Tell Chuera
Tell Chuera is an ancient settlement with a castle hill in the center of the Jazira plain in northeast Syria near the Turkish border. With an area of 65 hectares, it is the largest tell in this region.
location
Tell Chuera is halfway on the line between the Balikh River in the west and the Chabur in the east, where both rivers cross the Turkish border to the south, about five kilometers south of the border. In the surrounding flat plain, which is only interrupted by a few wadis , the winter rainfall is sufficient for rain-fed agriculture. The circular settlement hill is visible from afar. The shape of the hill is typical of numerous other, smaller settlements that were built in areas that just barely allow agricultural use. The common feature is the circular extension with a lower town and in the middle an upper town, each of which was protected by surrounding walls. At the beginning of the 20th century , Max von Oppenheim introduced the term “Kranzhügel” for this type of settlement .
history
It is still unclear which people founded the city. The first settlement on the site was built in the 5th millennium BC. Chr. The time Frühsyrisch I from 3300 to 2800 v. Chr. Corresponds to the early Sumerian period and paints the picture of a cultural optimism in the northern Orient.
The first city was founded in the early Syrian period II (2800–2350 BC) (period IA). The place belonged to a number of cities and settlements of the northern Mesopotamian cultural area, which extended over northeast Syria, the eastern Turkey and the northern Iraq. It shows an extensive settlement that represents a so-called Kranzhügel, which consists of a raised upper town and a circular lower town surrounding it, which is surrounded by a rampart. Wreath mounds of this type are widespread in the steppe areas between the upper reaches of the Khabur and Balikh rivers and the area south of the Djebel Abd al-Aziz in Syria. There are no remains from this time in Tell Chuera, but this culture shows monumental stone architecture. Tell Chuera was laid out according to plan. This is indicated by the central main road and the access roads (radial in the upper town, at right angles in the lower town).
In the 3rd millennium, the area between Chabur and Balikh was one of the most densely populated areas in the Middle East. In the time of early Syriac III (2350–2000 BC), Tell Chuera, like practically all other settlements, was abandoned for unknown reasons. There were no layers of destruction. However, traces of war are known from Ebla , which was destroyed during this time. There may be a connection with the spread of the Kura-Araxes culture from the South Caucasus region or its successor culture , which are only very imprecisely referred to as mountain peoples in the texts.
No settlement was found during the Old Babylonian period. A nomadic way of life then predominated in the region; only a few settlements continued to exist at this time.
A somewhat smaller residential complex existed under the rule of the Mitanni (period II A). This youngest layer of settlement on the northern part of the hill is dated to the 14th to 12th centuries when the Assyrians destroyed the Mitanni Empire. The whole region came under Assyrian rule (period II B).
In Central Assyrian texts the place is called Harbe . Thereafter the Tell remained uninhabited and was only occasionally used as a burial place in Islamic times.
exploration
Tell Chuera was first described as an ancient settlement by Max von Oppenheim in 1913. The first excavations began in 1955, which were continued three years later with systematic excavations by employees of the Free University of Berlin . The first systematic investigations began in 1958 under the direction of Anton Moortgat , which he continued with interruptions of several years until his death in 1977. From 1973 onwards, the excavations took place together with Ursula Moortgat-Correns. In 1982 the excavations were continued, initially under the direction of Moortgat-Correns and Winfried Orthmann . From 1986 until the 21st campaign in 1998, Orthmann was solely responsible for the project. Since then, the excavations have been led by Jan-Waalke Meyer from the Goethe University in Frankfurt .
Cityscape
The course of the former city wall around the lower town can be recognized by elevations along a circular line on the edge of the hill. At least at its base, the wall consisted of large stone blocks and was probably reinforced on the outside by a glacis . 22 hectares, i.e. a third of the urban area, were covered by the 100 meter wide lower town and were probably densely built up. Probes in the area suggest between 1400 and 1500 houses.
The top of the upper town is 10 to 15 meters above the lower town, a few meters may have been lost due to erosion since ancient times. In the north-west-south-east direction, the upper town is traversed by a depression that is 8 meters above the lower town. It is not certain whether the upper town was completely surrounded by a fortification wall. For both areas together, 2500 to 3000 houses are estimated, assuming 5 to 6 residents each, this results in around 15,000 residents. An almost right-angled street plan came to light on the areas of the housing estate that had been exposed so far. The 120 to 180 square meter buildings had an inner courtyard that could be entered from the street through an anteroom. Drainage channels ran across the floor of the vestibules from the inner courtyard to a canal in the street.
In the center of the upper town, a small temple was uncovered, in the southwest a "pottery district", which is so named because of the remains of kilns found here. The most striking excavation finds are the massive stone plinths of three stone buildings. Steinbau III was excavated from 1963. A 16 × 14 meter substructure made of stone blocks and 14 steps of a wide stone staircase were preserved with him. The north temple on the central northern edge of the upper town with the usual entrance in the east and a kind of altar in front of it is the best preserved temple of the Ante. The excavation of Palace F began in 1985, its 6 meter thick western outer wall is interpreted as part of a city wall around the upper town. Ceramic finds allow a date to the period IE, the early dynastic period III, around 2300. The walls were made of square mud bricks and were plastered. They were preserved up to 2.5 meters high, because of the risk of collapse, only a few rooms could be dug down to the ground. A cemetery has not yet been found.
From the Mitanni period, there were only a few stray finds in the northern part of the upper town, the residents seem to have been relatively wealthy. The Central Assyrian development of the upper town is limited to an area in the northeast. There is a modern cemetery here, including three layers of poorly preserved mud brick walls of small houses and some graves from the Middle Assyrian period.
Individual evidence
literature
- Ralph Hempelmann: Tell Chuēra, Kharab Sayyar and the urbanization of western Djazira. Near Eastern research by the Max Freiherr von Oppenheim Foundation 2,4. Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 2013. ISBN 978-3-447-06258-9
- Stefan Jakob: The Middle Assyrian texts from Tell Chuēra in northeast Syria. Near Eastern research by the Max Freiherr von Oppenheim Foundation 2,3. Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 2009. ISBN 3-447-05724-6 .
- Jan-Waalke Meyer (Ed.): Excavations in Tell Chuēra in Northeast Syria. Preliminary report on the excavation campaigns from 1998 to 2005. Near Eastern research by the Max Freiherr von Oppenheim Foundation 2.2. Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 2010. ISBN 978-3-447-06182-7
- Anton Moortgat: Tell Chuera in northeast Syria. Preliminary report on the excavation in 1958. Westdeutscher Verlag, Cologne / Opladen 1960. (Reports on further excavation campaigns in 1960, 1962, 1965, 1967).
- Anton Moortgat, Ursula Moortgat-Correns: Tell Chuera in Northeast Syria. Preliminary report on the sixth excavation campaign in 1973. Gebrüder Mann, Berlin 1975. (further reports 1976, 1978).
- Ursula Moortgat-Correns: Tell Chuera in Northeast Syria. Preliminary report on the ninth and tenth excavation campaigns in 1982 and 1983. Gebrüder Mann, Berlin 1988. (further report 1988).
- Hartmut Kühne : The ceramics from Tell Chuera and their relationship to finds from Syria-Palestine, Turkey and Iraq. Research on the Near East by the Max Freiherr von Oppenheim Foundation 1. Mann Brothers, Berlin 1976.
- Winfried Orthmann : Tell Chuera. Excavations by the Max Freiherr von Oppenheim Foundation in northeast Syria. Amani, Damascus / Tartus 1990. ISBN 3-7749-2481-3 .
- Winfried Orthmann u. a .: Excavations at Tell Chuēra in northeast Syria. Preliminary report on the excavation campaigns from 1986 to 1992. Near Eastern research by Max Freiherr von Oppenheim Foundation 2 [, 1]. Saarbrücker printing and publishing house, Saarbrücken 1995. ISBN 3-925036-92-X .
- Michael Zick: Tell Chuera - urban planning 5000 years ago . In: Image of Science . Leinfelden-Echterdingen 2005, No. 1, pp. 72-76. ISSN 0006-2375