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Introduction

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 August 2014

M. E. L. Mallowan
M. E. L. Mallowan*
Affiliation:
Greenway House, Churston Ferrers, S. Devon
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Extract

I saw the great mound of Brak for the first time on a hot afternoon in November, 1934, when, together with my wife and Mr. Macartney, I was examining the ancient sites in the Khabur and Jaghjagha valleys of northern Syria. As we walked up the steep slopes of the tall we kicked aside countless fragments of potsherds and other ancient debris, and parched as we were it seemed tedious to speculate on what periods of history lay buried within. To us no less than to others bent on the same quest who had passed that way before, it was clear that here was a site of great historical importance. Layard, von Oppenheim, Dunand and Poidebard had in turn marked it down, but had been deflected by other objectives. Only Father Poidebard had stopped long enough to excavate a Roman camp on the plain near by, and after driving a trench into the upper slopes of the tall had satisfied himself that it had been an important Assyrian settlement. For my own part, I noted that this was a magnificent site which would be well worth digging, provided that sufficient funds were available for the purpose. But before attempting to come to grips with so formidable a mound it was obviously desirable to find out more about the general sequence of stratification elsewhere in the district. We therefore continued to look for a smaller site which would yield results more quickly, and after completing our survey in December, 1934, we decided to start on Chagar Bazar about 20 miles N.N.W. of Brak as the crow flies, where we dug for two successive seasons in the Spring of 1935 and 1936. The results obtained during these two campaigns I have already described in previous numbers of Iraq.

Type
Excavations at Brak and Chagar Bazar
Information
IRAQ , Volume 9 , Issue 1 , Spring 1947 , pp. 1 - 9
Copyright
Copyright © The British Institute for the Study of Iraq 1947

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References

page 4 note 1 See Smith, Sidney, Alalakh and Chronology, Luzac, 1940 Google ScholarPubMed. I have followed Smith's general scheme throughout. In the same year Prof. Albright accepted the archaeological evidence for dating Khammurabi's accession about 1800 B.C. as conclusive, cf. B.A.S.O.R. No. 77. Subsequently, however, Albright in B.A.S.O.R. No. 88. “A Third Revision of the Early Chronology of Western Asia” argued that the date of Khammurabi's reign should be still further reduced to 1728–1686 B.C. and drew attention to Arno PoebePs account of the Khorsabad list of Assyrian kings in J.N.E.S. July and October, 1942. See also Albright in B.A.S.O.R. No. 99 for a continuation of the discussion. No less important is Sidney Smith's article in A. J. A. XLIX, No. 1 1945 Google Scholar, “Middle Minoan 1–11 and Babylonian Chronology,” where the problem is approached from an examination of the Cretan evidence, which involves us in many difficulties if we adopt Albright's latest reduction. In my opinion the evidence from Ugarit must also carry much weight since on that site it can be demonstrated that Egyptian-ising cylinder seals of the First Babylonian Dynasty overlap with monuments of the Twelfth Dynasty of Egypt. The consequence of lowering the date of the First Babylonian Dynasty too drastically is an irreconcilable discrepancy with the accepted chronological scheme for the Egyptian Middle Kingdom, and to overcome this we would have to admit a landslide in the dates formerly assigned to the Egyptian dynasties, cf. Schaeffer, C. F., Stratigraphie Comp. Vol. 1 § 20 Google Scholar.

page 5 note 1 Date of First Dynasty of Egypt. See Scharff in O.L.Z., 1928, p. 73 f.Google Scholar

page 5 note 2 In this volume I have used the term “Jamdat Nasr” culture or period, to cover all the successive phases of the “Eye-Temples,” from the grey brick stratum to the “Eye-Temple” which contained the golden frieze. The term is not altogether satisfactory because it lacks sufficient definition, nor in fact has any of the trichrome pottery discovered at Jamdat Nasr been found on the site of Brak itself. However, the general assemblage of material which goes with this trichrome pottery at Jamdat Nasr— unpainted pottery, vases with drooping spouts, beads, cylinder seals, amulets, and mud-brick work does appear in these levels at Brak. The so-called “Uruk culture” I would define as the early part of that phase, overlapping with the decline of the Al ‘Ubaid period. This “Uruk culture’ witnessed the first examples of the sealing-wax-red slip ware which also appeared in the later phase, and a number of cylinder seal types which apparently were no longer made in the later stages of the Jamdat Nasr period. The earlier remains underlying the grey brick stratum at Brak probably go back to this “Uruk period”: the entire sequence of the “Eye-Temples ” may be termed “protohistoric.” Delougaz and Lloyd have dubbed these periods protoliterate covering the phases archaic VII–III at Warka. Roughly speaking the accumulation of ruins embedded in the mud-brick platform at Brak is probably contemporary with Sin Temples I–IV and possible V, at Khafajah. The series of Brak “Eye-Temples” may therefore be equated with what is termed Protoliterate c, d, at Khafajah. See the important footnote 10 on p. 8 in O.I.P., LVIII.

page 5 note 3 O.J.P., LVIII, pp. 123–135 Google Scholar.

page 6 note 1 See also Ghirshman, R., Fouilles de Sialk, Vol. 1, pp. 86–89 Google Scholar for an attempt to estimate the length of occupation of the prehistoric settlements of Sialk by reference to the rate of accumulation of debris at modern Persian villages in the neighbourhood.

page 7 note 1 O.I.P., Nos. XLIII, XLIV, LIII, LVIII, LX.