3 Households and Institutions: A Late 3rd Millennium BCE Neighborhood at Tell Asmar, Iraq (Ancient Eshnunna)

To test the value of the neighborhood and community concepts for understanding the archaeology of neighborhoods in the urban landscapes of the late Early Dynastic city-states and the Akkadian state in ancient Mesopotamia, this chapter examines socioeconomic changes in the material culture across occupation levels in a residential area at Tell Asmar (ancient Eshnunna), Iraq and investigates processes by which the area became a more uniformly elite set of households. Tell Asmar was one of several major urban settlements in the lower Diyala River region, with occupation of the site extending back into late prehistory. The research dataset comprises a limited subset of archaeological evidence recovered from the Tell Asmar Northern Palace Area and the Private Houses Area by the 1930s Oriental Institute of Chicago Diyala Expedition excavations and concentrates on late 3rd millennium BCE residential occupation levels, architecture, and artifacts, as well as ancient texts. A detailed analysis compares one household with a life cycle that spanned the late 3rd millennium with the households of three late Akkadian houses that appeared alongside the architectural reorganization of the Northern Palace Building. This chapter seeks not only to explore the roles of private households within an urban Mesopotamian neighborhood but also to show that the Private Houses Area and the Northern Palace Building continually evolved as a neighborhood because residents were constantly negotiating and maintaining interconnected private and official relationships, and as one community, they shared in the growth, decline, and resurgence that connected them to broader socioeconomic and political developments.