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Tell Chuēra in Nordost-Syrien

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 August 2014

M. E. L. Mallowan
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Extract

Moortgat here gives an account of the fourth campaign at Tell Chuēra, an important site situated on the frontier of North Central Syria, between the Ḫabur and the Balikh, about equidistant from Ras el ‘Ain and Tell Abiadh, in steppe country studded with ancient settlements. The work was conducted under the auspices of the Max-Freiherr-von-Oppenheim Institute and the Deutsches Forschungsgemeinschaft, and is a pendant to the campaign instituted at Tell Halaf on the Upper Ḫabur by Oppenheim in 1911–1912. The results obtained at Chuēra also have a significant relation to the discoveries made by the British School of Archaeology in Iraq, in 1934–1938, at Chazar Bazar, Brak and elsewhere in the eastern Habur-Jaghjagha District, and are therefore peculiarly appropriate to discussion in this Journal which published accounts of these excavations about thirty years ago. Thus investigations spread over a period of more than 50 years are gradually placing this part of Northern Syria in a perspective which has become more clearly intelligible through the foreground of Babylonia.

The main mound of Chuēra is of large dimensions and spans a distance of over 1,000 metres from north to south. Winter rains are apt to be heavy, and water is available from a wadi of the same name. Buildings have appeared in several sectors of the mound, both of undressed stone, Steinbau I & III, and of mud-brick.

Type
Research Article
Information
IRAQ , Volume 28 , Issue 1 , Spring 1966 , pp. 89 - 95
Copyright
Copyright © The British Institute for the Study of Iraq 1966

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References

1 We are much indebted to Professor Dr. Anton Moortgat and to Frau Moortgat-Correns for their generosity in sending the photographs which accompany this article. We are glad to have this opportunity of discussing the important work which they have been conducting in a little known district of northern Syria.

2 Découvertes en Chaldée, Pl. 1 ter and Moortgat, Frühe Bildkmst in Samer, taf. XIV ff.

3 Reproduced from Moortgat, Plan VI.

4 Reproduced from Moortgat, Abb. 4. For illustrations of similar shapes of vases from Arbit and Brak see Iraq IV Pl. XIX no. 4 and Iraq IX pl. XXXIX no. 4.

5 Discussion in Iraq IX, p. 185Google Scholar.

6 Description of these wares by Moortgat, op. cit., p. 47.

7 Moortgat, op. cit., Abb. 7–11.

8 Gurney, O. R., “Tammuz Reconsidered: Some Recent Developments” in J.S.S. 7, No. 2 (1962), pp. 147–162Google Scholar.

9 I.L.N., March 27, 1937, frontispiece and Iraq IV, Fig. 9 no. 18.

10 Iraq III, Figs. 11–13.

11 Iraq IX, Pl. XLIII nos. 1–4 and discussion on p. 191, then presumed to be not later than the Agade, not earlier than the Early Dynastic period—a prognostication which has proved to be not far out. It is satisfactory that Moortgat's discoveries enable us to assign the ware more precisely to E.D. II—III or thereabouts. See also Iraq VIII, p. 135Google Scholar for its discovery at Jidle in the Baliḫ valley.

12 O.I.P. XLIV, Pls. 1–46, O.I.P. LX, Pls. 2–5.

13 Parrot, A., Mart, Collections des Ides Photographiques 7 (1953), Pls 6–53Google Scholar, and Eva Strommenger, The Art of Mesopotamia, Pls. 88–109.

14 Back of the statue here illustrated on Pl. XXIII, a. As no picture of the back is available here readers should consult Moortgat, op. cit., Abb. 17.

15 Nagel, Wolfram, “Frühdynastischen Epochen in Mesopotamien” In Vorderasiatische Archaeologe Studien und Aufsätze, Festschrift Moortgat, Berlin, 1964, 178–209 and table on page 195Google Scholar.

16 Eva Strommenger, op. cit., Pls. 92, 93 (Ur Nanshe); 98, 99 Idi-narum; 89 Ebiḫ-il.

17 Iraq IV, p. 96Google Scholar and Pl. XIII B, A.391 with note on the inscriptions by C. J. Gadd on p. 178.

18 A.A.A. XX, pp. 164 fGoogle Scholar.

19 Iraq IX passim.

20 Woolley, Leonard, Carchemish III, Pls. 52, b and 66, aGoogle Scholar.

21 See the Stelenreihe on Plan 1. This discovery was first described in detail by Moortgat in Tell Chuēra in Nordost-Syrien, Vorläufiger Bericht über die Grabung (1958). pp. 9–22. Abb. 4 and 8Google Scholar.