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In
archaeology Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landsc ...
, a tell or tel (borrowed into English from ar, تَلّ, ', 'mound' or 'small hill'), is an artificial topographical feature, a species of
mound A mound is a heaped pile of earth, gravel, sand, rocks, or debris. Most commonly, mounds are earthen formations such as hills and mountains, particularly if they appear artificial. A mound may be any rounded area of topographically highe ...
consisting of the accumulated and stratified debris of a succession of consecutive settlements at the same site, the refuse of generations of people who built and inhabited them, and of natural sediment. (Very limited snippet view).Matthews (2020)
Introduction and Definition
/ref> Tells are most commonly associated with the
ancient Near East The ancient Near East was the home of early civilizations within a region roughly corresponding to the modern Middle East: Mesopotamia (modern Iraq, southeast Turkey, southwest Iran and northeastern Syria), ancient Egypt, ancient Iran ( Elam, ...
, but they are also found elsewhere, such as
Southern Southern may refer to: Businesses * China Southern Airlines, airline based in Guangzhou, China * Southern Airways, defunct US airline * Southern Air, air cargo transportation company based in Norwalk, Connecticut, US * Southern Airways Express, M ...
and parts of
Central Europe Central Europe is an area of Europe between Western Europe and Eastern Europe, based on a common historical, social and cultural identity. The Thirty Years' War (1618–1648) between Catholicism and Protestantism significantly shaped the a ...
, from
Greece Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders wi ...
and
Bulgaria Bulgaria (; bg, България, Bǎlgariya), officially the Republic of Bulgaria,, ) is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern flank of the Balkans, and is bordered by Romania to the north, Serbia and North Macedo ...
to
Hungary Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Cr ...
and
Spain , image_flag = Bandera de España.svg , image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg , national_motto = '' Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond") , national_anthem = (English: "Royal March") , ...
Blanco-González & Kienlin, eds (2020), 6th page of chapter 1, see map. and in North Africa. Within the Near East, they are concentrated in less arid regions, including Upper Mesopotamia, the Southern Levant,
Anatolia Anatolia, tr, Anadolu Yarımadası), and the Anatolian plateau, also known as Asia Minor, is a large peninsula in Western Asia and the westernmost protrusion of the Asian continent. It constitutes the major part of modern-day Turkey. The re ...
and
Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...
, which had more continuous settlement.
Eurasia Eurasia (, ) is the largest continental area on Earth, comprising all of Europe and Asia. Primarily in the Northern and Eastern Hemispheres, it spans from the British Isles and the Iberian Peninsula in the west to the Japanese archipelag ...
n tells date to the
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 pa ...
,Blanco-González & Kienlin, eds (2020), 2nd page of chapter 1, "Introduction: Learning from Prehistoric Tells", by the editors, the Neolithic/Chalcolithic, and the Bronze Age/Iron Age era.Chapman, John. In Blanco-González & Kienlin (2020), chapter 14, "Then, Now, to Come - A Commentary", 4th page. In the Southern Levant the time of the tells ended with the conquest by
Alexander the Great Alexander III of Macedon ( grc, Ἀλέξανδρος, Alexandros; 20/21 July 356 BC – 10/11 June 323 BC), commonly known as Alexander the Great, was a king of the ancient Greek kingdom of Macedon. He succeeded his father Philip II to ...
, which ushered in the
Hellenistic In Classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Mediterranean history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the emergence of the Roman Empire, as signified by the Battle of Actium in ...
period with its own, different settlement-building patterns. Many tells across the Near East continue to be occupied and used today.


Etymology

The word ''tell'' is first attested in English in an 1840 report in the ''
Journal of the Royal Geographical Society The ''Journal of the Royal Geographical Society of London'' was a scholarly geographic journal published by the Royal Geographical Society from 1831 to 1880. After 1881, the ''Journal'' was absorbed by the ''Proceedings'', published as '' Proceed ...
''. It is derived from the Arabic () meaning 'mound' or 'hillock'. Variant spellings include ''tall'', ''tel'', ''til'', and ''tal''. The Arabic word has many cognates in other Semitic languages, such as
Akkadian Akkadian or Accadian may refer to: * Akkadians, inhabitants of the Akkadian Empire * Akkadian language, an extinct Eastern Semitic language * Akkadian literature, literature in this language * Akkadian cuneiform Cuneiform is a logo-syllabic ...
, Ugaritic , and
Hebrew Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...
(). The Akkadian form is similar to Sumerian , which can also refer to a 'pile' of any material, like grain, but it is not known whether the similarity reflects a borrowing from that language, or if the Sumerian term itself was a loanword from an earlier Semitic substrate language. If Akkadian is related to another word in that language, , meaning 'woman's breast', there exists a similar term in the South Semitic classical Ethiopian language of Geʽez, namely , 'breast'. Hebrew first appears in the biblical book of Deuteronomy (ca. 500–700 BCE), describing a heap or small mound, and appearing in the books of Joshua and Ezekiel with the same meaning. There are lexically unrelated equivalents for this geophysical concept of a town-mound in other Southwest Asian languages, including in
Egyptian Arabic Egyptian Arabic, locally known as Colloquial Egyptian ( ar, العامية المصرية, ), or simply Masri (also Masry) (), is the most widely spoken vernacular Arabic dialect in Egypt. It is part of the Afro-Asiatic language family, and ...
, or ( Turkish/), or (Turkish), and '' chogha'' (, from Turkish and derivatives etc.). These often appear in place names, and the word itself is one of the most common prefixes for Palestinian
toponym Toponymy, toponymics, or toponomastics is the study of ''toponyms'' ( proper names of places, also known as place names and geographic names), including their origins, meanings, usage and types. Toponym is the general term for a proper name of ...
s. The Arabic word '' khirbet'', also spelled ''khirbat'' (), meaning 'ruin', also occurs in the names of many archaeological tells, such as Khirbet et-Tell (roughly meaning 'heap of ruins').


Formation

A tell can only be formed if natural and man-produced material accumulates faster than it is removed by
erosion Erosion is the action of surface processes (such as water flow or wind) that removes soil, rock, or dissolved material from one location on the Earth's crust, and then transports it to another location where it is deposited. Erosion is d ...
and human-caused truncation, which explains the limited geographical area they occur in. Tells are formed from a variety of remains, including organic and cultural refuse, collapsed mudbricks and other building materials, water-laid sediments, residues of biogenic and geochemical processes, and aeolian sediment. A classic tell looks like a low, truncated cone with sloping sides and a flat, mesa-like top. They can be more than high.


Occurrence


Southwest Asia

It is thought that the earliest examples of tells are to be found in the Jordan Valley, such as at the 10 meter-high mound, dating back to the proto-Neolithic period, at Jericho in the West Bank. Upwards of 5,000 tells have been detected in the area of ancient Israel and Jordan. Of these Paul Lapp calculated in the 1960s that 98% had yet to be touched by archaeologists. In Syria, tells are abundant in the Upper Mesopotamia region, in which they scatter along the
Euphrates The Euphrates () is the longest and one of the most historically important rivers of Western Asia. Tigris–Euphrates river system, Together with the Tigris, it is one of the two defining rivers of Mesopotamia ( ''the land between the rivers'') ...
, including
Tell al-'Abr Tell may refer to: *Tell (archaeology), a type of archaeological site *Tell (name), a name used as a given name and a surname * Tell (poker), a subconscious behavior that can betray information to an observant opponent Arts, entertainment, and ...
, Tell Bazi, Tell Kabir, Tell Mresh, Tell Saghir and
Tell Banat Tell may refer to: *Tell (archaeology), a type of archaeological site *Tell (name), a name used as a given name and a surname *Tell (poker), a subconscious behavior that can betray information to an observant opponent Arts, entertainment, and m ...
. The latter is thought to be the site of the oldest war memorial (known as the White Monument), dated back to the 3rd millennium BC.


Europe

Tells can be found in Europe in countries like Spain, Hungary,
Romania Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern, and Southeast Europe, Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, S ...
, Bulgaria,
North Macedonia North Macedonia, ; sq, Maqedonia e Veriut, (Macedonia before February 2019), officially the Republic of North Macedonia,, is a country in Southeast Europe. It gained independence in 1991 as one of the successor states of Socialist Feder ...
, and
Greece Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders wi ...
. Northeastern Bulgaria has a rich archaeological heritage of eneolithic tells from the 5th millennium BCE. In Neolithic Greece, there is a contrast between the northern Thessalian plain where rainfall was sufficient to permit densely populated settlements based on
dry-farming Dryland farming and dry farming encompass specific agricultural techniques for the non-irrigated cultivation of crops. Dryland farming is associated with drylands, areas characterized by a cool wet season (which charges the soil with virtual ...
and the more dispersed sites in southern Greece, such as the
Peloponesus The Peloponnese (), Peloponnesus (; el, Πελοπόννησος, Pelopónnēsos,(), or Morea is a peninsula and geographic region in southern Greece. It is connected to the central part of the country by the Isthmus of Corinth land bridge which ...
, where early villages sprang up around the smaller arable tracts close to springs, lakes and marshes. There are two models to account for the tell structures of this part of southern Europe, one developed by Paul Halstead and the other by John Chapman. Chapman envisaged the tell as witness to a nucleated
communal society An intentional community is a voluntary residential community which is designed to have a high degree of social cohesion and teamwork from the start. The members of an intentional community typically hold a common social, political, religio ...
, whereas Halstead emphasized the idea that they arose as individual household structures. Thessalian tells often reflect small hamlets with a small population of around 40–80. The Toumbas of Macedonia and the Magoulas of Thessaly are the local names for tell sites in these regions of Greece.


See also

*
List of tells In archaeology, a tell, or tel (derived from ar, تَل, ', 'hill' or 'mound'), is an artificial mound formed from the accumulated refuse or deposits of people living on the same site for hundreds or thousands of years. A classic tell looks like a ...
* Acropolis *
Archaeological site An archaeological site is a place (or group of physical sites) in which evidence of past activity is preserved (either prehistoric or historic or contemporary), and which has been, or may be, investigated using the discipline of archaeology an ...
* Midden


Notes and references


Explanatory notes


References


Bibliography

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External links

* {{Ancient Mesopotamia Ancient Near East Archaeological sites in the Near East Mounds