Tell Beydar

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Relief Map: Syria
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Tell Beydar​
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Syria
Tell Beydar

Tell Beydar ( Arabic تل بيدر, DMG Tall Baidar ), ancient name Nabada , is a settlement mound in the Jazira region in northeast Syria .

location

The excavation site is located in the historical region of northern Mesopotamia , northwest of Al-Hasakah and southeast of Ras al-Ain, roughly halfway between the two places. Beydar I is a tell with a diameter of 600 meters and a height of up to 27 meters above the surrounding area. Beydar II is an approximately 50 hectare flat settlement in the west of the tell. Beydar III is a 0.5 hectare prehistoric tell about 1 km further south.

exploration

Excavations have been carried out since 1992 by a European-Syrian team led by Marc Lebeau (Brussels) and Antoine Suleiman (Damascus). On the Tell (Beydar I) extensive parts of a city from the Early Bronze Age were uncovered during the excavations . The 17th and, for the time being, last excavation campaign was carried out in spring 2010. Since then, the Syrian civil war has prevented further investigations.

history

The city was founded around 2900 BC. Founded. At the beginning of the settlement, Tell Beydar was a wreath of approx. 20 hectares with a central upper town and a ring-shaped lower town. Before the middle of the 3rd millennium, the lower town and the outer city wall were abandoned. From then on, settlement was limited to the approx. 7 hectare upper town, which was given its own fortification wall at the latest by this time. The former city wall fell into disrepair and became a ring-shaped rampart that is still visible in the area today .

The city experienced its heyday in the 25th and 24th. Century BC From this time two palaces, five temples, a number of farm buildings and houses have been uncovered. In the center of the city there was an acropolis in which the most important public buildings were concentrated. The main entrance to the Acropolis is on the edge of a square richly structured with pillars and niches. From around 2400 BC An extensive clay tablet archive (approx. 230 tablets) comes from the 4th century BC. It mainly contains administrative texts in Akkadian . At this time the name of the city is Nabada. It had a population of around 1800-2500 and was the local administrative center of the Kingdom of Nagar . In almost simultaneous cuneiform texts from Ebla , Nabada is mentioned as the recipient of silver deliveries. All personal names (as far as understandable) are Akkadian, there is no evidence of the presence of Hurrites .

In Akkadian times (approx. 2300 BC) the place was reduced to a village of approx. 1.5 hectares of settlement area: the palaces, most of the temples and the city wall were abandoned. A violent destruction of the place cannot be proven. A burial chamber made of adobe bricks dates from this period , in which a deceased was laid down as a "side stool " with rich gifts (especially weapons) . Around 2100 BC Beydar I was completely abandoned. A short repopulation took place in the Hellenistic period (2nd / 1st century BC). At that time there was a residential complex interpreted as a manor house and a number of small houses and storage pits.

The Beydar II flat settlement was only examined to a very limited extent. It has two layers of settlement, which date from the Middle Ages and Neo-Assyrian times. The small Tell Beydar III is a settlement from the end of the Ubaid period and the subsequent late Chalcolithic period.

literature

  • Philippe Talon, Karel van Lerberghe (ed.): En Syrie. Aux origines de l'écriture , Brepols, Turnhout 1997, ISBN 2-503-50681-X
  • Farouk Ismail, Walther Sallaberger , Philippe Talon, Karel van Lerberghe: Administrative Documents from Tell Beydar. Seasons 1993-1995 (Subartu, II). Brepols, Turnhout 1996, ISBN 2-503-50539-2
  • Lucio Milano, Walther Sallaberger, Philippe Talon, Karel van Lerberghe: Third Millennium Cuneiform Texts from Tell Beydar. Seasons 1996-2002. (Subartu, XII) . Brepols, Turnhout 2004, ISBN 2-503-51542-8
  • Marc Lebeau, Antoine Suleiman (eds.): Tell Beydar, Three Seasons of Excavations. 1992-1994. A Preliminary Report (Subartu, III) . Brepols, Turnhout 1997, ISBN 2-503-50584-8
  • Marc Lebeau, Antoine Suleiman (eds.): Tell Beydar, The 1995–1999 Seasons of Excavations. A Preliminary Report (Subartu, X) . Brepols, Turnhout 2003, ISBN 2-503-99117-3
  • Marc Lebeau, Antoine Suleiman (ed.): Tell Beydar. The 2000-2002 Seasons of Excavations. The 2003-2004 Seasons of Architectural Restoration. A Preliminary Report (Subartu, XV) . Brepols, Turnhout 2007, ISBN 978-2-503-51812-1
  • Marc Lebeau, Antoine Suleiman (ed.): Tell Beydar. The 2004/2-2009 Seasons of Excavations. The 2004/2-2009 Seasons of Architectural Restoration. A Preliminary Report (Subartu, XXIX) . Brepols, Turnhout 2011, ISBN 978-2-503-53521-0

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