ABSTRACT
After the total destruction of all IVa buildings and the obliteration of their remains ( Finkbeiner 1986, 46), the architects of layer III resumed their task in the Eanna precinct, now the sole sacred area of Uruk, still using the ubiquitous Riemchen bricks, which remain frequent until layer I/7 when planoconvex bricks appear for the first time (ibid. 47–48). From the earliest IIIc layer the core of the cultic precinct was constituted by a terrace of which the most ancient (A) phase measured 18.3×23.5 m ( Heinrich 1982, 55–57, 90–91, Fig. 142). On the south-west, south-east and north this terrace was enclosed by courtyard areas, some walls of which bore cone-mosaic decoration (ibid. Fig. 140) and perhaps also ornaments composed of terracotta sculptural plaques (ibid. Fig. 141—‘Schilfringbündel’; on this see Glassner 2000a, 227, remarking that, in fact, this is an image of the goddess wrapped in a shawl). A notable feature of the following IIIb layer is represented by seven open chambers in the Opferstättenhof south-east of the terrace, each of which contains a pair of long and narrow trough-like pits (c.5×0.8 m), partly revetted by bricks and heavily stained by heat. Such fire installations turn up frequently in the Uruk III layers all over the Eanna precinct. A building south of the terrace, nicknamed ‘labyrinth’, contains a niched hall No. 167, the plastering of which displays carved decoration in the form of a zone of spiraliform volutes, as well as painted patterns in black, white, red and yellow. The spiraliform decoration finds a parallel in the ‘cella’ of Building I of Arslantepe VIA ( Sürenhagen 1985, 235–236). The IIIa phase saw the extension of the central terrace which now formed an L-shaped plan; a building situated in the internal corner of the L-form layout had very small chambers and cone mosaics. Another building, designated as M and situated north-west of the terrace, had its two rooms ( Heinrich 1936, 2, Fig. 1) filled by the ‘Sammelfund’, a hoard of precious objects and materials, presumably disused temple inventory, comparable with the ‘Riemchengebäude’ deposit (see Limper 1988; Becker and Heinz 1993). The finds that turned up in the filling layers of the building included vessels of clay, metal and stone, sculpture (the famous ‘Uruk vase’), both monumental and miniature, especially of various animals, as well as cylinder seals, several thousand diverse beads including examples carved from shell cores and bearing the distinctive spiral traces imitated in clay, mosaic and inlay components (Becker and Heinz 1993, 24–26) and various items of sheet metal, probably for plating objects of organic matter (gold, silver and copper; note the presence of silver wire, Heinrich 1936, 46). Materials of the ‘Sammelfund’ beads include most frequently various forms of limestone, carnelian, rock crystal and shell with a sprinkling of true beads, followed by gypsum stone and lapis lazuli and by trace quantities of such stones as quartz, calcite tuffo, amazonite, talc, chalcedony, agate, amethyst, diorite, aragonite and ‘Brauneisenstein’ ( Heinrich 1936, 41–42, and Limper 1988, esp. pp. 57–59). The Jemdet Nasr period Eanna layout continued until layer I/7 when the first planoconvex bricks appeared. This layer is overlain by a heavy sheet of debris followed, in the 1/6 layer, by a rebuilt version of the terrace which was now accompanied by fragmentary walls in the courtyard areas bearing cone-mosaic decoration ( Heinrich 1982, 112, Figs 157–159; Finkbeiner 1986, 46–47). Layer I/5 ushered in the first nearly square terrace of dimensions amounting to 46*50 m and accompanied by a south-east court in which circular kilns replaced the earlier trough-shaped fire installations. Layer 1/4, which more or less established the tradition of the ED Eanna, introduced a square-plan ziggurat with a façade of sharp vertical edges of ‘saw-tooth’ section, as well as two courtyard areas south-east and north-east of it.
