Archaeology

The British first excavated the site in 1854–1855, but the excavations produced few finds. Assyriologist R. Campbell Thompson led a new excavation at the site in 1918, and in 1919 Harry H. Hall dug for another season. Faud Safar, Muhammad Ali Mustafa, and Seton Lloyd led the most fruitful excavations in 1946–1949 (Danti and Zettler, “Eridu,” 259).

The pottery finds at the site have been foundational in isolating the various Sumerian pottery types and periods and have shed light on daily activity at the site throughout its long history. For example, the finds at its cemetery have revealed a more complex history of early Mesopotamian religion than previously thought. Moreover, the construction and reconstruction of its ziggurat (a Mesopotamian step-pyramid-shaped temple) have helped archaeologists mark a new division in the Uruk period (3500–3100 bc), dividing the period into two distinct epochs: the Early Uruk period (3500–3250 bc) and the Late Uruk period (3250–3100 bc; Safar, Mustafa, and Lloyd, Eridu, 85–114). The complexity of the temple compound as early as the fifth millennium bc demonstrates the advanced religious life in Mesopotamia at that time (Matthews, Archaeology, 102–08). Last, the most substantial Uruk period house excavated resides at Eridu (Safar, Mustafa, and Lloyd, Eridu, 247).

A few epigraphic finds have helped to contextualize the site. Two bricks of Ur-Nammu (2112–2095 bc) identify him as a (re)builder of Ea’s temple. A brick of Amar-Suen (2046–2038 bc) claims that Ea’s “Apsu” was worked on. And a brick of Nur-Adad (1865–1850 bc) memorializing his work on “the shrine of E-babbar” claims he renovated it according to “its plans of old.” Last, a brick of Nebuchadnezzar II was found, and although it appears to have been out of context, it demonstrates the continued occupation of the site into the middle first millennium (Safar, Mustafa, and Lloyd, Eridu, 228–29; Danti and Zettler, “Eridu,” 259). Unfortunately, no substantial textual archive has been found at Eridu.