Type-site ofthe Halaf

Halaf, Tell (anc. Guzana)

period of protohistoric northern and
casternn

Mesopotamia («.5500-4500 BC) which was roughly

culture in
contemporary with the early UBAID

southern Mesopotamia. Tell Halaf, a large settle-

ment mound situated by the Khabur river on the
border between Turkey and Syria, was excavated by
Baron Max Freiherrvon Oppenheim in 1899-1929.
He concentrated mainly on the remains of the
ARAMAEAN town of Guzana, dating to the Ist mil-
lennium BC, although his excavations below the
floor-level of the palace revealed earlier strata of
exquisite hand-made, black and red painted
pottery. It was not until the execavation of
Halaf-period strata at other sites, such as NINEVEH
and TELIL ARPACHIYAH, that this "Halaf ware' was
recognized as one of the essential characteristics of
material culture in Mesopotamia overlapping with
the SAMARRA and UBAID periods. The Halaf phase
was
was, as a matter of geographical necessity,
characterized by a 'dry farming subsistence pattern
i.e. based on rainfall rather than irrigation) and
settlements consisting of a mixture of rectilinea
architecture and small mud-brick beehive-shaped
huts or storerooms (known as iholos by analogy with
the Mycenaean tomb-type), rather than the large
multi-roomed houses of the preceding HASSUNA
and Samarra cultures. Typical Halaf artefacts
included flint and obsidian toois, female terracotta
figurines, andamulets in the form of gabled houses
was the pottery, fired in two-
or double-axes, but it

chamber kilns,that was the most distinctive (and

traded) aspect of the assemblage. More
widely
strata at YARIM
recently excavated Halaf-period
bas1n (Watson
TEPE and various sites in the Hamrin
of the
1983) have helped to refine the perception
Halaf culture.
ulture okdest
Oppenheim: Tell Halal A arw
n
M.F. von
Schmade Tell Halaf 1
Mesopotamia (london, 1933%,H
prähistorischem Funde (Bertin, 1943), D Franke
Die
at work: stades en Halaf pottery ( Worcester,
Archaeolog1sts
T.E. Davidson and H. McKerreil The neutron
1979);
Ubed pottery from Te
activation analysis of Halaf and
iraq 42 (1980), 155 67, PJ.
Arpachiyah and Tepe Gawra',
review and synthesis,
Watson: The Halafian culture: a
The hilly flanks and beyond,
ed. TC. Young et al. (Chicago,

1983), 231-50; G. Roux: Ancven1 Ira4, Irs4 3rd edn

(Harmondsworth, 1992), 55-9.

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