In the third millennium B.C. Shuruppak (modern Fara) was a major city located on the Euphrates in central Sumer. Today the mound of the ancient city extends for over a kilometre north to south. Including the high mound and the lower rise of one to two metres surrounding it, Shuruppak covers about 120 hectares. Only about 35 hectares rise about the 3 m contour, however, and nowhere does the mound rise much above 9 m.

There have been two major excavations at Shuruppak, by the D.O.G. in 1902—they crisscrossed the mound with trenches but recorded lamentably little stratigraphy—and by the University of Pennsylvania in 1931—when Erich Schmidt conducted limited excavations at four points on the mound. It is clear from these excavations that Shuruppak was inhabited from about 3000 to 2000 B.C.

In 1973 I visited the site and conducted a three-day surface survey with the help of my husband Christopher Martin, the British School of Archaeology in Iraq (then under the direction of Diana Kirkbride), and the Iraqi Directorate of Antiquities, with the aim of enlarging our knowledge of the settlement patterns at Shuruppak.