neo-Babylonian?) presence. Jankowski-Diakonoff, A., Calderbank, D., Jotheri, J., Novikov, V. Results of the Test Season of the Iraqi-Russian Expedition at Tell Dehaila-1. Vostok/Oriens, 5, 2020.
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