Area E

Prof. Dr. Winfried Orthmann

Lower Town – Area of the «Stadttempel»
In summer 1913, considerable parts of a large building in the north-western part of the lower town were excavated. During later assessments of the excavation results, it was recognized that the building was a Neo-Assyrian temple that typologically fits the sanctuaries of the 8th and 7th centuries B.C. of the Assyrian heartland. As a result of some soundings, the excavators assumed that older buildings lay under it.
During the season of 2008, two test trenches were opened in order to establish its exact location inside the north-western lower town, which is completely covered by modern buildings nowadays, and to check if the circumstances allow the investigation of possible older buildings. In the southern trench a mudbrick wall was discovered, which may be part of the northern enclosure. Work in this area was complicated by re-filled trenches of the Oppenheim-excavations and by modern infrastructure (waterlines) (Fig. 1).

In the northern trench mudbrick structures were found beneath a courtyard paved with stone slabs and pebbles. They probably belong to a Neo-Assyrian building just north of the «Stadttempel» (Fig. 2).

(Translation: A. Sollee / B. Sollee)