Teleilat el-Ghassul, also spelled Tuleilat el-Ghassul and Tulaylât al-Ghassûl, is the site of several small hillocks (''tuleilat'', 'small
tells') containing the remains of a number of
Neolithic
The Neolithic period, or New Stone Age, is an Old World archaeological period and the final division of the Stone Age. It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide-ranging set of developments that appear to have arisen independently in several p ...
and
Chalcolithic
The Copper Age, also called the Chalcolithic (; from grc-gre, χαλκός ''khalkós'', "copper" and ''líthos'', "stone") or (A)eneolithic (from Latin '' aeneus'' "of copper"), is an archaeological period characterized by regular ...
villages in
Jordan
Jordan ( ar, الأردن; tr. ' ), officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan,; tr. ' is a country in Western Asia. It is situated at the crossroads of Asia, Africa, and Europe, within the Levant region, on the East Bank of the Jordan Rive ...
. It is the
type-site
In archaeology, a type site 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 Hallstatt led scholars to divide the European Iron A ...
of the
Ghassulian
Ghassulian refers to a culture and an archaeological stage dating to the Middle and Late Chalcolithic Period in the Southern Levant (c. 4400 – c. 3500 BC). Its type-site, Teleilat Ghassul ( Teleilat el-Ghassul, Tulaylat al-Ghassul), is loc ...
culture,
which flourished in the
Southern Levant
The Southern Levant is a geographical region encompassing the southern half of the Levant. It corresponds approximately to modern-day Israel, Palestine, and Jordan; some definitions also include southern Lebanon, southern Syria and/or the Sinai P ...
during the Middle and Late
Chalcolithic
The Copper Age, also called the Chalcolithic (; from grc-gre, χαλκός ''khalkós'', "copper" and ''líthos'', "stone") or (A)eneolithic (from Latin '' aeneus'' "of copper"), is an archaeological period characterized by regular ...
period (''c.'' 4400 – ''c.'' 3500 BC).
It is located in the lower eastern
Jordan Valley
The Jordan Valley ( ar, غور الأردن, ''Ghor al-Urdun''; he, עֵמֶק הַיַרְדֵּן, ''Emek HaYarden'') forms part of the larger Jordan Rift Valley. Unlike most other river valleys, the term "Jordan Valley" often applies just to ...
, opposite and a little to the south of
Jericho and 5-6
kilometers
The kilometre ( SI symbol: km; or ), spelt kilometer in American English, is a unit of length in the International System of Units (SI), equal to one thousand metres (kilo- being the SI prefix for ). It is now the measurement unit used for ex ...
northeast of the
Dead Sea.
Teleilat el-Ghassul was occupied for a relatively long period of time during the
Chalcolithic
The Copper Age, also called the Chalcolithic (; from grc-gre, χαλκός ''khalkós'', "copper" and ''líthos'', "stone") or (A)eneolithic (from Latin '' aeneus'' "of copper"), is an archaeological period characterized by regular ...
era - 8 successive Chalcolithic
phases of occupation were identified there, most of them belonging to the
Ghassulian
Ghassulian refers to a culture and an archaeological stage dating to the Middle and Late Chalcolithic Period in the Southern Levant (c. 4400 – c. 3500 BC). Its type-site, Teleilat Ghassul ( Teleilat el-Ghassul, Tulaylat al-Ghassul), is loc ...
culture.
Excavations
The site was excavated between 1929 and 1938 by Alexis Mallon
Alexis Mallon (1875–1934), more commonly known as Père Mallon, was a French Jesuit priest and archaeologist. He founded the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Jerusalem and made important early contributions to the study of the prehistory of t ...
and Robert Koeppel of the Jesuit Pontifical Biblical Institute in Jerusalem, assisted by prehistorian René Neuville
René Neuville (30 October 1899, Gibraltar – 23 June 1952, Jerusalem) was a French prehistorian and diplomat posted to the French consulate in Jerusalem.
Diplomatic career
Neuville's father was the consul general of France in Gibraltar. He ...
. They identified 5 layers of settlement that belonged to the same culture.[ It was excavated again, between 1959 and 1960, by a PBI expedition led by Robert North, S.J.][ In 1967, in an expedition of ]The University of Sydney
The University of Sydney (USYD), also known as Sydney University, or informally Sydney Uni, is a public research university located in Sydney, Australia. Founded in 1850, it is the oldest university in Australia and is one of the country's six ...
directed by Basil Hennessy, 9 phases of occupation were identified on the site (phases A-I), with an additional phase, A*, that had been lost to erosion. Of these, phases A*-G were dated to the Chalcolithic
The Copper Age, also called the Chalcolithic (; from grc-gre, χαλκός ''khalkós'', "copper" and ''líthos'', "stone") or (A)eneolithic (from Latin '' aeneus'' "of copper"), is an archaeological period characterized by regular ...
era and phases H and I - the basal layers - were dated to the Late Neolithic
In the archaeology of Southwest Asia, the Late Neolithic, also known as the Ceramic Neolithic or Pottery Neolithic, is the final part of the Neolithic period, following on from the Pre-Pottery Neolithic and preceding the Chalcolithic. It is some ...
.[ He also discerned 5 episodes of campfloor occupation, interleaved with those of more substantial architecture. The topmost layer of the site had apparently been eroded by nature and by human activity, and might actually have represented several separate occupation phases.][ Hennessy conducted excavations on the site again from 1975 to 1977.][
Another team from ]The University of Sydney
The University of Sydney (USYD), also known as Sydney University, or informally Sydney Uni, is a public research university located in Sydney, Australia. Founded in 1850, it is the oldest university in Australia and is one of the country's six ...
, led by Stephen J. Bourke, worked on the site between 1994 and 1999. Bourke divided all phases of occupation discovered on the site into 6 archaeological horizons, with horizons 1-5 comprising the Chalcolithic phases and horizon 6 - the Late Neolithic ones.[
]
Late-Neolithic architecture
The earlier, Late Neolithic settlers, built semi-subterranean, ovoid houses, that contained a single room. Most of one such housing unit was excavated by Hennessy, suggesting its dimensions were around 4 x 2.5 meters. The lower parts of the walls were made of pisé
Rammed earth is a technique for constructing foundations, floors, and walls using compacted natural raw materials such as earth, chalk, lime, or gravel. It is an ancient method that has been revived recently as a sustainable building method. ...
, with upperworks of less permanent materials. Also, exterior storage pits, patches of pebble paving and semi permanent built features were discovered, suggesting a modest sophistication of the external built environment.[
]
Chalcolithic
Architecture
It was concluded that Teleilat el-Ghassul had been the site of several small Chalcolithic villages that subsisted on agriculture and on animal husbandry. Their houses were rectilinear, built of manually shaped dried mud bricks laid on stone foundations. The houses had yards and rooms of various sized which contained different appliances.[ They display an increased sophistication over time, in construction techniques, in building size and built fittings - internal and external - and a growing regulation and sequestration of exterior spaces.][
]
Tools and pottery
Many flint tools
A stone tool is, in the most general sense, any tool made either partially or entirely out of stone. Although stone tool-dependent societies and cultures still exist today, most stone tools are associated with prehistoric (particularly Stone Ag ...
were discovered in Teleilat el-Ghassul, mainly axe
An axe ( sometimes ax in American English; see spelling differences) is an implement that has been used for millennia to shape, split and cut wood, to harvest timber, as a weapon, and as a ceremonial or heraldic symbol. The axe has ma ...
s, hoes
Hoe or HOE may refer to:
* Hoe (food), a Korean dish of raw fish
* Hoe (letter), a Georgian letter
* Hoe (tool), a hand tool used in gardening and farming
** Hoe-farming, a term for primitive forms of agriculture
* Backhoe, a piece of excavatin ...
and sickle
A sickle, bagging hook, reaping-hook or grasshook is a single-handed agricultural tool designed with variously curved blades and typically used for harvesting, or reaping, grain crops or cutting Succulent plant, succulent forage chiefly for feed ...
s, which had probably been used for agriculture
Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled people t ...
.[ Particularly worthy of note are the fan scrapers - a flat ]flint
Flint, occasionally flintstone, is a sedimentary cryptocrystalline form of the mineral quartz, categorized as the variety of chert that occurs in chalk or marly limestone. Flint was widely used historically to make stone tools and sta ...
tool shaped as a fan - which were mainly used for skinning and butchering animals, and for hide working, but possibly also for working bone and for cutting wood. They may have also had ritualistic significance. The pottery assemblage is particularly rich, utilizing different shapes and decorations. Also, a vessel that was probably used as a butter churn was found on site. It is a large, broad, vessel, with a handle at each end. Much of the Ghassulian
Ghassulian refers to a culture and an archaeological stage dating to the Middle and Late Chalcolithic Period in the Southern Levant (c. 4400 – c. 3500 BC). Its type-site, Teleilat Ghassul ( Teleilat el-Ghassul, Tulaylat al-Ghassul), is loc ...
pottery was made standing on mats, which left an imprint of the mat design on the bottom of the vessels.[
]
Art and religion
The most impressive discovery at Teleilat el-Ghassul is the colorful wall paintings found in some of the houses dated to the Chalcolithic period (though they are not present in the earliest Chalcolithic phases).[ They were applied to the wall on top of a layer of ]plaster
Plaster is a building material used for the protective or decorative coating of walls and ceilings and for moulding and casting decorative elements. In English, "plaster" usually means a material used for the interiors of buildings, while "re ...
. Their condition is poor and many are missing today. The largest and most complete of those is 1.84 meters in diameter. It is very accurate and delicate, displaying a rather developed painting technique which likely involved the use of rulers to draw neat straight lines.[
Some of the wall paintings represent mythological beasts while others, according to some opinions, represent priests wearing ritualistic masks. It is very difficult to infer the meaning of these drawings, though it mostly likely was related to ]Ghassulian
Ghassulian refers to a culture and an archaeological stage dating to the Middle and Late Chalcolithic Period in the Southern Levant (c. 4400 – c. 3500 BC). Its type-site, Teleilat Ghassul ( Teleilat el-Ghassul, Tulaylat al-Ghassul), is loc ...
mythology and religion. In one of the houses, over 20 layers of plaster, one on top of the other and each covered in paintings, were found by Hennessey.[
No building that could be identified as a ]temple
A temple (from the Latin ) is a building reserved for spiritual rituals and activities such as prayer and sacrifice. Religions which erect temples include Christianity (whose temples are typically called churches), Hinduism (whose temples ...
or as a common place of worship has been found in Teleilat el-Ghassul. It appears these religious paintings adorned the walls of private domiciles, and that, consequently, Ghassulian religious rituals were conducted at home.[
]
See also
* Chalcolithic Temple of Ein Gedi
The Chalcolithic Temple of Ein Gedi is a Ghassulian public building dating from about 3500 BCE. It lies on a scarp above the oasis of Ein Gedi, on the western shore of the Dead Sea, within modern-day Israel. Archaeologist David Ussishkin has de ...
* David Ussishkin
David Ussishkin (Hebrew: דוד אוסישקין; born 1935) is an Israeli archaeologist and professor emeritus of archaeology.
Biography
David Ussishkin was born in Jerusalem. Ussishkin is the grandson of the Zionist leader Menachem Ussishkin. H ...
(born 1935), Israeli archaeologist
* Beersheba Culture The Beersheba culture is a Late Chalcolithic archaeological culture of the late 5th millennium BC (c. 4200–4000 BC), that was discovered in several sites near Beersheba, in the Beersheba Valley, in the northern Negev, in the 1950s. It is consider ...
, Late Chalcolithic archaeological culture
References
External Links
Photos of Teleilat Ghassul excavation
at the American Center of Research
{{Neolithic Southwest Asia
1929 archaeological discoveries
Archaeological sites in Jordan
Chalcolithic sites of Asia
Neolithic sites of Asia
Late Neolithic
Ghassulian