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THE AMUQ VALLEY REGIONAL PROJECTS

By Christopher Edens
Resident Director, American Institute for Yemeni Studies

For a more detailed report about the season season see report:

2000, Yener, K.A., C. Edens, J. Casana, B. Diebold, H. Ekstrom, M. Loyet and R. Özbal, "Tell Kurdu Excavations 1999" in Anatolica XXVI, pp. 31-117.

Tell Kurdu Excavations 1999

The second season of full-scale excavations at Tell Kurdu opened three major areas, and another three smaller portions of the site.  This work revealed architecture, industrial areas, and associated trash deposits that belong to the Amuq E (or Ubaid-related, c. 4800-4400/4300 BC) , Amuq D (c. 5200-4800 BC), and a late phase of Amuq C (or Halaf-related, c. 5700-5200 BC) periods.  In addition, a team from Bogazici University conducted a magnetometry survey over two large portions of the site.

The Oriental Institute, University of Chicago , conducted a second major season of excavation at Tell Kurdu, Hatay, between 5 August and 15 September 1999 .  The excavation staff included the following people:  Aslihan Yener (University of Chicago), project director ; Christopher Edens, excavation director  (University of Pennsylvania); Steven Batiuk (University of Toronto), Jesse Casana (University of Chicago), Rana Özbal (Northwestern University), Amir Sumikai-Fink (University of Chicago), Bakiye Yükmen (Mustafa Kemal Üniversitesi),  trench supervisors ;  Bülent Demir, Özlem Dogan, Lale Dögüscü, Serap Güzel, Dilem Karaköse, Halim Kes (Mustafa Kemal Üniversitesi), Heather Snow (University of Toronto), Nadine Chenier (Laval Université), trench assistants;  Benjamin Diebold (Yale University), pottery analysis, Heidi Ekstrom (Saint Mary’s University), flotation and botanical analysis;  Michelle Loyet (University of Illinois), faunal analysis, Brenda Craddock (independent scholar), illustration.  In addition a team from Bogazici Üniversitesi conducted a brief magnetometry survey on the mound, and Cigdem Lule worked the mineralogy of small finds.  Ahmet Beyazlar was the General Directorate representative.

Tell Kurdu is a large site (the mounded site extends across 15 ha) that forms a double mound connected by a lower saddle.  When Robert Braidwood examined the site in 1938, he identified three major periods of occupation (Amuq phases C-E), with the Amuq E occupation concentrated on the higher south mound, and the earlier Amuq C-D settlement across both mounds.  Since Braidwood’s time, the site has undergone some modification, as cotton farmers have graded off about 2 m. from the summit of the southern mound, cut into the sides of the south mound,  and flattened parts of the north mound.  The Amuq Valley Regional Projects returned to the site in 1996, when a small sounding was placed in the eastern side of the south mound.  The larger scale excavations of 1998 placed 10 squares of varying size in both the south and north mounds, revealing Amuq E and Amuq C architecture and associated deposits. 

The 1999 season of the Tell Kurdu excavations had four objectives:  (1) further to investigate an area of Amuq E architecture on the eastern slope of the south mound; (2) to begin a step trench down the east face of the south mound in order to create a more detailed ceramic chronology for the Amuq C-E periods; (3) to investigate architecture discovered on the south mound during magnetometry survey during the 1998 season; and (4) to investigate the extent and depth below modern surface on the southern mound.  The work bearing on these four objectives, and the results, are presented in turn.

1.  Trench (Tr.) 2 of the 1998 season uncovered a complex of small rooms that seem to have served as storage facilities, on the eastern slope of the south mound adjacent to the 1996 sounding where masses of burnt grain appeared.  In 1999 Tr. 11 (10 x 10 m) and Tr. 15 (excavated over a 5 x 10 m area) were placed along the western side of Tr. 2 and across the 1996 sounding, so as to open a 300 sq m. area of this complex.  The uppermost remains found in these two new squares consisted of kilns for firing pottery.  In Tr. 11 four kilns, partially connected with burnt pisé walls formed three sides around a central open space.  Three of the kilns were square while the fourth was round.  The pottery recovered from associated deposits included numerous wasters and frequent ceramic slag.  This industrial installation gives a first view into the organization of pottery production at Tell Kurdu, implying that at least some of the Amuq E pottery was a specialized craft product rather than an entirely domestic activity.  The upper installation lay over an earlier phase of kilns, less well preserved, that extended into Tr. 15 to the south.  One or both of these phases corresponds to the uppermost phase of architecture found in Tr. 2 during the 1998 season.  Below these kilns lay pisé walls of structures that extend the storage facilities of Tr. 2 (phase 2) into Tr. 11 and 15.  These structures had not been completely exposed by the end of the 1999 season.  The pottery found in association with all phases of these two squares belong to the classic Amuq E, or Ubaid-related, style.

2.  The east slope of the south mound forms a steep slope left by bulldozing activities that widened an existing indentation in the mound topography for farming.  The bulldozer cut reveals a long series of bedded trash deposits that slope steeply up to the south against a probable platform.  Tr. 14 (4 x 10 m) was placed over these deposits as the beginning of a step trench intended to cut from the modern mound surface to virgin soil below the present level of the surrounding plain (Braidwood reports at least 2.5 m of archaeological deposit below plain level).  During the 1999 season this trench uncovered portions of a building that lay above the bedded trash deposits, and the uppermost units of the bedded trash itself.  The excavation revealed most of one room and portions of several more rooms of the upper building.  The mud brick walls of the building stood nearly half a meter high, and the floor had been renewed several times.  Open ovens stood in at least three the corners of the room In the corners of the main room sat open ovens, forming a sequence of renovation and relocation during the life-time of the building.  Outside the building to the east associated surfaces and ash deposits sloped steeply downward.  Two other ash deposits and beds of compact silts sloped downward from southwest to northeast, representing the uppermost of the bedded trash deposits.  These deposits contained numerous fragments of clay sealings, suggesting that the trash reflects a public institution or an elite/wealthy family.  An isolated wall ran across the top of these bedded deposits, perhaps the remnants of a building cut away by the bulldozer.  The pottery from this trench belongs to Amuq E, but presents characteristics distinctive from typical Amuq E and probably represents an early phase of this period.  In future seasons, the step trench will be extended downward through the bedded trash deposits and below the plain surface.

3.  In 1998 a magnetometry survey revealed the outlines of a large building complex on the north mound, the character of which seemed out of place in the Amuq C-D date presumed for the north mound.  Two contiguous squares, Tr. 12 (10 x 10 m) and Tr. 16 (excavated over a 5 x 10 m area), were placed in the west end of this building.  Excavation in these squares uncovered portions of a courtyard and a second open space framed by two unexpectedly thick walls and a linear series of rooms.  The main walls present an unusual construction technique in which ashy and silty mud were laid in thin bed, seemingly between outer brick skins.  The courtyard, in Tr. 12, was paved with brick, perhaps only as a late renovation of this surface.  The brick pavement of the courtyard lay over several basin-like installations, one of which displayed was fire-reddened.   A free-standing room sat within the courtyard, perhaps a later addition.  The series of rooms lay along the outside face of the main wall the formed the eastern side of the courtyard.  These rooms possess several floors, and one was filled with brick to form a solid platform-like structure in which sat two basins (one with fire-reddened walls).  East of these room lay a large depression filled with ashy trash.  The pottery associated with this architecture belongs to (a late phase of) the Amuq C, or Halaf-related, period.  Architecture of this design and scale is exceptional for this time, and may represent a local development not found in the Halaf heartland.  Several later pits and two burials cut into this architecture.  Pottery from the pits suggest that these later events occurred during Amuq D times.

4.  The remaining excavations addressed the extent and nature of occupation on the south mound and its skirts.  Tr. 13 (5 x 5 m) was placed toward the base of the south mound on its northwest side.  Local informants have stated that the bulldozer had graded the mound summit in this direction, filling a fairly deep embayment in the saddle between the two mounds.  Tr. 13 confirmed that a thin sheet of bulldozed soil exists down-slope on this side of the mound, but also revealed that previous slope wash and soil development forms a thick (well over a meter deep) veneer over ashy deposits.  The pottery throughout this sequence belongs to Amuq E, suggesting that the south mound originally presented a steep slope in this direction, and that earlier occupation is very deeply buried if they exist at all.  Tr. 18 (3 x 3 m) also on the lower slope of the south mound, north of the summit.  Here excavation encountered no evidence of redeposited soil, and intact archaeological deposits lay beneath half a meter of developed soil.  The trench uncovered a burial and several pits that cut into the corner of an underlying room.  The pottery found in the room belong to Amuq D.  This result provides a northern limit to the Amuq E settlement, and also suggests that the Amuq D settlement may be most accessible in the saddle between the two mounds.  A bulldozer cut along the southern side of the mound has left a 2-m high escarpment here.  Trimming back of this escarpment in three places shows that slope wash and soil development take up at least the upper two meters in the southeast portion of the mound, but that archaeological deposits are somewhat closer to the surface with distance westward.   The pottery from these deposits belongs to the Amuq E.  When combined with the evidence from other parts of the mound, this result suggests that the Amuq E settlement formed a SW-NE oval above earlier occupation.  The final excavation of the 1999 season, Tr. 17 (2 x 2 m) was placed in the most distant zone of pottery scatter around the mound at plain level, to the southwest of the south mound.  This trench revealed a completely natural sequence of alluvial silts and soil formation to a depth of two meters.  This result shows that sherd scatter does not mark the limits of the site, and confirms that alluviation has continued after the deepest occupation that Braidwood reported. 

The 1999 season of excavation at Tell Kurdu has greatly enhanced our understanding of the site, and has added important results to the 1998 season.  Several points stand out as guides to future work at the site.  The improved knowledge of the topography of settlement will allow us to select portions of the site where certain periods are most accessible:  Amuq E on the south mound, Amuq D in the saddle, and Amuq C on the north mound.  A program of small soundings across the saddle would help confirm this expectation.   The work on the north mound reveals unexpectedly massive Amuq C architecture.  Future investigations of this portion of the site will greatly modify our current understanding of the Halaf and Halaf-related cultures of southeastern Anatolia and adjacent portions of the Near East .  The Amuq E occupation on the south mound offers several intriguing avenues for future research.  The kilns and storage facilities on the east slope of the mound suggest public, or at least corporate, coordination of craft and subsistence labor.  At the same time, the concentration of sealing activity on the mound summit suggests differential need for administrative technologies and potential differences in wealth and social power among families.  The next couple of excavation seasons at Tell Kurdu will be devoted to investigating these aspects of the Amuq E settlement.