Tell Shemshara

Tell Shemshara (ancient Shusharra) (also Tell Shimshara) is an archaeological site located along the Little Zab in Sulaymaniyah Governorate, northeastern Iraq. The site was inundated by Lake Dukan until recently.

Tell Shemshara
Shusharra
Shown within Iraq
Alternative nameTell Shimshara
LocationIraq
RegionSulaymaniyah Governorate
Coordinates36°12′03″N 44°56′18″E
Typetell
Length270 m (890 ft) (lower mound)
Width60 m (200 ft) (main mound)
Height19 m (62 ft) (main mound), 6 m (20 ft) (lower mound)
History
PeriodsHassuna, Middle Bronze Age, Islamic
Site notes
Excavation dates1957–1959, 2012
ArchaeologistsJ. Eidem, H. Ingholt, J. Læssøe, A. al-Qadir at-Tekrîti
Conditionperiodically flooded by Lake Dukan

The site was occupied, although not continuously, from the Hassuna period (early sixth millennium BCE) until the 14th century CE. A small archive recovered from the Middle Bronze Age layers (early second millennium BCE) revealed that, at least in that period, the site was called Shusharra and was the capital of a small, semi-independent Turukkean polity called māt Utêm or "land of the gatekeeper" ruled by a man called Kuwari acting as governor under a larger Hurrian state.

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