The Mounds of Kish
The place we know today as "Kish" actually consists of many different mounds, spread over a wide area. Visitors can tour both Tell Uhaimir, just off the A1 highway between Babylon and Baghdad, and Tell Ingharra, further west along the access road. We have written these pages to help visitors make sense of what they see, and for people who cannot visit to better imagine the current conditions on site.
[/kish/images/mackay-kish-map.jpg]The mounds of Kish, showing the names given to them by the Oxford-Field Museum Expedition; the surrounding fields and date orchards under cultivation in the 1920s; and the dry bed of the ancient river channel. Source: Mackay 1929: frontispiece, drawn by Dorothy Mackay.
- The site of Kish
- The site of Kish takes the name of the ancient city which once stood over the western portion of the site, Tell Uhaimir. Its twin city Hursagkalama, less than 2 km away on Tell Ingharra, was set to the east. It is this part of the site that attracts most visitors today.
- Tell Ingharra (east Kish, ancient Hursagkalama)
- See Mounds A-H on the map. After this map was made, Watelin dug Trench Y to the southwest of mound E.
- The Temple of Ishtar (Mound E)
- The monumental building located a few steps away from the main entrance to Tell Ingharra was once a temple of the great goddess Ishtar. In ancient Iraq, temples were not only holy places in which gods and goddesses were worshipped but also their homes. Ishtar's home at Kish had the Sumerian name E-hursag-kalama, "House, Mountain of the Land". The version of the temple that visitors can see today was commissioned by a Babylonian king in the 6th century BC but never finished.
- The two ziggurats on Tell Ingharra (Mounds B and F)
- Tell Ingharra is home to two ziggurats: a large one set on the southwest side of the temple of Ishtar and a small one on its southeast side. But these ziggurats are much, much older than the temple. They were built during the Early Dynastic period (2900-2334 BC), at the same time as other monumental buildings like Palace A.
- Tell Uhaimir (west Kish, ancient Kish)
- See Mounds K, T, Z, Y and Z on the map..
- The ziggurat of Zababa (Mound Z)
- Tell Uhaimir, the "little red tell", is easily identifiable by its colour. Today, it can still be seen from the road, rising above the archaeological site of Kish. This mound is artificial: the accumulated debris hides a ziggurat tower dedicated to Zababa, god of war. In ancient times, this ziggurat must have been visible from far away, standing over the western portion of the city. It was a symbol of Kish's power, and of its god.
03 Jul 2025
Nadia Aït Saïd-Ghanem & Eleanor Robson
Nadia Aït Saïd-Ghanem & Eleanor Robson, 'The Mounds of Kish', The Forgotten City of Kish • مدينة كيش المنسية, The Kish Project, 2025 [http://oracc.org/kish/MoundsofKish/]