Tell Kurdu Project

THE TELL KURDU PROJECT

fig 1.overview of trenches

THE CURRENT PHASE OF EXCAVATIONS

At 15 hectares, Tell Kurdu, located at the far western border of the Halaf world, is one of the largest Chalcolithic settlements in the area of Northern Mesopotamia and Anatolia and offers an excellent opportunity to investigate the dynamics of Halaf-period society.

Halaf period archaeology has long focused on documenting and explaining the similarities in material culture over the vast geographical expanse of Northern Mesopotamia and Southeastern Anatolia. Emphasis has been on inter-regional comparative studies of ceramics and architectural styles. Although a supra-regional framework can raise interesting issues on the continuity of distinctive cultural characteristics over space and time, it leaves a void in the local perspective in which settlements and communities are understood in their specific geographical, ecological and cultural contexts. In order to develop a local perspective, a prerequisite is data collection in broad horizontal exposures of an occupation level. This has been largely lacking at Halaf period sites to date.

The excavations of the Amuq C or Halaf-related levels at Tell Kurdu conducted in the 1999 and 2001 season allow us to investigate social en cultural variability at an intra-site or local level (fig.2). The 2001 excavations alone uncovered 700 m2 of a single occupational level of an Amuq C neighborhood, consisting of a dense pattern of single and multi-room mudbrick structures separated by streets and alleys (fig.1). Though other excavations in the Near East have yielded parts of sixth or fifth millennium settlements and bits of neighborhoods of larger towns, the Halaf levels at Tell Kurdu can now be considered one of the larger exposures for this period. The floor levels in different structures yielded in situ material including storage vessels, objects related to food preparation and serving, as well as administrative artifacts. Micro-artifact distributions also indicate the presence of locations for flint and obsidian knapping, and the production of beads and shell ornaments.

fig. 2: topographic map of site (click to enlarge)

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