Description : Shuruppak (Sumerian: 𒋢𒆳𒊒𒆠 ŠuruppagKI, "the healing place"), modern Tell Fara, was an ancient Sumerian city situated about 55 kilometres (35 mi) south of Nippur on the banks of the Euphrates in Iraq's Al-Qādisiyyah Governorate. Shuruppak was dedicated to Ninlil, also called Sud, the goddess of grain and the air. Shuruppak became a grain storage and distribution city and had more silos than any other Sumerian city. The earliest excavated levels at Shuruppak date to the Jemdet Nasr period about 3000 BC; it was abandoned shortly after 2000 BC. Erich Schmidt found one Isin-Larsa cylinder seal and several pottery plaques which may date to early in the second millennium BC. Surface finds are predominantly Early Dynastic. At the end of the Jemdet Nasr period, there was an archaeologically attested river flood in Shuruppak. Polychrome pottery from a destruction level below the flood deposit has been dated to the Jemdet Nasr period that immediately preceded the Early Dynastic I period. Metalwork Several objects made of arsenical copper were found in Shuruppak/Fara dating from the mid-fourth to early third millennium BC (approximately Jamdat Nasr period), which is quite early for Mesopotamia. Similar objects were also found at Tepe Gawra (levels XII-VIII). The city expanded to its greatest extent at the end of the Early Dynastic III period (2600 BC to 2350 BC) when it covered about 100 hectares. At this stage it was destroyed by a fire which baked the clay tablets and mudbrick walls, which then survived for millennia. Two possible kings of Shuruppak are mentioned in epigraphic data from later sources found elsewhere. In the Sumerian King List a king Ubara-Tutu is listed as the ruler of Shuruppak and the last king "before the flood". In the Epic of Gilgamesh, a man named Utanapishtim (also Uta-na'ishtim), son of Ubara-Tutu, is noted to be king of Shuruppak. The names Ziusudra and Atrahasis are also associated with him. These figures have not been supported by archaeological finds and may well be mythical.
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