Shusharra | |
  Shown within Iraq | |
| Alternative name | Tell Shimshara |
|---|---|
| Location | Iraq |
| Region | Sulaymaniyah Governorate |
| Coordinates | 36°12′03″N 44°56′18″E / 36.20083°N 44.93833°E |
| Type | tell |
| Length | 270 m (890 ft) (lower mound) |
| Width | 60 m (200 ft) (main mound) |
| Height | 19 m (62 ft) (main mound), 6 m (20 ft) (lower mound) |
| History | |
| Periods | Hassuna, Middle Bronze Age, Islamic |
| Site notes | |
| Excavation dates | 1957–1959, 2012 |
| Archaeologists | J. Eidem, H. Ingholt, J. Læssøe, A. al-Qadir at-Tekrîti |
| Condition | periodically flooded by Lake Dukan |
Tell Shemshara (ancient Shusharra) (also Tell Shimshara) is an archaeological site located along the Little Zab in Sulaymaniyah Governorate, in the Iraqi Kurdistan autonomous administrative division of Iraq. The site was inundated by Lake Dukan until recently.
The site was occupied, although not continuously, from the Hassuna period (early sixth millennium BCE) until the 14th century CE. A small archive recovered from the Middle Bronze Age layers (early second millennium BCE) revealed that, at least in that period, the site was called Shusharra and was the capital of a small, semi-independent Turukkean polity called māt Utêm or "land of the gatekeeper" ruled by a man called Kuwari acting as governor under a larger Hurrian state.[1]