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Excavations at Atchana-Alalakh, 1938

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 January 2012

Leonard Woolley
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The excavation of the harbour site at al Mina having been finished in 1937, the whole of the 1938 season was devoted to the inland mound of Atchana, now identified by the help of the inscribed tablets as the ancient city of Alalakh. Work started at the beginning of March and was carried on until the end of May. Throughout the greater part of the season the number of men employed averaged about three hundred. Even with the invaluable assistance of our foremen, Hamoudi and his two sons Yahia and Alawi (the former of whom as usual was responsible for the photography), this entailed very heavy work on our limited staff, and for the success of the season I am deeply indebted to its members: my wife, who besides doing the drawings of the painted pottery and metal objects helped in the field in every way; Mr. Ralph Lavers, to whom are due the excellent plans and reconstructions of the buildings; and Mr. P. W. Murray-Threipland, who again acted as general archaeological assistant and undertook practically the whole of the work on the catalogue of objects. I have further to express my gratitude to Mr. Sidney Smith for his work upon the tablets, to Mr. R. D. Barnett for information regarding the Hittite inscriptions, to M. Henri Seyrig, Director of the Service des Antiquités for Syria, and to M. Merlat, Inspector of Antiquities for the Sandjak of Alexandretta, for help, both official and personal, ever readily given; lastly, I would thank the Trustees of the British Museum, the Keeper of the Ashmolean Museum, and the many generous friends who have financed the Expedition and made its work possible, and will, I hope, feel that their help has been rewarded by its success.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Antiquaries Journal , Volume 19 , Issue 1 , January 1939 , pp. 1 - 37
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1939

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References

page 3 note 1 A curious constructional point is that the builders dug, for their foundations, V-shaped trenches; the stones were flung into rather than laid in these, and the brickwork was laid above them increasing in width as it rose; when ground-level was reached the next course of bricks was laid with its edges overlapping the course below and resting on the soil on either side of the trench. Instead therefore of the normal procedure whereby the foundations are wider than the superstructure we have here a superstructure which is wider than its foundations.

page 4 note 1 It was further distinguished by the fact that its entire stratum, composed of standing walls and fallen mud brick, was burnt to a bright red colour, whereas the mud pavement and everything above it was the natural grey.

page 5 note 1 This was first pointed out to me by Mr. R. D. Barnett.

page 6 note 1 This is true of the residential palace as judged from the rise of its stepped entrance; to the north-east the rise in level is much greater, so that presumably the first buildings of period IV stood on a raised platform which ended at the east wall of the new palace, while those farther to the east, underlying the annexe, were on lower ground.

page 8 note 1 We have no reason to assert that the interval between the building of the palace and that of its annexe was very long. On the other hand, the ‘old palace’ underlying the annexe, which was presumably built at much the same time as the western range, was of such solid construction that it is not likely to have been superseded until it had attained a respectable age, and the interval between the western range and the building of the annexe was probably considerable.

page 9 note 1 Thus we notice that, with the disappearance of the wood, the bricks of the wall face tend to fall away leaving a clean though rough face formed by the next course of face tend to fall away leaving a clean though rough face formed by the next course of bricks; in fact, where timber was used the builders did not trouble to secure any further bond through the wall and their bricks make so many skins which can be detached in turn, as is seen in the photograph on pl. vm, 2. But half-bricks were known, and were used where timber was less employed, so that the walls of e.g. the old domestic quarter of the palace show no tendency to peel.

page 12 note 1 So in the annexe staircase, room 27, and in the little staircase in the servants’ quarters; in the latter there can be seen in the brick walls the holes left by the cross-timbers which supported the treads, and the marks of burning correspond accurately to the rise of the flight.

page 12 note 2 Room 10 may have been divided into an eastern and a western half, which, however, is not very likely, or again it may have had direct communication with room 11, but for this too all evidence is lacking.

page 15 note 1 A second, also without tusks or teeth, was found in the ruins of a private house of level II in Sq. H. 17.

page 16 note 1 See below, p. 32.

page 17 note 1 When working at Carchemish I was of the opinion that some of the re-used slabs with scenes carved in relief should be referred to the pre-twelve-hundred phase, but I could not produce evidence substantiating this.

page 19 note 1 Ant. Jour. xviii, 16.

page 20 note 1 The mud-brick steps were badly worn and the treads obliterated; there was evidence to show that they had subsequently been encased with wood.

page 22 note 1 Owing to the silting up of the bed of the Orontes in the neighbourhood of Antioch the water-table in the Amk plain has risen very much, and its present level (especially after an exceptionally wet winter) bears no relation to ancient conditions.

page 24 note 1 Ant. Jour. xviii, pl. iv, house A.

page 26 note 1 Probably they lay under buildings which stood on the hillock on the flank of which house B stood and have naturally disappeared and left no trace of themselves.

page 26 note 2 Mr. Smith first published these in a letter to The Times of 16th June 1938.

page 27 note 1 For this information I have to thank Professor A. J. B. Wace and Miss Lorimer.

page 28 note 1 For this information I am indebted to Professor A. J. B. Wace.

page 28 note 2 Ant. Jour. xviii, 11.

page 28 note 3 Loc. cit., p. 16.

page 28 note 4 Liverpool Annals of Archaeology and Anthropology, vol. vi, p. 87.

page 29 note 1 See Mr. Sidney Smith's article on p. 38.

page 29 note 2 v. infra.

page 29 note 3 M. E. L. Mallowan, Iraq, iv, part iii. Cf. also Iraq, iii, part 1, p. 9, for similar evidence from level I at Tal Chagar Bazar.

page 30 note 1 Ant. Jour. xviii, 16.

page 30 note 2 R. J. Braidwood, Mounds in the Plain of Antioch, p. 6, and C. W. McEwan, Syrian Expedition of the Oriental Institute of Chicago.

page 31 note 1 So the British Museum Catalogue of Cypriote, Italian and Etruscan Pottery, p. ix.

page 31 note 2 In The Times of 16th June 1938.

page 32 note 1 Sidney Smith, The Early History of Assyria, p. 211.

page 32 note 2 The assumption of its relationship with Khurrian seems to have been abandoned.

page 32 note 3 It was the identification of these Syrian texts as Hittite that led to the rediscovery of that forgotten people, and laid the foundation of our knowledge of their history.

page 34 note 1 Annual of the American School of Oriental Studies, ix, 24, 5, and Oppenheim, Archiv für Orientforschung, xii, 31, n. 10.

page 34 note 2 The value of III = ta is very uncertain.

page 35 note 1 This stroke seems to have the value either of indicating an abbreviation, or representing the consonant r. Erkelet II, Hrozný, Les Inscriptions hitittes hiérogly-phiques, iii, 316.

page 35 note 2 Bittel, Boghazköi, Die Kleinfunde, 1906–12, pl. 38.