Tell Halaf () is an

archaeological site An archaeological site is a place (or group of physical sites) in which evidence of past activity is preserved (either prehistoric or recorded history, historic or contemporary), and which has been, or may be, investigated using the discipline ...

Al-Hasakah Al-Hasakah (; / ; ) is a city in northeastern Syria and the capital of the Al-Hasakah Governorate. With a 2023 estimated population of 422,445, Al-Hasakah is populated by Kurds, Arabs, Assyrians and a smaller number of Armenians and Chechens. A ...

in northeastern

Syria Syria, officially the Syrian Arab Republic, is a country in West Asia located in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Levant. It borders the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Turkey to Syria–Turkey border, the north, Iraq to Iraq–Syria border, t ...

, a few kilometers from the city of Ras al-Ayn near the

Syria–Turkey border The border between the Syrian Arab Republic and the Republic of Turkey (; ) is long, and runs from the Mediterranean Sea in the west to the tripoint with Iraq in the east. It runs across Upper Mesopotamia for some , crossing the Euphrates and ...

. The site, which dates to the sixth millennium BCE, was the first to be excavated from a

Neolithic The Neolithic or New Stone Age (from Ancient Greek, Greek 'new' and 'stone') is an archaeological period, the final division of the Stone Age in Mesopotamia, Asia, Europe and Africa (c. 10,000 BCE to c. 2,000 BCE). It saw the Neolithic Revo ...

culture, later called the

Halaf culture The Halaf culture is a prehistoric period which lasted between about 6100 BC and 5100 BC. The period is a continuous development out of the earlier Pottery Neolithic and is located primarily in the fertile valley of the Khabur (Euphrates), Khabu ...

, characterized by glazed pottery painted with geometric and animal designs. It is thought to have been historically named Guzana, i.e. the Biblical Gozan.

History

Neolithic (Halaf culture)

Tell Halaf is the

type site In archaeology, a type site (American English) or type-site (British English) is the site used to define a particular archaeological culture or other typological unit, which is often named after it. For example, discoveries at La Tène and H ...

of the Halaf culture, which developed from Neolithic III at this site without any strong break. The Tell Halaf site flourished from around 6100 to 5400 BCE, a period of time that is referred to as the ''Halaf period''.

Chalcolithic

The Halaf culture was succeeded in northern Mesopotamia by the Ubaid culture (c. 5300-4300 BC). The site was then abandoned for a long period.

Late Bronze

Mitanni period

The Mitanni Empire controlled this region in the 15th century BC until around 1345 BC.

Hittite Period

In the Late Bronze, Suppiluliuma I of Hatti conquered the Mitanni stronghold of Carchemish, leading to the assassination of

Tushratta Tushratta ( Akkadian: and ) was a king of Mitanni, 1358–1335 BCE, at the end of the reign of Amenhotep III and throughout the first half the reign of Akhenaten. He was the son of Shuttarna II. Tushratta stated that he was the grandson of A ...

of Mitanni around 1345 BC. With the fall of the Mitanni Empire, Carchemish became the seat of a hittite viceroy who ruled the region with the remnants of Mitanni as a bufferstate to the independent Assyrians in the east. Tell Halaf became a Hittite city led by the viceroy of Carchemish.

Iron Age (Neo-Hittite Guzana)

Syrian - Slab with Six-Winged Goddess - Walters 2116

Ramesses III Usermaatre Meryamun Ramesses III was the second Pharaoh of the Twentieth dynasty of Egypt, Twentieth Dynasty in Ancient Egypt. Some scholars date his reign from 26 March 1186 to 15 April 1155 BC, and he is considered the last pharaoh of the New K ...

of Egypt states in an inscription dating to his 8th Year from his Medinet Habu mortuary temple that Carchemish was destroyed by the "Sea Peoples". This was a period of climate change and social unrest caused by drought, weakening the central powers, and marking the transition from the Late Bronze to the Iron Age. Furthermore, it saw the emergences of Neo-Hittite city-states.

Kingdom of Bit Bahiani (Guzana)

In the 10th century BCE, the rulers of the small

Aramaean The Arameans, or Aramaeans (; ; , ), were a tribal Semitic people in the ancient Near East, first documented in historical sources from the late 12th century BCE. Their homeland, often referred to as the land of Aram, originally covered cent ...

kingdom Bit Bahiani took their seat in Tell Halaf, re-founded as Guzana or Gozan. King

Kapara King Kapara (also Gabara) was an Aramean king of Bit Bahiani, one of the Post-Hittite states, centered in Guzana (modern Tell Halaf, in northeastern Syria). He ruled sometime in the 10th or 9th century BCE, according to some estimations ca. 95 ...

built the so-called hilani, a palace in Neo-Hittite style with a rich decoration of statues and relief orthostats. These sculptures, even though it is not known how, were fundamental to the portrayal of Kapara along with their political power. By the end of the 9th century, it was a famous Syro-Hittite state.

Assyrian Period

In 894 BCE, the

Assyria Assyria (Neo-Assyrian cuneiform: , ''māt Aššur'') was a major ancient Mesopotamian civilization that existed as a city-state from the 21st century BC to the 14th century BC and eventually expanded into an empire from the 14th century BC t ...

n king

Adad-nirari II Adad-nīrārī II (also spelled Adad-nērārī, which means "Adad (the storm god) is my help") reigned from 911 BCE to 891 BCE. He was the first King of Assyria in the Neo-Assyrian empire. He instigated the first renewed period of major expansion ...

recorded the site in his archives as a tributary

city-state. In 808 BCE, the city and its surrounding area was reduced to a province of the Assyrian Empire. The governor's seat was a palace in the eastern part of the citadel mound. Guzana survived the collapse of the Assyrian Empire and remained inhabited until the Roman-Parthian Period. In historical times, the mound itself became the citadel of the Aramaean and Assyrian city. The lower town extended 600 m N–S and 1000 m E–W. The citadel mound housed the palaces and other official buildings. Most prominent are the so-called Hilani or "Western Palace" with its rich decor, dating back to the time of King Kapara, and the "North-Eastern Palace", the seat of the Assyrian governors. In the lower town a temple (or cult room) in Assyrian style was discovered.

Excavations

The site is located near the city of Ra's al-'Ayn in the fertile valley of the Khabur River (Nahr al-Khabur), close to the modern border with

Turkey Turkey, officially the Republic of Türkiye, is a country mainly located in Anatolia in West Asia, with a relatively small part called East Thrace in Southeast Europe. It borders the Black Sea to the north; Georgia (country), Georgia, Armen ...

. The name ''Tell Halaf'' is a local

Aramaic Aramaic (; ) is a Northwest Semitic language that originated in the ancient region of Syria and quickly spread to Mesopotamia, the southern Levant, Sinai, southeastern Anatolia, and Eastern Arabia, where it has been continually written a ...

placename, '' tell'' meaning "hill", and ''Tell Halaf'' meaning "made of former city"; what its original inhabitants called their settlement is not known.

Discovery

In 1899, when the area was part of the

Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire (), also called the Turkish Empire, was an empire, imperial realm that controlled much of Southeast Europe, West Asia, and North Africa from the 14th to early 20th centuries; it also controlled parts of southeastern Centr ...

Max von Oppenheim Baron Max von Oppenheim (15 July 1860 – 17 November 1946) was a German people, German lawyer, diplomat, ancient historian, Panislamism, pan-Islamist and archaeologist. He was a member of the Oppenheim family, Oppenheim banking dynasty. Aban ...

, a German diplomat travelled from

Cairo Cairo ( ; , ) is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Egypt and the Cairo Governorate, being home to more than 10 million people. It is also part of the List of urban agglomerations in Africa, largest urban agglomeration in Africa, L ...

through northern Mesopotamia on behalf of

Deutsche Bank Deutsche Bank AG (, ) is a Germany, German multinational Investment banking, investment bank and financial services company headquartered in Frankfurt, Germany, and dual-listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange and the New York Stock Exchange. ...

, working on establishing a route for the Bagdad Railway. On 19 November, he discovered Tell Halaf, following up on tales told to him by local villagers of stone idols buried beneath the sand. Within three days, several significant pieces of statuary were uncovered, including a so-called "Sitting Goddess". A test pit uncovered the entrance to the "Western Palace". Since he had no legal permit to excavate, Oppenheim had the statues he found reburied and moved on.

Excavations by Max von Oppenheim

According to archaeologist Ernst Herzfeld, he had urged Oppenheim in 1907 to excavate Tell Halaf and they made some initial plans towards this goal at that time. In August 1910, Herzfeld wrote a letter calling on Oppenheim to explore the site and had it circulated to several leading archaeologists like Theodor Nöldeke or

Ignác Goldziher Ignác (Yitzhaq Yehuda) Goldziher (22 June 1850 – 13 November 1921), often credited as Ignaz Goldziher, was a Hungary, Hungarian scholar of Islam. Alongside Joseph Schacht and G.H.A. Juynboll, he is considered one of the pioneers of modern aca ...

to sign. Armed with this letter,

was now able to ask for his dismissal from the diplomatic service (which he did on 24 October 1910) while being able to call on financing from his father for the excavation. With a team of five archaeologists, Oppenheim planned a digging campaign that began on 5 August 1911. Substantial amounts of equipment were imported from the

German Empire The German Empire (),; ; World Book, Inc. ''The World Book dictionary, Volume 1''. World Book, Inc., 2003. p. 572. States that Deutsches Reich translates as "German Realm" and was a former official name of Germany. also referred to as Imperia ...

, including a small steam train. The costs totaled around 750,000 Marks and were covered by von Oppenheim's father's banking fortune. On arrival, the archaeologists discovered that since 1899, locals had uncovered some of the findings and heavily damaged them – in part out of superstition, in part to gain valuable building material. Oppenheim had recruited five hundred locals from Tell Halaf to help towards the excavation. During the excavations, Oppenheim found the ruins of the town of Guzana (or Gozan). Significant finds included the large statues and reliefs of the so-called "Western Palace" built by King

, as well as a cult room and tombs. Some of the statuary was found reused in buildings from the

Hellenistic period In classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Greek history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the death of Cleopatra VII in 30 BC, which was followed by the ascendancy of the R ...

. In addition, they discovered

pottery of a type which became known as ''Halaf culture'' after the site where it was first found. At the time, this was the oldest painted pottery ever found (together with those discovered at

Samarra Samarra (, ') is a city in Iraq. It stands on the east bank of the Tigris in the Saladin Governorate, north of Baghdad. The modern city of Samarra was founded in 836 by the Abbasid caliph al-Mu'tasim as a new administrative capital and mi ...

by Herzfeld). In 1913, Oppenheim decided to return temporarily to the German Empire. The finds of Tell Halaf were left at the building he and his team had inhabited during the dig. Most of them were securely packaged and stored. The outbreak of

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

prevented Oppenheim from returning. However, Oppenheim was able to sell some of the stone reliefs, pottery and other artefacts he had excavated to various museums after the war including the

British Museum The British Museum is a Museum, public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is the largest in the world. It documents the story of human cu ...

and

Walters Art Museum The Walters Art Museum is a public art museum located in the Mount Vernon, Baltimore, Mount Vernon neighborhood of Baltimore, Maryland. Founded and opened in 1934, it holds collections from the mid-19th century that were amassed substantially ...

in Baltimore. In 1926,

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

joined the

League of Nations The League of Nations (LN or LoN; , SdN) was the first worldwide intergovernmental organisation whose principal mission was to maintain world peace. It was founded on 10 January 1920 by the Paris Peace Conference (1919–1920), Paris Peace ...

and it thus became possible for German nationals to conduct excavations in what was now the French-ruled

Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon The Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon (; , also referred to as the Levant States; 1923−1946) was a League of Nations mandate founded in the aftermath of the First World War and the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire, concerning the territories ...

. Preparing for new excavations, in 1927, Oppenheim again travelled to Tell Halaf. Artillery fire exchanged between Ottoman and French troops in the final days of the war had severely damaged the building and the archaeological findings had to be dug out of the rubble. Once again, it was found that the locals had damaged some of the stone workings. Since he had made plaster casts during the original excavation, Oppenheim was able to repair most of the damage done to the statues and orthostat reliefs. His finds were divided with the French authorities; his share (approximately 80, or about two-thirds of the total) was transported to

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

, while the other 35 were brought to

Aleppo Aleppo is a city in Syria, which serves as the capital of the Aleppo Governorate, the most populous Governorates of Syria, governorate of Syria. With an estimated population of 2,098,000 residents it is Syria's largest city by urban area, and ...

to form the core collection of today's

National Museum of Aleppo The National Museum of Aleppo () is the largest museum in the city of Aleppo, Syria, and was founded in 1931. It is located in the heart of the northern city on Baron Street, adjacent to the famous Baron Hotel and near the Bab al-Faraj (Aleppo), ...

. In 1929, he resumed excavations and the new findings were divided.

Tell Halaf Museum, Berlin

Attempts by Oppenheim to have his findings exhibited at the newly constructed

Pergamon Museum The Pergamon Museum (; ) is a Kulturdenkmal , listed building on the Museum Island in the Mitte (locality), historic centre of Berlin, Germany. It was built from 1910 to 1930 by order of Emperor Wilhelm II, German Emperor, Wilhelm II and accordi ...

in Berlin failed, as the museum refused to agree to Oppenheim's financial demands. He thus opened his own private "Tell Halaf Museum" in an industrial complex in Berlin-Charlottenburg in July 1930. The museum's concept of presenting the exhibits is considered quite modern even by today's standards. In 1939, Oppenheim once more travelled to Syria for excavations, coming within sight of Tell Halaf. However, the French authorities refused to award him a permit to dig and he had to depart. Oppenheim also unsuccessfully tried to sell some of his finds in

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York New York may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * ...

and again negotiated with the German government about the purchase of the Tell Halaf artefacts. In 1943, eight German-owned orthostat reliefs stored in New York were seized by the US Office of Alien Property Custodian. Amid these negotiations and activities, the Tell Halaf Museum in Berlin was hit by a British phosphorus bomb in November 1943. It burnt down completely, all wooden and

limestone Limestone is a type of carbonate rock, carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material Lime (material), lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different Polymorphism (materials science) ...

exhibits were destroyed. Those made from

basalt Basalt (; ) is an aphanite, aphanitic (fine-grained) extrusive igneous rock formed from the rapid cooling of low-viscosity lava rich in magnesium and iron (mafic lava) exposed at or very near the planetary surface, surface of a terrestrial ...

were exposed to a

thermal shock Thermal shock is a phenomenon characterized by a rapid change in temperature that results in a transient mechanical load on an object. The load is caused by the differential expansion of different parts of the object due to the temperature chang ...

during attempts to fight the fire and severely damaged. Many statues and reliefs burst into dozens of pieces. Although the

Vorderasiatisches Museum Berlin The Vorderasiatisches Museum (, ''Near East Museum'') is an archaeological museum in Berlin. It is in the basement of the south wing of the Pergamon Museum and has one of the world's largest collections of Southwest Asian art. 14 halls distrib ...

took care of the remains, months passed before all of the pieces had been recovered and they were further damaged by frost and summer heat.

Reconstruction of the artefacts

Stored in the cellars of the Pergamon Museum during the period of communist rule under the GDR, the remains were left untouched. After reunification, the ''Masterplan Museumsinsel'' of 1999 brought up the idea of having the Western Palace front from Tell Halaf restored. With financial support from Sal. Oppenheim and the

Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft The German Research Foundation ( ; DFG ) is a German research funding organization, which functions as a self-governing institution for the promotion of science and research in the Federal Republic of Germany. In 2019, the DFG had a funding bu ...

the Vorderasiatisches Museum engaged in its largest-scale restoration project since the reconstruction of the

Ishtar Gate The Ishtar Gate was the eighth gate to the inner city of Babylon (in the area of present-day Hillah, Babil Governorate, Iraq). It was constructed by order of King Nebuchadnezzar II on the north side of the city. It was part of a grand walled proce ...

. From 2001 to 2010, more than 30 sculptures were reconstructed out of around 27,000 fragments. They were exhibited at the Pergamon Museum in Berlin in 2011 and at the

Bundeskunsthalle (Art and Exhibition Hall of the Federal Republic of Germany) is one of the most visited museums in Germany. Known as the ''Bundeskunsthalle'' for short, it is part of the so-called "Museum Mile" in Bonn. It holds exhibitions relating to art a ...

Bonn in 2014. When the reconstruction of the Museumsinsel is completed around 2025, the Western Palace façade will be the entrance to the new Vorderasiatisches Museum. The many fragmented sculptures now evidence the story of their ancient heritage but also that of their journey through the 20th century: Oppenheim's destroyed Tell Halaf Museum was in East Berlin and could not be visited by anyone, including Oppenheim's family members, until the reunification of Germany in 1990. The 2019 exhibition ''Rayyane Tabet / Alien Property'' by Rayyane Tabet at the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art, colloquially referred to as the Met, is an Encyclopedic museum, encyclopedic art museum in New York City. By floor area, it is the List of largest museums, third-largest museum in the world and the List of larg ...

displays the museum's orthostat reliefs and Tabet's graphite transfers, ''Orthostates'', in tandem with his family heirlooms, and addresses the role of an encyclopedic museum in conversation and collaboration with the past, and its voices.

New excavations

In 2006, new Syro-German excavations were started under the direction of Lutz Martin (Vorderasiatisches Museum Berlin), Abd al-Masih Bagdo (Directorate of Antiquities Hassake), Jörg Becker (University of Halle) and Mirko Novák (

University of Bern The University of Bern (, , ) is a public university, public research university in the Switzerland, Swiss capital of Bern. It was founded in 1834. It is regulated and financed by the canton of Bern. It is a comprehensive university offering a br ...

Notes

References

* Abd el-Mesih Baghdo, Lutz Martin, Mirko Novák, Winfried Orthmann: ''Ausgrabungen auf dem Tell Halaf in Nordost-Syrien. Vorbericht über die erste und zweite Grabungskampagne'' (German), Harrasowitz, Wiesbaden 2009. . * Abd el-Masih Baghdo, Lutz Martin, Mirko Novák, Winfried Orthmann: ''Ausgrabungen auf dem Tell Halaf in Nordost-Syrien. Vorbericht über die dritte bis fünfte Grabungskampagne 2008-2010.'' (German) Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 2012, . * Jörg Becker: ''Tell Halaf. Die prähistorischen Schichten - Neue Einblicke.'' in: D. Bonatz, L. Martin (eds.): "100 Jahre archäologische Feldforschungen in Nordost-Syrien - eine Bilanz" (German). Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 2013, pp. 45–64, . * Mirko Novák: ''Gozan and Guzana. Anatolians, Aramaeans and Assyrians in Tell Halaf.'' in: D. Bonatz, L. Martin (eds.): "100 Jahre archäologische Feldforschungen in Nordost-Syrien - eine Bilanz. Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 2013, pp. 259-281, . *Hijara, Ismail. ''The Halaf Period in Northern Mesopotamia'' London: Nabu, 1997. *Axe, David. "Back from the Brink." ''Archaeology'' 59.4 (2006): 59–65. *Winfried Orthmann: ''Die aramäisch-assyrische Stadt Guzana. Ein Rückblick auf die Ausgrabungen Max von Oppenheims in Tell Halaf.'' Schriften der Max Freiherr von Oppenheim-Stiftung. H. 15. Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 2005. . *U. Dubiel – L. Martin, ''Stier aus Aleppo in Berlin. Bildwerke vom Tell Halaf (Syrien) werden restauriert'' (German), Antike Welt 3/2004, 40–43. * G. Teichmann und G. Völger (ed.), ''Faszination Orient. Max Freiherr von Oppenheim. Forscher, Sammler, Diplomat'' (German) (Cologne, Max Freiherr von Oppenheim-Stiftung 2003). *Nadja Cholidis, Lutz Martin: ''Kopf hoch! Mut hoch! und Humor hoch! Der Tell Halaf und sein Ausgräber Max Freiherr von Oppenheim.'' (German) Von Zabern, Mainz 2002. . *Bob Becking: ''The fall of Samaria: an historical and archeological study.'' 64–69. Leiden 1992. *Gabriele Elsen, Mirko Novak, ''Der Tall Halāf und das Tall Halāf-Museum'' (German), in: Das Altertum 40 (1994) 115–126. *Alain Gaulon, "Réalité et importance de la chasse dans les communautés halafiennes en Mésopotamie du Nord et au Levant Nord au VIe millénaire avant J.-C." (French),

Antiguo Oriente ''Antiguo Oriente'' is an annual peer-reviewed academic journal published by the Center of Studies of Ancient Near Eastern History ( CEHAO) ( Pontifical Catholic University of Argentina, Buenos Aires). It is one of the few scholarly journals in th ...

5 (2007): 137–166. *Mirko Novak, ''Die Religionspolitik der aramäischen Fürstentümer im 1. Jt. v. Chr.'' (German), in: M. Hutter, S. Hutter-Braunsar (ed.), Offizielle Religion, lokale Kulte und individuelle Religion, Alter Orient und Altes Testament 318. 319–346. Munster 2004. *Johannes Friedrich, G. Rudolf Meyer, Arthur Ungnad et al.: ''Die Inschriften vom Tell Halaf.'' (German), ''Beiheft 6 zu:'' ''Archiv für Orientforschung 1940.'' Reprint: Osnabrück 1967.

External links

Web site of current excavationsThe Max von Oppenheim photo collection

Past exhibition of Tell Halaf artefacts in 2011 at the Pergamon Museum, BerlinArticle on reconstruction of Tell Halaf statues
{{Authority control Aramean cities Halaf Former populated places in Syria Halaf Syro-Hittite states Archaeological type sites Halaf culture 1899 archaeological discoveries Archaeological discoveries in Syria Populated places established in the 7th millennium BC Populated places disestablished in the 6th millennium BC