Augusta McMahon

Late Chalcolithic mass graves at Tell Brak, Syria, and violent conflict during the growth of early city-states

Abstract Excavations and surveys carried out from the mid-1990s through 2009 at Tell Brak, northeast Syria, have focused on reconstructing the socioeconomic complexity and physical growth of one of northern Mesopotamias earliest urban settlements. The recent discovery of several mass graves on the edge of the city, created at an important threshold in its physical expansion (ca. 3800–3600 B.C.), adds to a longstanding debate about the connection between the growth of early city-states and violent conflict. These graves, with their population of as many as several hundred primarily sub-adults and young adults, are interpreted as the result of large-scale violent events and may provide evidence for the post-mortem treatment of enemies. They offer a strong counterpoint to the dominant reconstruction of a peaceful prehistory in the region.

Excavations at Tell Brak 2006-2007

Excavations at Tell Brak in 2006–7 explored two key episodes in Mesopotamian political and social history, developing early social complexity in the fifth to fourth millennia BC and the shift from territorial state to early empire in the second millennium BC. Late Chalcolithic complexity is represented in Area TW on the main mound and at the outlying sub-mound of Tell Majnuna, while investigation of the Old Babylonian to Mitanni state-to-empire transition involved excavation in Areas HH and HN (Fig. 1). Both sets of excavations tie into our exploration of larger issues of the creation and maturation of past urban landscapes, for which Tell Brak provides a great depth of data. We would like once again to express our warmest gratitude to Dr Bassam Jamous, Director General of Antiquities and Museums, to Dr Michel Al-Maqdissi, Director of Excavations, to all their staff in Damascus, and to Sd Abdul Messih Baghdo, Director of the Antiquities Office in Hasseke, for their constant and friendly support. Financial support for the excavations was generously provided by the British School of Archaeology in Iraq, the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, Cambridge, the National Geographic Committee for Research and Exploration (2006), the Society of Antiquaries of London (2007), Newnham College, Cambridge and the University of Cambridge. We are extremely grateful to all those who have made this research possible.

Isotope evidence for agricultural extensification reveals how the world's first cities were fed

This study sheds light on the agricultural economy that underpinned the emergence of the first urban centres in northern Mesopotamia. Using δ13C and δ15N values of crop remains from the sites of Tell Sabi Abyad, Tell Zeidan, Hamoukar, Tell Brak and Tell Leilan (6500–2000 cal bc), we reveal that labour-intensive practices such as manuring/middening and water management formed an integral part of the agricultural strategy from the seventh millennium bc. Increased agricultural production to support growing urban populations was achieved by cultivation of larger areas of land, entailing lower manure/midden inputs per unit area—extensification. Our findings paint a nuanced picture of the role of agricultural production in new forms of political centralization. The shift towards lower-input farming most plausibly developed gradually at a household level, but the increased importance of land-based wealth constituted a key potential source of political power, providing the possibility for greater bureaucratic control and contributing to the wider societal changes that accompanied urbanization.

New excavations at Chagar Bazar, 1999–2000

For three seasons, 1935 through 1937, Max Mallowan excavated at Chagar Bazar, after selecting it during a survey of the Upper Habur region in 1934. The Mallowan excavations are most notable for the “Prehistoric Pit”, with its deep sequence of Halaf and 3rd millennium BC levels, and for the horizontal exposure of early 2nd millennium BC buildings at the centre of the site. These excavations made a substantial contribution to the initial identification of the northern Mesopotamian archaeological assemblages and artifactual sequence. But there are questions remaining about the sequence and the nature of occupation at Chagar Bazar. In 1999, a new programme of excavations at the site was begun, a joint project involving the British School of Archaeology in Iraq (Dr Augusta McMahon), the University of Liege (Professor Onhan Tunca), and the Syrian Directorate General of Antiquities and Museums (Mr Abdul-Massih Bagdo of the Hasseke Department of Antiquities). Our first two seasons took place in March-May of 1999 and March–May of 2000. The new research programme focuses on two related diachronic questions. The first is Chagar Bazars internal cycle of occupation, abandonment, and re-occupation, and the internal diversity within the site. The second question is the changing role of the site within settlement trends in the Upper Habur, focusing on its status as a relatively small site in the Mesopotamian context.

Investigation of the Early Dynastic-Akkadian transition : report of the 18th and 19th seasons of excavation in Area WF, Nippur

The Akkadian Period has not received the archaeological attention it deserves, despite its great historical and artistic importance. Excavated remains from the period have been more extensively reported from Syria, at such sites as Tell Brak, than from the core area of southern Iraq. The artifactual assemblage is still ill-defined, in part due to delays in the final publication of crucial excavations, including our own work at Umm al-Hafriyat and Tepe al-Atiqeh. A full assessment of the Akkadian Period also has been hindered to a significant degree, however, by errors in the dating of strata and artifacts at the key sites of Tell Asmar and Khafajah in the Diyala (see Gibson 1982), which have resulted, at these and other sites, in the disguising of early Akkadian material under the terms Protoimperial and Early Dynastic IIIB. The excavators of the critical sequence of the Northern Palace at Tell Asmar originally assumed that the main level of the palace was pre-Akkadian because of its plano-convex bricks (Frankfort 1933: pp. 34 ff.); but subsequently they assigned this level, correctly, to the Akkadian Period (Frankfort 1934: pp. 29–39). Seton Lloyd, in his manuscript for the final monograph, maintained an Akkadian dating for the main level of the building but was persuaded to allow the date to be changed to Protoimperial for the publication (Delougaz, Hill, and Lloyd 1967: pp. 181–196). Lloyd has continued to discuss the main level of the Northern Palace as an Akkadian Period building in his own books (e.g. Lloyd 1978: p. 141). Having read the Lloyd manuscript and having witnessed the process of editorial change from the vantage point of an editorial assistant, M. Gibson was aware as early as 1963 that there were some difficulties in the interpretation of the Diyala stratigraphy, especially in the zone of transition from Early Dynastic to Akkadian.

The lion, the king and the cage: Late Chalcolithic iconography and ideology in northern Mesopotamia

Recent excavations at Tell Brak, Syria, have explored the sites early urban expansion, including excavation of Late Chalcolithic mass graves in a small mound at the sites outer edge. This mound built up rapidly and is primarily composed of industrial rubbish, particularly ceramics and flint debitage. The rubbish layers also contained nearly one thousand clay container sealings bearing stamp-seal impressions. The most important images represented are human figures in combat with lions, and caged single lions. These images date to ca 3800 BC and are evidence for the early development of the iconography and ideology of power and leadership.

ASIA, WEST | Mesopotamia, Sumer, and Akkad

Mesopotamia is the Greek name for the ‘Land between the Rivers’, the region bounded by the Tigris and Euphrates, which now lies within the modern countries of Turkey, Syria, and Iraq. The southern alluvial plains within this region were known variously as Sumer and Akkad, Karduniash or Babylonia, while the northern steppe was Subartu, Hanigalbat, or Assyria. At times the two areas were grouped together as the Four Quarters, meaning the entirety of the then-known world. But it is as Mesopotamia that this region has become firmly embedded in archaeological literature and discourse, by way of scholars embedded in Biblical and Classical traditions. The archaeological record of Mesopotamia comprises Palaeolithic through Islamic occupations, but this entry will focus on the periods for which Mesopotamia is best known and most significant: c. 3500–539 BC. These millennia see urban society, nation-states and empires, literature and legal documents, monumental architecture, mass production, and fine art. The legacy of Mesopotamian culture persists; for instance, we owe our divisions of the hour and day to the Sumerian sexagesimal numbering system, and Mesopotamian mathematicians and astronomers are indirectly responsible for much of our understanding of geometry and constellations.