115 27. Tell Leilan (Hassake) Harvey Weiss (Yale University, USA) Tell Leilan, in the centre of the fertile, rain-fed Khabur Plains of the Jezireh (Fig. 1), was one of the large, 90- 100ha, cities that developed across northern Mesopotamia and western Syria during the 26th century BC (Fig. 2). These cities and their rich dry-farming agricultural landscapes became the target of southern Mesopotamian Akkadian imperialism during the 24th and 23rd centuries BC and were conquered, partially destroyed, and then rebuilt to serve Akkadian imperial interests for about 100 years. An impressive example of the Akkadian intrusion is the Akkadian scribal room on the Acropolis, located across the street and opposite the local pre- Akkadian palace which was retrieved in 2002. On the floor of this one-room building were 16 complete and fragmentary Akkadian school and administrative tablets. The building and its floor are dated stratigraphically and by radiocarbon to the late 24th century BC, while the ductus of the tablets indicates that they are the earliest Akkadian tablets on the Habur Plains, perhaps from the reign of Manishtushu, son of Sargon of Akkad. The scribal room and its tablets document the complex, still enigmatic, earliest stage of the Akkadian imperialization of northern Mesopotamia. Subsequently, in the early 23rd century, probably in the reign of Naram-Sin, Sargon of Akkad’s grandson, the Akkadians destroyed the local pre-Akkadian palace, and then rebuilt it, renovating parts of the destroyed palace and constructing some areas anew. This Akkadian administrative building, partially retrieved in 2006 and 2008, comprised more than 17 interconnected rooms across more than 1000m2, and was protected on the northern part of the acropolis by an earthen glacis that extended 15m below to plain level. The rebuilt palace documents Akkadian imperial administrative activities across several rooms where cylinder seal impressions Fig. 1 Map of Khabur Plains survey areas and precipitation isohyets.