The Baghdad Urban Archaeological Project - Nicola Laneri

Dr. Nicola Laneri (University of Catania)
The Baghdad Urban Archaeological Project: Preliminary results from first two seasons of excavation (2022-2023) at Tell Muhammad (Baghdad)
In 2022, a team of the University of Catania resumed the archaeological work at the site of Tell Muhammad, a 2ndMilennium BCE settlement located along the eastern bank of the Tigris river in the southern suburbs of the modern city of Baghdad.
At Tell Mohammad, the long history of research started in the middle of the XIXth century when F. Jones and A. H. Layard dicovered a series of objects among which the two copper-alloy hollowed mace-heads with the inscription "E.GAL ha-am-mu-ra-bi" (i.e., the palace of Hammurabi) confers to the site a probable Old Babylonian presence during Hammurabi's kingdom. This chronology was confirmed by the excavations carried out by the Iraqi State Board of Antiquities and Heritage between 1978 and 1985 that brought to light the sacred area together with hundreds of cuneiform tablets probably dated to the end of the Old Babylonian period among which some have a chronological reference to the ‘Fall of Babylon’ dated to 1595 BCE.
Aims of this presentation will be to present a preliminary analysis of the archaeological data discovered during the first two seasons of excavation as well as to understand the role of this important site during the Old Babylonian period as part of a frontier zone between the kingdoms of Babylon and Eshnunna.