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The Excavations at Tell Al Rimah, 1964

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 August 2014

David Oates
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Extract

The first season of excavations at Tell al Rimah was undertaken from March 1st to May 13th, 1964, by a joint expedition of the British School of Archaeology in Iraq and the University Museum, Philadelphia. My thanks are due to my colleagues on the staff for hard work in the difficult circumstances of makeshift accommodation and a new site. Mrs. T. H. Carter of the University Museum was Assistant Director and took charge of Area C of the excavations. Miss Barbara Parker was epigraphist and photographer, assisted in the latter task by Mr. Nicholas Kindersley, who also undertook a part of the surveying. Mr. Julian Reade supervised the excavation of Area A, the temple, and Mr. David Crownover of the University Museum joined us in the second half of the season to give valuable assistance with the supervision of the dig and the cleaning and recording of finds. Many visitors gave us generous help; Mr. David French in the survey of other sites in the area, Mr. Jeffrey Orchard with the catalogue of finds, Professor Jørgen Laessøe with the epigraphy, and Miss Ann Searight and Miss Nan Shaw with the cleaning and conservation of finds. Sayyid Tariq al Na‘imi was the representative of the Directorate-General of Antiquities, and his energy and local knowledge were invaluable to us. We owe a great debt to the officials of the Government of Iraq for their hospitable assistance, to H. E. the Mutasarrif of Mosul Liwa and to Sayyid Ahmed al Mufti, Qaimaqam of Tell Afar. In Mosul Sayyid Selim al Jelili, Inspector of Antiquities for Mosul Liwa, was always ready to help with our problems. And, as always, the success of our work was largely due to the aid and advice, both practical and scholarly, of Dr. Faisal al Wailly, Director-General of Antiquities, and Sayyid Fuad Safar, Inspector-General of Excavations, and their staff.

Type
Research Article
Information
IRAQ , Volume 27 , Issue 2 , Autumn 1965 , pp. 62 - 80
Copyright
Copyright © The British Institute for the Study of Iraq 1965

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References

1 Rainfall records are incomplete and this line must be regarded as an approximation. It is based on Davies, D. H., “Observations on Land Use in Iraq”, Economic Geography XXXVIII (1957)Google Scholar, fig. 4.

2 The results of the 1947 census in Iraq are conveniently summarised by Field, H., “An Anthropological Reconnaissance in the Near East, 1950”, Papers of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University, XLVIII, No. 2, p. 67Google Scholar. These figures may be less accurate but are probably more relevant than the census of 1957, when the pattern of settlement had already been affected by drift to the cities and the mechanisation of agriculture.

3 Cf. the remarks of Layard, A. H., Nineveh and its Remains, II, p. 62Google Scholar, on the situation in the Tigris valley in the middle of the nineteenth century.

4 For the King-Lists see Poebel, A., J.N.E.S. I (1942), pp. 247 ff., 460 ff.Google Scholar, and II (1943), pp. 56 ff.; Gelb, I. J., J.N.E.S. XIII (1954), pp. 209 ff.Google Scholar; Landsberger, B., J.C.S. VIII (1954), pp. 31 ff., 46 ff., 106 ffGoogle Scholar.

5 It is interesting and relevant that the site has been chosen in recent times by two paramount sheikhs of the Shammar tribe as the location of their first settled residence.

6 In this article I have adopted the chronology put forward by B. Landsberger, op. cit., since it seems to me to accord best with the chronological statements of Middle Assyrian building inscriptions which are our most ancient authority. But these dates must still be regarded as approximate.

7 For a summary account of this trade, see Goetze, A., Kleinasien, 2nd ed. (1957), pp. 67 ffGoogle Scholar.

8 The Mari texts are being published in transliteration and translation under the direction of A. Parrot and G. Dossin, Archives Royales de Mari, abbreviated ARMT. A short account of Šamši-Adad I based on this evidence is given by Kupper, J. R., Cambridge Ancient History II, revised ed., Ch. I, pp. 3 ffGoogle Scholar.

9 Laessøe, J., “The Shemshara Tablets”, Arkaeo-logisk-Kunsthistoriske Meddelelser 4, no. 3Google Scholar.

10 Iraq V (1938), Pt. 2, pp. 123 ffGoogle Scholar.

11 Late Assyrian pottery, Iraq XVI (1954), Pt. 2, pp. 164 ffGoogle Scholar. and XXI (1959), Pt. 2, pp. 130 ff.; Hellenistic pottery, Iraq XX (1958), Pt. 2, pp. 124 ff.Google Scholar; Roman and Parthian pottery, Iraq XXI (1959), Pt. 2, pp. 221 ffGoogle Scholar.

12 Mallowan, M. E. L., Iraq IX (1947), pp. 82–3Google Scholar.

13 The cutting of a new road through the flank of the citadel mound at Tell Afar permitted us to examine a cross-section of successive levels on the line of the citadel wall. The earliest structure at this point was a massive mud-brick wall, and immediately above it were floors and walls dated by associated Roman coins and pottery c. A.D. 200; these were in turn overlaid by the foundations of a rubble and mortar wall, probably that of the Umayyad citadel (Qala’at Merwan). The mud-brick wall immediately under the Roman level seems likely to be Late Assyrian.

14 W. Andïae, Das Wiedererstandene Assur, Abb. 41.

15 W. Andrae, op. cit., Abb. 42.

16 Another capsule (TR. 10; Plate XIX, a) was found in the same level in the courtyard. This bore a pattern of two stags flanking a palmette tree and a procession of four human figures, in a style closely resembling that of Mitannian seals.

17 In the course of excavation and in the field catalogue we differentiated the lower level of Phase I, from which the majority of the finds came, into two deposits, Ib and Ic. Further work in 1965 seems to show that the difference is local and of no chronological significance, and the finds are all assigned here to Level Ib.

18 Masks from Mari, Louvre Nos. AO 19488, 19078 (see Syria XVIII (1937)Google Scholar, pl. XIV, 3 and 4); from Warka, Louvre No. AO 6685; from Susa, Louvre No. Sb 3588.

19 All the tablets found in 1964 have, by kind permission of the Director-General of Antiquities, been sent to the laboratory of the University Museum, Philadelphia, for treatment and will be studied by Professor 1. J. Finkelstein.

20 Date determined by the laboratory of the University Museum, Philadelphia.

21 The history of the ‘pitched brick’ vault has been discussed by Perkins, J. B. Ward in The Great Palace of the Byzantine Emperors, Second Report, ed. Rice, D. Talbot, pp. 93–95Google Scholar.

22 “Breaks in occupation” must be interpreted with caution. When a large number of valuable objects has been abandoned on the floor of a building we may assume that the occupants left in haste and did not return in time to recover their possessions, and such a desertion is often the result of hostile action. Destruction by fire may have been deliberate or accidental; there is a presumption in favour of the former only when the disaster can be shown to be widespread. The archaeological record of monumental buildings, whose maintenance or neglect depends on the relative prosperity of the community, cannot necessarily be equated in detail with the sequence observed in a residential area, where the repair or replacement of houses depended on the wealth and the personal needs of their owners. Moreover, a temple was usually rebuilt on the same site, but unless building land was scarce the site of an old house might be abandoned for some time before being reused and need not closely reflect the history of the settlement to which it belonged.

23 Goetze, A., J.C.S. VII (1953), pp. 65–70 and map, p. 72Google Scholar. The route must have passed to the south of Tell al Rimah, for there were only six day stages, unless the list is incomplete, between Aššur and the River Khabur and the distance does not permit any considerable deviation from the direct line. The second stage, Razama ša Burama-x, must have lain near the bend of the Wadi Tharthar south of Tell al Rimah and the third, Abu-Tiban, near Tell al Hadhail, 27 km. south-east of Beled Sinjar. Neither has been precisely identified.

24 In ARMT II, 39Google Scholar, Qatarā and Karanā, which lay south of Jebel Sinjar, were under the protection of Mari, now independent, and were threatened by the advance of Išme-Dagan who was at Razama, probably the town of that name south of Tell al Rimah.