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BiblicalArchaeolog t Perspectiveson the Ancient Worldfrom Mesopotamia to the Mediterranean A Publication of the American Schools of Oriental Research

Page 188

Volume 55 Number 4 December 1992

Pushing back the Frontiersof Mesopotamian Prehistory TrevorWatkins

176

The Halaf Periodin Iraq:Old Sites and New Stuart Campbell

182

A series of chance discoveriesand salvageexcavationsin north Mesopotamiarevealed many sites that belongedto the early neolithic periodbetween 8000 and 6000 B.C.E.These producedintriguinginformationon the processesof changethat culminatedin the wide establishment of villages basedon a mixed farmingeconomy,providingnew insights on the "Neolithic Revolution."

From about 5200 B.C.E. to 4500 B.C.E., large numbers of Halaf communities appear over a very

largeareaof northernIraq,northernSyriaandsouthernTurkey.Until recently,it was believed that the Halaforiginatedin northernSyria,but new evidence shows the Halafseems to have evolvedfromlocalized Neolithic cultures,more or less simultaneously,overmuch of its later range.

The FirstFarmersat 'Oueili Jean-LouisHuot

Page 196

188

The first cities of the ancient worldappearedin lowerMesopotamiaduringthe Uruk period (3500-3200 B.C.E.). Tocomprehendfully how these societies made the transitionfrom a hunting and gatheringlifestyle to an agriculturalone, these sites must be investigated thoroughly.Recentresearchat Tell el-'Oueilihas addeda new perspective.

JemdetNasr:the Site and the Period RogerJ.Matthews

196

The site andchronologicalphaseknownas JemdetNasrwereinitially discoveredin the 1920s. Subsequentexcavationsin Mesopotamiafailedto turnup additionalevidencefor the period, and its validity as a chronologicalphase came into doubt.A recent programof researchinto JemdetNasr, however,has confirmedand furtherdefinedthe chronologicalphase.

RoyalBuildingActivity At SumerianLagashin the EarlyDynastic Period 206 Donald P Hansen

The EarlyDynastic periodof Sumerianhistory,from about 2900 to 2340 B.C.E.,was the age in southernMesopotamiaof the early city-states.In recentyears,large-scaleexcavationsat the site of al-Hiba,the ancient city of Lagash,in southeasternIraqhaveaddedto our knowledge of both the EarlyDynastic I phase as well as the historic periodof EarlyDynastic IIIB.

Mashkan-shapirand the Anatomy of an Old BabylonianCity Elizabeth C. Stone and Paul Zimansky

212

West of Edin:Tell al-Deylam and the BabylonianCity of Dilbat JamesA. Armstrong

219

UC Berkeley'sExcavationsat Nineveh David Stronach and Stephen Lumsden

227

Fromthe Editor'sDesk Letterto the Readers the Authors Introducing

170 174 172

Book Reviews In Memoriam:

234 236

The earliest textual referencesto Mashkan-shapirdepict a town with humble origins. Duringthe first quarterof the second millennium B.C.E.,however,Mashkan-shapirbecame one of the most prominentcities in Mesopotamiabecauseof its location at the northernmost point where the systems of the Tigris and Euphratesriversconvergedsufficiently to permit navigationbetween them.

Page 227

Tell al-Deylamhas been identifiedwith the ancient city of Dilbat since the late nineteenth century when Dilbat tabletswere discoveredthere.However,because of the mannerin which the tablets were found,there havebeen persistentquestions aboutthe modernname and the location of the ruins of ancient Dilbat. Recentexcavationsat the site confirm that Tell al-Deylamis the site of the ancient Babyloniancity of Dilbat.

The city of Nineveh was the dazzlingcapitalof the far-flungNeo-Assyrianempirebeforeit was defeatedby a combined forceof Medesand Babyloniansin 612 B.C.E.The ruins of the ancient city arenow threatenedby the rapidgrowthof the moderncity of Mosul, which has shapedall of the recent excavationsat the site, includingthose held by the Universityof California,Berkeley,between 1987and 1990.

Douglas

Esse

Back cover: Ur: E-Hursag in foreground, Ziggurat in background. Front cover: Ur Ziggurat with bomb crater from the Gulf war in the foreground. Photos courtesy Paul Zimansky.

From

AsI

the

Editor

s

Desk

completemytenthyearaseditorofBiblicalArchae-

ologist with this issue, I find it somewhat surprising that of all the issues in the field, the last severalyears have seen the returnof the Dead Sea Scrolls to center stage after some 40 years.If ever there was a story to enjoy such a second round of attention, I would not have expected it to be this. But perhapsthat is because it is not so much the retelling of the story of their discovery and decipherment that is being done, but ratherthat along with the retelling has come a media circus the likes of which has neverbeforeoccurredin the fields of biblical and archaeologicalstudies. Cartoons have noted that the Scrolls contain the best chocolate chip cookie recipe, that Elvis' remains have been spotted in the tombs at Qumran, and that politicians should seek solutions to the Middle Eastpeace negotiations in some of the texts. Calls foropen access to hard-to-readphotographshave given way now to a discussion of how to publish them. Accusations of an historical or theological coveruphave faded somewhat into the backgroundas the print and broadcast media finally get hold of the facts from qualified scholars.Rationality is being restoredagain, and ASOR and the Society of Biblical Literatureareplanning to adoptformal measures regardingthe issues of publication and pre-publicationaccess to written and non-written artifacts. No quarterlymagazinethat seeks to reflect the broadinput of its society's membershipcan adequatelykeep pace with such news-making events. Nonetheless, BA has from time to time been able to join the discussion in timely and constructive ways. Should the magazine ever move towarda bi-monthly format, and I believe it should, it might be possible to reportnew discoveries shortly after excavation. Meanwhile, there have been numerous other significant changes in the field that BA reportsand ASORseeks to represent.Many of them are still in an early stage of development, others are more or less behind

170

Biblical Archaeologist, December 1992

us. One significant new field enjoying a kind of renaissance is Islamic archaeology,another is Cultural Resource Management (CRM). WhenI becameeditor,the debateoverthe natureof "biblical archaeology"hadalreadybeen proclaimeddead.My predecessor, David Noel Freedman,opined that the controversy"had not provedparticularlyuseful or productive"(1982:195).He called for the scientific prosecution of each discipline: archaeological research and biblical studies. He hoped that the interests of each discipline could serve to clarifyor resolveproblems in the other. However, he correctly observed that there were few people qualified in both disciplines; 10 years later, I must concur in that judgment. And while others have called for a dialogue between the two (Dever 1985), how many fruitful exchanges there have been in the field is open to debate. Certainly there have been many attempts. Just recently Hershel Shanks (1992), editor of Biblical Archaeology Review, also lamented the dearthof people "who can handle, deal with and understandfrom the inside the materials of both disciplines."The late Nahman Avigad,in a rather reflective mood at his home in the summer of 1990, told me and my wife, Carol, and FrankCross and his wife, Betty Ann, that he feared the new generation of archaeologists would be unable to interpret adequately the material they uncover because of their over-specializationin technical skills and lack of preparationin historical and textual matters (E.Meyers 1992). Where there has been an attempt to broadenthe intellectual horizons of biblical archaeology to include, for example, the quest to reconstruct the social world of antiquity (Meyers and Meyers 1989),or where the intersection of biblical studies and archaeologyhas been effectively achieved,however,many new insights have been gained and new vistas explored. As all readersof BA know, the purview of ASOR has been growingformanyyears.The establishmentof the CyprusAmerican ArchaeologicalResearchInstitute on Cyprusmore than 20 years ago signaled the society's desire to bridgethe intellectual divide that separates Athens from Jerusalem, Istanbul from Amman. Todaythere is talk in variousquartersin supportof the establishment of an overseasresearchcenter in Syria,part and parcelof a largerintellectual concern of looking at the entire region of the eastern Mediterraneanas a whole across modern political boundaries, of making interconnections within cultural and chronologicalepochs in orderto betterunderstandthe full impact of archaeologicaldataalreadyin hand in most of the MiddleEastcountriesin which Americansworkor haveworked (Egypt,Israel,Cyprus,Jordan,Syria,Lebanon,Iraq,Thrkey,Iran). To make note of these largerconcerns, after much discussion and a poll of the editorial committee of BA and of many ASOR members, a new subtitle was recently added to the magazine: "Perspectiveson the Ancient Worldfrom Mesopotamia to the Mediterranean."But the addition of this subtitle is a mere

attempt to hold together an emerging constituency whose interests are broadeningbeyond the range of coveragenormally associated with biblical archaeology or even Syro-Palestinian archaeology. Despite Albright's all-inclusive understanding of the meaning of biblical archaeology,notwithstanding and despite the valiant efforts of his most eloquent defender of that term (Cross 1973:20), the fact remains that in 1992, there are fewer than ever qualified individuals who can straddlethe two difficult and continually maturing disciplines of SyroPalestinian archaeology and biblical studies; and for those scholars concerned with differentparts of the Near East, biblical studies on the literary-textualside simply may have little relevance. In additionto the issue of broadeningbiblical archaeology's cultural perspective, there is another challenge facing ASOR and the magazine and journals that describe and reportthe research activities of the overseas centers and membership.The challenge is CRM and many of the activities associated with it. CRM extends the chronological rangeof archaeologyfrom the more distant past into the recent past with its emphasis on restoration of archaeologicalremains of all periods for use in the present. Establishmentof local museums, construction of tourist facilities, reconstructionof archaeologicalremains,preparation of access roads to out-of-the-waysites are as much part of CRM as is the development of a national interest in local history and culture and also an international appreciationof that culture. CRM is becoming a distinctive way in which developing nations present their national heritage and identity to the outside world of tourists, scholars and other interested visitors and observers. How individual countries engage the past in defining their' present should, in my view, become one of the central issues in any sort of archaeology today, however it may be defined, wherever it is practiced, and whatever it is to be called. This magazine and other ASOR publications should thus be prepared to address such fields as "historical"or Islamic archaeology as this century drawsto a conclusion, andto publicize and describe and criticize, where appropriate,the progressof CRM in the various countries of the Middle East. Similarly, as ASOR'snew section on archaeology in the public schools gets off the ground, it would be good to have another, written forum in which ideas on teaching Near Eastern archaeology in the context of courses in "WorldHistory" would be aired.WhetherBA will be an appropriatemedium for such exchange, I leave to my successors to decide. The point I would like to make is that while the debateover "biblicalarchaeology"may be a thing of the past, the phenomenon of "biblical archaeology"may prevent people working in variousdisciplines and in variousareasof Near Easternculture and archaeology from adequately sharing their views with a largeraudience, who I believe would be most eagerto learn and

hear from scholars with differentperspectiveson similar problems and who hold differentviews on the same historical periods. So, forexample, why should the people working in Syriaor Thrkey not be sharing their research with those working in Israel or Jordan?Is the very nomenclature of biblical archaeology not somewhat limiting in the broaderNear Easterncontext, putting political considerations aside? In this connection, OxfordUniversity Pressandthe editors of ASOR'sencyclopedia have decided to rename their project "Encyclopediaof Near EasternArchaeology,"previously called "Encyclopediaof Archaeologyin the BiblicalWorld."Hopefully in the new formatsome of those largerconcerns of the field may be brought to bear on the specific problems that confront the "oldarchaeology"as it is practiced in various countries of the region, encouragingscholars to view a problemin the smallest context or in a particularcountry of a particularsub-regionof the Middle East. It is perhapsindicative of the times that I end my term as editor with a special issue focusing on the archaeology of Iraq. During the past decade, many individuals have helped me make BA into the magazine it is today.Those people justly deserve much of the credit for the numerous publishing awards BA has received during that time. Their names appearin our masthead, and I express to them my sincerest gratitude.Todd McGee, Senior Editor,has been extraordinarilyhelpful during this most recent periodof transition. I would also like to thank those who servedon the editorial committee through the past decade for their assistance and to express my appreciationto all the outside readersfor the time they contributed to "peer review."My editorship has been even more gratifying than I expected, and observing the many changes in the field via the hundredsof articles submitted has been a true learning experience. I wish my successor in this position, David Hopkins, every success.

Bibliography Cross, F.M. 1973 W.E Albright'sView of Biblical Archaeologyand its Methodology.Biblical Archaeologist 36: 2-5. Dever,W.G. 1985 Syro-PalestinianArchaeology and Biblical Archaeology.Pp. 31-74 in The Hebrew Bible and Its Interpreters,edited by D. A. Knightand G. M. Thcker.Chico: ScholarsPress. Freedman,D. N. 1982 Letterto the readers.Biblical Archaeologist 45: 195-96. Meyers,C., and Meyers,E. 1989 Expandingthe Frontiersof BiblicalArchaeology.EretzIsrael20: 140-47. Meyers,E. 1992 Nahman Avigad (1905-1992). Proceedings of the American Academy forlewish Research,volume 58. Shanks,H. 1992 The Dangers of Dividing Disciplines. Biblical Archaeology Review 18 (5):64.

Eric M. Meyers Editor-in-Chief

Biblical Archaeologist, December 1992

171

JamesA. Armstrong

the Authors Introducing

Elizabeth C. Stone Stuart Campbell

RogerMatthews

Donald P Hansen

Stephen Lumsden

Jean-LouisHuot

StuartCampbell completed his first degreeat the University of Edinburgh in 1984, studying the Halaf pottery from the site of KharabehShattani as his master'sthesis. Since then he has workedextensively on both excavating and survey in northern Iraq and in other Near Eastern countries. He is now finishing his Ph.D. on the Hassuna and Halaf periods in north Mesopotamia, again at Edinburgh, while working as a free-lance archaeologist and computer typesetter. Donald P. Hansen, Stephen Chan Professor of Ancient Middle EasternArt and Archaeology of the Institute of Fine Arts of New YorkUniversity, has excavatedwidely in various countries of the Near East including Turkey, Iran,Egyptand Iraq.In Iraqhe has directedexcavationsat TellAbu Salabikhforthe OrientalInstitute of the University of Chicago and is currently director of the Institute of Fine Arts-MetropolitanMuseum of Art Expedition to al-Hiba (ancient Lagash).

Although he has also dug in Italy, Tunisia and Jordan, JamesA. Armstronghas workedmostly in Iraq,where for many yearshe has been a member of the team excavating Nippur on behalf of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago. As a Fulbright scholar in Iraq during 1989-90,he directed the first modern excavations at Tell al-Deylam, ancient Dilbat. Dr. Armstrong is a research associate at the Oriental Institute, where he is also a lecturer in Syro-PalestinianArchaeology.

172

Biblical Archaeologist, December 1992

Jean-LouisHuot is Professor of Middle Eastern Archaeology at the Sorbonne(Universitede ParisI).He is Director of the Delegation Archeologique Francaisen Iraqand of the excavations at Larsaand 'Oueili. He has written several books dealing with the archaeology of Turkey, Iran and Iraq. Formerly Director of the Institut d'Art et d'Archeologie in Paris, he is currently Director of the Ecole Doctorale d'Archeologie (GraduateSchool of Archaeology).

Watkins 7Trevor

PaulZimansky David Stronach

Stephen Lumsden received his Ph.D. in Near Eastern Archaeology at the University of California,Berkeley,in 1990. He is the ASORMesopotamian Fellow for 1992-93, in which capacity he is continuing his studies of Nineveh. He is currently teaching in the departments of Near EasternArchaeology and of the History of Art at Bilkent University in Ankara,Turkey. RogerMatthews is Director of the British Archaeological Expedition to Iraq.He receivedhis B.A. from the University of Manchester before taking an M. Phil. and Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge.His involvement on many Near Eastern projects includes Field Director at the Sumeriancity of Abu Salabikh,andhe directs his own field project at JemdetNasr in central-southernIraq.He has lived in Iraqfor several years and has a particularinterest in the early development of writing, seals and administration, as well as in late prehistoric ceramics of Mesopotamia. ElizabethC. Stone receivedher Ph.D. fromthe University of Chicago in 1979. In addition to extensive field experience in England, Germany, Iran, Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria, she has directed the archaeological project at Tell Abu Duwari (ancient Mashkan-shapir),Iraq,and assisted in the excavations at Tell Hamide, Iraq. She has been teaching in the Anthropology Department of the State University of New Yorkat Stony Brook since 1977.

David Stronach read Archaeology and Anthropology at CambridgeUniversity before holding Fellowships at the BritishInstitute of Archaeologyat Ankaraand the British School of Archaeology in Iraq.In 1960 he directedthe excavations at Ras al Amiya and in 1961 he was asked to direct the newly founded British Institute of Persian Studies. While in Iran he excavated at Pasargadaeand Tepe Nush-i Jan.He has been Professor of Near Eastern Archaeology at the University of California, Berkeley, since 1981. TrevorWatkinsteaches Near Easternprehistoryand protohistory at the University of Edinburghin Scotland, and has carriedout field research in Cyprus, northeast Syria and north Iraq. For four years he collaborated with the British ArchaeologicalExpeditionto Iraqon salvageexcavations in the TigrisRivervalley,workingon sites with occupations rangingfrombefore5000 B.C.E.to about 500 c.E. In 1990 he completed the third season of salvage excavation at a badly damagedearly prehistoric site at Tel Afar. Paul Zimansky receivedhis Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 1980 and was a FulbrightLecturerat the University of Aleppo in 1981-82.Since 1983 he has taught in the Department of Archaeology at Boston University where he is an Associate Professor.He has excavatedat Nippur (Iraq),Bastam (Iran)and Ain Dara (Syria).Most recently he has directed excavations at Tell Hamide in northern Iraq and served as codirector of the Tell Abu Duwari Project.He is the editor of MarSipri,the newsletter of ASOR'scommittee on MesopotamianCivilization. Biblical Archaeologist, December 1992

173

Letter

to

the

Readers

t is not withoutironythat the GulfWarfocusedpopular

attention on the land of ancient Mesopotamia and its contributions to human history at precisely the moment when scientific recoveryof its heritage, which had been quietly progressingfor decades,was precipitously interrupted. Sites havebeen bombed,museums looted, archaeologicalfieldwork halted, conservation efforts suspended and plundered artifacts funneled into the illicit antiquities markets. The moderninhabitantsof Iraq,who takegreatpridein their descent from the creators of the world'sfirst civilization, now suffer under conditions that compel them to devotetheir energies and resourcesto solving basic problemsof daily survivalratherthan explorationof the past. Yetthe Mesopotamianlegacyis unquestionablyprecious,andthe attentionthat political eventsbrought to Iraqdid much to highlight how little of what the specialists were doing was known to a wider public. If the stimulus forproducing a special issue of Biblical Archaeologist on this theme was unfortunate,the need for one is indisputable. Ancient Mesopotamia is best known as the home of the first greaturbancivilization, which came into existence in the southern floodplain during the fourth millennium B.C.E.Not only did humankind's first cities appearhere, but associated with them are a host of social and technical achievements that were to profoundlyimpact all subsequent societies in the Old World,and eventually the New; the wheel, writing, armies, law codes, astronomyand astrology,all make their first appearance in southern Iraq.A glimmer of the spiritual and intellectual creations of this civilization can be seen shining through the biblical versions of such stories as the Flood, the plight of the righteous sufferer,andthe discoveryof an infant leaderafloaton a river,not to mention more direct transmissions, such as the Epic of Gilgamesh. There is much more in Iraq'spast, however.Neanderthals and some of the occupied cavesin northernIraqby 70,000 B.C.E., most importantrecent discoveriesconcern the earliest agriculturalists who lived in the foothills andon the banksof the Tigris In historical from the eighth through the sixth millennia B.C.E. periods, Iraqwas a place in which many ethnic groupsand language families coexisted, and there was experimentationwith numerousformsof governmentandmechanisms for mobilizing social power. It was an important part of the Persian Empire, and Alexander the Great died in Babylon. In the time of the Romansand the Parthiansit was the frontierbetween East and West. After the Arabconquests, it became the most important center of powerin the world under the Abassid Califs. The articles in this issue coveronly the middle rangeof this extended sequence- fromthe early agriculturalsocieties in the areato Mesopotamia'searliestcivilizations.The last two decades havewitnessed a tremendousgrowthin ourknowledgeof these, due partly to the intense researchspawned by various salvage projectsin areasthreatenedby construction and other development projects, and partly by the increasing sophistication of modernarchaeology.All the authorsin this issue were conducting excavations in Iraqon the eve of the gulf war, and all have used this forcedrespite from fieldworkto take stock of our current understanding.

The issue begins with TrevorWatkins'sreview of the exciting new finds made in northern Iraqon very early agricultural and preagriculturalvillages. These sites have strong ties with similar developments known from the Levant,indicating that the move towards an agricultural economy took place over a much wider geographicalareathan previously assumed. Stuart Campbellthen offersnew insights on the Halaf,one of the more enigmatic of the Neolithic cultures of northernIraq,and shows the economic relationsbetween sites to havebeen characterized by an unsuspected complexity. Jean-LouisHuot'scontribution, concerned with his work at Tell el-'Oueili and the earliest inhabitation of the southern Mesopotamian plain, summarizes what is probably the most dramatic recent discovery in the south: Ubaid 0 and the light it sheds on continuity and integration between developments in southern Iraqand the neolithic sequence in the north. These articles demonstratehow modern researchis allowing the identification and analysis of the various strands of development that led, eventually, to what we know as Mesopotamiancivilization. Most of the other articles detail aspects of the first two millennia of urbanism. Roger Matthews, director of the British ArchaeologicalExpeditionin Iraq,returnsto the site of Jemdet Nasr to reevaluatethis importantearly urbansite and its role in the developmentof Mesopotamianculture. This is followed by Donald Hansen's discussion of his work at al-Hiba, ancient Lagash,a key site for understandingthe EarlyDynastic period and the florescence of Mesopotamia'scity-states. Our own discussion deals with a society dating a millennium later, and applies survey techniques to generate a preliminary understanding of the overall organization and structure of the city of Mashkan-shapir.The dark age that followed the demise of Mashkan-shapirand most of the other cities of southern Mesopotamia in the second quarterof the second millennium provides the context forJamesArmstrong'sworkat Deylam (ancient Dilbat). Here, in the northwest region of the southern floodplain, he sought a site that had not sufferedthe fate of those in the south, and where this enigmatic period in Mesopotamian history might be elucidated. This period of relative obscurity did not last forever,and in the first millennium Mesopotamia returnedto the worldscene with the largeempires of Babylonia and Assyria. Weend this volume, appropriately,with an article by David Stronachand Stephen Lumsdenon their recent work at Nineveh, perhaps the most famous of all Mesopotamian archaeological sites. Their work has shed new light on the organizationof this, the largestarchaeologicalsite in the Near East, and on its final defeat and destruction. The findings reported in this issue would not have been possible without the encouragement and cooperation of the Iraqi Department of Antiquities and Heritage, and especially the Director-Generalof Antiquities, Dr. Mu'ayadSaidDamerji. We all owe a special debt of gratitude to the generosity and professionalism of our colleagues in the department and the IraqMuseum, and to the hospitality of the Iraqipeople with whom we lived and worked. Guest CoordinatingEditors

ElizabethC. Stone and Paul Zimansky

174

Biblical Archaeologist, December 1992

Southern Mesopotamia

IraqChronological Chart

Traditional Period

Designations Politics Parthian

Developments

People

Northern Mesopotamia

Traditional Period Approx. dates Designations Politics B.CE.

Developments People

250 Seleucid

Death of Alexander

Persian

into Incorporated Persian empire

Heroditus's ofBabylon description

Neo-Babylonian empire Regional influence Assyrian Various dynastiesDark age

Kassite

500 Fall ofNineveh Neo-Assyrian Neo-Assyrian empire Massive stone 750 architecture

1250 Middle Assyrian Assyrian Middle empire Nuzi 1500

Mittannian ofNuzi empire Floruit

of Abandonment sites southern OldBabylonian Babylonian Samsuiluna hegemony CodeofHammurabi Hammurabi Rim-Sin 1750 OldAssyrian Larsa hegemony Sin-iddinam oversouth Isin-Larsa IsinandLarsa RiseofAmorite forcontrol dynasties compete Zabaya 2000 UrIII Ur-Nammu Peakofadministrative Empire bureaucracy Gutian Gudea Interregnum Collapse 2250 Akkadian Akkadian becomes Naram-Sin Empire written language Sargon III Early Dynastic II City-states

Nasr Jemdet

burials atUr 2500 Royal V Walled Eannatum Ninevite cities, palaces, city atexpense 2750 growth ofcountryside Gilgamesh? 3000 ofcuneiform, Origins riseof writing, andother Uruk cities

Uruk

Ubaid 2

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Small centers

at Temples Gawra Tepe

Halaf

instone Trade toolsandpottery

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1

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Northern 'Ubaid 4000 Farming villages

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Uruk expansion uptheEuphrates

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Kassite dominance Kassite rebuilding ofsouthern cities

I Assurbanipal Sennacherib

Samarran First known settlement atTell el-'Oueili

Hassunan

Walled settlements, andseals irrigation Ceramics

6000 distance trade Long inobsidian 7000 Neolithic Aceramic

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Biblical Archaeologist, December 1992

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series ofchance discover-Sites of epi-palaeolithicand early neolithic date in IraqiNorth Mesopotamia.M'lefaat, ies and salvageexcavations has extended our knowledge of north Mesopotamian prehistoryby almost 2,000 years.The sites all belong to the early neolithic period between 8000 and

mentioned in the text but not shown here, lies about 50 kilometers east of Mosul, on the road to Erbiland the mountain country.

The surface of Tell Maghzaliyeh was littered with obsidian blades and tools but there was no trace of 6000 B.C.E.(uncalibrated radiocarbon pottery.The USSR team enlargedthe age) and constitute the raw material scope of their researchprogramin the for a cultural sequence to parallel early 1970s to include the excavation the Levantinesequence and that of Tell Maghzaliyeh,which provedto from the Zagros region of northeast be a deeply stratifiedvillage site beIraqand western Iran. The new Iraqi longing to the early (aceramic)neolithic period (Bader1989).The site sequence has producedintriguing information on the processes of was beautifully situated on a bluff in that the culminated wide change overlooking a perennial stream that establishment of villages based on rises as springs in the limestone hills mixed farming,new insights on the and soon loses itself in the alluvium of the plain among the later tells "Neolithic Revolution." The first archaeologists to reach where the USSR team had been digback beyond the 6000 B.C.E.barrier ging previously. in Iraq,outside the Zagros Mountain Fora number of years Tell were a team the former from zone, Maghzaliyeh remained an isolated USSR working on the fertile plain phenomenon. It was separatedfrom south of the JebelSinjarhills, about the later, pottery neolithic cultures, to which it showed no resemblance 60 kilometers west of Mosul. Their at all, and was equally unlike any main interest was in the classic vilother aceramic neolithic site known cultures of the sixth and fifth lage millennia B.C.E.,which are renowned either in the Levantinewest or the for their sophisticated, painted potpiedmont and mountain valleys to the east. Toa considerableextent Tell tery. But they also found a single small tell site, Tell Maghzaliyeh, in Maghzaliyeh still poses insoluble the JebelSinjarfoothills just a few problems of isolation from the culkilometers north of their main area tural recordthat is now becoming of work that did not fit into any availablefrom nearbysites of comknown cultural category. parableage.

176

Biblical Archaeologist, December 1992

In the late 1980s the final palaeolithic and the early neolithic periods suddenly began to spring to the fore on several salvage excavations.The discovery and investigation of early neolithic sites in northernIraqcan be related quite simply to the large number of international teams involved in the Eski Mosul Dam project. Earlyoccupations were found on sites that showed no evidence of such occupation on the surface, and there were even a few archaeologists who set out to locate prehistoric examples among the many later sites. Only a relatively small number of early prehistoric sites were identified in this process, due partly to the difficulty of locating sites that never grew to form conspicuous tells, and partly to the very small number of people who actually went looking for them. The Japaneseteam working at a tell called Der Hall in the Tigris valley found the earliest of the new sites in northern Iraq(Fujii 1986).At the base of the tell, under the next oldest occupation, which dates to the early fifth millennium B.C.E., they found a thin stratumthat contained only flint tools. The chipped stone assemblage

can readily be recognized as similar to the late epi-palaeolithic Natufian industry of the southern Levant (Ohnuma and Matsumoto 1988).It is a very small-scale industry whose characteristicpieces are microlithic tools, tiny elements of composite tools formed from segments of very small blades. Among the microlithic elements were noted the absolutely typical lunates known to date from the last couple of millennia before 8000 B.C.E. from the Nile valley, through the southern Levantand up to the Euphratesvalley east of Aleppo. With these data we now see that the rangeof this late epi-palaeolithic complex extends far to the east of the Euphrates. Two early neolithic settlement sites, Nemrik and Qermez Dere, were excavatedin the late 1980s. ProfessorStefanKozlowskiof Warsaw University directed the excavations at Nemrik, while I directed those at Qermez Dere. A third site, Ginnig, was briefly explored in a single, short season as part of TonyWilkinson's North JezirahProject.The Polish team had just transferredtheir interest to a fourth site, M'lefaat,when work stopped in 1990. Qermez Dere. Qermez Dere lay on the outskirts of Tel Afar,whose rapid expansion has practically destroyed the site. The early prehistoric village site was perchedon the southern side of the JebelSinjar,a line of limestone hills that divides the Jezirah(the north Mesopotamian plain) into a rolling, rain-fednorthern part and a flat southern strip fed by springs and runoff from the hills (Watkins and Baird 1987; Watkins 1990; Watkins, Baird and Betts 1990; Watkins, Betts, Dobney and Nesbitt 1991). The narrow strip of green land south of the hills was densely occupied from pottery neolithic times through the proto-historic and ancient historic periods and remained an important corridor in Roman and early Islamic times. The plain is littered with tells large and small, but the hill country has always been archaeologically

A

B

C

Neolithic projectilepoints from TellMureybet, North Syria.At the beginning of the Neolithic period, both in North Mesopotamia and the Mediterraneancoastlands,elaborately stylized projectilepoints were introduced. Projectilepoints from TellMureybeton the Euphratesin North Syria typify the Levantine series. Theynow find strong echoes among the new Iraqi sites, although 400 kilometers separate the two areas. A: The earliest type to come into fashion throughoutthis huge territory was the Khiampoint, recognizable by its opposed notches, the basal concavity and the workingof the point on the undersideof the flint (fromMureybetIb, immediately after the epi-palaeolithicphase Ia). B: Longerand heavier points are characteristicof the later stages in the projectilepoint series (this one is from MureybetIII).C. A small projectile point, combining features of the Khiampoint with a pronouncedshoulder and tang (from MureybetII).(Redrawnfrom Cauvin 1977: figure 17).

unexplored, supposedly empty or retarded. The settlement of Qermez Dere was small, only about 100-by60-meters in overall extent (about 0.5 hectares).When it was first established, circular,semisubterraneanchambers, faced with mud plaster,were cut into the subsoil in the northern part of the site to serve as houses. The debris of construction and the rubbish from everydaylife were discardedto the south, where they rapidly accumulated into a substantial and extensive hump. At a certain stage in the life of the settlement the occupants transformedits layout and functioning. They moved the sites of their houses to the southern part of the site, and dug sub-circularor subrectangularchambers into the accumulated midden deposits. The northern part of the site, which had been the areafor domestic occupation, now housed a series of roughly built, circular stone structures whose purpose remains ambiguous. The tools and equipment

Neolithic projectilepoints from North Iraqi sites. At the beginningand end of the sequence there are close parallels between North Iraq and the Levant,seen in the Khiampoints from Qermez Dere (A)and the Byblos and other points from TellMaghzaliyeh(D).A: Khiam points (left and right)resemble those from TellMureybetand the Levantin everydetail, including size. Appearingonly at the end of the life of the site, the Nemrik point (middle) relates the site to its Iraqineighbors.B: By far the most common type of projectilepoint at Nemrik is a small, lozenge-shapedpiece, now called the Nemrik point. The retouchingof the point on the butt was characteristically carriedout on the underside(afterKozlowski and Szymczak 1990).C: The projectilepoints at Ginnig are exactly similar to those found at Nemrik and point back in date towardsthe early aceramic neolithic period. Other elements in the flint industry,and the presence in the surface levels of verysimple pottery, point to the end of the aceramic neolithic (after Campbell and Baird 1990:figure4). D: Most of the chipped stone material in use at TellMaghzaliyeh was obsidian, a black volcanic glass obtained in huge quantities fromeastern Turkey.The largersize of the projectilepoints, and particularly the long, leaf-like shape with a carefullyformed tang or butt of the second point, are echoes in the Mediterraneanlands in the seventh millennium B.C.E. (after Bader 1989: plate 27).

D

abandonedin the accumulating archaeological deposit in the northern area contained a higher ratio of flint tools relative to flint-knappingdebris and by far the greaterproportion of the ground stone tools found on the site. It would appearthat the northern part of the site became used for

Biblical Archaeologist, December 1992

177

specialized food processing and other domestic activities. The intensity of domestic activity in the northernarea contrastswith the absence of processing equipment and food and other debris from the houses themselves in the southern half of the site. The surviving material culture of the community consisted almost entirely of chipped stone tools and groundstone equipment for food processing. While we wait for radiocarbondates, our best indication of The following drawings show the history of a house duringits variousstages at Qermez Dere.A: The original subterraneanchamber was fitted with two pairs of plastered clay stelae. 7Two of them were found as they had been broken,thrown down and buried when the chamber was abandoned and filled in. The other two were lost when later chambers were dug on the same site. B: A new chamber was excavated to replace the first. It was fitted with a pair of pillars that flanked a rough slab of stone set on edge in the plaster floor. Wherethe cavity for the new chamber was cut into the fill of the earlierone, its "wall" was reinforcedwith stone slabs set on edge. C: A third chamber replaced the second. It, too, had a pair of plastered clay pillars. It also preservedin a niche in its wall the focal slab of rockfrom the previouschamber.Theplaster in the niche was stained with redocher D: The third chamber was remodeled.A new pair of pillars was constructednear the center of the room,flanking the small hearth. The previous pair of pillars was removed,but theirpositions were marked by flat stones set in the plaster of the floor. Thenorth end of the chamber was reformed,and the old slab of stone in its niche was abandoned. In one of the new, rounded angles of the chamber an egg-shapedniche or cupboardwas formed. Finally, that niche was abandoned and filled up, and the wall plastered smooth across it.

the age of the site is the resemblance of its flint industry,particularlyits projectile points, to what is called the Khiamian phase in the Levant (Aurenche,Evin and Hours 1987; Bar-Yosef1990).The Khiamian is the transitional phase at the intersection of the epi-palaeolithic and the aceramic neolithic periods, in the two

or threecenturiesbefore8000B.C.E.

The evidence of the flint industry, combined with the stratigraphicobservations, shows that the occupation of Qermez Dere was relatively short, probablyonly a couple of centuries or so. Only a glimpse was obtained of the earliest houses in the northern part of the site -not enough to see the layout of the complete interior. The later houses, in the southern area,were exploredwith great care because of their remarkableconstruction and internal arrangements. Each house consisted of a single subterraneanor semisubterranean chamber.Once the cavity for the chamber had been carefully excavated, its floor and sides were faced with mud and lime plaster.Every surface was curved:the floor was a saucer-likedepression, which met the walls in a smooth curve, and the sides were also curved. No house survived more than 80 centimeters above its floor level. Access was presumablyby means of a ladder,for there was no sign of a doorwayin the wall or a staircase

The most complete of the five human crania found deposited on the floor of the abandoned house at Qermez Dere. The condition of the human bone was quite unlike that of the animal bone in the food waste residues. The human skulls had been kept for a considerable time in conditions which led to considerable erosion and weathering.

leading down to the floor. There was a small hearth at the center of the house, consisting only of a scorched area of plaster.No ashes were found in anyhearth, and no domestic debris was found on any floor. No domestic equipment, for example in the form of querns or mortars,was kept in the house. Each of the four houses that were completely excavatedin the southern areahad pairs of plastered clay pillars set at right angles to the main axis of the chamber.Eachpillar was modeled arounda tall, narrow slab of stone. In cross section, the pillars were rectangularwith round-

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Biblical Archaeologist, December 1992

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ed angles. At the base the pillar met the floor in a smoothly managed curve. The three best preservedpillars had stood about 80 centimeters tall, and terminated in a plain, flat top or some schematic modeling. The cleanliness with which the houses were kept, the care for their maintenance, the strange routines of filling the chamber at abandonment then digging its replacement in nearly the same spot, the equipping of chambers with "non-functional"pillars and, finally, the placing of human crania in the last chamber all point to a new attitude to the house as a focus for symbolic and ritual activity that is not known in the immediately preceding epi-palaeolithic period anywhere in the Near East (Watkins1990). Although the period when Qermez Dere was occupied is formally called "Neolithic,"and the neolithic is normally associated with farming peoples, there is no sign that the occupants were either cultivating plants or herding domesticated animals. The results of our intensive program of screening and flotation indicate that they were harvesting lentils, various pulses and wild cereals, and hunting gazelle, sheep and goat, fox, hare, various birds and a variety of small mammals. Nemrik. Nemrik was found on the edge of a high terraceon the left bank of the Tigris about 60 kilometers northwest of Mosul (see Kozlowski

in the bibliographyfor references). A number of water-coursesdraining the edge of the hill country have cut ravines in the terrace,leaving the terrace edge as a series of deeply serratedpromontories high abovethe Tigris floodplain. The settlement remains were spreadover an area of about 2 hectares, although the Polish archaeologists believe that at any time the number of occupied houses was very small (Kozlowski and Kempisty 1990:352). Nemrik must have one of the longest series of radiocarbondates ever producedfor one site, but they clearly spreadover much too wide a span. Kozlowskibelieves that the site was first occupied in the ninth millennium B.C.E. and continued to be used (with two intervals of abandonment) for about two millennia. This long life span seems to stretch the evidence, since Kozlowski expressly remarkedthat there is no discernible Top:Another of the single-chamber,subterranean houses at QermezDere with its plastere, change in portable material culture (Kozlowskiand Kempisty 1990:352). walls, floor and clay stelae. Above:A close-u of the plastered clay stelae. Theirtops beIt is also difficult to accept a midcame weathered when the house was abanin ninth millennium B.C.E. date the doned and they were exposed for a while beabsence of any epi-palaeolithic traits fore the chamber was deliberately filled witi soil and rubbish. in the chipped stone industry. There is architectural change in the history of the settlement, howand more elaboratelyfitted. At all ever (Kozlowskiand Kempisty 1990: stages except the final one the domes 352-59). From the beginning, houses tic structureswere circular or subwere at least semisubterranean,with circular,but the latest houses are almost rectangularin plan. The foui saucer-shapedfloors and mud-brick walls with plastered faces. With the square settings of posts to support passageof time, houses became larger the roof in the earliest houses are

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Biblical Archaeologist, December 1992

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the specialists have reportedthe presence of some cultivated varieties, at least in the latest contexts. The most remarkableelements in the material culture of Nemrik are the 18 small stone sculptures, ilk' belonging to all stages in the settlement's history. Some of the stylized birds'heads, set on long, cylindrical necks, have been illustrated, but the excavatorsalso reportthe heads of a lion anda snake,plus complete bodies of animals and humans. M'lefaat.In its last two years of work in Iraq,the Polish team began to shift from Nemrik to the site of Mlefaat, found and sounded many years agoby ProfessorRobertBraidwood'steam workingin IraqiKurdistan(Dittemore 1983).The site of M'lefaatlies on the edge of a terrace,where the roadfrom I.: Mosul to Erbilcrosses a fast-flowing river.The building of a replacement road,which was cut down through the terrace,seriously threatened the Twoof the miniature bird sculpturesfrom site, and the Polish team, like the Nemrik. These stylized pieces were made University of Edinburghteam at from fine-grainedstones that originatedas Qermez Dere, were undertakingad river pebbles (after Kozlowski 1990a). hoc salvagework. By 1990 Kozlowski and his colleagues had managedonly most of the settleone season of excavation. replacedthrough ment's history with four massive, There seem to be two phases of columns of comsquare specially occupation at M'lefaat.One phase, which has producedKhiam points, posed, concrete-like material. Some of the later houses were characteristic of the proto-neolithic subterranean. As at Qermez fully period, belongs at the end of the there were no inor ninth millennium B.C.E. The other Dere, doorways ternal stairs, and the implication is phase is presumably somewhat earthat access was by laddersfrom roof/ lier and should be placed late in the ground level. The floors were shaped epi-palaeolithic period. In the 1990 with plasteredplatforms or benches season the Polish team was excavatand fitted with groundstone equip- ing houses belonging to the earlier ment. Kozlowski notes that the por- phase. These were circular structable artifacts and debris showed a tures, built into the side of the natural marked concentration in one half terrace, their walls formed of large, of the chambers. cigar-shaped mud bricks. Polish specialists have recogThe British and Polish teams nized wild animals that include undertook a collaborative exercise in 1990, with the British flotation and temperate and forest species quite different from those found at Qerwet-sieving machine in operation mez Dere. They have also identified for a short period at M'lefaat. The domestic sheep, goat, pig and cattle objective was to produce samples in small numbers in the latest levels of archaeo-botanical and zoological (Kozlowskiand Kempisty 1990:352). material using exactly the same apAs well as gatheredcerealsandpulses, paratus and standards as had been

U

180

Biblical Archaeologist, December 1992

used at Qermez Dere in orderto allow direct comparisons between the two sites. The carbonizedplant remains, which were profuse, have yet to be analyzed and counted, but the preliminary analysis of the animal bones shows a very similar pattern to that at Qermez Dere, with gazelle, sheep and goat, fox, hare and birds (in order of popularity)being staples of the meat diet. At M'lefaat,unlike Qermez Dere and Nemrik, there were also quantities of fish bones. Ginnig. Under the direction of Tony Wilkinson, Assistant Director of the British Archaeological Expedition in Iraq,another British team was undertaking a wide-rangingsurvey of the North Jezirahplain. One of the sites they located was a small surface scatter of unusual pot sherds on a mound only 1 meter abovethe surroundingplain. Stuart Campbell, a researchstudent at EdinburghUniversity, was working in the survey team, concentrating on the neolithic and early chalcolithic sites. Because of the uniqueness of the pottery,Campbell undertook a small-scale exploration of this curious site named Ginnig (Campbell and Baird 1990).The pottery in the surface levels seems to be at the very beginning of the ceramic neolithic sequence, a monotone prototypeversion of the now well-known protoHassuna assemblage. Below these superficial levels with pottery,however, a sounding identified an aceramic neolithic occupation. The flint industry is very much in the tradition of Qermez Dere and M'lefaat, but it also contains particulartypes, especially the clumsily titled sideblow blade flake, that link the industry to the early ceramic neolithic. The wider implications Any map of the Near East indicating the zone where the steps were taken that led to the beginnings of agriculture includes an arc stretching from the Mediterranean zone in Israel, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria, through southeastern Turkey, northeastern

Syria and northern Iraq,to the piedmont and mountain valleys of the Zagros range running down the IraqIranfrontier.The distribution of known archaeological sites within that zone has, however,been very uneven. The new sites in northwest Iraqshow that the blank on the map was false, an accident of fieldwork opportunities ratherthan an absence of sites during those crucial centuries. We now have the makings of a cultural sequence in northern Mesopotamia in Iraqto parallel that of the Zagros valleys - and a richer, potentially more complete one. Stronger cultural echoes are noted to the west, however,in the Natufian and related later epi-palaeolithic cultures of the Levant,the proto-neolithic Khiamian of Tell Mureybetin Syria (Cauvin 1977)and the eighth millennium B.C.E.PPNA cultures as far south

as Jericho. It is too early to see clearly how that new culture sequence can be fitted together. It is possible to think of a cultural sequence articulated in terms of the developing lithic industries into which all the sites except Tell Maghzaliyeh can be accommodated. Tell Maghzaliyeh, which was, until recently, literally isolated, is now culturally isolated from the neighboring sites in all sorts of ways, and it is very hard to see how or where it can be fitted. The most exciting consequence of the discovery of the missing millennia in northern Mesopotamia is the prospect of having a new zone within which to study anew the transition to sedentary village life that took place in the epi-palaeolithic period, and the switch to cultivation and herding that followed in the early neolithic. Until recently the southern Levant, especially the Jordan valley, seemed to have preeminence. Now we can recognize that a practically identical process of cultural evolution took place in precise chronological parallel in northern Iraq. Because of the close cultural parallels, the

1985-1986).Warsaw:Wydawnictwa implication must be that the evoluUniwersytetuWarsawskiego. tion of large, sedentary and complex Kozlowski,S. K. societies based on mixed farming 1990b Nemrik 9, a PPN site in northernIraq. took place simultaneously over a Pp 29-35 in part 2 of Prdhistoiredu very large part of the Near East, a Levantprocessusde changements culturels-Hommages Francis concept in some ways more difficult Hours, edited by O. Aurenche,M. C. to contemplate but more challenging Cauvin and P. Sanlaville.Paris:Edito explore. tions du CNRS.

Bibliography Aurenche,O., Evin, J.,and Hours, E, editors 1987 Chronologiesdu Proche OrientChronologiesof the Near East: relative chronologiesand absolute chronology 16,000-4,000BP Series: British ArchaeologicalReportsInternational, volume 379. Oxford:BAR. Bader,N. O. 1989 Earliest Cultivatorsin Northern Mesopotamia:the investigations of the SovietArchaeologicalExpedition in Iraqat settlements TellMagzaliya, Tell Sotto, Kiltepe. Moscow: Nauka (in Russianwith Englishsummary). Bar-Yosef O. 1990 The PPNA in the Levant- an overview. Pp.57-63 in volume 2 of Prdhistoiredu Levantprocessus de changements culturels- Hommages a FrancisHours,edited by O. Aurenche, M. C. Cauvin and P.Sanlaville. Paris:Editions du CNRS. Campbell, S., and Baird,D. J. 1990 Excavationsat Ginnig: the aceramic to early ceramic neolithic sequence in N. Iraq.Palkorient16 (2):65-78. Cauvin J. 1977 Les fouilles de Mureybet(1971-1974) et leur signification pour les origines de la sedentarisationau ProcheOrient. Annual of the American Schools of Oriental Research44: 19-48. Dittemore, M. 1983 The Soundingsat Mlefaat. Pp.671-92 in PrehistoricArcheologyalong the ZagrosFlanks, edited by L. S. Braidwood, R. J.Braidwood,B.Howe, C. A. Reedand P.J.Watson.Series:Oriental Institute Publications,volume 105. Chicago:University of ChicagoPress. Fujii H. 1986 WorkingReporton FirstSeason of JapaneseArchaeologicalExcavations in SaddamDam SalvageProject.Pp. 33-61 in Researcheson the Antiquities of Saddam Dam Basin Salvage and Other Researches.Baghdad: State Organizationof Antiquities and Heritage. Kozlowski,S. K., editor 1990a Nemrik 9: Pre-PotteryNeolithic Site in Iraq(GeneralReport- Seasons

Kozlowski,S. K., and KempistyA. 1990 Architectureof the pre-potteryneolithic settlement in Nemrik, Iraq. WorldArchaeology21: 348-62. Kozlowski,S. K., and Szymczak, K. 1990 Flint industry from House 1/1A/1Bat the PPN site Nemrik 9, Northern Iraq.Pp.36-46 in part2 of Prdhistoire du Levant:processusde changements culturels- Hommages Francis Hours,edited by O. Aurenche,M. C. Cauvin and P.Sanlaville.Paris:Editions du CNRS. Moore, A. M. T 1975 The excavationof Tell Abu Hureyra in Syria:a preliminaryreport.Proceedings of the PrehistoricSociety 41: 50-77. Ohnuma, K., and Matsumoto,K. 1988 Lithic artifactsfrom Level6 of Tell Der Hall, Eski-Mosul(Iraq):a preliminary report.Al-Rafidan9: 73-89. WatkinsT. 1990 The origins of house and home? WorldArchaeology21:336-47. forth- The beginningof the neolithic: coming searchingfor meaning in material culture change. Palkorient. Watkins,T., and Baird,D. J. 1987 Qermez Dere 1987. Series: Departmentof Archaeology,Project Papernumber 6. Edinburgh:University of Edinburgh. Watkins,T, Baird,D. J.,and Betts, A. V. G. 1990 Qermez Dere and the neolithic of N Iraq.Pp.23-28 in part2 of Prdhistoire du Levant:processusde changements culturels - Hommages a Francis

Hours,edited by O. Aurenche,M. C. Cauvin and P. Sanlaville.Paris:Editions du CNRS. Watkins,T, Betts, A., Dobney,K., and Nesbitt, M. 1991 Qermez Dere, TelAfar:Interim Report No. 2, 1989. Series:Department of Archaeology,Occasional Paper No. 13. Edinburgh:University of Edinburgh. Watkins,T, Baird,D., Betts, A., and Nesbitt, M. forth- Excavationsat Qermez Dere, Tel coming Afar:an early aceramicneolithic site in N Iraq.Sumer.

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heapparent sudden spreadthe Ubaid pottery style, and Mallo-

wan also showed that it came after what would become known as the Hassuna and Samarranpottery styles. In 1933 Mallowan carriedout a Between about B.C.E. and East. 5200 4500 B.C.E.,large numbers of Halaf single season of work at Arpachiyah, communities appearovera very large a site near Nineveh (Mallowanand area of northern Iraq,northern Syria Rose 1935).Although the methods of excavationwere crude (upto 174 and southern Turkey.These settleworkmen were supervised by only ments share a unique material astwo staff),this site was the richest semblage, especially characterized source of informationforunderstandby the distinctive and elaborately decoratedHalaf pottery,named after ing the Halaf period for the next 40 the site in Syriawhere it was first years;indeed in some respects it rediscovered.Most of the vessels from mains so to this day. After this flurry of activity in Halaf sites are decorated,sometimes the with just a simple band aroundthe 1930s, virtually no more Halaf were excavateduntil 1969,when sites rim but often with much more coma Russian team starteda long series of plex designs. Towardsthe end of the excavations at YarimTepein northern in Halaf period,the decorationcan be as many as three different colors. Iraq(Merpertand Munchaev 1987). These excavations provideour best The architecture of the Halaf idea of Halaf village plans, as well as period differs from the periods both before and after as well, when houses some spectacularpottery figurines. were usually composed of rectangu- Since 1970 increasing numbers of Halaf sites have been excavatedin lar rooms in a more or less regular manner. At most Halaf sites the Iraq,Syria and Turkey,and the 1980s saw a virtual explosion in the field. main buildings are round houses, These either domed or with a flat roofprojects,remarkablenot only for the amount of activity but also for misleadingly called tholoi because of number of differentnationalities the mistaken parallels with later Greek were stimulated by the tombs. Rectangulararchitecture is involved, of construction new dam and irrigausually used in secondarybuildings tion projects and the ensuing need alone. Both the broaddistribution and the unique characteristics of the for-and funding of- rescue archaearchitectureand pottery are also seen ology. Sites such as Tell Hassan in in the rest of the artifactualassemIraqand Cavi Tarlasiin Turkey,excavated by Italian and German teams blage, especially in such items as respectively,haveextendedthe known figurines and seals. rangeof the Halaf even farther.Although important work has been carriedout in recent years in both The Discovery of the Halaf in Halaf pottery was first recognized Syria and Turkey,I will focus on the Syria in the early twentieth century. work in northern Iraq. of the Halaf is one of the most striking features of the prehistoryof the Near

Halaf

The

Period

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Old

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Chronologyof the late Neolithic in north Iraq.

Ubaid

B.C.E. 4500 Late

Halaf 4800

B.C.E.

Early Halaf 5200 B.C.E.

Hassuna/ Samarra 5500

B.C.E.

Proto-Hassuna

B.C.E. 5900 182

However, its chronological position was not established, nor was much known about it besides the attributes of individual sherds, until the 1930s, when excavations showed that the Halaf was not confined to Syria, but could also be found in northern Iraq. American excavations at Tepe Gawra and Max Mallowan's deep sounding on the main mound at Nineveh in 1932 demonstrated that it preceded

Biblical Archaeologist, December 1992

Origins of the Halaf The combination of widespread distribution and apparent sudden appearance has tended to focus attention on the unique aspects of the Halaf, with particular emphasis on its origins. Suggestions have ranged widely, some deriving it from an invading population from Turkey and

others seeing it as an indigenous development in several different locations. The first clear evidence for the origin of Halafpottery,in the form of a transition from the preceding Hassuna period to the Halaf, was revealed in the late 1980s by a Dutch team excavatingat Tell Sabi Abyadin the Syrian Balikh valley (Akkermans 1989).There, distinctive Halafpottery could be seen developing slowly out of an indigenous pottery tradition. At first sight, this suggested that the Halaf originated in northern Syria. More recently, however,this transitional pottery type has also been foundin northernIraq.TonyWilkinson's survey located two sites KhirbetGarsourand NJP 72-in the extreme northwest of Iraqthat are of particular importance (Wilkinson 1990).KhirbetGarsour,which I briefly excavated,yielded pottery dating to the very end of the Hassuna periodwith clear signs of the developing Halaf style. The outstanding feature of the site is a well-the earliest waterhole so fardiscoveredanywhere in the world. NJP 72 had been damagedby a bulldozer cut that revealed large quantities of pottery.This pottery is remarkablysimilar to that from the Syrian site, Tell Sabi Abyad, and can be seen as a slightly later development of the pottery from KhirbetGarsour. Although these discoveries strengthen the view that the Halaf was an integral,ratherthan intrusive, part of the cultural sequence, they also raise new issues. In particular, the identification of these transi-

Bingol *

* Nmu Girikihaciyan Nemrut

Dg Dag

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Tdll Aqab SabiAbyad Umm Qseir Shams ed-Din

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ebel

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IRAQ

KhirbetGarsour NJP72 pe KharabehShattani Gawra Eski Mosul * A* Arpachiyah Mosul Nineveh

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ineeh

Tepe Distribution of Halaf sites with a detailed map of the Mosul area. No attempt is intended to include all Halaf sites, only to indicate the generaldistribution and some of the more significant recent excavations.

tional wares suggests that the spread of a single cultural tradition over Wellat KhirbetGarsourunder excavation in the side of an irrigationcanal. Most of the upper much of the northern portion of the part has been destroyed by the canal in which it was revealed. This is the earliest well so far Near East can no longer be dated to a discoveredanywhere in the world. The development of such artificial water holes may have time late in the Halaf, perhaps about been a key element in the spreadof settlements in north Iraq. 4700 B.C.E.,but must be placed much earlier, at the end of the Hassuna, events in cultural evolution: the bearound 5200 B.C.E.The Halaf seems Northern Iraqin the Late Halaf: New Perspectiveson Social and to have evolved from localized Neoginnings of agricultureand the apEconomic Developments lithic cultures, more or less simultapearanceof cities. As both these transitions are now seen more as of the reasons for One of later over much its range, particular neously, extended developments ratherthan in that it the Halaf is lies interest its to isolate negating any attempt the between traditional key as single events, it is tempting to origins. midway

Biblical Archaeologist, December 1992

183

look at the intervening period to see whether society was stagnant at that time or if significant developments bridgedthe gap between the events. Recent researchon the Halaf has also included reevaluations of previously excavatedsites and, in particular,the material excavatedby Mallowan in 1933 at Arpachiyah. This can be used to investigate the complexity of Halaf social organization, especially for the latter part of the Halaf period, and to providenew perspectives from which to view the more recent excavations.I will attempt to give an overview of north Iraqtowardsthe end of the Halaf, per-

detailed examination of the pottery suggests that late Halaf sites are much more common than early Halaf ones. Such a growth of population may have led to increasedpressureon established territories and perhaps contributed towardschanges in the organization of society. The similarities in pottery decoration over large areas has always been interpretedas reflecting a high degree of interaction between settlements. The scale of the exchange systems in operation was substantial, as is seen most clearly in the quite large quantities of pottery being distributed between Halaf settlements. Tom Davidson (1981)has demonstratedby haps around 4600 B.C.E.,integrating both new evidence and reinterpreta- neutron activation analysis that in tions of the older evidence. northeastern Syria complete categoThe environment in which Halaf ries of pottery were manufacturedat sites are found is potentially very only a few sites and then tradedto fertile. In most areas,the annual other settlements. He has shown that a similar pattern probablyexisted rainfall is sufficient to allow successful farming without irrigationin all but the driest years. Besides agriculture, exploitation of domesticated animals was a key component of the economy. Sheep and goat were particularly utilized but cattle were also a major contributor to the total amount of meat. Cattle may have had an especially important role in the belief system as testified by the widespreaduse of cattle horns or bukrania as motifs in the decoration of pottery. By the late Halaf, however,the countryside had been subjectedto agriculturalexploitation of increasing intensity for as much as 2,000 years. There are indications that the landscape had been considerablydegraded, leaving few trees and much open grassland. By 4500 B.C.E.,the northern portion of the Fertile Crescent had probably assumed an appearance not dissimilar to that of today. Even towards the end of the Halaf, settlement was not especially dense, although it seems to represent an increase in population over that of previous periods. In a recent survey carried out by Tony Wilkinson (1990) to the north of the Jebel Sinjar,

184

in the Mosul area of Iraq,where as much as 30-40 percent of the pottery used at TepeGawraoriginated from Arpachiyah(Davidsonand McKerrall1980). It is equally clear, and even more striking, that obsidian was a major exchange item. The closest sources for this volcanic glass, especially suited to making stone tools, are in eastern Turkey.Despite the hundreds of kilometers that separatednorthern Iraqfrom these sources, at least 30 percent of the chipped stone tools from almost all late Halaf sites are made of obsidian (as much as 80 percent at Tell Aqab).Most of this is in the form of finished blades. This indicates that the total quantity of obsidian in circulation must have been considerable and the supply very regularand well maintained. With a single exception, none of the chipping debris that must have been gen-

Polychromeplate from the BurntHouse at Arpachiyah.These vessels are the most spectacular portion of the highly decoratedHalaf ceramic corpus. Theiruse was probablyrestricted to specific social occasions and groups.Photo courtesy of the IraqMuseum.

Biblical Archaeologist, December 1992

-

I

/i~

In addition to pottery,Arpachiyahproduced a largenumber of other exceptionally fine objects, amongst them obsidian links, many of which still cannot be paralleled at other sites. Each of these is made by flaking and grindingfrom a large obsidian blade. Their use is not certain, although they were prob-

ably either linked togetheras necklaces or sewn onto clothes.

erated during the manufacture of these blades has been found at a late Halaf site. The ArpachiyahBurnt House In the last Halaf level at Arpachiyah, called TT6, a building had been destroyedby fire. Known as the Arpachiyah BurntHouse, its contents are of outstanding richness and included a great number of objects, found mainly in the long room on its east side and one of the adjacentrooms. These include the fine painted plates that arethe best known artifactsfrom Mallowan'swork at Arpachiyah.The technical and artistic ability displayed in their manufactureand decoration is unparalleledat this date, and rightly makes them the most frequently illustrated part of the assemblage. As a result, this type of pottery has all too often been taken to characterizethe late Halaf in general. Recent excavation at other sites, however,has shown that such polychrome pottery is very rare.At KharabehShattani, a small but perhaps more typical late Halaf site, only one quarterof one percent of the decoratedpottery is polychrome (Watkinsand Campbell 1986).Even at YarimTepeit is still very rare. This fine polychrome pottery is perhaps best seen as a status object, with its manufacturerestricted to those sites at which potters of great technical skill resided and its use to specific institutions or individuals with high social status. In additionto pottery,Arpachiyah produceda large number of other exceptionally fine objects, amongst them stone bowls (one of obsidian)

Probablythe single most interesting group of items in this context are the stamp seals and sealings. The seals are typical of many Halaf sites with intricate incised geometrical patterns. Only at Arpachiyahhave large numbers of the pieces of clay onto which the seals have been stamped been found, some of which are lumps shaped around string and some simple discs. In later Mesopotamia, the practice of using seals to mark ownership of material was one of the first key elements of bureaucratic control of society. Here they seem to be fulfilling a similar administrative function of restricting and controlling access to particular goods (vonWickede 1990). Because the BurntHouse was excavatedso long ago, many of the details one would like to have are now unavailable.Traditionallythe building has been interpretedas a potter'sworkshop or a chief's house, but it is perhapspossible to go beyond this. Quite clearly, the very richness of the material suggests that any occupant of the building possessed a considerable control over the surroundingpeople and settlements, and the sealings may indicate that this control was administeredwith a surprising degreeof formal bureaucracy. What, then, was the basis of this control? What did an individual or institution do to attain and maintain such a control? One tentative clue comes from the most numerous but almost neverreportedobject category from the BurntHouse. In addition to all the other material, there were literally thousands of pieces of flint and obsidian, most now impossible to

and obsidian links, many of which still cannot be paralleled at other sites. Although these valuable objects received most of the attention in the original publication, more mundane items like spindle whorls and simple, rather battered pots are in their own way at least as informative because they may represent the normal domestic equipment of a Halaf building.

locate. Underpinning Arpachiyah's position, and providing its role in Halaf society, may have been the exercise of regional control over a material on which society was dependent. Another surprisingly unrecognized characteristic of the Burnt House suggests that Arpachiyah's position was not short-lived. Although unusual in that it has rectangular architecture, it overlies two

Biblical Archaeologist, December 1992

185

r' Li;~

r;'

r

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': -j

y;;

Clay sealings from the BurntHouse at Arpachiyah.These were used for marking the possession of goods. The first undeniable use of such is at the end of the Halaf and marks an important bureaucraticinnovation. wSealings

U S1Om

TT6

1O TT7 ARPACHIYAH TELL

The buildings of ArpachiyahBurntHouse (TT6)and the previouslevel (TT7).The long rectangularantechamberof the circularstructurein TT7 is reused in the otherwise dissimilar plan of TT6,showing an unexpectedarchitecturalcontinuity. Most of the spectacularfinds came from the long room and one of the rooms adjacent to it in TT6.

levels with very large circular tholoi, which exactly duplicate each other's plan, with long rectangular"antechambers"attached to them. The long room of the BurntHouse, which seems to have contained most of the fine objects, exactly replicates the plan of one of these long antechambers, and may, therefore,be only the

186

last of severalbuildings with which it shareda function as well as plan. We can see that relatively complex societies existed in the late Halaf, which must have been integratedby an intricate network of long and short distance exchange. Although these exchange patterns must have contributed to the unity

Biblical Archaeologist, December 1992

of the culture oververy great distances, it seems probablethat the areascontrolled by individual centers remained relatively small. The pottery does retain conspicuous similarities over very largedistances, but it is becoming clear that there are distinct regional differences visible, even within northern Iraq.The

mrethods of administration and agri-

culture, howver, do In seeo m to

haye included the creation of Iar

settlements. Arpachiyah,our aonly

definite example of a central site, is still a small mound. Of course, arge

mounds with considerabe later materiaM, sru s Nineveh, may overlie substantial alaf settements, but so fr direct evidence is lacking. There

is only one larg Haa s ite actually

knownTakyan Hoyik, jst on the

Turkish side of the TurkeyIraq borhas sugg sted it der. Surface survy

nmayhye1 had an areaof 12 hectares,

indicating a very substantial settleLightfootI Atent(Algaze,Breuln.r

and Rosenberg1991. Exactly how we should imagine maI aspects of Halaf society still remains uncertain, but the richness of its oanization suggests that many social changes must have occurred in this period. Perhapsthe

most important in the long term was the advance of administrative technoagy brought about by the use of sealings to mark property. In a sense this can be seen as the start of a lon line of bureaucratic evolution that eventua ly bedto the dee lopnment of writitg.

Notes All dates are uncalibratedradio carbon dates. In calendar years, the Half dates to between approxmately 6100 and 5400 B.C.E.. B.cE. Bibliography

N Akkrmans,i P M M1,

a 1.989 Exca\i55,67. Hiar , and or thers 1980 Arpachiyh 976 Iq 42 : 31I,-4 and all n,. E1 , 1935 Excavations

Rose,

at

Bi

gi?I

C

all Arpachisyah, 1933

anl

N.

rpert,N I, Munchae n 1987 The Earliest Levelsat R• am •p d 49: TpeL in N Harter Iaq an) hriN; Iro•p 1I---37o

t ikins, , and Campbell, 986

KI ibe hSIata I Series: iepart mentto Archaeo Og ccas inal aper 1o 4. Edrnbunh: Univrsit

ot EdiIur gh Wckede,

A

00n / w 1990 Prchisriche S1e?! e lItiz in Profil V P, Munchen: ragi• I. ilkinson, btgemsie•, 190 e deIl open orfsettlementin

the north zi- between te an7t 7th the Ist ilenna BClr 4It 52: -62

~iscover '3iblical urdiaeologist 1

EachYiarmay ngcv dis ovxiesa-re nadethatenrichourrunderstmdiof \Vstn the rts traition. Sanrce ah t r Padot the dctas itta rpotaed Sa Scls n 1947 licalArch olo-c gi has i th fcinatinag the latest epo-t of the ield -vakrPu1d aruic m1i challengig artis. -

We'reMoving The editorial offices of Biblical Ar lchaeologst are reroving.Effective immediatelfy, all correspondence,

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187

The First Farmers at

Oueili byJean-LouisHuot A large area of the southern alluvial plain is under water. These are reed-coveredmarshes that have been depicted veryaccurately by eighth-century-B.C.E. Assyrian reliefs.

hefirstcitiesoftheancient manufactured,mostly from local materials. Workwas more or less the same for everyone,with nobody holding privileged access to water and land, which were the basic means of production in those days.Old and young had similar, non-specialized occupations. If local chiefs held any coercivepower,it probablycame from to fourth millennium B.C.E.)that pre- controlling the means of reproduction- the circulation of women ceded the appearanceof the first Sumeriantexts. To comprehendfully ratherthan the means of production. Eldersmay have had a monopoly on the process of urbanization, these sites must be investigatedthoroughly. women given in marriage,which were Sites such as Tell el-Ubaid, Uruk and quite differentfrom subsistence goods Eriduhave long been studied, but re- producedby the work of all. As cent researchat Tell el-'Oueili has populations grew,they would split and establish new settlements in a addeda new perspective. LowerMesopotamia is a special largely underpopulatedworld. with a Ubaid Mesopotamiaprobablyfits peculiar geographic country and ecological context. In many rethis generalpattern.Both the plans of houses and the finds associated with spects, however,villages in Ubaid times were not very different from gravessuggest that these societies were egalitarian;no individual or other contemporaneous villages of the Near East. People lived from the family occupied a better house or of followed the was buried in a more privileged posiharvests, land, rhythm tion. Highly decoratedpottery was and raised cattle using simple but efficient agriculturaltechniques. made, painted with geometric or figwhile the main was urative activity Farming designs - in some cases of real aesthetic value-but it was essentialherding, hunting and fishing were ly designed for local consumption. supplementaryoccupations. Land was plentiful and tools were easily Foreigntradewas rare.In the fifth mil-

world appearedin lower Mesopotamia during the Uruk period (3500-3200 B.C.E.). These cities were made from the small villages that were sprinkled throughout the region during the two-and-a-halfmillennia of the long prehistoricphase called Ubaid (sixth

188

Biblical Archaeologist, December 1992

lennium B.C.E.,villagers from lower

Mesopotamia imported small quantities of obsidian and bitumen, but how these materials were brought to the villages is still unknown. On the whole, villages were self-sufficient. The agriculturalproduction was enough to ensure subsistence, and it was not necessary to improveyields. Moreover,the absence of adequate means of transportimpeded the export of any agriculturalsurpluses. In lower Mesopotamia, the Neolithic appearedlater than in the adjacent regions of northern Iraq,the Levantand the Taurusand Zagros mountains. The first settlements display an alreadyfully developed agriculturalway of life, without local antecedents. The creatorsof the Ubaid, however,were heirs to cumulative developments in the long history of agriculturalvillage life in the Near East. They lived in permanent settlements built with strong materials, sowed the land, raised cattle and made pottery.Although concepts of historical development and evolution were totally alien to them, their lifestyle was the direct result of V. G. Childe's(1952)"NeolithicRevolution,"

a phrase whose meaning retains its significance today.Although this "revolution"-theprocess of transition from a hunting and gathering lifestyle to an agriculturalone lasted for almost three millennia, this is a relatively abruptchange in comparison to the extremely long prehistoric Upper Palaeolithic and Mesolithic periods (40,000-8000 B.C.E.) that preceded it. The First Villages in Mesopotamia The last epipalaeolithic cultures of the Near East disappearedshortly before 8000 B.C.E.By the middle of the seventh millennium B.C.E.,vil-

lages practicing a mixed economy of farming and stock-breedinghad become a part of the landscape of the IraqJazira,in other words the heart of the Fertile Crescent at the foot of the Anti-Taurusmountains. This area is a plateau where comparativelyrich soil and sufficient rainfall allow dry farming. From the results of old and recent excavations, we can retrace the steps that brought this mixed farming economy from the region of Mosul (in a broadsense) to the first settlements on the bordersof Iraq's southern alluvial plain, where irrigation was a prerequisitefor an agricultural society. The first Neolithic stages known in the IraqiJaziraare illustrated by a few sites in the Province of Mosul (M'lefaat,Qermez Dere, Nemrik) aroundthe end of the seventh millennium B.C.E.Villages where both

farming and breedingwere practiced then became more numerous. Several of these sites, including Maghzaliyeh, the most ancient settlement, which was inhabited between 6500 and 6000 B.C.E., have been excavated by a Soviet team. Here, on the southern slopes of Jebel Sinjar, there was sufficient rainfall to support dry farming, allowing these first settlers to add cultivated crops and domesticated animals to the available wild resources. Pottery had yet to be invented, but they used gypsum vessels (which are typically Levantine) and stone vessels of

A bowl from the Ubaid 1 period. Note the criss-crossedmotif painted on a light-colored clay.

Zagros tradition. Other affinities include a peculiar type of obsidian sickle-bladewith a narrowingbody that is well known from PPNB sites in the TaurusMountains, at CaferHoyuk and Cayonu. Arrowheadswere similar to examples found at Bouqrason the Euphrates (Byblostype), and stone bracelets and clay figurines recall those from sites in the ZagrosMountains. Maghzaliyeh's rectangular,multi-roomed houses were made of clay and rested on stone foundations. At one time the settlement was surroundedby a defensive wall. Although its inhabitants still practicedhunting and gathering, more than 50 percent of the animal bones recoveredfrom the site were of domesticated species. Emmer wheat, two-rowedbarley,lentils and flax were cultivated. Maghzaliyeh was a permanent, long-lasting settlement where heavy implements, hearths and silos clearly show a deep cultural unity. Many of the characteristics of Maghzaliyeh can be found in later sites like Tell Sotto or Umm Dabaghiya.Forthis reason archaeologists believe that Maghzaliyeh was a forerunnerof the so-called "cultureof Umm Dabaghiya-Sotto." Pottery appearedfor the first time in Jazira around 6000 B.C.E.In

these steppes at the foot of the AntiTaurusmountains, which, much later, became Assyria, numerous sites show an underlying cultural and economic coherence in spite of the quite rapidevolution of ceramic styles. First came the so-called culture of Umm Dabaghiyaaround6000 B.C.E., located on the fringes of the

A gobletmade of light-coloredclay and painted with a dark brownpaint from 'Oueili dating to the Ubaid 1 era, circa 4500 B.C.E. This pot-

tery is contemporaneousfrom the earliest levels at Eridu.

desert and the Jazirasteppes, to the bordersof the Siniar.This was followed by what has been called the Hassunan, which clustered on both sides of the Tigris River.Meanwhile, a little further south, sites of the Samarranculture can be found extending downstream along the Tigris and reaching the Zagrospiedmont in the region of Mandali and the border between the desert and the area where dry farming can be profitably practiced at Tell es-Sawwan.To complete this sequence, mention must be made of the Halaf culture, which spreadthroughout northern Iraq after 5200 B.C.E.

The close similarities between the cultures of Umm Dabaghiyaand the Levantare not surprisingconsidering that Sinjaris not farfrom the Khaburand the middle-Euphrates. Thus, around6000 B.C.E.We find arrowheadsat Umm Dabaghiyaof the Byblos type, limestone for buildings and alabasterand marblevessels. Largestoragebuildings have been discoverednext to the houses that are made of small communicating cells. The walls of a few buildings were decoratedwith paintings of equids and hunting scenes similar to those from Bouqras.The so-called Hassuna culture (6000 to 5500 B.C.E.) was derivedfrom this group.

Biblical Archaeologist, December 1992

189

and Choga Mami is clear. The size of the grains of new species like sixrowedbarley,flax and peas are proof later than the Hassuna culture, but also more elaborate.Architecture positive that artificial watering was became more complex with molded used. At Tell es-Sawwan,irrigation was carriedout from the Tigris,andat bricks giving a regularityto large multicellular tripartite (orT-shaped) Choga Mami canals were dug at an angle through the water streams of buildings. Pottery reacheda peak of and the Zagroshills. Animal husbandry, unity, unparalleled perfection for that time period, with painted especially cattle rearing,was well naturalistic or geometric patterns. developed.All aspects of the Samarra culture indicate a growing social and Also associated with the Samarran economic complexity. culture are fine stone vessels of polished marble and alabastersimilar Problems related to southern to those from Umm Dabaghiya,but the numerous female figurines of Mesopotamia The geographyof the lower Mesopoalabasterand clay are clearly of a tamian plain is unique. Shapedlike a local style. There was an obvious social and gutter between the ZagrosMountains and the Arabianplate, this is economic evolution during the time coveredby the cultures just described. the real Mesopotamia. Annual rainThe settlement of Umm Dabaghiya, fall averagesless than 150 millimeters, andanythingthat growshas to be although located in a desert area, as to its well environment, watered;the rainfall is too irregular, adapted too short and altogether insufficient did related sites like el-Kowmor in the Syriandesert; agricul- for any other kind of cultivation. Bouqras ture was not essential, and food was Only the Tigris and Euphratesrivers make this valley habitable. Mesopomainly supplied by hunting steppe or tamia can be comparedto the Egyplike gazelles onagers. game On the banks of the Tigris were tian oasis but with a key difference: small Hassunan villages reaching as unlike the inundations of the Nile, the floods of the Tigris and the Eumuch as 1 hectare in size where the main activities were dry farmingand phrates are not perfectly coordinated with the agriculturalcycle. Melting raising sheep and cattle. But it was that times Samarran snow in the Anatolian mountains mainly during southern settlements reachedthe brings floods in the spring-at the bordersof the alluvial plain, beyond height of the growing season-which the dry-farmingzone. Evidence for requiresfields and settlements to be the use of irrigationat Tell es-Sawwan protected against their havoc. In the summer, water evaporatesquickly and increases soil salinity. The land Threechipped flint tools usually described as stone hoes from Ubaid 4. They wereprobably belies the legend: it is not very fertile The Samarraculture, dating

from 5700 to 5300 B.C.E.,is not only

used to break up the soil beforesowing.

190

by modern standards. Large, cultivatable plains were scarce in the ancient world, however. Irrigated Mesopotamia, on the one hand, and the dryfarmed Syrian-Iraqi Jazira on the other, have often been considered the "granaries"of antiquity. So far, no pre-pottery settlement has been discovered in lower Mesopotamia. Until the recent excavations at Tell el-'Oueili, the oldest materials came from Iraqi excavations at Eridu. These have been recognized as be-

Biblical Archaeologist, December 1992

longing to an early stage of the very long "UbaidPeriod,"which has been subdivided into four phases on the basis of pottery typology: Ubaid 1 or Eridu (5500 to 5000 B.C.E.),Ubaid 2 and 3 (5000 to 4500 B.C.E.),and Ubaid 4 (4500 to 4000 B.C.E.).Then the Uruk

period began, which gavebirth to the first urban civilizations that appearedin the southern floodplain shortly before 3000 B.C.E.It is their antecedents which concern us. The Eriduphase representeda ceramic culture that did not antedate 5500 B.C.E.This left the general impression of a serious interval of at least one millennium between the appearanceof the first villages in the north and the settling of lower Mesopotamia. The reasons were not difficult to ascertain. The general environment seemed hostile and even repulsive;a region of salinized lowlands where water and mud were inextricably mingled in a large swampy area could not have been very attractiveto farmersaccustomed to the lighter andbetter drainedfields of the Jazirapiedmont. The region could not be settled unless the inhabitants had mastered the essential irrigation techniques. Since the first traces of irrigation appearedaround the end of the Samarraperiod at Tell es-Sawwanon the banks of Tigris (on the Jaziraborders)andat ChogaMami in the Zagrospiedmont, it seemed natural that the southern villages could only postdate this more northern Samarranmanifestation. Other considerations, however, also bear on the question of the first settlement of the southern lowlands. It has long been clear that the location of the shores of the gulf fluctuated considerably. In 1900, Jacques de Morgan inferred that the delta had been advancing for centuries until

it reached its present position, far distant from the ancient shoreline. The archaeological record agreed: there were no prehistoric or historic sites in the southernmost reaches of the Mesopotamian plain as we know it today.

Later,G. M. Lees and N. L. Falcon (1952)questioned this theory and arguedthat the huge quantities of alluvium deposited by rivers were kept in balance by a general subsidence in the area and that the shoreline had probablynot fluctuated greatly since the LowerPleistocene. More recently, C. E. Larsen(1975) brought a new argument to the discussion. He claimed that eustatic sea level variations and the dynamics of the rivers should be taken into account. Under this scheme, sea level reached its highest point (+ 2 meters) around4000/3000 B.C.E., and the shoreline lay beside the southern Sumerian cities. This was a quick and important rise, but over time the alluvium brought by the rivers filled in the bottom of the gulf and made the large delta that, in turn, slowly moved southward.In this process any Neolithic sites that might have existed were buried and are now deeply embedded into or fossilized below a mass of sediments. Given this geological history, the discovery of prehistoric sites in

A hypostyle house from the Ubaid 0 period. Thereis a rectangularhearth in the middle of the room and two platforms, a small one and a largerroundplatform with a hole in the middle, probably to hold a jar with the household water supply.

the area to the north of the marshes is extremely difficult. Some could be reached at the bottom of deep trenches as at Ur and Uruk. Others, like Eriduand Ubaid, emerge from the alluvium because their settlement mounds were exceptionally

large and high. But countless others almost certainly lie lost beneath the burdenof accumulated silts. Recent work at 'Oueili It is these circumstances that lend special significance to the recent

Plan and view of a Hypostyle House from the late Ubaid 0 period, circa 5000 B.C.E.This is one of the oldest houses known in southern Iraq. The house recalls the large Samarrabuildings of Tell es-Sawwan I-II, but the rows of posts below the roof are a very typical southern feature.

i:4

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Biblical Archaeologist, December 1992

191

~si

ril ~

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Ubaid 4 architectureis illustrated by this stepped-wallbuilding whose interiorwas subdivided by a grid of low walls, probably the supportstructureof a granary.

excavations at Tell el-'Oueili, where Ubaid levels earlier than those at Eriduhave been discovered.The prehistoric levels of the site, which lies 3.5 kilometers from the later Mesopotamian city of Larsa,were not covered by later deposits as is normal. Architectural remains of the lowest excavatedstrata and their contents are sufficiently distinct from Ubaid 1 that a new term, Ubaid 0, is appropriate for them. When we reached the water table 4.5 meters below the modern plain level and had to stop excavating,we had still not found the earliest occupation of the site. The substantial nature of the early architectureat 'Oueili came as a surprise.Eriduhad only yielded poor remains of Ubaid 1, all of them very small: a few parallel walls in EriduXVIII,a small rectangular building in EriduXVI,and a steppedwall construction. It was difficult to believe that these were the precursors of the quite spectacularbuildings found at Eridudating to Ubaid 3 and 4. At 'Oueili we discovereda large mud-brickhouse comprising several rooms (belongingto the middle of the sixth millennium at the very latest), which has parallels to the so-called tripartite buildings of

192

Samarrantimes at Tell es-Sawwan in central Mesopotamia. Two more houses, of a slightly later phase of Ubaid 0, are also being investigated.Their main characteristic is a large central room (in one case 7.3 meters long and 4 to 4.65 meters wide, approximately32 square meters), with its roof resting on two rows of posts standing on a brick base and its outer walls decoratedwith regularfacing pilasters. This room has been described, following Classical terminology, as a hypostyle room. There is a rectangularhearth in the middle of the room and two platforms, a small one and a larger round platform with a hole in the middle, probablyto hold a jarwith the household water supply. One of these houses with its adjacentrooms measures 140 squaremeters and is thus very much largerthan the small buildings of Eridu.The second house, slightly later in time but also from the phase of Ubaid 0, was built more or less in the same spot. Its plan is almost identical to the former,the only differencebeing a reed and wood platform that served as a platform beneath the floor of the central room and, in turn, rested on a grid of walls and small piles instead of

Biblical Archaeologist, December 1992

the pillar bases of the previous houses. The eastern wing was also hypostyle (but without pillar bases) and had two hearths. In the corner of one of them we found several deep oval hollows -burnt at the bottom that must have been used for cooking. The original architectureshows that although the first buildings were similar to Samarrantypes (molded bricks,similarplan)they soon became more inventive and more sophisticated than the buildings of Eridu. We have only discoveredtwo buildings of Ubaid 1. They are difficult to understandand could be the staircases of a much largercomplex. ForUbaid 2 we have found almost nothing. Ubaid 3 has yielded a large mud-brickterracethat measures about 40 meters long, but its exact limits and the shape of the building are unknown. Ubaid 4 is illustrated by several stages of a stepped-wall building whose interior was subdivided by a grid of low walls, probably the support structure of a granary. This building technique was already in use during Ubaid 0 and is a good example of architecturalcontinuity over a long period, coveringthe middle of the sixth millennium to the beginnings of the fourth millennium. 'Oueili is not only unique in its early architecture,its ceramics also bring additions to the previously known typology.PotteryfromUbaid0 shows close parallels with the Choga Mami TransitionalWareandceramics from Choga Sefid in the Deh Luran Plain of southwest Iran.Ubaid 0 is thus clearly derived from the earliest culture to move into lower Mesopotamia, the Samarra. It remains to be seen whether the first farmers came straight down the Euphrates valley or if they came from the Zagros piedmont and the Deh Luran Plain. More sites of this date need to be excavated before we can answer this question. From the inception of the 'Oueili Project, special attention has been paid to ceramic technology. The Ubaid 0 pottery, while diverse in manufacturing technique, was still

quite crude. The paint used for the motifs was ratherpowdery,painted in oxides of manganese and iron. There are pale, painted motifs of a greyishpink color, as well as dark-brownto black. Clays are relatively diverse, but without petrographicalcontrast, a reflection of the monotonous alluvial formations of the Tigris and Euphratesbasin. By Ubaid 1, the clay used for the ceramics is denser and more carefully finished than that of Ubaid 0, but the 'Oueili potters still employed a wide rangeof techniques. But little by little, technical progress in the preparationof the paints led to the discovery of shiny blackish mixtures characteristicof Ubaid 1, thick and well attached to the surface, with no discoloration. The picture presented by the analysis of samples of Ubaid 4 is quite different. Here the clearest change concerns the paints: the color is now purple-brownto deep black, and the paint is generally hard and matt. These paints are mineral-basedessentially iron-oxides,iron-titanium minerals and chromiferousminerals. Similar pigments are attested from contemporarylevels at Tello, Ur, EriduandUbaid and arealso found on Ubaid pottery collected on the shores of the gulf. This is an obvious example of the development of a standardization of painting procedures,which should be comparedwith the diversity of techniques that characterized the beginning of the period. Ceramic art reachedits peak during Ubaid 1. The repertoirebecame considerablypoorerduring Ubaid 4 with a decrease in the precision of the painting and an increase in the percentage of undecorated pottery. What information do we possess about the exploitation of the environment by the inhabitants at 'Oueili? At present, 'Oueili is surrounded by sand dunes and a few tamarisk bushes. The current annual mean precipitation is doubtless comparable to that of the Ubaid period - too low to permit unirrigated cultivation. However, 'Oueili was surrounded by humid

zones, as indicated by the presence of date palm (Phoenix Dactylifera), poplar (PopulusEuphraticus),tamarisk (Tamarix),reeds (Phragmites australis) and cypress (CyperusRotundus). At 'Oueili, the main plant grown was six-rowedhulled barley (Hordeumvulgare).As for wheat, the species in question is einkorn (Triticummonococcum), but this crop was of lesser importance. Date palms were also exploited - traces of date pits have been found in Ubaid 4 levels at 'Oueili, as well as at Eridu. The botanical remains from Ubaid 0 at 'Oueili are the most ancient evidence of agricultureyet found in the Mesopotamian plain south of Baghdad.This does not mean, however,that they reflect the earliest practice of agriculturein the area or even at the site. Other, earlier levels exist at 'Oueili but are beneath the present water table, and other sites of approximatelythe same date are undoubtedlyburied beneath later

alluvial deposits. What is clear is that irrigationwas used from the very beginning of our sequence at 'Oueili and continued to be used from that time forth. The inhabitants of 'Oueili also kept domestic animals. Unfortunately, the older levels are less well documented than the more recent layers. Since we have very few samples of Ubaid 0-3 to date, we are unable to chart the frequencyof species for each of these levels but must lump them together.The most striking feature of this early sample is the low proportionof sheep and goat: only 16.8 percent, comparedwith 37.6 percent for pigs and 45.5 percent for cattle. Almost all of the remains are of domestic animals; hunting played a very small role in the economy.Surprisingly,practically no fish bones have been detected in these ancient levels, probablybecause they have not been preserved. Fromthese oldest levels, the use of

Plan of a stepped-wallbuilding from Ubaid 4. It was probably built on a tripartiteplan with a central hall. Ak

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animal resources,particularlythe high proportionof pigs, seems to have been cleverly adaptedto the special conditions of the natural environment, which was probably marshy and unfavorablefor raising sheep and goats. Faunalremains are more abundant in the levels of Ubaid 4, and far better preserved.Stock raising was still biased towardsthe production of pigs and cattle: only 5.6 percent of the bones come from sheep and goats

A painted bowl and an unpaintedgoblet from an Ubaid 4 level. At the end of this period, motifs are carelesslypainted on the surface of the vessels beforedisappearingaltogether.

A brokenclay saucer from an Ubaid 4 level. Thepainting recalls older motifs, but here they have been carelessly executed.

194

as against 36.9 percent from pigs and 57.9 percent from cattle. In this level, however,there is clear evidence of the important role that fishing played in the economy. Exploitation of animal resourcesclearly reflects the peculiar environment of the site, which was unfavorableto small domestic ruminants but well tolerated by cattle and pigs. This low ratio of sheep and goat to pig and cattle is quite unusual and suggests that the inhabitants of 'Oueili developed a unique response to their ecological niche fromthe very beginning to the end of the sequence. In addition to the faunal, floral and ceramic remains, 'Oueili also yielded a number of other artifacts, specially those of bitumen - a Mesopotamian material if there ever was one! Objects of bitumen are found at 'Oueili in small quantities: spindlewhorls, small sticks, beads, etc. But the site is separatedfrom the active zone of production that is known to have been near the marshes. The bitumens from 'Oueili come from a single source, but unlike those from Babylon,they do not belong to the natural asphalt source at Hit. The actual geological source that was used remains unknown, although it was sufficiently rich to have been used throughout the duration of our sequence. Moreover,the technology of bitumen manufacture-the mineral additives- changed hardly at all during this period. This seems to imply a continuity in both supply and processing techniques. Non-bitumen objects from 'Oueili (Ubaid0-3) include a few figurines close in style to those from

This is a small painted head that recalls Samarraclay figurinesfrom ChogaMami. It dates to the Ubaid 0 era, circa 5400 B.C.E.

The excavations at 'Oueili have raised more questions than they have solved and have brought new information that completely renews the subject of the first settlements of lower Mesopotamia. In particular, we know today that the first occupants of the southern plain were close to the inhabitants of villages of the Samarraperiod. They had already mastered very elaborateagricultural and architecturaltechniques when they settled in southern Mesopotamia. Thus, the origins of the Ubaid culture become much clearer:the period of Ubaid is no longer a mysterious phase sprung from nowhere. It is clearly rooted in the prehistory of Mesopotamia, which, in turn, Choga Mami, whereas figurines from becomes more coherent in light of levels of Ubaid 4 are similar to those recent excavations at 'Oueili. One found at Eridu and Ur. Also found in can trace a continuous and logical our Ubaid 4 levels were the famous sequence from the first villages of the Jazirato the first cities in the terracotta sickles that are so typical of Ubaid sites elsewhere. Glyptic art period of Uruk, which contributes to a new and clearerpattern. However, is only illustrated by a few stamps (but not, so far, by any clay imprints) the gathering of information has and a few amulets. Two of these are hardly begun and, regrettably,recent decorated with a geometric pattern, tragic events will probablyprevent and a third shows a figure whose any further project in this areafor a long time. prototype is known from Luristan.

Biblical Archaeologist, December 1992

Discover

Arabian

archaeology and epigraphy EDITOR: DANIEL T. POTTS

Aim & Scope. In recent years the

site. (Clax is a nateriaIl that is consistent wxith natural Broken clay sickles( occur on every tJbaiicd resoutrcesoof the alluvial plailn.

Bibliography Childe, V. G. 1952 NewxLight on the niost ancient East, fourth edition. London: Routlcdge & Kcgan Paul Ltd. Huot, l.-L., and Vallet, R. 1990 Les habitations A salles hypostyles d'Epoquc Obeid 0 de Tell cl-'Oucili. Plhoerient 16 (1): 125 30. Huot, I.-L., and others 1983 Larsa et 'Oueili. Travaux de/ 19781981. Paris: Editions Recherche sur les Civilisations. 1987 Larsa et 'Oueili. Travaux de 1983. Paris: Editions Recherche sur les Civilisations. 1989 Ubaidian Village of Lower Mesopotamia. Permanence and Evolution from 'Ubaid 0 to 'Ubaid 4 as seen from tell el 'Oueili. Pp. 19-42 in Upon this Foundation, the 'Ubaid reconsidered, edited by E. F Henrickson and I. Thuesen. Copenhagen: University of Copenhagen. 1991 'Oueili, Travaux de 1985. Paris: Editions Recherche sur les Civilisations. forth- 'Oueili, Travaux de 1987-1989. coming Paris: Editions Recherche sur les Civilisations. Larsen, C. E. 1975 The Mesopotamian Delta Region: A reconsideration of Lees and Falcon. fournal of the American Oriental Society 95: 43-57.

Lees, G. M., and Falcon, N. L. 1952 The geographical history of the Mesopotamian Plains. Geographical Journal 118: 24-39. Sanlaville, P., 1989 Considerations sur l'evolution de la basse Mesopotamie au cours des 15 derniers millenaires. Pal•orient (2): 5-27. Vallet, R. 1990 Les habitations a salles hypostyles des debuts de l'epoque d'Obeid. Acadecmie des Inscriptions et BellesLettres, Comptes Rendus: 867-74.

Arabian peninsula has emerged as one of the major new frontiers of archaeological research in the Old World. Yet until now, no journal devoted to the area as a whole has existed. Arabian archaeology and epigraphy is intended to serve as a forum for the publication of studies in the archaeology, epigraphy, numismatics, and early history of Arabia. 1 volwlt of 3 issUlts ,ery71ear. Latest excavation reports New finds Unpublished texts Numismatic discoveries Historical debates Compulsory reading for anyone interested in Arabia. Please use the order form below. I wish to subscribe in 1993 and ,j receive the 1992 volume free of

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Biblical Archaeologist, December 1992

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hesiteofJemdet Nasr,

Nasr: the Site an(d the Map of central-southMesopotamia,showing location of sites mentioned in the text and cities listed in the "cityseal impressions" from JemdetNasr.

Baghdad *

Period by Rogerj. Matthews

Khafajah

roughly 3200 to 3000 B.C.E.

Urum JemdetNasr * *

In the decades following those first investigations, however,excavations and surveys in and around Mesopotamia frequently failed to identify material remains that could

Kish

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Zabala Farao

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Uruk o*Larsa Ur

196

situated 100 kilometers south of Baghdad,first came to archaeological notice in the spring of 1925 when a joint team from OxfordUniversity and the Field Museum, Chicago, was carryingout excavations at the important Sumerian city of Kish, near Babylon.That March,a groupof locals visited the base camp, bringing artifacts that they claimed to have found at a series of mounds known as JemdetNasr, some 26 kilometers northeast of Kish. These artifacts comprised distinctive painted pots and some inscribed tablets. The expedition director,Professor Stephen Langdon,an epigraphist by training, immediately recognized their significance. Following a preliminary visit to the site, he conducted a first season of excavations at JemdetNasr at the end of the Kish season, in early 1926. A second brief season was conducted by Louis Watelin two years later, in the spring of 1928.The results of these excavations were significant and distinctive enough to define a new period in the cultural development of Mesopotamia, "JemdetNasr,"which fell between the Late Uruk and the Early Dynastic periods and lasted from

*

Biblical Archaeologist, December 1992

be assigned to Jemdet Nasr. As a result, many scholars began doubting the validity of this chronological phase. In 1983, a conference was called in order specifically to address this issue (Finkbeiner and Rollig 1986), and it became increasingly clear that new research at and concerning the site of Jemdet Nasr was called for. It was with this background that the British Archaeological Expedition to Iraq began a new program of research into Jemdet Nasr in 1988. The program had two primary thrusts:

new excavations, which were held to uncover additional evidence, and a reexamination of the artifacts uncoveredin the original excavations. Because of the lamentable state of the recordingof material found in the seasons held during the 1920s, the new excavations were required to locate architecture first excavated in 1926-28, as well as to explore previously unexcavatedareas.One important factor in encouragingnew excavation at the site was the small size of the two mounds -Mound A only covered 1.5 hectares and Mound B 7.5 hectares. Given limited modern funding for excavation work combined with the restricted areal scope of scientific excavation techniques, it appearedthat JemdetNasr was the Surfaceof the Northeast Area, MoundB, showing exposed walls after surface clearance. The walls show up as dark lines against the silty fill that has accumulated in the trenchesmade ideal candidate for new work. Also, during the original excavations in the 1920s. preliminary visits revealeda significant surface pottery distribution spanning Late Uruk through Early Dynastic I, strongly indicating the likelihood of a complete proto-historic sequence of occupation at the site. Accordingly,two seasons of excava