The archaeological site of Abu Salabikh (Tell Abū Ṣalābīkh), around northwest of the site of ancient Nippur and about 150 kilometers southeast of the modern city of Baghdad in Al-Qādisiyyah Governorate, Iraq marks the site of a small Sumerian city that existed from the Neolithic through the late 3rd millennium, with cultural connections to the cities of Kish, Mari and Ebla.Pettinato, G., "L’Atlante Geografico Del Vicino Oriente Antico Attestato Ad Ebla e Ad Abū Şalābīkh (I)", Orientalia, vol. 47, no. 1, pp. 50–73, 1978Pomponio, Francesco, "Notes on the Lexical Texts from Abū Salābīkh and Ebla", Journal of Near Eastern Studies, vol. 42, no. 4, pp. 285–90, 1983 Its ancient name is unknown though Eresh and Kesh have been suggested as well as Gišgi.Cohen, Mark E., “The Name Nintinugga with a Note on the Possible Identification of Tell Abu Salābīkh", Journal of Cuneiform Studies, vol. 28, no. 2, pp. 82–92, 1976 Kesh was suggested by Thorkild Jacobsen before excavations began.Biggs, Robert D., "An Archaic Sumerian Version of the Kesh Temple Hymn from Tell Abū Ṣalābīkh", vol. 61, no. 2, pp. 193-207, 1971 More recently, Eresh has been proposed.Postgate, John Nicholas, "City of Culture 2600 BC: Early Mesopotamian History and Archaeology at Abu Salabikh", Archaeopress Publishing Ltd., 2024 The Euphrates was the city's highway and lifeline; when it shifted its old bed (which was identified to the west of the Main Mound by coring techniques), in the late third millennium BC, the city dwindled away. Only eroded traces remain on the site's surface of habitation after the Early Dynastic Period. There is another small archaeological site named Abu-Salabikh in the Hammar Lake region of Southern Iraq, which has been suggested as the possible capital of the Sealand dynasty.Roux, G., "Recently Discovered Ancient Sites in the Hammar Lake District-Southern Iraq", Sumer, XVI, no. 1-2, pp. 20-31, 1960
History Although signs of occupation at the site date back to the Neolithic period, primary occupation occurred during the Uruk period in the Late Chalcolithic and then in the Jemdat Nasr and Early Dynastic II/III periods in the Early Bronze Age. Potsherds from the Late Akkadian or Ur III period were found in a pit on the main mound but no occupational layers were found. An inscripted brick of Ur III ruler Amar-Sin was later found on the site. An examination of the smaller outlying sites nearby showed there was also occupation in the Kassite, Sassanian, Seleucid, and Parthian periods in the area.Wilkinson, T. J., "Early Channels and Landscape Development around Abu Salabikh, a Preliminary Report", Iraq, vol. 52, pp. 75–83, 1990Mynors, Heather Siriol, "Mesopotamian ceramics of the third millenium BC: with analysis of pottery from Abu Salabikh, Kish and Ur", Dissertation, University of Southampton, 1986
Archaeology
The site consists of three mounds primary mounds (Main, Uruk, South) and several subsidiary mounds. The Main Mound is about 12 hectares in area and enclosed by a defensive wall. To the southwest is the 10 hectare Uruk and Jemdet Nasr mound. To the southwest is the 8 hectare South mound with its large Early Dynastic III structure. The full extent of the site, with outer margins now under alluvial deposits, is estimated at 50 hectares.Colantoni, Carlo, "Are We Any Closer to Establishing How Many Sumerians per Hectare? Recent Approaches to Understanding the Spatial Dynamics of Populations in Ancient Mesopotamian Cities", At the Dawn of History: Ancient Near Eastern Studies in Honour of J. N. Postgate, edited by Yağmur Heffron, Adam Stone and Martin Worthington, University Park, USA: Penn State University Press, pp. 95-118, 2017
Main mound - excavations occurred in two sections of the Main mound, Area A in the northwest section and Area E in the southeast section exposing 25% of the mound in total, The Early Dynastic city uncovered had wide main streets, up to 8 meters in width, intersected by much narrower lanes, Numerous Early Dynastic III period cuneiform tablets were found in Area E in the sounding of 1963 and a few more from the floor of Room 48 in Area E by the later excavations, the city wall was constructed with 18 meter wide packed dirt in the north, plano-convex bricks of over 4 meter width on the other sides, the local water table prevented it from being excavated completely A number of graves, some looted in antiquity, were found along with their associated grave goods.Postgate, John Nicholas, "Burials and memorials", City of Culture 2600 BC: Early Mesopotamian History and Archaeology at Abu Salabikh, Archaeopress, pp. 54-74, 2024 Over one hundred pottery shards that had been filed into 3 centimeter discs and pierced were found in a ash tip on the south part of the Main mound and suggested for use in abacus type counting devices.Woods, Christopher, "The Abacus in Mesopotamia: Considerations from a Comparative Perspective", The First Ninety Years: A Sumerian Celebration in Honor of Miguel Civil, edited by Lluís Feliu, Fumi Karahashi and Gonzalo Rubio, Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, pp. 416-478, 2017 Uruk mound - southeast of the main mound, occupied from the Early to Late Uruk periods abandoned after the Jemdet Nasr period (surface shards only). A sounding was conducted in 1963 and an extensive excavation performed in 1978. Domestic architecture used the hallmark Uruk period Riemchen bricks.A wall, up to 20 meters in width, was found along the west side of the mound with about 300 meters, from north to south, recovered.Postgate, John Nicholas, "The Mounds and the City Layout", City of Culture 2600 BC: Early Mesopotamian History and Archaeology at Abu Salabikh, Archaeopress, pp. 11–22, 2024 About 1650 high fired clay sickles were found. Benco, Nancy L., "Manufacture and Use of Clay Sickles from the Uruk Mound, Abu Salabikh, Iraq", Paléorient, vol. 18, no. 1, pp. 119–34, 1992 Two grain samples from the Middle Uruk layer of the Uruk Mound were accelerator radiocarbon dated with calibrated dates of 3520 ± 130 BC.Susan Pollock, Caroline Steele and Melody Pope, "Investigations on the Uruk Mound, Abu Salabikh, 1990", Iraq, vol. 53, pp. 59–68, 1991 Calibration was based on that of Pearson.Pearson, G. W. et al., "High precision 14C measurement of Irish oaks to show the natural 14C variation from a.d. 1840 to 5210 b.c.", Radiocarbon 28, pp. 911-34, 1986 A Uruk period defensive wall up to 20 meters thick was found.Bartash, Vitali, "The Early Dynastic City of Abu Salabikh in Its Rural and Regional Setting", Zeitschrift für Assyriologie und vorderasiatische Archäologie, vol. 116, no. 1, pp. 1-17, 2026 Seventy-four Neolithic clay accounting tokens were found on the Uruk mound.Baker, H.D., M.P. Charles, Gillian Clark, Anthony Green, Harriet P. Martin, R.J. Matthews, et al., "Abu Salabikh Excavations: The 6G Ash-Tip and Its Contents: Cultic and Administrative Discard from the Temple?", Melksham, England: British School of Archaeology in Iraq, 1993Overmann, Karenleigh A., "The Neolithic Tokens", The Material Origin of Numbers: Insights from the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East, Piscataway, NJ, USA: Gorgias Press, pp. 157-178, 2019 South Mound - lying 400 meters to the southeast of the Main Mound and outside its city wall, a height of about 2.5 meters along the old river course, examined only by surface clearance which found Early Dynastic III pottery, fire installations, flint and bead working debitage, and a 50 meter by 50 meter well constructed structure which the excavators suggested was a palacePostgate, John Nicholas, "Kingships and patron deities", City of Culture 2600 BC: Early Mesopotamian History and Archaeology at Abu Salabikh, Archaeopress, pp. 167-182, 2024 West mound - west of the main mound, surface collection only was performed, noted occupation was all from the Early Dynastic I period and while internal separation walls were found there were no defensive wall. From Middle Uruk shards found in the southeast part of the mound it has been suggested that the ED I settlement was built over an earlier Uruk occupation. Outlying mounds - very low mounds designated Eastern Mound, North-West Mound, and North-East Mound and only lightly examined, fragments of a standard brick inscription of Ur III ruler Amar-Sin were found on the Eastern Mound and Early Dynastic III graves on the North-Eastern Mound.
The site was first noted, as site A275 - (Ishan) Abu Salabikh, in a regional survey in 1957. McGuire Gibson, "The city and area of Kish", Field Research Projects, 1972 Abu Salabikh was first excavated by an American expedition from the Oriental Institute of Chicago led by Donald P. Hansen with and Vaughn E. Crawford for six weeks in 1963 and two weeks in 1965. They found the site, lying in a salt bog, had numerous robber holes. Unlike the nearby site of Nippur which continued to be occupied for millennia, at Abu Salabikh the Early Dynastic remains were near the surface. The expedition found, in Area E of the Main Mound around 500 cuneiform tablets and fragments, containing some of the earliest ancient literature.Alster, Bendt, "Early Dynastic Proverbs and Other Contributions to the Study of Literary Texts From Abū Ṣalābīkh", Archiv Für Orientforschung, vol. 38/39, pp. 1–51, 1991 Alberti, A., "A Reconstruction of the Abu Salabikh God-list", Studi Epigraphici e linguistici sul Vicino Oriente 2, pp. 3–23, 1985 A number of animal remains were also found including domestic dog, lion, equid, pig, cattle, gazelle, caprines (sheep and goat), and antelope.Clutton-Brock, Juliet, and Richard Burleigh, "The Animal Remains from Abu Salabikh: Preliminary Report", Iraq, vol. 40, no. 2, pp. 89–100, 1978 Remains of various birds were also found.Eastham, Anne, "The bird bones from Abu Salabikh", Iraq, vol. 71, pp. 99–114, 2009
In 1973 a contour survey of the site was made using a theodolite, producing a contour plan.Postgate, John Nicholas, "The Site and the Environment", City of Culture 2600 BC: Early Mesopotamian History and Archaeology at Abu Salabikh, Archaeopress, pp. 1–10, 2024 Between 1975 and 1990 Abu Salabikh was excavated by a British School of Archaeology in Iraq team under the direction of Nicholas Postgate. Finds included beveled rim bowls.Nicholas Postgate, "Excavations at Abu Salabikh 1976", Iraq, vol. 39, pp. 269–299, 1977Nicholas Postgate, "Excavations at Abu Salabikh 1977", Iraq, vol. 40, pp. 89-100, 1978Nicholas Postgate, "Excavations at Abu Salabikh 1978-79", Iraq, vol. 42, no. 2, pp. 87–104, 1980 Excavations were suspended in 1990 with the Invasion of Kuwait and have not been resumed. The city, built on a rectilinear plan in the early Uruk period, revealed a small but important repertory of cuneiform texts on some 500 tablets, of which the originals were stored in the Iraq Museum, Baghdad.M. Krebernik and J. N. Postgate, "The tablets from Abu Salabikh and their provenance", Iraq, vol. 71, pp. 1- 32, 2009
Cuneiform texts