Jemdet Nasr

Type-site of the transitional phase between the late Uruk period and the Early Dynastic I period in southern Iraq. The Jemdet Nasr period (c.3100–2900 BC) was initially defined by a distinctive style of painted pottery (buffcoloured jars painted with red and black designs), first excavated in strata between the Uruk and Early Dynastic phases at Jemdet Nasr in 1925, as well as by the apparent proliferation of a deeply drilled style of cylinder seal.

Most other aspects of Jemdet Nasr material culture (including the majority of the pottery) are virtually indistinguishable from the preceding Uruk period (c.4300–3100 BC), and few sites have yielded sufficiently continuous stratigraphy from Uruk to Early Dynastic I to allow Jemdet Nasr material to be properly characterized. Finkbeiner and Röllig (1986) have therefore suggested that the Jemdet Nasr ware – which is relatively rare compared with other ceramics of the same period – might be better interpreted as a geographical variant of the Uruk culture rather than an indication of post-Uruk date. The balance of opinion, however, still favours the retention of a Jemdet Nasr period, on the grounds that there are other ceramics peculiar to the period (Killick in Finkbeiner and Röllig 1986), as well as a distinctive type of semipictographic CUNEIFORM tablet (Nissen 1986). Jemdet Nasr pottery was excavated not only at other sites in Mesopotamia but also at sites in Oman and along the Gulf coast (e.g. Hafit, see ARABIA, PREISLAMIC), clearly indicating a wide trading network like that of the Uruk period.

Jemdet Nasr itself, located in southern Iraq about 30 km northeast of Babylon, consists of several tells covering a total area of about 15 ha, which were first excavated by Steven Langdon and Christian Watelin in 1925–8. A substantial mud-brick structure of the Jemdet Nasr period, identified by Langdon as a temple and by Watelin as a palace, is likely to have been an administrative structure, particularly in view of the tablets inscribed with ‘Uruk III’ texts that were found inside it.

[Jamdat Nasr]. Site between Baghdad and Babylon in southern Iraq which has given its name both to a painted ware characterized by red and black designs on a buff ground, and to the period when this pottery was in use. This period falls between the Uruk phase and the Early Dynastic Period and is usually dated to the late 4th millennium bc (seeTables 2 and 3, pages 32021). The period is characterized by increasing populations, the development of more extensive irrigation systems, towns dominated by temples, and the increased use of writing and cylinder seals; increasing trade and more specialization of craft practice are also features of this period. In all these ways the Jemdet Nasr phase represents the direct predecessor of the full Sumerian civilization of the Early Dynastic period. Jenne. A major trading city on the southern margin of the inland Niger delta in southern Mali, the site is traditionally stated to have been established in the 8th century. For much of the next thousand years it occupied an important position in local and trans-Saharan trade. Its antecedents may be traced back in the archaeological record of nearby Jenne-jeno to about the 3rd century bc. By late in the 1st millennium ad Jenne-jeno had grown into a major urban centre some 30 to 40 hectares in extent. Trade with areas beyond the delta is attested throughout its occupation, metal being one of the main commodities involved. The city appears to have been the centre of a fertile and prosperous region. Cultivation of indigenous African rice is attested from the beginning of the Christian era. A series of elaborate anthropomorphic clay statuettes dates, at least in part, from the early centuries of the 2nd millennium ad.