Archaeology
The site of Shuruppak extends about a kilometer from north to south. The total area is about 120 hectares, with about 35 hectares of the mound being above the 3 meter contour.
After a brief survey by Hermann Volrath Hilprecht in 1900, it was first excavated in 1902 by Robert Koldewey and Friedrich Delitzsch of the German Oriental Society for 8 months. Among other finds, hundreds of pre-Sargonic tablets were collected which ended up in the Berlin Museum and Istanbul Museum. In March and April 1931 a joint team of the American Schools of Oriental Research and the University of Pennsylvania excavated Shuruppak for a further six week season with Schmidt as director and with epigraphist Samuel Noah Kramer. The excavation recovered 87 tablets and fragments, mostly from pre-Sargonic times, biconvex, and unbaked. In 1973, a three day surface survey of the site was conducted by Harriet P. Martin. Consisting mainly of pottery shard collection, the survey confirmed that Shuruppak dates at least as early as the Jemdet Nasr period, expanded greatly in the Early Dynastic period and was also an element of the Akkadian Empire and the Third Dynasty of Ur.
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