Teleilat Ghassul

Teleilat Ghassul is an archaeological site in present-day Jordan about 75 km northeast of the Dead Sea . The remains of a settlement from the fifth and fourth millennia BC have been excavated here. The Copper Age culture of Ghassulia is named after this place .

Teleilat Ghassul was examined by Alexis Mallon from the Pontificio Istituto Biblico in the 1920s . Further excavations have taken place in recent years by Stephen Bourke of the University of Sydney .

Nine layers could be distinguished. There were large, rectangular houses. These had stone foundations and clay walls. They usually consisted of a main room, one or two smaller side rooms and a walled courtyard. A special feature are numerous well-preserved wall paintings that date back to the fourth millennium BC . The depiction of a large sun (or a star) may indicate a sun cult .

The plant finds include olives and dates . Cattle, sheep and goats are occupied. Bones from older animals indicate that they were kept not only for the meat, but also for the milk. The ceramics are painted simply and sparingly. There were few copper objects . Stone tools were found in large numbers.

literature

• Alexis Mallon, Robert Koeppel, René Neuville : Teleilāt Ghassūl. Vol. 1: Compte rendu des fouilles de l'Institut Biblique Pontifical 1929-1932 , Pontificio Istituto Biblico, Rome 1934; Vol. 2: Compte rendu des fouilles de l'Institut Biblique Pontifical 1932-36. (= Scripta Pontificii Instituti biblici 87), Pontificio Istituto Biblico, Rome 1940.
• Robert North: Ghassul 1960: Excavation Report. (= Analecta Biblica 14). Pontificio Istituto Biblico, Rome 1961.
• Jaimie L. Lovell: The Late Neolithic and Chalcolithic Periods in the Southern Levant: New Data from the Site of Teleilat Ghassul, Jordan. (= Monographs of the Sydney University Teleilat Ghassul Project 1 / British Archaeological Reports: International Series 974). Archaeopress, Oxford 2001. ISBN 1-84171-263-9

Coordinates: 31 ° 51 '39.2 "  N , 35 ° 38' 25.8"  E