Tell Arpachiyah
Coordinates: 36 ° 29 ′ 45 ″ N , 42 ° 57 ′ 10 ″ E
Tell Arpachiyah (also often just referred to as Arpachiyah ) is a small hill near Mosul in what is now Iraq . It measures approx. 120 m in diameter. Excavations here have unearthed settlement layers of the Halaf culture (approx. 5500 to 5000 BC) and the Obed culture (5000 to 4000 BC).
In the phase of the Halaf culture, there were mainly round houses, each with a rectangular extension. The buildings were partly made of stone. There were isolated burials in the settlement area. The yield of painted ceramics was particularly rich. In fact, many of the finest works of Halaf period ceramics come from this site. The remains of a burned-down house come from layer TT6, in which a rich inventory such as an obsidian vessel , various other stone vessels made of alabaster , limestone, serpentine and diorite were found. Shell and stone pearls as well as clay figures of women came to light here. C-14 samples date to 4980 ± 60 and 5077 ± 83 bc ( uncal ). These are important dates to put the Halaf culture in chronological order as a whole.
Research history
The settlement hill is named after the village Arpachiyah, the ruins are also called Tepe Reshawa. In 1933 Max Mallowan carried out the first excavations. In one campaign he worked with 180 men and uncovered ten layers of settlement, whereby he did not get to the natural ground. The numbering was done from the top (TT - Top of Tepe) down.
Another excavation by Ismail Hijara in 1976 provided a continuous ceramic sequence from TT6 to the natural ground. Chemical-physical examinations of the ceramics and the clay used showed trade relationships with neighboring settlements such as Tepe Gawra, 25 kilometers to the north .
literature
- Roger Matthews : The early prehistory of Mesopotamia, 500,000 to 4,500 bc (= Subartu. V). Brepols, 2000 ISBN 2-503-50729-8 , pp. 85-88
- Stuart Campbell: Arpachiyah. In: Charlotte Trümpler (Ed.): Agatha Christie and the Orient. Scherz-Verlag, Bern / Munich / Vienna 1999, pp. 91-103
- Tom E. Davidson, H. McKerrel: The Neutron-Activation Analysis of Halaf and Ubaid Pottery from Tell Arpachiyah and Tepe Gawra. In: Iraq. 42, 1980, pp. 155-167
- Max Mallowan , John C. Rose: Excavations at Tell Arpachiyah 1933. In: Iraq. 2, 1935, pp. 1-178
