Untitled - Iraqi Archaeologist Dr.Bahnam Abu Al-Soof

407 Pages·2011·12.91 MB·English

The collection of excavation result published here was executed by
the writer during thirty years of his archaeological carrier with Iraqi
Department of Antiquity. The preliminary reports of the first, fourth
and fifth seasons of excavations at Tell – es – Sawwan show the
significance and the importance of the site. Tell es – Sawwan was an
advanced Neolithic village dating to the sixth millennium BC, situated
on the eastern bank of the Tigris some 120 km North of Baghdad.
The village was rather unique in its architectural remains of its five
building levels defensive ditch a wall, and alabaster stone vessels And
statuettes.
Tell Es – Sawwan an located in the middle of the country, together
with two other sites of comparable date a little to the north, provides
clear evidence for cultural correlation between the northern and
southern geographical parts of Mesopotamia, indicting the way which
the Neolithic farmers of the north filtered down to southern plain in
the delta toward the end of sixth millennium B.C, The discussion of
the Diyala sequins to southern sites may shed some light on the
Sumerian homeland of the Diyala region and southern Mesopotamian
plain of present Iraq.

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Table of contents

1. Mounds in the Rania plain and excavation at Tell
Basmusian (1956)………………………………………………….14
2. Further investigation at Assur – nasir – pal's palace in Nimrod.71
3. The excavation at Tell es – Sawwan: first preliminary report
(1964)……………………………………………………………………79
4. Tell e – Sawwan: excavation of the fourth season (spring 1967).146
5. Tell es Sawwan: fifth season of excavation (winter, 1967-1968).207
6. Short sounding at Tell Qalinj Agha, (Erbil) January-February,
1966……………………………………………………………………236
7. More sounding at Tell galling agha, (Erbil) march, 1967……..248
8. Exaction at Tell galling agha (Erbil) summer, 1968…………..263
9. Uruk pottery from the dokan and shaharzul districts, and the
distribution of Ninerite pottery as revealed by field survey work in
Iraq…………………………………………………………………….328
10. Uruk pottery from Eridu, l – Ubaid. ……………………………341
11. Notes on the late prehistoric pottery of Mesopotamia…………..366
12. Late prehistoric pottery at Nineveh, gawra and the neighboring
countries………………………………………………………………..375
13. Late prehistoric pottery and the Tell Afar sinjar region……….389
14. The Relevance of the diyala sequence to south Mesopotamian
sites……………………………………………………………………..396
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Preface
The following collection of excavation reports are the result of my
excavations in Iraq in the years 1956-1986; they were first published
in summer, by Iraq's ministry of culture and the state Board of
Antiquities and Heritage.
I began my first major projects shortly after I graduated with my B.A
in archaeology from university of Baghdad, in June of 1955. In the fall
of 1955 and the summer of 1956, respectively, I began excavations at
the site of Basmusian and a survey of the Rania plain, which was
already in progress in the province of Suleimanya in Iraqi
Kurdistan(northeastern) Iraq, In spite of the extreme summer heat in
this mountain region, and some other obstacles such as an incident of
fire in the expedition camp and an outbreak of smallpox in the
Kurdish village of Basmusian (which neighbored the site and was the
main source of its workmen). these early projects were quite
successful.
In the spring of 1959-1960, I excavated the throne room of the palace
of king Assur- nasir – pal II at Nimrod, finding a corridor behind the
end of the throne room and two more ( partly – eroded) rooms. None
of these areas were ever reached or planned by layand or Mallawan
during their earlier excavations at this palace in the middle of the 19th
and 20th centuries.
The preliminary reports of the first, fourth, and fifth seasons of
excavations at Tell es – Sawwan show the significance and the
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importance of the site, Tell es – Sawwan was advanced Neolithic
village dating to the 6th millennium BC, situated on the eastern bank
of the Tigris river some 120 km north of Baghdad. The village was
rather unique, with architectural remains of its five building levels,
defensive ditch and wall, and alabaster stone vessels and statuettes.
Tell es – Sawwan location in the middle of the country, together with
two other sites of comparable date a little to the north, provides clear
evidence for cultural correlation between the northern and southern
geographical parts of Mesopotamia, indicating the way which the
Neolithic farmers of the north filtered down to the southern plains in
the delta toward the end of the 6th millennium BC.
The work was done in several seasons of excavation at Tell Qalinj
agha, located within the city of modern Erbil in the Iraqi Kurdistan,
in order to salvage the site and its remains form a private building
project which was already in progress. An Erbili family owned the site
and its surrounding, In the late 1960s the antiquity authorities bought
the land and immediately started excavation. Two short and one long
excavation seasons brought to light interesting remains, especially
those of the 4th millennium BC of Uruk period. Two living quarters
were uncovered in level lll, and in the middle of each was small
tripartite Temple with some walls painting remains.
Later in the 1970s and 1980s I was engaged in supervising a major
salvage program of excavations at the Diyala and Eski Mosul dam
construction areas. Hundreds of ancient sites would become
submerged under each of the reservoirs created behind these two
dams. After several years of salvage work by Iraqi,
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Arabs and foreign archaeologists, results showed that the majority of
sites at both salvage projects had materials dating from the pre-
pottery Neolithic to the Islamic period.
I think it is useful to add to these Sumer dig reports a few more
articles dealing with the late prehistoric pottery of Mesopotamia-
mainly Uruk, Jamdat – Nasr and Nine rite V- as revealed by my own
excavations and those of others. I also find it of some significance to
end this group of articles with a discussion of the Diyala sequence of
this date to southern sites. This discussion was published in the
journal IRAQ (published in London) in 1967; its significance lies in
the light it will shed on the Sumerian homeland of the Diyala region
(east of Baghdad) and the southern Mesopotamian plain of present
Iraq.

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Introduction
1. GLIMPSES OF MESOPOTAMIAN HISTORY AND ARCHAEOLOGY
Fifteen thousand years ago, in the foothills of the Zagros mountains of
northeastern Mesopotamia, our ancestors began experiments that
would chance mans destiny. The flint tools they left behind provide for
a trained archaeological detective, an outline of when and where they
did it. But even experts can expert can only speculate how.
Barley, sprouting from a bit of spilled grain, perhaps inspired a
normal gatherer to plant his own crop; thinning herds of wild goats
and sheep maybe tempted a hunter to trap a pair for breeding stocks.
Whatever sparked the process, mans first great revolution had begun
as slowly as the hunter learned to exploit his environment. By 6000
B.C, here at Tell Es – Sawwan near Baghdad, farmers and shepherds
were building rectangular houses and complete with courtyards,
kitchens with hearths and granaries, and corals for there livestock
and wearing beads and bracelets and rings of bone, Clay, and stone.
Now these small votive statues offered clues to early religious beliefs.
Most were found in the graves of children, suggesting each served as a
substitute mother for the helpless child on his eternal journey.
By the 5th millennium B.C lower Mesopotamia was already a
melting pot. People from the north, Hassuna, Tell Es- Sawwan,
Jarmo, filtered down both the Tigris and Euphrates bringing their
knowledge of farming, architecture, religion, and art. Other groups
pressed northwards from the east Arabia and the Arabian Gulf.
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Most geologists agree that the shallow Arabian Gulf was dry land in
lower Paleolithic times. The world was cooler, passing though an ice
age, and ocean shorelines were 300 feet lower. The Tigris and
Euphrates flowed through separate green valleys, emptying into the
Gulf of Oman. Then 15.000 years ago, the world warmed, ice caps
melted, and the oceans began to rise. The slowly raising Gulf squeezed
populations northwards for 10.000 years. As people were driven
slowly from their lost paradise, they brought with them, Mesopotamia
epics, myths, and memories of the flood that drowned their land, of
the Eden they lost.
During the fourth millennium B.C, the Mesopotamian mix began
to tame alluvial plain and marchlands between the two rivers, the land
we call Sumer, with roads and canals. Here Sumerians farm villages
evolved into small city – states, each clustered around a Temple and
ruled by an ensi or “priest- ruler‟. Mankind was poised for another
momentous leap forward.
Mans first attempt to record his thoughts came as mere jottings,
lines and dots on patties of Clay, to tally sheep, or fish, or sheaves of
barley. Archaeologists uncovered the oldest of these at Uruk and Ur.
Later, notes or workers rations and long lists of Temple offering
appear, using more sophisticated pictographs: a head to signify man a
bowl to stand for food, a human foot could mean foot or to walk. By
3000 B.C. the scribes of summer had perfected grammar and
vocabulary using phonetic cuneiform (wedge- shaped) characters. On
durable Clay tablets they recorded waybills, recipes, laments and love
songs. The hundreds of thousand of surviving cuneiform tablets
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