AFTER THE FALL OF ASSYRIA

Fundstellen Gesammelte Schriften zur Archäologie und Geschichte Altvorderasiens ad honorem Hartmut Kühne Herausgegeben von Dominik Bonatz, Rainer M. Czichon und F. Janoscha Kreppner 2008 Harrassowitz Verlag · Wiesbaden ISBN 978-3-447-05770-7 RAFA KOLI SKI, ANDRZEJ REICHE 1 AFTER THE FALL OF ASSYRIA One of the most significant contributions of Professor Hartmut Kühne to the knowledge of the Ancient Near East stems from his long term fieldwork at Tall Šēh Ḥamad, ancient DūrKātlimmu. His excavations in the lower city area unearthed several spacious residences, which yielded ample evidence, including cuneiform texts pertaining not only to the last decades of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, but – more importantly – also to the decades that followed the fall of Assyria, until late 6th/early 5th century BCE (Novak/Oettel/Witzel 2000; Radner 2002; Kreppner 2006; Kühne 2000, 2002, 2005). In our contribution to his Festschrift we would like to summarize the limited, yet significant, evidence of a Neo-Babylonian period settlement retrieved from Tall Arbid, a site located in the central part of the so-called Khabur Triangle, mid-way from Tall Brak to Tall Mozan.2 The site is composed of an early historic mound, ca. 16 ha in area, formed during the Early Jazireh period and settled continuously till the mid 2nd millennium BCE. The latest remains, which were uncovered exclusively at the very narrow top of the tall, date to the Mitanni period. Yet, ample evidence of later settlement has been discovered on a secondary hill (area A), located to the west of the main tall. This small tall, ca. 5 m high and covering an area of ca. 2 ha, was seriously damaged in modern times by rural activities, such as ploughing or digging pits for clay. In the largest of such clay-pits, at the western end of the tall, a trench covering 450 sq. meters has been located (Fig. 1).3 The earliest occupation uncovered there dates to the Early Jazireh period.4 After a long period of abandonment, this place was resettled in the Mitanni period, and after another break, again in the 1st millennium BCE. Three main architectural strata belong to this latest period of settlement: Two topmost layers consist of remains of a Seleucid era settlement, while the third level, very poorly preserved, had originally been identified as Neo-Assyrian (Bieli ski 1998: 213-215). Structural remains of this level have been uncovered on an area of ca. 300 sq. meters (sq. 28/18, 28/19, 29/18 and 29/19). The neighbouring area suffered from damage resulting from presence of a huge modern pit (towards the West) or by activities of the dwellers of the Hellenistic settlement, mainly storage pit digging (towards the East and South). What has survived are humble stumps of mud-brick walls, two or three bricks high, set without foundations. Yet, due to scrupulous fieldwork, it was possible to reconstruct the plan of a surprisingly large part of a substantial structure. 1 2 3 4 Rafal Koli ski (Adam Mickiewicz University of Pozna ), Andrzej Reiche (National Museum in Warsaw) The site has been excavated shortly by Max Mallowan in 1936 (Mallowan 1937: 117; Koli ski 2007). Since 1996 the work has been re-assumed by Polish-Syrian Mission directed jointly by Professor Piotr Bieli ski (Warsaw University) and Dr. Ahmad Serriyeh (Directorate of Antiquities and Museum, Damascus). We owe sincere thanks to both Directors for permission to present here unpublished material from the dig. Andrzej Reiche was site supervisor during all seasons of work in the Area. For interim reports on fieldwork in Area A, cf. Bieli ski 1997, 1998, 2002. Traces of industrial activities of the mid 3rd millennium, namely ceramic production, have been found under Mitannian houses, including a complete pottery kiln (Bieli ski 2002: 311-312). 52 Rafa Koli ski and Andrzej Reiche The core of the structure was formed by an extensive courtyard covered with a tightly packed layer of pottery sherds and pebbles (Fig. 1). Its dimensions cannot be reconstructed precisely, but its south-western side is no less than 9 m in length, and the preserved width of the pottery-and-pebble surface is 7 m (minimum area of 63 m2). Most of the sherds used for the pavement belonged to 3rd and 2nd millennium types; they could have been obtained from the site itself or brought from the main tall (Khabur period sherds) and reused to stabilize the surface of this open space. The 1st millennium material was represented by some Late Assyrian/Post-Assyrian sherds as well as a group of fragments which were dated to the Hellenistic period in an interim report (Bieli ski 1998: Fig. 2). The north-eastern and south-eastern walls of the courtyard were relatively well preserved. The south-western wall has been totally destroyed by a large modern clay-pit while the north-western wall has either been destroyed, or located beyond the northern limit of the trench. A possible position of an entrance linking the courtyard with Room 3 in the north-eastern wing is suggested by a doorsocket uncovered in situ, close to the north-eastern corner of the trench. Rooms located on the south-western side of the courtyard (Rooms 1-2) survived in a relatively good shape. One of them (Room 2) was provided with a sherd-and-pebble floor. Its small size (4.5 x 1.5 m) makes it an unlikely candidate for another courtyard; consequently it might be either a “toilet” or a “bathroom”, i.e. a room where water was used and the hardened floor was therefore needed to protect the mudbrick walls of the building. Room 1, adjacent to the courtyard, was 4.5 m long and 2.5 m wide; No floor has been identified here during excavations. Towards the north-east a much larger room (Room 5) was located. Two walls of this room were relatively well preserved. The south-western wall was uncovered on its entire length, while the southeastern wall was traced for about 6 meters. The wall, which had originally separated Room 5 from the courtyard, was entirely destroyed by Hellenistic pits, while the north-eastern wall has not been identified within the excavated area. A sequence of three floors of reddish clay has been excavated within this room (F1, F2, F4), suggesting prolonged use of the room. The most interesting feature discovered on the lowest floor (F 4) of Room 5 was a limestone base of a column. It has a relatively high, round torus mounted by a very low, cylindrical drum (Fig. 2). The base was used with subsequent floors which featured domestic installations: a bread oven, a small storage pit and a shallow hollow covered with clay and filled with charcoal fragments and ash. Two fragmentary preserved rooms survived in the western wing of the structure. Room 4 was only 1 m wide, while of Room 3 only the southern corner had survived. It is possible that an entrance opened in the south-western wall of this room providing access to the courtyard. Masonry of the described structure is of a noticeable quality. All walls were laid in a regular bond, using square bricks measuring 35-36 cm x 35-36 cm, as well as half-bricks. Walls were ca. 90 cm wide (two full bricks and a single half-brick); no plaster was identified, but the walls were preserved to a height of 2-3 courses of bricks maximum it seems reasonable that they had been plastered. The careful execution of the paved courtyard and of the pottery-andpebble pavement in Room 2 contribute to an overall impression of high quality of execution of the entire building, an impression which is further corroborated by the presence of the unique stone base in Room 5. Most of the pottery fragments belonging to this occupation level were found in mixed contexts, it was possible, however, to distinguish a substantial amount of Late Assyrian and Post-Assyrian forms. Close parallels can be found in the Syrian Jazireh: Tall Šēh Ḥamad After the Fall of Assyria 53 (Kuleman 1995), Tall Bari (Bombardieri/Forasassi 2006), Wadi Ajij area survey (Bernbeck 1993), the Lower Khabur Survey (Morandi-Bonacossi 1999), the Upper Khabur Survey (Anastasio 1999) as well as in the Eski Mosul Region in Iraq (Green 1999): Khirbet Khatuniyeh (Curtis/Green 1997), Qasrij Cliff and Khirbet Qasrij (Curtis 1989). Among them there were fragments of bowls with inverted and thickened rim, a type distinctive for Post-Assyrian pottery (Curtis 1989: 47; Curtis/Green 1997: 91). A very characteristic feature limited to the Khabur Region is a number of decorated sherds, featuring bands of simple impressions either on the body or on the carination of open vessels, sometimes combined with horizontal plastic bands and ribbing on the rim of open vessels. A body sherd with stamped impressions of rosettes and palm-tree leaves was also found at Tall Arbid. This kind of decorated pottery, dubbed recently “Tall Šēh Ḥamad Ware” was found on the eponymic site (Kuleman 1995; Kreppner 2006: 65-67) and – in large quantities – in the Wadi Ajij survey in western Syria (Bernbeck 1993: 113-114). It was subsequently accepted as a characteristic feature of the early Post-Assyrian period in the Northern Jazireh Survey (Types 143, 144 in Wilkinson/ Tucker 1995: 101-102, Fig. 74) and Prospection archéologique du Haut-Khabur (Anastasio 1999: 174-175). Hartmut Kühne proposed a date from the 2nd half of the 7th to the 6th century BCE for this kind of decorated pottery (Reiche 1999: 235). This date is corroborated by two seals discovered at Tall Arbid to the south of the described structure. They were found during an exploration of one of the Seleucid pits (Pit 21), on the same level as the paved courtyard of the residence, and it is very likely that they came from a layer contemporary with the described building. The first one is a terrakotta stamp seal decorated with symbols of Sin, Nabu and Marduk. It bears close resemblance to Neo-Babylonian stamp seals and was probably executed locally (Bieli ski 2000). The other one is a cylinder seal made of stone (?) decorated with a representation of a birdman confronted by a kneeling bull (Fig. 3). The same motive can be found on three other seals: One coming from Assur (Moortgat 1966: Pl. 77: 650), a second one from Tell Chenchi (Algaze 1989: Pl. 4b), the third one is of unknown provenance (Teissier 1984: no. 185). All three were found in an unstratified context and are dated only by stylistic criteria to the NeoAssyrian or Late Assyrian period. Another characteristic find was the base of a column. Similar stone column bases are known from Kalhu, Dūr-Šarrukīn, and Assur,5 where they occurred in variants of the described shape: They either came with a square, low plinth under the torus of the base or without it. Bases discovered in royal palaces and residences of the citadel area in Chorsabad are sometimes decorated. The Tall Arbid base represents a simple variant, without a plinth and, similarly to late examples from Assur, is not decorated. The closest analogy is Assur base Ass 15 664 (Miglus 1996: 308, Taf. 64d = Miglus 2004: Abb. 3a) and a very similar base discovered in Abschnitt 1 at Assur in 2000 (Miglus 2004: Abb. 3f). The base Ass 15 664 was discovered in the northern part of the Neustadt, in the area of Stallenreihen. The square on which the stelae had been standing was covered by at least two later settlement phases labeled by Miglus as Schichtenhorizont I and Schichtenhorizont II (Miglus 1996: 305-308). Schichtenhorizont I belonged to the Parthian occupation of the city and consisted of three to six settlement layers which accumulated up to 3 m of debris. Schichtenhorizont II, located below, consisted of a single, quite damaged layer, separated from the northern row 5 Cf. Miglus 2004: Assur: Abb. 3a-j; Kalhu: Abb. 2d,e; Dūr-Šarrukīn: Abb. 1b-c. 54 Rafa Koli ski and Andrzej Reiche of Assyrian stelae by 2 m of debris. According to Miglus, buildings of this level, which were unfortunately damaged to such a degree that it was impossible to register a coherent plan of the structure(s), used a lot of secondary material including stones, clearly coming from earlier, (Neo)-Assyrian structures. The date of this layer is not clear. It has to postdate the last of the stelae (that is Stele no. 1, dated to the reign of Assur-bani-apli) and Miglus proposes to consider this layer as late Neo-Assyrian or Post-Assyrian (Miglus 1996: 307; 2000a). All the bases illustrated on his Taf. 64d were found in the same building, reputedly on its courtyard, but as they differ in size and shape, it is clear that they had been reused in this structure. Thus, it is very likely that even if the building they found was Post-Assyrian, the bases should be dated to the latest period of the Assyrian city. Another much worn base, similar in shape to Ass 15 664 has been discovered by the German team in Abschnitt I in Assur in 2000 (Miglus 2000: 23-24; 2004: Abb. 3f). The base was standing in the courtyard of a Late Neo-Assyrian house serving as a support for a roof covering the southern corner of the courtyard (for plan, cf. Miglus 2000: Abb. 7). It seems very likely that this type of base, simplified in comparison to bases discovered in sumptuous residences of Kalhu and Dūr-Šarrukīn, became very popular among common population of the city.6 The combined evidence of pot-sherds, seals and the stone base provides a date in the terminal 7th or 6th century BCE. i.e. in the Post-Assyrian/Neo-Babylonian period (Iron Age IIIA) for the structure excavated in Area A at Tall Arbid, adding thus another example of Neo-Babylonian period settlement to the very short list of sites of this date known from Northern Mesopotamia (Curtis 2003: 158-164). The Post-Assyrian residence discovered at Tall Arbid deserves some comment. The fragmentary knowledge of its plan makes it difficult to study it in full and to look for analogies among Neo-Assyrian and Post-Assyrian buildings. It seems very likely that Room 5 (the room in which the stone base has been uncovered) was the reception hall of the structure. Its location in relation to the courtyard is by all means typical to Mesopotamian architecture of the 1st millennium BCE, both in the North and in the South. It was dictated by climatic conditions: Only when located on the southern side of the courtyard the wall of the reception hall was protected against direct sun exposure during the day. This layout is typical for large residences (Miglus 1999: for Assyria: 163-172, Taf. 73: 339; 74: 340; Taf. 85: 388-391, for Babylonia: 199-201 and Taf. 89-92) and for royal palaces as well (Heinrich 1984: Abb. 86, 94-95, 106, 110, 112 for Assyria and Abb. 122, 138 for Babylon) and can hardly be considered a distinctive feature. According to Miglus, the length-width proportion of reception halls is between 2: 1 and 3: 1 in the case of small Assyrian houses but may be as big as 4: 1 in the case of residences (Miglus 1999: 154, Tab. 22 and 22A). Consequently, it seems that Room 5 needs to be reconstructed as a rectangular hall of a length equal to two or three lengths of its width. The width of Room 5 is 5.2 m; consequently its length should exceed 10 m, and may be as much as 15 m. This conclusion makes it impossible to reconstruct the position of the north-eastern wall of Room 5 as a continuation of the wall of the courtyard (this is corroborated 6 There is a trend for providing private houses with elements used earlier exclusively in palaces and temples observable in late private houses in Assur, for instance at entrances, where stone thresholds were used and double door-sockets covered with decorated stone slabs attest to the use of doors composed of two wings (Preusser 1954: „Rotes Haus“, Pl. 11a; Miglus 2000: 31-33, Abb. 13; al-Hayani 2000: 57-58, Abb. 3-4). The same tendency is observable in Dūr-Katlimmu, where, however, covers of pottery were used (Kühne 2000: 768). After the Fall of Assyria 55 by the presence of some installations in the spot where the wall might have be). A more likely solution will be to reconstruct its position as continuation of the North-Western wall of Rooms 3 and 4, which is unfortunately not preserved. This reconstruction is justified by the outline of plans of Late- and Post-Assyrian houses discovered at Tall Šēh Ḥamad (Room CW in „Rotes Haus“ Radner 2002: Fig. 6, Room W in Haus W, Radner 2002: Fig. 4). In the both mentioned houses there is a staircase located in a small room adjacent to both the reception hall and the courtyard. Its position corresponds to that of our Room 4. This very narrow room (only ca. 1 m in width) would be a very good place to accommodate stairs in the Tall Arbid residence, though there is no direct evidence to this fact from the excavations. The base, which has been found in situ on the lowest floor of Room 5, exactly in middistance between the courtyard wall and the south-eastern wall, had certainly supported a column. The question is, if there were originally any more bases in this room, which is interpreted as the reception hall of the structure. If the room was nearly square (what, as already demonstrated, seems to be unlikely) and the bases were regularly spaced, there should be another base under the baulk, in a position indicated on the plan. If the room was in the shape of an elongated quadrangle, more bases would be expected. Their exact number will depend on the original length of the room. Columns within rooms, and especially within reception halls are a rarity in Mesopotamia. The obvious analogy is provided by early 1st millennium Iranian (or Median) sites, as Godin Tepe, Nush-i Jan, Baba Jan or Hasanlu,7 though none of these sites featured a room with a single row of columns.8 It would be premature to interpret the stone base of a column discovered in the reception room of the Tall Arbid Neo-Babylonian structure as a witness of the Median presence on the North Mesopotamian plain, which is hardly evidenced at all till now, but exceptional layout of the reception suite needs an explanation. A Median influence seems to be a plausible one. 7 8 For a review of the Iranian evidence cf. Roaf 1995. A small room in which two stone bases had been set was discovered in “Achemenid level” at Tille Höyük on the Euphrates, though the plan of the entire structure differs significantly from a typical Mesopotamian house (French 1987: 208, Fig. 1). 56 Rafa Koli ski and Andrzej Reiche BIBLIOGRAPHY Algaze,G. 1989 Tepe Chenchi. An Important Settlement Near Khorsabad. In: A. 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Roaf, M. 1995 Media and Mesopotamia: history and architecture. In: J. Curtis (ed.), Later Mesopotamia and Iran: Tribes and Empires 1600-539 BC, London, 54-66. Teissier, B. 1984 Ancient Near Eastern Seals from the Macropoli Collection, Berkeley. Wilkinson, T.J./D.J. Tucker 1995 Settlement Development in the North Jazira, Iraq: A Study of the Archaeological Landscape, Warminster. 59 After the Fall of Assyria Fig. 1: Tall Arbid – Sector A, Post-Assyrian residence Fig. 2: Cylindrical drum of Room 5 Fig. 3: Cylinder seal, ARB‘97 A29/19/40c-1