Excavations at Tell Brak - David Oates

Tell Brak, ancient Nagar, was one of the most important cities
in northern Mesopotamia in the third millennium BC and a focus of
long-distance trade. It was also, for about a century, a
provincial capital of the Akkadian Empire founded by Sargon of
Agade. This is the second of four volumes on the 1976-93
excavations at Tell Brak. The construction level of Naram-Sin's
Palace, discovered by Mallowan in the 1930s, has been used as a
point of chronological reference to provide the first well-dated
corpus of archaeological material in northern Mesopotamia
belonging to the second half of the third millennium. The major
Akkadian buildings at Tell Brak are the first well-preserved
examples to be discovered at any site, and include a great
ceremonial complex and a unique caravanserai that housed the
donkey caravans bringing metals from Anatolia. During the ritual
closure of these buildings beautiful silver jewellery was
deposited, along with numerous copper/bronze tools and the
skeletons of some of the caravan donkeys. Specialist reports
provide detailed historical, geomorphological, ceramic, faunal,
botanical, microstratigraphic and other data.