Fuad Safar
Iraqi archaeologist who excavated Eridu
- Nationality
- Iraqi
- Role
- Archaeologist, Iraq's Department of Antiquities
- Excavated
- Eridu (1946–49), with Seton Lloyd
- Also dug
- Tell Uqair, with Seton Lloyd
An Iraqi archaeologist who, with Seton Lloyd, uncovered eighteen superimposed temples at Eridu, the city where Sumerian kingship began.
What is Fuad Safar known for?
Fuad Safar was an Iraqi archaeologist who worked for Iraq's Department of Antiquities. He is best known for the excavations at Eridu, near Ur in southern Iraq, which he directed with the British archaeologist Seton Lloyd from 1946 to 1949.
Beneath a ziggurat of the Ur III kings (about 2100 BCE) they found a sequence of temples built one on top of another, eighteen levels in all, going back to small shrines of around 5400 BCE. It is one of the longest continuous sacred sites known and gave weight to the Sumerian tradition that Eridu was the first city. Their final report, Eridu, was published in 1981.
Before Eridu, Safar and Lloyd had already worked together at Tell Uqair, near Baghdad. Safar belonged to the generation that built Iraq's own archaeological service in the mid-20th century, and the Eridu results, read alongside the Sumerian tradition that kingship began there, remain a reference point for the city's age.
Co-led the 1946–49 Eridu excavations that found eighteen temple levels.
Mentioned on these pages
- Rabbit holeEridu
- PersonSeton Lloyd
Sources
- National Geographic, 'How archaeologists found one of the oldest cities on earth'Reference
- Wikipedia, 'Eridu'Reference
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