West Kurdistan · Rojava · Ancient Mesopotamia
Tell Brak (Nagar)
One of the first cities on earth: a mound forty metres high, home to the "Eye Temple" and a palace of the kings of Akkad.
- Period
- c. 6000–1300 BC
- Place
- Near Hasakah, Jazira
- Region
- West Kurdistan · Rojava
- Age
- Ancient Mesopotamia
Nagar grew into a city in the fourth millennium BC — as early as the cities of southern Mesopotamia, which overturned the idea that urban life began only in the south. Its Eye Temple, built around 3500 BC, was decorated with stone cones and coloured panels, and held hundreds of small idols with large staring eyes.
Around 2250 BC the Akkadian king Naram-Sin built a fortified palace here of mudbrick, with walls up to ten metres thick. The mound covers more than forty hectares.
Chosen and introduced by Aram Mizuri, architect in Erbil