Tuttul
Coordinates: 35 ° 57 ' N , 39 ° 3' E
Tuttul , also Tultul , in Arabic Tell Bi'a; is a settlement mound on the Euphrates in eastern Syria . The heyday of the important ancient city in the former northern Mesopotamia lasted from the second half of the 3rd millennium to the 17th century BC. When it was last under the rule of Mari during the Old Babylonian Empire .
location
The settlement mound of Tuttul is located two kilometers east of the old town of ar-Raqqa , which was fortified during the Abbasid period, near the confluence of the Belich into the Euphrates on a river terrace. Today it is three kilometers from the Euphrates and 2.5 kilometers from the Belich. The Euphrataue within the Euphrates Valley, five to six kilometers wide at this point, is 240 to 242 meters above sea level. Tuttul is separated from this by a depression a few meters deeper (the Mišlab depression), which is filled with water after the winter rains, and by a slight elevation of the terrain at a height of 248 meters. At the foot of the settlement hill 246 meters are measured, its highest point is 266 meters. The river bed of the Belich, which is one kilometer wide and 20 meters deep, extends a little north of the ancient city to four kilometers. At that time, the Belich flowed several kilometers in parallel along the Euphrates to its confluence. Today the tributary has been straightened and is directed directly into the Euphrates.
The settlements of ancient times around Tell Bi'a were located on terraces at least 15 meters high to protect against flooding. The fields were predominantly or exclusively irrigated from the Belich, as the Euphrates flowed by south of the Mišlab depression from the earliest times of settlement. This is also evident from cuneiform texts . In a letter from the beginning of the 2nd millennium to the Assyrian King Šamši-Adad I , residents of Tuttul complain that too much river water had been withdrawn from the town of Zalpah located on the upper reaches of the Belich (probably identical to Tell Hammam al-Turkaman) that is now missing for your own field irrigation. The surrounding area provided good conditions for growing barley, wheat and sesame. In the texts that were found in Mari , cattle breeding and logging for boat building in the forests of the Euphrates is documented.
Back then, Tuttul was as little concerned with the Belich as it is today. Nevertheless, there was probably a shipping connection to the Euphrates or a port on the river bank for the largest town on the lower reaches of the Belich. On the steep slope on the northern edge of the hill with a height difference of 35 to 40 meters, an artificial channel could be seen, which extends 4 meters below today's level and was previously filled with standing groundwater. Their function is unclear.
The city had strategic importance at the intersection of two transport links. A route from Mari to the southeast led via Tuttul up the Euphrates via Emar and further west to Haleb or north to Karkemiš . To the southwest a road branched off to Qatna , to the north a route led along the Belich 29 kilometers (a day's journey) to Tell es-Seman, then via Subat-Samas on the upper reaches of the river and on to the upper Chabur valley.
history
The history of the settlement in the triangle where the two rivers meet runs through the stages of four city foundations a few kilometers apart. The oldest place was Tell Zaidan, one of three up to 10 hectare large settlement mounds of a total of 14 settlements in the Belich Valley, which were otherwise less than one to four hectares in size. Tell Zaidan is about five kilometers east of Tuttul on the edge of the Belich valley and was settled during the Halaf period (around 6000 to 5300 BC, named after Tell Halaf ) and the Obed period (5900-4300).
The oldest traces of settlement on Tell Bi'a date from the middle of the 4th millennium ( Uruk period ). The next city foundation was the Seleucid Nikephorion around 300 BC. Two kilometers south of Tell Bi'a on the then Euphrates bank. In Roman times the place was called Callinicum (Kallinikos), under the Roman Emperor Justinian it was fortified again in the 6th century AD. Its location corresponds to today's village or district of Mišlab. Today's ar-Raqqa has its city center two kilometers west on the site of a new Abbasid foundation at the beginning of the 8th century.
3rd millennium
The scanty finds from the Uruk period do not allow any conclusions to be drawn regarding the duration or the size of the settlement. The first layers of settlement date from the early Bronze Age after the middle of the 3rd millennium. On the western southern slope of the central hill, at least five construction phases, one above the other and partly next to one another, with residential buildings, public buildings and six above-ground mud brick graves from this period can be distinguished. The graves are comparable to the royal tombs of Ur and were created for local rulers.
According to inscriptions, King Sargon of Akkad (around 2300 BC) is said to have advanced from his southern Mesopotamian kingdom up the Euphrates via Tuttul to the "Cedar Mountains" ( Nur Mountains ) and "Silver Mountains " ( Taurus Mountains ) in the third and eleventh year of reign . The mention of cedar and silver by name indicates the economic nature of this legend. The Sumerians lacked wood and metals. Sargon prayed to Dagān in Tuttul , whereupon the god gave him these areas (the "upper land") including Mari, Tuttul, Jarmuti and Ebla. His grandson Naram-Sin also claims to have reached the "Cedar Mountains"; the tuttul he mentioned could also be another tuttul (hit) in what is now northern Iraq.
In the following Ur-III period (2112-2004) Tuttul was only occasionally mentioned in historical texts and must have been of lesser importance. In contrast to Sargon and Naram-Sin, the Sumerian rulers with their military power now oriented themselves mainly towards the east. Nevertheless, there were political contracts to the west in the form of marriage ties; Other places mentioned are Mari, Ebla, Shimanum (Northern Iraq or Eastern Turkey), Urkeš and Habua Kabira (Tell Qannas, upstream from Tuttul). In economic texts of the Amar-Sin (ruled 2046-2039) a ruler of Tuttul called En-Si with the name Jašši-Lim is mentioned.
Main god Dagān
Tuttul is best known during the ancient Babylonian period from the first half of the 2nd millennium BC. BC as the main place of worship of the ancient Syrian weather god Dagān . In addition to Terqa (Tell Ashara on the Euphrates, 80 kilometers west of the Iraqi border), the "father of the gods" of the northern Mesopotamian-Syrian pantheon was worshiped in Tuttul . The same title was reserved for the main south Mesopotamian god Enlil . Rulers of distant small states came to Tuttul to take part in cult festivals. The cult practice of the journey of the gods known from Babylon, the procession of an image of a god mostly on the river, is also reported from Tuttul. The cult statue of the "Dagan of Tuttul" traveled up the Euphrates to Emar and some other places, but probably not down to Mari. In two cuneiform texts from Ugarit , Dagan, who is also revered in the small Mediterranean state, is mentioned together with Tuttul.
In the archives of Palace G in Ebla , which was destroyed by Sargon or Naram-Sin , “Tuttul” is mentioned over a hundred times, often in connection with Dagan, the “Lord of Tuttul”, who was also venerated in Ebla. Secular rulers of Tuttul are not mentioned here, presumably because the city was under the influence of Mari at the time.
The approximate location of Tuttul is based on two ancient Babylonian itineraries and a lexical text. According to letters from Mari, the place must have been on both the Belich and the Euphrates. The situation can also be seen in the above-mentioned texts from Ebla and in mythological tales from the Hittite capital Hattuša , where Dagan is equated with the Hurrian god Kumarbi .
Supremacy of Mari
The previously independent city fell shortly after 1800 BC. Like the entire Euphrates valley including Mari in the sphere of influence of the Assyrian king Šamši-Adad I. King Jaḫdun-Lim of Mari (1751-1735) mentions a "king of Tuttul and the land of the Arwānum", whose name is Ba'lu-Kullim is not clear from Tuttul sources. The city was under the younger son of Šamši-Adads I, Jasmah-Adad (1732–1714), the Assyrian ruler based in Mari during the old Assyrian Empire . The names of some governors from the administrative center of Tuttul are known through letters from his reign (Mari letters) . This also mentions tribute payments to Mari. Then Tuttul got its independence back. Jasmah Addad, his father Šamši-Adad I and Zimri-Lim must have traveled to Tuttul several times. The king again carried the title "Zimri Lim, King of Mari, (Tuttul) and the land ( Hana )" , corresponding to his predecessor . The rule of Šamši-Adad and Jasmah Addad is documented according to eponym lists . In two texts an otherwise unknown year name is mentioned: “the year in which Zimri-Lim or Zikri-Lim set foot in Tuttul.” This could mean the year of the reconquest of the areas west of Mari. Possibly Zimri-Lim destroyed the palace of Tuttul in his second year of reign (1714 according to the short chronology ). There is no archaeological evidence for the presence of Zimri-Lim in Tuttul. Practically no old Babylonian texts are known from Tuttul that were written after 1700 BC. Are dated. The city's decline began with the reign of Zimri-Lim.
The importance of Tuttul during the heyday is explained by the border situation between the kingdoms of Jamchad , Qatna , Karkemiš and Mari. Along the Euphrates route through Tuttul, the trade contacts of the Mari rulers Šamši-Adad and Zimri-Lim led to the largest regional power in the west of Jamchad, and via Qatna to the Mediterranean, from where ships went to Palestine. The changing dependencies and hostilities ended for Tuttul and other cities in the region after the conquest by the Hittites in the 16th century BC. BC, trade relations were lost. In the central hill E , layers of the Late Bronze Age (after the middle of the 2nd millennium) were made visible through a terrain cut. No ceramic finds have emerged from the Central and Neo-Assyrian period.
From the Roman period
In the late Roman (around the 3rd century AD) and early Islamic times, the western part of the settlement hill (especially hill B ) was used as a cemetery. There may have been a Roman fort at the foot of the hill to the southeast that has not yet been explored. At the beginning of the 6th century, a monastery was built on the central settlement hill above the palace, from which the name Tell Bi'a ("church hill") comes. Inscriptions with the years 509 and 595 appeared on two of the three mosaic floors. The monastery is identified with the Zacchäus Monastery (Mar Zakkay) known from text sources . It was related to the southern city of Callinicum and is said to have been inhabited until the Abbasid period. Numerous coins found in the floors of the monastery provide further information about its history.
Research history
The archaeological investigations under French direction around ar-Raqqa at the beginning of the 20th century did not deal with Tell Bi'a, but with the remains from the early Arab period and after the middle of the century under Syrian direction with their restoration. In 1954, Georges Dossin identified Tuttul, mentioned in cuneiform texts by Mari, with Tell Bi'a. The settlement mound had already been looted in antiquity and, due to its proximity to the city, was visited by robbery graves in the 20th century, especially in the area of the ancient cemetery, before the first surface investigations by the German Orient Society under the direction of Eva Strommenger began in the summer of 1980 . Up to the provisional end of 1995, financed by the German Research Foundation , the essential settlement layers in selected areas were exposed in 12 campaigns. In 1992 the name Tuttul was also found on tablets at Tell Bi'a .
Cityscape
The settlement mound has a size of 35 to 40 hectares and measures 750 meters with an approximately semicircular extension with the straight side in the south in an east-west direction and 650 meters from north to south. A chain of hills running along the edge reveals the location of the former surrounding wall. The city wall was made of adobe bricks and measured 6–6.3 meters, including pillars protruding on the inside. A glacis made of rammed earth on the southern outside is better preserved than the wall itself . There, 16 meters outside, a smaller and later built front wall was recognized, which was about 2 meters wide. Their course was followed over a length of 25 meters. The 20 × 20 meter gate buildings in the south and west were partly made of stones. The walls, plastered with clay on both sides, protruded 12 meters outwards. The location of the city wall in the north was only determined by a narrow probe.
The old Babylonian layers are in many places only a little below today's ground level, which is why the structure of the city was already recognizable in various elevations before the excavations. The highest point of the tell is the central hill E , which rises up to 12 meters above the area of the residential city. Here was the first palace from the second half of the 3rd millennium and the palace A ( Young Palace ) built above it from ancient Babylonian times. The long history of reconstruction of these buildings ended with Jashmah Adad in the 18th century BC. In addition to representative functions, Palace A also had economic functions, as shown by several ovens that were built into a large courtyard that had previously been a main room (room Q). The ashes from the ovens were found mixed with other rubbish in a pit in the middle of the courtyard, along with a large number of clay tablets and seals . Most of the seals had come into the city with trade goods from abroad or came from residents of Tuttul who were allowed to use private seals. Only a few seals were officially affixed.
An east-west section through Hill E , initially laid out over a length of 60 meters in 1980 and later extended , showed two to three half-meter-thick layers from the Middle and Late Bronze Ages below the Byzantine monastery, the Byzantine remains by 10 to 15 centimeters thick layer of earth are separated. The building structures labeled E 1 to E 9 are predominantly “central hall houses”, the long rectangular central area of which is surrounded on both sides by smaller chambers. The main rooms of E 1 and E 2 are about 12 meters long and 5 meters wide. This width could just be covered with wooden beams as a roof construction. To the northeast of Palace A was another group of houses (E10).
Solidly built houses were uncovered in Hill B in the west of the tell, an area particularly affected by robbery excavations. There, for example, plant B 6 of the first shift had an area of 475 square meters just below today's surface. From the irregular floor plan, the position of the outer boundary was determined only on a few meters. There is even less clarity about the small remains of houses in Hill C further to the northwest. Older layers (2 and 3) in hill B from the beginning of the 2nd millennium show dense residential development. The layers are partially disturbed by an Arab cemetery.
The hill C in the west near the city walls containing the remains of a medium-sized, roomed Ante temple - a frequently encountered in the 3rd and 2nd millennium in Syria design - at the highest elevation in the midst of a residential area. The entrance was in the east. There was practically nothing left of the walls during the excavation, the floor plan was made accessible via the exposed foundation. Its dimensions are 19 × 13 meters without the protruding wall parts on the entrance side. The foundation consisted of almost square mud bricks (edge length 45 centimeters, 9-12 centimeters high). It is the oldest temple of the Antes where a cult niche can be proven.
According to previous investigations, the Byzantine monastery complex comprised 2500 square meters with a church from the 6th century, the mud brick walls of which were preserved up to a height of 80 centimeters when uncovered.
literature
- Eva Strommenger , Kay Kohlmeyer : Tall Bi'a / Tuttul – I. The ancient oriental burials. Scientific publications of the German Orient Society (WVDOG). Saarbrücken printing and publishing house, Saarbrücken 1998
- Manfred Krebernik: Tall Bi'a / Tuttul – II. The ancient oriental writings. Vol. 2, Saarbrücken printing and publishing house, Saarbrücken 2001
- Eva Strommenger, Kay Kohlmeyer: Tall Bi'a / Tuttul – III. The layers of the 3rd millennium BC In the central hill E. Saarbrücker printing and publishing house, Saarbrücken 2000
- Adelheid Otto: Tall Bi'a / Tuttul – IV. Seal and seal unwinds. Saarbrücken printing and publishing house, Saarbrücken 2004
- Peter A. Miglus , Eva Strommenger: Tall Bi'a / Tuttul – VII. The A. Harrassowitz Palace , Wiesbaden 2007
- Peter A. Miglus, Eva Strommenger: Tall Bi'a / Tuttul – VIII. City fortifications, houses and temples. Saarbrücken printing and publishing house, Saarbrücken 2002
Web links
- Tuttul / foundations. Kiel image database Middle East. Christian Albrechts University, Kiel
Individual evidence
- ^ Arne Wossink: Challenging climate change: competition and cooperation among pastoralists and agriculturalists in northern Mesopotamia (c. 3000-1600 BC). (PDF; 4.5 MB) Sidestone Press, Leiden 2009, p. 141.
- ↑ Krebernik: Tall Bi'a / Tuttul – II, 2001, p. 12
- ↑ Wolfgang Schirmer: Landscape history around Tall Bi'a on the Syrian Euphrates. In: Peter Miglus, Eva Strommenger: Tall Bi'a / Tuttul – VIII. City fortifications, houses and temples. Saarbrücker Druckerei und Verlag, Saarbrücken 2002, pp. 4–7
- ↑ Peter MMG Akkermans, Glann M. Schwartz: The Archeology of Syria. From Complex Hunter-Gatherers to Early Urban Societies. (c. 16,000-300 BC). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2003, p. 165
- ^ MV Seton-Williams: Babylonia. Art treasures between the Euphrates and the Tigris. Hoffmann and Campe, Hamburg 1981, p. 26
- ↑ Krebernik: Tall Bi'a / Tuttul – II, 2001, p. 7
- ↑ Arne Wossink 2009, p. 31
- ↑ Krebernik: Tall Bi'a / Tuttul – II, 2001, p. 11
- ↑ Adelheid Otto: The Origin and Development of the Classical Syriac Glyptic. De Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2000, p. 15
- ↑ Izak Cornelius, Herbert Niehr: Gods and Cults in Ugarit. Culture and religion of a northern Syrian royal city in the Late Bronze Age. Verlag Philipp von Zabern, Mainz 2004, pp. 48, 55
- ↑ Krebernik: Tall Bi'a / Tuttul – II, 2001, pp. 3, 7
- ↑ Adelheid Otto: The Origin and Development of the Classical Syriac Glyptic. De Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2000, p. 174
- ↑ Krebernik: Tall Bi'a / Tuttul – II, 2001, p. 9 f. According to three cuneiform fragments added analogously to Jaḫdun-Lim
- ↑ Adelheid Otto: The Origin and Development of the Classical Syriac Glyptic. De Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2000, p. 19
- ↑ Stefan Heidemann: The found coins from Tall al-Bīʿa at ar-Raqqa and their relationship to local history. ( Memento of the original from May 9, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 1.3 MB) In: Zeitschrift für Orient-Archäologie 1, 2008, pp. 336–374.
- ↑ Peter Miglus, Eva Strommenger: Tall Bi'a / Tuttul – VIII, 2002, pp. 9–13
- ↑ Adelheid Otto: The Origin and Development of the Classical Syriac Glyptic. De Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2000, p. 45 f
- ↑ Peter Miglus, Eva Strommenger: Tall Bi'a / Tuttul – VIII, 2002, pp. 84, 87, 95 f
- ↑ Peter Miglus, Eva Strommenger: Tall Bi'a / Tuttul – VIII, 2002, pp. 23, 48–55
- ↑ Peter Miglus, Eva Strommenger: Tall Bi'a / Tuttul – VIII, 2002, pp. 102–113
