Helmut Becker, Jorg W. E.

Fassbinder

Uruk - City of Gilgamesh (Iraq)

First tests in 2001 for magnetic prospecting

U r u k - the biblical Erech - still remains one of the most famous (...)
sites in Mesopotamia. Even when Babylon became the capital of He [Gilgamesh] brought report of before the Flood,
A k k a d and Sumer Uruk was always the main religious and cul- Achieved a long journey, weary and [wjorn.
tural centre o f ancient Mesopotamia. The dawn of civilisation is All his toil he engraved on a stone stela.
connected with the name of Uruk - the development of urbanism Of ramparted Uruk the wall lie built,
and the beginning o f writing and literature in the 3rd millennium. Of hallowed Eanna (temple of Ami and Ishtar in Uruk),
Gilgamesh, hero, half man half God, was King of Uruk. In the the pure sanctuaiy.
Epic of Gilgamesh a lot of information about the ancient city and Behold its outer wall, whose cornice is like copper.
ancient life in Mesopotamia can be found. Peer at the inner wall, which non can equal!
" T h e Epic of Gigamesh was surrendered in several versions. Seize upon the threshold, which is from the old!
All but a few o f the Akkadian texts come from the library of Draw near to Eanna, the dwelling of Ishtar,
Ashurbanipal at Niniveh (near Mosul in Northern Iraq). Unlike Which no future king, no man, can equal.
the Creation Epic, however, the Gilgamesh Epic is known also Go up and walk on the walls of Uruk,
f r o m versions which antedate the first millennium B.C. From the Inspect the base terrace, examine the brichvork:
middle of the second millennium fragments of an Akkadian re- Is not its brickwork of burnt brick?
cension current in the Hittite Empire have come down, and the Did not the Seven [Sages] lay its foundations?
same Bogarkoy archives have also yielded important fragments (...)
of a Hittite translation as well as a fragment o f a Hurrian render-
ing of the epic. From the first half of the second millennium we (Remainder of the column lost)
possess representative portions of the Old Babylonian version
(Tablets I-III, and X.). Certainly this version was a copy of an ear-
lier text, possibly from the turn of the second millennium, if not
slightly earlier" (Prichard 1958). In this early text we find one o f
the keys for the magnetic prospecting of the city wall of Uruk:

T h e important point for magnetomctry - some 5.000 years lat-

er - is the fact that Gilgamesh used baked (burnt) bricks for the
city wall he built. We assume that the early city wail of Uruk had
a mantle of baked bricks, filled with cheaper mud bricks, which
would give an ideal base for magnetic prospecting, because of
the high susceptibility and remanent magnetisation of burnt
clay. Therefore we tried to prospect the city wall in an area where
the wall still shows on the surface, and we planned to locate one
o f the city gates, which are also almost unknown.

Fig. 1. Uruk-Warka. Aerial photo (detail) of test area I (with the canal),
taken by the Royal Air Force in 1935, courtesy of the German Archaeo-
logical Institute, Oriental Department.

03
 ijjwy.

K:

r m

gb-

A. .
3 ^
V

-v. r . .":.>

*«>.

tre r»-

4 ii.--.sa

Fig. 2. Uruk-Warka. View of the central temple area with the Eanna Ziggurat (high temple). Photo by Margarcte van Ess, German Archaeological
Institute. Oriental Department. 6

94
 A g a i n from the Epic o f Gilgamesh, as well as from many supposed to haunt this place. All this results in a unique situation
iconographic illustrations we have descriptions of rituals using a for archaeology, because many archaeological structures can al-
bark on a canal, e.g. from Uruk on a cylinder seal from the be- ready be traced on the untouched surface. Weathering and nu-
ginning of the 3rd millennium a ritual scene is shown with a boat merous changes of rain and wind over many thousands of years
on a canal and a shrine and altar mounted on the back of a bull. have modelled the material on the surface according to their
Like in other cities of ancient Mesopotamia, a sanctuary o f a density, showing many different structures of colour and relief.
special type was situated in Uruk, outside the walls of the city, Robbery is a fairly small problem, being concentrated on the
but belonging to it, called the New Year's Chapel (bait akitu). Kassite necropolis south of the city wall. The closed and un-
O n c e a year (on N e w Year's Day. when the king was allowed to touched surface also has ideal conditions for magnetic prospect-
enter the inner temple area) the image of the principal deity of ing - a completely different situation from the other sites of
the settlement (in Uruk it was Ishtar) was carried to the sanctu- Mesopotamia. For instance. Babylon with its badly disturbed
ary in a procession, accompanied by throngs o f worshipers. In surface would cause far more problems for magnetic prospect-
certain instances, a sacred road through a special gate linked the ing. In Uruk after about 70 years of archaeological excavation,
outlining sanctuary to the temple (Oppenheim 1964). For Uruk during which lorries on railways were used for transportation o f
wc have the description of Gilgamesh leaving the city on a bark the debris, which was piled up to enormous heaps around the
for a ritual course. This means that we should expect a canal or central area, only the central temples or palace areas arc blocked
even a system of canals in the city. This question led to contro- for ever for magnetic prospection. The climate in the second half
versial discussions a m o n g archaeologists. Recently with the of February with its moderate temperatures was quite ideal for
help of a series o f aerial photos taken by the Royal Air Force such an expedition. We were also lucky only to have experienced
in 1935 Margarete van Ess identified structures in the city of one sand storm, which made work outside the house almost im-
U r u k as canals. possible. Also the soft surface of the ruins of Uruk with many
Based on these questions of how to understand the Epic of layers of very fine ashes made walking rather difficult and ex-
Gilgamesh from an archaeological point o f view, the first Iraqi- hausting.
G e r m a n joint archaeological project after the Gulf War was
started in February 2001. Before the planned excavation mis-
sions to this very famous place high-tech geophysical prospect-
ing was applied in an eight-day field campaign, a co-operation
o f the G e r m a n Archaeological Institute (Ricardo Eichmann.
Margarete van Ess), the Iraqi Department for Archaeology
Fig. 3. Uruk-Warka. Aerial photo (detail) of test area II taken by the
(Zuhair Rajab joined the project as representative) and the Royal Air Force in 1935, courtesy of the German Archaeological Insti-
Bavarian State Conservation O f f i c e (Helmut Becker, Jorg FaB- tute, Oriental Department. Open trench of the city wall, excavated in the
bindcr). These tests of magnetic prospecting were meant to an- 1935 campaign, in the south the ruins of the New Year's Chapel
swer the question if this method would be suitable even for a (bait akitu).
multi-layered m o u n d consisting mainly of debris from sun-dried
mud brick - the old problem of prospecting archaeological
structures m a d e o f mud in a surrounding of mud. Experience
from other sites in oriental countries had shown that only mag-
netic prospecting had been the right method.
But how to reach a place in Southern Iraq in 20011 Travelling
mm
to Iraq 10 years after the Gulf War is still not easy with the em-
bargoes still being valid. We flew to Amman (Jordan) and then
had a long j o u r n e y by taxi to Baghdad. We are indebted to the

m
custom authorities for letting us pass with our equipment almost
without severe problems. During the night o f our arrival in
Baghdad British and American forces bombarded a factory in
the southern area o f the city. After a first alarm and some heavy
explosions we knew that wc were in Baghdad. Wc very much ad-
mired the behaviour and calmness of the Iraqi people - nobody
being unfriendly to foreigners although the situation of the peo-
ple is very bad and almost unbearable. Even in the south at
Uruk-Warka, which is not too far from Samawah wc heard ex-
plosions, but life in the German expedition house in the ruins of
Uruk was without any stress - almost like paradise, disturbed
only by our generator for running the computers and recharging
the batteries for the magnetometers.
1
Uruk has always been closed for any cross-country traffic, so
there is actually only one track used by cars to reach the tiny
c a m p village of Warka with the expedition house and some huts
inhabited by the guard and his numerous family. The rest of the
tribe was en route to Saudi Arabia with hundreds of camels. An-
other track follows the fence around and outside the ruins. The
Arabs avoid the ruins because they are afraid of ghosts which are

95
 Caesium magnetometry was applied with Scintrex S M A R T -
MAG-SM4G-Special in the so-called duo-sensor configuration.
Two test areas were chosen for prospecting the canals in the city,
the city wall and its gates. We laid out a 4 0 m grid orientated to
magnetic North, which was fixed to the main topographical sys-
tem of Uruk at the end of the campaign, and started in an area
- (area I West) inside the city wall with old layers and some traces

-/ of buildings visible o n the surface (52 grids of 40 x 4 0 m = 8.5

hectares). T h e second area II (South) was measured for pros-
pecting the city wall o f Uruk (42 grids of 40 x 4 0 m = nearly 7
hectares). This area was chosen for covering a part of the city
wall since there a depression in the wall could possibly mark a
city gate. In parts of this area the wall was still about s o m e 4 or
5 m high, but flattened to some decimetres in the eastern direc-
tion. Outside the wall in a distance of about 200 m a huge build-
ing made o f baked bricks with the stamp of King N e b u c h a d n e z -

rf* zar II (604-562 B.C.) was already visible on the surface. T h e

building was supposed to be a temple or the southern New Year's
Chapel (bait akitu) (see back-cover).
The results of magnetic prospecting in the two test areas arc
fantastic (sec magnetograms in figs. 4 and 5). Already the first
evening we realised that we had traced the main canal as well as
some house structures, including the very clear plan of an old
Babylonian house built of baked bricks (fig. 4). T h e following
days we found that the old city of Uruk had a complete canal sys-
tem with a nearly 5 m-wide main canal and two or three sec-
ondary canals in the area to the west. Besides this canal system a
street system existed at different levels. Another very interesting
discovery in this area I West were vast ravages of the settlement
patterns by a flood mainly on the western side o f the canal.
In area II South the city wall gave a clear magnetic anomaly
mainly caused by the mantle of burnt bricks on both sides as de-
scribed in the Epic of Gilgamesh. The southern city gate shows
a very wide opening o f nearly 16 m. The gate was also mantled
with baked bricks. T h e s e facts from the magnetogram help to
imagine the splendid pictures of the Ishtar gate in Babylon.
There is also strong evidence that this gate was actually used as
Fig. 4. Uruk-Warka 2001. test area I (West). Magnctogram in grey
shading of the area covering the larger part of the aerial photo in fig. 1, a water gate for the passage of the main canal through the city
which shows the main and secondary canals, the street system, the city wall.
structure with some very clear houses, severe damage to a city quarter In the area towards the so-called bait akitu building, a vast
by a flood (on the western side of the main canal). Caesium magnetom- cemetery was identified in the magnetogram. C e r a m i c s on the
etry, Scintrcx SMARTMAG SM4G-Special with duo-sensor-configura-
surface from numerous robbery pits in this area indicate that this
tion. sensitivity 0.01 nT (10 Pico-Tcsla), d y n a m i c s - ± !5.00nTin256
greyscale (white/black), raster 0.1 /0.5 m interpolated to 0.25/0.25 m, 40 was part of a large necropolis of the Kassite epoch.
m-grid, magnetic prospection by Helmut Becker and Jorg FaBbinder, Also the supposed New Year's Chapel (bait akitu) situated
Bavarian State Conservation Office. nearly 200 m south of the city gate, showed very clear magnetic
anomalies due to the high magnetisation of the burnt bricks. The
architectural details with three cellular structures on the western
side of the building with a large court and a surrounding wall arc
very different from the known plans of temples. There is a direct
canal from the gate in the city wall to a smaller gate (of burnt
bricks) beyond the New Year's Chapel and a smaller canal leading
to its western side and forming an elongated basin for boats to an-
chor. Everything seems to correspond exactly to the illustrations
and descriptions o f the New Year's ritual, except the fact, that we
are dealing with the first millennium instead of the third. But there
may be an older building underneath Nebuchadnezzar's chapel.

96
Fig. 5. Uruk-Warka 2001, lest area II (South) showing the city wall, a References
complex gate (possibly a water gate for the main canal), a Kassite
necropolis in the middle and the New Year's Chapel (bait akitu) in the Prichard, J.B., 1958: "The Epic of Gilgamesh." In: The Ancient Near
south. The archaeological trench from 1935 in the city wall is still visi- East, An Anthology of Texts and Pictures.
ble in the magnetic prospecting in 2001, same technical data as fig. 4 Oppenheim, A.L., 1964: Ancient Mesopotamia. Portrait of a Dead
(see also fig. on the back cover). Civilization.

97