Ancient Nuzi (Modern Yorghan Tepe)

A Tell (mound) near Kirkuk in northern Iraq. Excavations in the 1920's explored levels of the mid 2nd milennium BC. A palace and private houses of the 15th to 14th centuries BC were excavated and finds include some 20,000 clay tablets mostly recording business transactions ...

This was a major site of the 15th century BC when northern Mesopotamia was under control of the Kingdom of Mitanni, a power centered in Syria. Remains from this period include a substantial palace and temple. Outlying mounds represent remains of suburban villas ...

Never a major urban center, Nuzi was a provincial agricultural town in the small Hurrian Kingdom of Arrapha whose capital is today buried under the Iraqi city of Kirkuk. Arrapha was situated along the southeastern edge of the area under Mittanian domination. Babylonia lay to the south. To the west was Assyria whose revolt against the Hurrian Kingdom of Mittani probably led to Nuzi's destruction in the 14th century BC (Stratum II of the site) and ultimately contributed to Mitanni's collapse ...

Bibliography and Links

Note: The excavation of the ancient city of Nuzi and its thousands of cuneiform documents between 1925-1931 inaugurated a period of intense scholarly activity. Between 1927 and 1939 six volumes of Nuzi texts were published as joint expeditions with the Iraq Museum at Nuzi under the imprint of the American Schools of Oriental Research ...

Joint Expedition With The Iraq Museum At Nuzi
American Schools of Oriental Research

The History of the Ancient Near East Electronic Compendium