Nippur V: The Early Dynastic to Akkadian Transition: The Area WF Sounding at Nippur

The excavation of WF in the eighteenth and nineteenth seasons at Nippur (1988/89, 1990) was aimed specifically at delineating the transition between the Early Dynastic and Akkadian periods, and this goal has been realized. Augusta McMahon took on this task through two seasons, working tirelessly. Stratigraphic exposure of floor after floor of artifacts was slowed drastically by a complex stack of burials that took up almost half of the space in the pit. The gain in whole forms offset the diminution of stratified sherds in the living debris. McMahon succeeded in taking the pit down until we could safely say that we had reached Early Dynastic IIIa, and thus had the material to assess the passage from Early Dynastic to Akkadian in artifactual terms.

Augusta McMahon is Lecturer in Ancient Near Eastern Archaeology and History at the University of Cambridge, United Kingdom.