Jemdet Nasr

(Jamdat Nasr), the remains of an Aeneolithic agricultural settlement of the end of the fourth millennium B.C., located 25 km northeast of Babylon, Iraq. The British archaeologist E. Mackay investigated the site from 1925 to 1927. It consists of three mounds, the middle of which contains the cultural level. Because of this level, the name Jemdet Nasr has been given to one of the historical periods of predynastic Sumer (it is preceded by the periods of the Obaidian [Ubaid] and Warkan [Uruk] cultures). Discoveries included multiroom dwellings and the ruins of a palace or temple in which clay tablets with pictographic symbols were found. Characteristic of Jemdet Nasr are the monochrome and polychrome clay vessels with geometric curvilinear and other decoration, as well as stone vessels. The implements discovered included clay sickles, stone hoes, and knives made of obsidian. Copper articles were also found as well as seals with carved human and animal figures and the distinctive cylinder seals (the so-called Jemdet Nasr style of seals).