‘Reserved for the Gods and the Dead…’: High Temples on the Rania Plain (Kurdish Region of Iraq)

Abstract

Building on evidence from recent investigations, this article offers a new, tentative interpretation of the Middle Bronze Age levels on the high northern part of Tell Shemshara (Iraqi Kurdistan), excavated in 1957, and since washed away by Lake Dokan. As argued here, the principal feature crowning Tell Shemshara was probably a small temple with burials embedded in its foundation platform.