Tell Dehaila
Tell Dehaila is an ancient tell, or archaeological site in Iraq. Remains at the site range from the Isin-Larsa/Old-Babylonian to Neo-Babylonian periods.
Location
It is located in Dhi Qar Governorate, Iraq, about 30 kilometers west of the ancient city of Ur. The settlement is in the bend of an ancient branch of the Euphrates and about 25 kilometers upstream of the ancient city of Eridu.The name of this waterway is mentioned only once in a 1st millennium BC lexical list as =, the former being the Sumerian hydronym and the latter the Akkadian one. Since the Sumerian was not spoken since a long time when the lexical list was created, this unusually descriptive hydronym is questionable.
Archaeology
[image:Dehaila_1.jpg|thumb|left|alt=Example of Tell Dehaila Pottery|Old-Babylonian pottery fragment. Decorated with bitumen applied shortly after firing.]The site is EP-34 in the Wright's survey of the Eridu-Ur region. The survey found a site of about 85 hectares and late Isin-Larsa/Old-Babylonian pottery shards. The survey found "drains lined with baked brick in former streets, building foundations of both baked and mud brick, and localized concentrations of basalt, copper, ceramic slag".
Apparently, Henry Wright counted the total area of Tell Dehaila including the neighboring Dehaila-2 and Nun-5, which are now counted separately. The city wall is oval shaped and covers an area of 47 hectares. On the opposite side of the Eridu Canal there is a 5 hectare mound with a sizable building. A 130-meter barrage extended through the city wall into the waterway. As the waterway meandered to the east the site expanded into its former bed.
The site was surveyed by the Iraqi-Russian Multidisciplinary Project team in 2018, 2019 and 2023, and excavated in 2020, 2021 and 2025. In the second season two soundings of three were excavated to virgin soil. Evidence of monumental mudbrick construction was found including walls up to four meters wide. Neo-Babylonian pottery shards are found on surface.
In the 2023 season hi-res aerial orthoimagery provided highly detailed images of the city and 19 km2 of its surroundings, complemented by very clear geomagnetic mapping of a third of the urban area.
In the 2025 season more focused excavations started, based on the orthoimagery analysis. A cuneiform tablet fragment was found in situ. Thus it has been confirmed that the site was inhabited also in Neo-Babylonian era.