Shuruppak (Tell Fara)
Jemdet Nasr to Early Dynastic IIIa (c.3000–2500 BCE)·Early Dynastic Sumerian·🇮🇶 Al-Qadisiyah Governorate, Southern Iraq, Iraq
About
About Shuruppak (Tell Fara)
Canoe-shaped Sumerian city Tell Fara 35 miles S of Nippur, legendary home of Ziusudra (Utnapishtim). Early Dynastic pre-Sargonic archive 100 tablets includes grain ration lists and the Instructions of Shuruppak wisdom text (Sumer’s oldest literature). Walls 800 × 600 m, port silos on Euphrates levee and Fara I Jemdet Nasr polychrome pottery bridging to ED I. Shuruppak (Tell Fara) — Home City of the Flood Hero context and stratigraphy linking to regional chronology.
Why it mattersShuruppak (Tell Fara) — Home City of the Flood Hero
Open questions
Mysteries & theories
Mysteries
- 01Stratigraphic relation to neighboring cultures?
Theories
- 01Regional trade node
Theories are interpretations, not findings. The seal above tells you how much scholarly weight the place carries.
History
How it came to be
- Built
- Occupied Jemdet Nasr to Early Dynastic IIIa (c.3000–2500 BCE)
- Period
- Jemdet Nasr to Early Dynastic IIIa (c.3000–2500 BCE)
- Culture
- Early Dynastic Sumerian
- Builders
- Local communities
- Purpose
- Uruk-circle grain-capital that hosted the Instructions of Shuruppak and Flood myth hero Ziusudra
- Abandoned
- post-period
- Rediscovered
- 19th-century surveys, modern excavations
- Excavation
- Partially excavated
Jemdet Nasr to Early Dynastic IIIa
Uruk-circle grain-capital that hosted the Instructions of Shuruppak and Flood myth hero Ziusudra
On the ground
Structures & features
Gallery