In the time of the Ur III Empire at the end of the 2nd millennium BC it was destroyed by fire and abandoned until the Hellenistic Period.

[1] The site is located within Mesopotamia in a very marginal environment for agriculture, yet in antiquity it was a prosperous city.

[2] Sweyhat is best known for its intact fortifications of the mid-to-late 3rd millennium BC and its late-3rd-millennium temple located at the summit of the high mound.

In 1993, the Penn excavators discovered a large cemetery of shaft-and-chamber tombs in the Low Mound dating to the mid 3rd millennium BC.

These excavations were renewed by Holland from the Oriental Institute of Chicago and Richard L. Zettler from the University of Pennsylvania Museum in 1989.