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Tell Leilan, Syria
Syria

Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is an Arab-majority country in Southwest Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Israel to the southwest, Jordan to the south, Iraq to the east, and Turkey to the north....
 is the site of a city known as Shekhna in ancient times. It is situated in the Khabur river basin by the river Jarrah. The site was discovered in 1978 by archaeologist Harvey Weiss
Harvey Weiss

Harvey Weiss is an archaeologist, famous for the discovery of Tell Leilan, and who currently teaches at Yale University as well as attending his dig at Tell Leilan during the summers....
.

Early history of Tell Leilan
The city originated around 5000 BC as a small farming village and grew to be a large city in the Akkadian Empire. A 3-foot layer of sediment
Sediment

Sediment is any particulate matter that can be sediment transport by fluid dynamics, and which eventually is deposited.Sediments are most often transported by water transported by wind and glaciers....
 containing no evidence of human habitation offered clues as to the cause of the demise of the Akkadian Empire — analysis indicated that at around 2200 BC, a drought
Drought

A drought is an extended period of months or years when a region notes a deficiency in its water supply. Generally, this occurs when a region receives consistently below average precipitation ....
 had occurred that was so severe that even earthworm
Earthworm

Earthworm is the common name for the largest members of Oligochaeta in the phylum Annelida. The earthworm is the most known worm in America, and other countries....
s had not survived.






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Tell Leilan, Syria
Syria

Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is an Arab-majority country in Southwest Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Israel to the southwest, Jordan to the south, Iraq to the east, and Turkey to the north....
 is the site of a city known as Shekhna in ancient times. It is situated in the Khabur river basin by the river Jarrah. The site was discovered in 1978 by archaeologist Harvey Weiss
Harvey Weiss

Harvey Weiss is an archaeologist, famous for the discovery of Tell Leilan, and who currently teaches at Yale University as well as attending his dig at Tell Leilan during the summers....
.

Early history of Tell Leilan


The city originated around 5000 BC as a small farming village and grew to be a large city in the Akkadian Empire. A 3-foot layer of sediment
Sediment

Sediment is any particulate matter that can be sediment transport by fluid dynamics, and which eventually is deposited.Sediments are most often transported by water transported by wind and glaciers....
 containing no evidence of human habitation offered clues as to the cause of the demise of the Akkadian Empire — analysis indicated that at around 2200 BC, a drought
Drought

A drought is an extended period of months or years when a region notes a deficiency in its water supply. Generally, this occurs when a region receives consistently below average precipitation ....
 had occurred that was so severe that even earthworm
Earthworm

Earthworm is the common name for the largest members of Oligochaeta in the phylum Annelida. The earthworm is the most known worm in America, and other countries....
s had not survived. This was among the earliest evidence that climate change
Climate change

Climate change is any long-term significant change in the expected patterns of average weather of a specific region over an appropriately significant period of time....
 could be responsible for the rise and fall of civilization
Civilization

A civilization is a society or culture group normally defined as a complex society characterized by the practice of agriculture and settlement in towns and city....
s.

The city of Shubat-Enlil


The conquest of the region by the Assyrian king Shamshi-Adad I
Shamshi-Adad I

Shamshi-Adad I rose to prominence when he carved out a large kingdom in northern Mesopotamia, the Old Assyrian Kingdom, although the Assyria was soon defeated by Hammurabi of Babylon and remained in the shadow of the Babylonian Empire throughout this period....
 (1813–1781 BC) revived the abandoned site of Tell Leilan. Shamshi-Adad saw the great potential in the rich agricultural production of the region and made it the capital city of his northern Mesopotamian kingdom. He renamed it from Shehna to Shubat-Enlil, or Šubat-Enlil, meaning "the residence of the god Enlil
Enlil

Enlil , was the name of a chief deity listed and written about in ancient Sumerian, Akkadian, Hittite, Canaanite and other Mesopotamian clay and stone tablets....
" in the Akkadian language
Akkadian language

Akkadian or Assyrian-Babylonian is a Semitic language that was spoken in ancient Mesopotamia. The earliest attested Semitic language, it used the cuneiform writing system derived ultimately from ancient Sumerian language, an unrelated language isolate....
. In the city a royal palace was built and a temple acropolis to which a straight paved street led from the city gate. There was also a planned residential area and the entire city was enclosed by a wall. The city size was about . Shubat-Enlil may have had a population of 20,000 people at its peak. The city prospered until the king Samsu-Iluna
Samsu-Iluna

Samsu-Iluna , was the King of Babylon, who reigned from 1749 BC to 1712 BC.He was a son of Hammurabi. During the reign of Samsu-Iluna the Babylonian Empire lost a lot of provinces....
 of Babylon
Babylon

Babylon was a city-state of ancient Mesopotamia, sometimes considered an empire, the remains of which can be found in present-day Al Hillah, Babil Governorate, Iraq, about 85 kilometers south of Baghdad....
 sacked it in 1726 BC. Shubat-Enlil was never to regain its power. It later became a provincial Hurrian town in the kingdom of Mitanni
Mitanni

Mitanni or Hanigalbat was a loosely organized Hurrian-speaking Hittite vassal state in northern Syria from ca. 1500 BC-1300 BC."The Assyrians called the lands of Mitanni Hanigalbat while to the Hittites it was the land of the Hurrians....
.

Discovery


The mound of Tell Leilan was excavated by a US team of archaeologists from Yale university
Yale University

Yale University is a private university in New Haven, Connecticut. Founded in 1701 as the Collegiate School, Yale is the Colonial Colleges institution of higher education in the United States and is a member of the Ivy League....
. The survey started in 1979 led by Harvey Weiss
Harvey Weiss

Harvey Weiss is an archaeologist, famous for the discovery of Tell Leilan, and who currently teaches at Yale University as well as attending his dig at Tell Leilan during the summers....
 and the study of the site is continuing. The most important discovery at Tell Leilan is an archive of 1100 cuneiform
Cuneiform script

Cuneiform script is one of the earliest known forms of writing system. Emerging in Sumer around the 30th century BC, with predecessors reaching into the late 4th millennium , cuneiform writing began as a system of pictography....
 clay tablets kept by the rulers of the city. These tablets date to the eighteenth century BC and record the dealings with other Mesopotamian states and how the city administration worked.

See also

  • Cities of the ancient Near East
    Cities of the ancient Near East

    Uru was the Sumerian language term for a city or city state, written with the cuneiform ideogram URU .In Akkadian language and Hittite orthography, URU became a determinative sign denoting a city, or combined with KUR "land" the kingdom or territory controlled by a city, e.g....


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