Location Syria | Region Al-Hasakah Governorate | |
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Tell Sheikh Hamad (Arabic: تل الشيخ حمد) is an archeological site in eastern Syria on the lower Khabur River. It is the site of the ancient Assyrian city of Dūr-Katlimmu, which bore the Syriac-Assyrian Neo-Aramaic name Magdalu after the fall of the Assyrian Empire (7C BCE). The town may have been founded during the reign of Shalmaneser I and the name Dur-Katlimmu may refer to the limmu (an appointed royal official) Ina-Aššur-šuma-asbat son of Aššur-nadin-šume.
History
During the fall of the Assyrian Empire (911-605 BC), sections of the Assyrian army retreated to the western corner of Assyria after the fall of Nineveh, Harran and Carchemish, and a number of Assyrian imperial records survive between 604 BC and 599 BC in and around Dur-Katlimmu, and so it is possible that remnants of the Assyrian administration and army still continued to hold out in the region for a few years.
Excavations have recovered 550 cuneiform Akkadian and 40 Aramaic texts belonging to a senior guard of Ashurbanipal.