| Tell Halaf تل حلف |
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| Part of the excavated ruins of Tell Halaf | |
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Shown within Syria
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| Location | Al-Hasakah Governorate, Syria |
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| Coordinates | |
| Type | settlement |
| History | |
| Founded | ca. 6,100 BCE |
| Abandoned | ca. 5,400 BCE |
| Periods | Neolithic |
| Cultures | Halaf culture |
| Site notes | |
| Excavation dates | 1911—1929 2006—present |
| Archaeologists | Max von Oppenheim Lutz Martin Abd al-Masih Bagdo |
| Ownership | Public |
| Public access | Yes |
Tell Halaf (Arabic: تل حلف) is an archaeological site in the Al Hasakah governorate of northeastern Syria, near the Turkish border, just opposite Ceylanpınar. It was the first find of a Neolithic culture, subsequently dubbed the Halaf culture, characterized by glazed pottery painted with geometric and animal designs. The site dates to the 6th millennium BCE and was later the location of the Aramaean city-state of Guzana or Gozan.
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The site is located near the city of Ra's al-'Ayn in the fertile valley of the Khabur River (Nahr al-Khabur), close to the modern border with Turkey. The name Tell Halaf is a local Aramaic placename}, tell meaning "hill", and Tell Halaf meaning "made of former city"; what its original inhabitants called their settlement is not known. It was discovered in 1899 by Baron Max von Oppenheim, a German diplomat, while he was surveying the area to build the Baghdad Railway. At the time, Syria was under the rule of the Ottoman Empire. He returned to excavate the site from 1911 to 1913 and then again 1929, now under French stewardship following the creation of modern Syria. Oppenheim took many of the artifacts found to Berlin. In 2006, new Syro-German excavations have started under the direction of Lutz Martin (Vorderasiatisches Museum Berlin), Abd al-Masih Bagdo (Directorate of Antiquities Hassake), Jörg Becker (University of Halle) and Mirko Novák (University of Bern).
Von Oppenheim founded the Tell Halaf museum in Berlin to house his discoveries from the site. The museum was wrecked in a massive aerial bombardment in World War II, and many of the irreplaceable artifacts were damaged or destroyed, in what is considered one of the worst losses to have occurred in Near Eastern archaeology. However, eighty cubic meters of basalt fragments were later rescued and stored away in the Pergamon Museum. In 2001, a restoration project commenced in Germany that has made some headway in reconstructing many of the damaged artifacts. This project has now been completed.[1]
Tell Halaf is the type site of the Halaf culture, which developed from Neolithic III at this site without any strong break. The Tell Halaf site flourished from about 6100 to 5400 BCE, a period of time that is referred to as the Halaf period. The Halaf culture was succeeded in northern Mesopotamia by the Ubaid culture. The site was then abandoned for a long period.
In the 10th century BC, the rulers of the small Aramaean kingdom Bit Bahiani took their seat in Tell Halaf, which was re-founded as Guzana. King Kapara built the so-called hilani, a palace in Neo-Hittite style with a rich decoration of statues and relief orthostats.
In 894 the Assyrian king Adad-nirari II recorded the site in his archives as a tributary Aramaean city-state. In 808 the city and its surrounding area was reduced to a province of the Assyrian Empire. The governor's seat was a palace in the eastern part of the citadel mound. Guzana survived the collapse of the Assyrian Empire and remained inhabited until Roman-Parthian Period.
In historical periods the mound itself became the citadel of the Aramaean and Assyrian city. The lower town extended to 600m N-S and 1000m E-W. The citadel mound housed the palaces and other official buildings. Most prominent are the so-called Hilani or Western Palace with its rich decor, dating back to the time of King Kapara, and the North-Eastern Palace, the seat of the Assyrian governors. In the lower town a temple in Assyrian style was discovered.