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The Excavations at Tall Chagar Bazar, and an Archaeological Survey of the Ḫabur Region, 1934–5

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 April 2016

M. E. L. Mallowan
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Extract

The Archaeological Expedition to the Ḫabur region of N. Syria was under the auspices of the British Museum and of the British School of Archaeology in Iraq. For financial assistance we were greatly indebted to a number of scientific bodies and to individual subscribers. The British Museum made it possible for Mr. R. D. Barnett of the Department of Egyptian and Assyrian Antiquities to give us his valuable help, and generous financial support was forthcoming from the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, from the University Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Cambridge, and from the Auckland Museum, New Zealand. Our warmest thanks are also due to the munificence of individual subscribers among whom were Mr. Louis G. Clarke, Lord Latymer, Sir Charles Marston, and Mr. A. L. Reckitt.

Type
Research Article
Information
IRAQ , Volume 3 , Issue 1 , Spring 1936 , pp. 1 - 59
Copyright
Copyright © The British Institute for the Study of Iraq 1936

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References

page 1 note 1 We have also to acknowledge a generous contribution from the Rockefeller Trust towards the cost of the Ḫabur Survey.

page 2 note 1 For the sake of convenience I have used the term upper Ḫabur for the reach of river between Ras Al-'Ain and Ḥasaka, and lower Habur for the reach of river between Ḥasaka and Circesium, where it joins the Euphrates.

page 2 note 2 A. Poidebard, La Trace de Rome dans le désert de Syrie.

page 3 note 1 Sarre, F. and Herzfeld, E., Archäologische Reise im Euphrat- und Tigris-Gebiet, 1911 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, for a full account of the lower Ḫabur mounds.

page 4 note 1 Schaeffer, C. F. A. in Syria, 1934 Google Scholar, La Cinquième Campagne de Fouilles à Ras-Shamra, and in his subsequent excavations also.

page 4 note 2 Garstang, in A.A.A. 1, 1908 Google Scholar.

page 5 note 1 Sidney Smith, Early History of Assyria, chapter 15, for information on political conditions at this period.

page 7 note 1 A. Poidebard, La Trace de Rome dans le désert de Syrie.

page 10 note 1 Mallowan, M. E. L. in A.A.A. XX Google Scholar.

page 10 note 2 Speiser, E. in the Museum Journal of the University of Pennsylvania, vol. 23 Google Scholar.

page 10 note 3 Speiser, E., Excavations at Tepe Gawra, 1, 1935 Google Scholar.

page 10 note 4 In level 7–8 we discovered a shell which had been used as a pot burnisher. The shell has been identified by Mr. Robson of the British Museum (Natural History) as Cypraea Vitellus, a species, found in the Indian Ocean and Persian Gulf. This identification is of considerable importance, as it proves that there must have been some trade at least as far as the Persian Gulf towards the end of the Tall Ḫalaf period, at a time when Iranian and Tall Ḫalaf painted designs appear to have had several similar elements in their répertoire.

page 18 note 1 In one of the graves in level 12 no body was found.

page 20 note 1 I am indebted to Dr. R. Campbell Thompson for calling my attention to this quotation from Exodus.

page 20 note 2 W. F. Albright, The Archaeology of Palestine and the Bible.

page 28 note 1 The same necklace also contained a number of minute triangular dog-collar beads, spacers for three strings, similar to specimens found at T. Asmar and Ur Royal Cemetery; but the Chagar Bazar specimens were in poor condition. In this grave G 67 there were also traces of lead.

page 29 note 1 Cf. Frankfort, H., Oriental Institute Discoveries in Iraq, 1933–1934, Fig. 27Google Scholar, Fourth Preliminary Report, for a remarkable stone vase, from the square temple at Tall Asmar. The vase is similar in shape to the Chagar Bazar specimen, but must be considerably later in time, since it appears to be post-Jamdat Nasr. Probably this was a type of ritual vessel that persisted for a very long period.

page 31 note 1 Schmidt, E. F., The Alishar Hüyuk, 1928–1929 Google Scholar, pl. 1 b, 39, and pl. 8 b, 100, both from stratum 1. Also Genouillac, Henri De, Céramique Cappado-cienne, 1 Google Scholar, figs. 34, 35, and 11, pl. 31 bis, 126, for a painted example. I am indebted to Professor J. L. Myres for pointing out to me that the Cappadocian types were probably dependent on leather work. Some of the painted pottery from Hissar II is similar in shape. Cf. Schmidt, E. F., Tepe Hissar, 1931 Google Scholar, op. cit., pl. 102, nos. H 1365, H 515, H 1154, H 1655.

page 34 note 1 But cf. also Billah, op. cit., pl. 62, no. 7, from stratum 3, which is dated 1600–1400 B.c.

page 37 note 1 Cf. Billah, op. cit., pls. 59, 60, strata 3 and 4.

page 38 note 1 Cf. also Frankfort, H., Oriental Institute Discoveries in Iraq, 1933–1934 Google Scholar, Fourth Preliminary Report, p. 21, where the discovery of a Ninevite 5 sherd suggests that the pottery in question ‘is contemporary with the earliest part of the Early Dynastic Period’.

page 39 note 1 The groove adjacent to the ribbing would of course prevent a string binding from slipping.

page 41 note 1 Cf. also the hands of the demons on the prehistoric pottery from Persepolis, a suggestive analogy.

page 44 note 1 I am indebted to MR. M. A. C. Hinton, F.R.S., British Museum (Natural History), for his identification of these calcined bones as ‘recognizably human and probably the result of a partial cremation’.

page 45 note 1 With these two vases compare D.P. XIII, pl. 21, no. 2, the only stippled vase from Susa I. This seems to me to suggest a possible contemporaneity between Susa I and the end of the T. Ḫalaf period. Cf. also Arp. 178.

page 49 note 1 Herzfeld, E., Iranische Denkmäler, 1932 Google Scholar, Lieferung 2, Reihe 1, Abb. 1, also Taf. XIX for a second demon figure.

page 50 note 1 Ghirshman, R., Rapport Préliminaire sur les Fouilles de Tépé Sialk, près de Kashan (Iran), in Syria, 1935 Google Scholar, pl. 38, no. 3. Also Schmidt, E. F., Tepe Hissar, 1931 Google Scholar, op. cit., pl. 82 a from stratum 1.

page 50 note 2 The design itself does not occur at Samarra, but the quality of clay, paint, and firing prove the sherd to be Samarra ware.

page 53 note 1 Woolley, C. L., in A.A.A. X Google Scholar, pl. 9, showing sherds with incisions cut with a flint razor after the pot had been baked.