Tell Hassuna is a tell, or settlement mound, in the Nineveh Province (

Iraq Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq ...

), about 35km south-west of

Nineveh Nineveh (; akk, ; Biblical Hebrew: '; ar, نَيْنَوَىٰ '; syr, ܢܝܼܢܘܹܐ, Nīnwē) was an ancient Assyrian city of Upper Mesopotamia, located in the modern-day city of Mosul in northern Iraq. It is located on the eastern ba ...

. 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 ...

for the

Hassuna culture The Hassuna culture is a Neolithic archaeological culture in northern Mesopotamia dating to the early sixth millennium BC. It is named after the type site of Tell Hassuna in Iraq. Other sites where Hassuna material has been found include Tell Sh ...

(early sixth millennium BCE).

History of archaeological research

Tell Hassuna was found in 1942 by Fuad Safar, and excavated in 1943 and 1944 by a team from the Iraqi Directorate General of Antiquities led by

Seton Lloyd Seton Howard Frederick Lloyd, CBE (30 May 1902, Birmingham, England – 7 January 1996, Faringdon, England), was an English archaeologist. He was President of the British School of Archaeology in Iraq, Director of the British Institute of Archaeo ...

. Excavations revealed that there was once an advanced village culture that was spread throughout northern Mesopotamia. At Hassuna, six different layers of houses were uncovered, revealing various vessels and pottery that date ~5600-5350 BCE, with each layer becoming more substantial. Similar vessels were found throughout the Middle East, showing that there was an extensive trade network that was present as early as the 6th Millennium BCE.

Tell Hassuna and its environment

Culture ceramiche del Vicino Oriente nel medio Halaf - 5200-4500 a

Tell Hassuna is located approximately southwest of modern

Mosul Mosul ( ar, الموصل, al-Mawṣil, ku, مووسڵ, translit=Mûsil, Turkish: ''Musul'', syr, ܡܘܨܠ, Māwṣil) is a major city in northern Iraq, serving as the capital of Nineveh Governorate. The city is considered the second larg ...

, along the west bank of the

Tigris River The Tigris () is the easternmost of the two great rivers that define Mesopotamia, the other being the Euphrates. The river flows south from the mountains of the Armenian Highlands through the Syrian and Arabian Deserts, and empties into the P ...

. It is a small site, roughly and about high. Hassuna was one of the earliest cultures in Northern Mesopotamia. Before this time, Southern Mesopotamia was considered the cradle of civilization. When settlements began forming in the north, such as Hassuna,

Jarmo Jarmo (Qal'at Jarmo) ( ku, Çermo) is a prehistoric archeological site located in modern Iraq on the foothills of the Zagros Mountains. It lies at an altitude of 800 m above sea-level in a belt of oak and pistachio woodlands in the Adha ...

Samarra Samarra ( ar, سَامَرَّاء, ') is a city in Iraq. It stands on the east bank of the Tigris in the Saladin Governorate, north of Baghdad. The city of Samarra was founded by Abbasid Caliph Al-Mutasim for his Turkish professional ar ...

, and

Tell Halaf Tell Halaf ( ar, تل حلف) is an archaeological site in the Al Hasakah governorate of northeastern Syria, a few kilometers from the city of Ra's al-'Ayn near the Turkish border. The site, which dates to the 6th millennium BCE, was the firs ...

, the north became the important region. The architecture at Hassuna was built of packed mud, with the width varying from 20 to 50 centimeters. The

mud-brick A mudbrick or mud-brick is an air-dried brick, made of a mixture of loam, mud, sand and water mixed with a binding material such as rice husks or straw. Mudbricks are known from 9000 BCE, though since 4000 BCE, bricks have also been f ...

technique may perhaps have been developed in Southern Mesopotamia, where mud-bricks were common in the first half of 6th millennium B.C.

Occupation history

Around 6,000 B.C., people began moving to the

foothills Foothills or piedmont are geographically defined as gradual increases in elevation at the base of a mountain range, higher hill range or an upland area. They are a transition zone between plains and low relief hills and the adjacent topogr ...

of northern Mesopotamia and practicing methods of dry agriculture. These people were the first known farmers, and Hassuna became one of the most ancient centers for the principal forms of producing economies, such as the cultivation of soil and raising livestock. Evidence of this is shown in the oldest layers of Hassuna. The occupants of Hassuna also led the way in improving agriculture, settling the river valleys, the beginning of irrigation, and progress in all branches of production and culture. Around 6,000 B.C., at Tell Hassuna,

adobe Adobe ( ; ) is a building material made from earth and organic materials. is Spanish for '' mudbrick''. In some English-speaking regions of Spanish heritage, such as the Southwestern United States, the term is used to refer to any kind of ...

dwellings built around open central courts; fine painted pottery was replacing the crude pottery of the earlier levels. Hand axes, sickles, grinding stones, bins, baking ovens and numerous bones of domesticated animals reflect settled agricultural life. Stone tools found at Tell Hassuna do not seem to be as advanced as tools found at other sites of the Hassuna culture, such as

, and were typically made of

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 start ...

and

obsidian Obsidian () is a naturally occurring volcanic glass formed when lava extruded from a volcano cools rapidly with minimal crystal growth. It is an igneous rock. Obsidian is produced from felsic lava, rich in the lighter elements such as silicon ...

. Female figurines were also used in relation to worship and jar burials, within which food was placed due to belief in the

afterlife The afterlife (also referred to as life after death) is a purported existence in which the essential part of an individual's identity or their stream of consciousness continues to live after the death of their physical body. The surviving es ...

Pottery

Pottery found at Hassuna can be divided into three different categories: Hassuna Archaic, Hassuna Standard, and Samarran. These also include painted, incised, and painted-incised ware.

Samarra Painted Fine Ware

The decoration of the Samarra Painted Fine Ware is always monochrome, but it seems as if three types of paint have been used: an ivory black, a dark violet brown, and a medium chocolate brown. Circumstances of firing and variations in the concentration of the paint have caused color changes, so that for example an oxidizing firing of vessels painted with ivory black has produced an Indian red color. In general, the designs of the Samarra Painted Fine Ware are carefully painted. Occasionally, however, parallel lines approach or diverge slightly, and the thickness of some lines varies, apparently due to the use of a soft painting-brush. The outside rim motifs are spaced and limited by groups of horizontal lines.Lloyd, Seton, and Fuʼād Safar. Tell Hassuna: Excavations by the Iraq Government Directorate General of Antiquities in 1943 and 1944. Chicago: Journal of Near Eastern Studies, 1944. Print.

History of archaeological research

Tell Hassuna and its environment

Occupation history

Pottery

Samarra Painted Fine Ware

See also

References

Further reading