Tell Khaiber is a tell, or archaeological settlement mound, in southern Mesopotamia. It is located near the modern city ofNasiriyah and about 19 kilometers northwest of the ancient city of Ur in Dhiq Qar Province. In 2012, the site was visited by members of the Ur Region Archaeology Project, a cooperation between the British Institute for the Study of Iraq, the University of Manchester and the Iraqi State Board for Antiquities and Heritage. They found that the site had escaped looting, and applied for an excavation permit. The site consists of two mounds designated as Tell Khaiber and Tell Khaiber 2, both roughly 300 x 250 meters in area. Most of the occupation is from the Sealand Dynasty period but pottery fragments from the Ubaid, Jemdet Nasr, and Early Dynastic periods were also found.
History
Very little is known about the Sealand Dynasty. Traditionally it was thought to exist roughly between 1700 and 1400 BC and to have replacedBabylon after its fall sometime around 1550 BC. Tell Khaiber is the first Sealand site excavated. It has been dated to circa 1500 BC.
Archaeology
The two mounds were first identified in an area survey by Henry Wright in 1965, naming them Ishan Khaiber and Site 61. Between 2013 and 2017, the site was excavated by a team of Iraqi and British archaeologists. The excavations revealed the presence of a settlement dominated by a large administrative building dating to c. 1500 BCE, or the Middle Bronze Age. The building covered 4400 square meters and was surrounded by 3.5 m thick walls, with large towers having meter-thick walls, pierced by a single gate. Among the finds from this building was an archive of some 200 clay tablets and fragments. Excavated tablets from the Sealand Dynasty are uncommon but a number of unprovenances tablets in various institutions have been identified by Stephanie Dalley. The tablets were written in Akkadian and deal mostly with the administration of agricultural activities. Some of the tablets contained dates, which indicated that the building was in use during the reign of Ayadaragalama, the eighth king of the Sealand Dynasty.
