Archaeology Magazine - March 1954 - 53

Mesopotamian Mound Survey
Professor Thorkild Jacobsen, Annual Professor at the Baghdad School
of the American Schools of Oriental
Research, spent two weeks in the Autumn of 1953 making a survey of ancient moundsin SouthernMesopotamia.
He was assistedby Dr. Vaughn Crawford, Fellow of the School, and had
the cordial cooperation of the Department of Antiquities, which sent along
Mr. Fuad Safar, the well-known excavator, and Mr. Ahmed Mahdi, the
local inspector of antiquities. They
drove around in a jeep for two weeks
and had signal success. Here we present extracts from the vivid letter in
which Prof. Jacobsen reported on this
project to the Director of the School.
"Archaeologyis normally dominated
by the idea of the vertical. As an excavation proceeds downwards through
stratum after stratum the excavator is
intent upon what overlieswhat, and it
is the relative vertical position of the
remains that give him clues to his key
concept: sequencein time. But another,
a lateral,' kind of archaeology is also
possible.By ranging over the surface of
ancient inhabited areas noting the relative positions of mounds, dating them
- or rather the period of their last occupancy- by observing the pottery on
their surface, it is possible to draw
valid conclusionsconcerningthe limits,
duration, and the basic structural lines
of the human settlement of the region
as a whole. The aim of such "lateral"
archaeologycan be no less than the reconstructionof the ancient topographical scene upon which history moved
and by which history was in so many
essentials determined. ...
"The goal set was to determine the
major structural lines of the settlement
in Sumer in Sumeriantimes, to identify
the probable course of rivers and important canals underlying and shaping
that structure, and to establish . . .
the position and identity of the more
important; ancient political and economic centers. . . . Our study on the
ground was to go hand in hand with
information from the ancient written
sources. . . .
"The two weeks we had at our disposal were totally inadequate for a
careful and thorough study. . . . We
had to concentrate on the broad lines
of the picture, roughing it out in outSpring 1954

Sketch map of Mesopotamia,showing the places mentioned
in the accompanyingaccount.Ancientnames are underlined.

line without being able to fill in the details which would give it precisionand,
in many instances, certainty. Even so,
it is our hope that our results- preliminary as they are- may show the
fruitfulness of the approach and serve
to stimulate further researchalong these
lines. ...
"Our equipment was light; it consisted essentiallyof a jeep with trailer,
a plane table with an open-sight alidade and compass, a set of large-scale
maps, two large metal containers for
drinking water, sleepingbags and cots.
With this Crawford, I, and our excellent driver Khalaf, drove down to
Nasiriyeh to join Fuad Safar and
Ahmed Mahdi. In the followingweeks
we toured the country to the north using as our base successively Refa'i,
Shatra, Da wayeh, and Nasiriyeh itself. . . . On our drives into the desert
we mostly had a Police-jeep as escort
to give us the protection of a second
car; for in the places far from human
habitations a breakdown of the car
might have been quite inconvénienthad
we been alone. And the possibility of
a breakdown was ever present, since
the ground is peculiarly rough and
treacherous. The region around Jokha

is full of shifting sand dunes, and the
ground, where it is exposed, is cut up
and uneven, vaguely suggesting by its
black color and sharp contours a landscape on the moon. To the south the
desert- flooded yearly- is pitted with
deep holes often half concealedby withered vegetation. In the cultivation watercourses, earthwalls, and old hardened plough-land necessitate frequent
detours and tricky descentsand ascents
acrossdeep dry ditches.The jeep proved
itself here, as it later did in soft mud,
but it took careful driving not to wreck
it, and our bones got well rattled on
every trip.
"On the whole we had luck with the
weather. The days we visited the Jokha
area were calm with no wind, so we
escaped sandstorms; and only toward
the end did short but heavy rains,
which turned the desert into soft mud,
impede our movements. In the days
after the rain, we were able to visit the
mounds by boat, so we were not forced
to idleness. One of the mounds thus
visited was al Hibba, and that trip
was truly unforgettable. Not only because of the very satisfactory results,
but also because of the beauty of the
scenery.We traveled in a slim graceful
53

Archaeology Magazine - March 1954

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Archaeology Magazine - March 1954