The Sumerian World (Routledge Worlds)

Mar lies Heinz

enclosure, originally with a structure on top of it. The enclosure wall surrounding the
terrace was about 2.50 m wide. Rooms lined the inner side of the enclosure on three
sides (Figure 9.4). This inner unit was surrounded by a second enclosure wall, built in
an even more monumental style and about 4.50 m wide. Between the inner and outer
circle, in the northern edge of the complex the builders placed a courtyard house. The
enclosures were each accessible through one narrow entrance. Size and form, the
location and the construction effort and cost of this new building complex had no
predecessor in Khafajah, where the building was unique and stood out in all aspects
among all the buildings in its neighbourhood, the ‘living houses’ as well as the
temples’.

The functional designation for the New

The stated formal criteria and the enormous resource investment that had been
necessary to realise the ‘Oval building led first to its designation as a public building.
Its designation beyond that as temple’ is based on the evaluation of several parameters.
Texts, that explicitly support the Oval’s function as temple-complex, are not available
from Khafajah itself. However, instead of texts the excavators had human statuettes at
their disposal to further support the designation of the Oval as a place for religious acti-

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Abb. 167 Tempeloval in Tutub (Haftgi). Grundrifi des zweiten Zustandes, ErgSnzungsversuch. M. 1:800. — Aus Delougaz, OIP 53

(1940) Abb. 102

Figure 9.4 Temple Oval Khafaje phase 2 (Heinrich 1982a: abb. 166-167)

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SCALE I) 20 METERS

N O