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Introduction |
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Site and Setting |
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Early Excavations |
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New Discoveries |
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Research Goals |
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Acknowledgments |
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New Discoveries |
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Area 1: The Northeast Gate In Area 1, a portion of the outer city wall east of the northeast gate was exposed for a distance of 45 meters (150 feet) during the 2006 field season, revealing details of the ancient construction technique and demonstrating that the massive wall was founded on virgin soil where no earlier buildings existed—probably in the midst of Iron Age agricultural fields a few hundred meters from the original settlement mound, which was at this time turned into a royal citadel. One or two courses of large basalt foundation stones were set into a trench below ground while the rest of the foundation rose above the ground level to a height of 3 meters (10 feet). The top of the foundation is slightly concave, which is probably an intentional feature designed to reinforce the mudbrick superstructure (long since eroded away) that was erected on top of the stone foundation by forcing the exterior courses of brickwork to tilt slightly inward toward the center of the wall, supporting one another, as they rose high above the ground. The total height of the wall is impossible to determine, but an estimate of at least 10 meters (33 feet) is quite reasonable.
A 250-square-meter (2,700 sq. ft.) portion of the northeast gate’s tower foundations, inner chambers, and flagstoned entryway was excavated in 2007 and 2008, exposing the corridor between the outermost wall and the concentric matching wall built 7 meters (23 feet) farther in. It appears that the two walls were built at the same time, together with the gate with which they are seamlessly integrated according to a coherent architectural plan—contrary to the opinion of the nineteenth-century German excavators, who believed that a difference in construction technique between the two walls (the inner wall had much shallower foundations consisting of smaller stones, into which transverse wooden timbers were inserted) was an indication that they were built centuries apart. But the difference in technique is more likely the result of the different functions of the two walls because the deeper and more massive foundation of the outer wall was needed in order to withstand battering rams and undermining, while the inner wall’s foundation served only to support a mudbrick superstructure on which the inner ring of defenders could stand.
Further work is planned in this area to find additional material with which to date more precisely the construction of the walls and gates of Iron Age Sam’al; to determine whether there was a moat in front of the outer wall (perhaps even a water-filled moat, in light of the high water table in the Karasu valley, which was characterized by poor drainage and extensive marshes); and to investigate the wide corridor between the outer and inner walls through which soldiers must have moved as they defended the city.
Area 2: The Eastern Citadel In Area 2, a small trench was dug in 2007 to investigate a basalt sculpture that had been partially excavated by local villagers at the bottom of an undocumented German trench from the first season of excavation in 1888. The sculpture proved to be the schematically rendered head and front quarters of a large lion that stood 1.5 meters (5 feet) tall. This type of sculpture, depicting the face and forelegs of either a lion or a human-headed sphinx, is well known at the nearby Iron Age sculpture quarry of Yesemek, 23 kilometers (14 miles) south of Zincirli. Such sculptures were used as “guardians” to flank the entrances of palaces and temples, suggesting that Area 2 in the eastern part of the royal citadel will be a promising place in which to find additional monumental architecture in future seasons—perhaps even the temple of Sam’al, which has not yet been found.
In fact, just east of the lion sculpture is the highest point of the upper mound, making it a likely spot for a temple or other important building, positioned as it is midway between the inner gate of the citadel and the original palace of Iron Age Sam’al on the north side of the citadel mound. This high point was not excavated by the German expedition because it is where they built their dig house in 1888.
Moreover, in this particular spot there exists above the Iron Age level a thick deposit of post-Iron Age debris that dates to the period of the Persian Empire from the sixth to the fourth centuries b.c., as shown by the pottery and other artifacts recovered there. There is very little post-Iron Age material elsewhere on the site, so it will be necessary to dig here to understand the complete sequence of occupation at the site of Zincirli, which featured at least a small garrison or villa during the Persian period, being fully abandoned only after the Greek conquest led by Alexander the Great in the late fourth century.
Area 3: The Southern Citadel In Area 3, a long trench has been excavated, 10 meters (33 feet) wide, which climbs the steep slope on the southern side of the citadel mound for a distance of 70 meters (230 feet) from the base of the citadel, at the level of the lower town, to the flat surface of the upper mound at the top.
This trench will be expanded and deepened considerably in future seasons. It is situated in one of the few places on the upper mound that was not previously excavated by the German expedition and has not been covered by the modern village. It is therefore the prime location for applying modern archaeological methods to investigate the nearly two-thousand-year sequence of architecture and pottery at Zincirli, from the first settlement there in the Early Bronze Age (around 2500 b.c., the period of the Ebla Empire) to the end of the Assyrian regime (ca. 650 b.c.).
So far, the trench in Area 3 has revealed new details about the fortification of the upper mound that was constructed in the Iron Age to protect the new royal citadel, as well as some intriguing clues concerning earlier fortifications in the Bronze Age. The Iron Age citadel builders laid a stone glacis on the slope of the old Bronze Age mound (probably plastered to create a slick surface difficult for an attacker to climb). Above the glacis, they erected a large wall, 3 meters (10 feet) in width, on the crest of the slope. This original citadel wall, which was built within a few decades of the year 900 b.c., was later replaced by a narrower wall higher up the slope, most likely after the Assyrians took over direct rule of Sam’al and installed an Assyrian governor and garrison at the end of the eighth century b.c.
Underneath the Iron Age glacis and citadel wall is a freestanding earthen rampart that dates back, in all likelihood, to the Middle Bronze Age (ca. 1900–1500 b.c.). This older fortification was augmented with additional fill material to provide a level surface for the Iron Age wall, which was built atop the remnants of the Bronze Age rampart. During the 2008 season, a deep section was cut through the glacis and down into the rampart. It revealed at the base of the earthen rampart a mass of fired bricks of a yet earlier wall—probably the original town wall of the third millennium b.c., judging by the Early Bronze Age potsherds found at this level. Many details remain to be confirmed, but the basic sequence of fortifications at Zincirli is now becoming clear.
Although there are no structures in Area 3 that postdate the Assyrian period, small amounts of pottery and other artifacts reflect some sort of occupation at the site during the Achaemenid Persian period (from 539 to 333 b.c.) and into the early Hellenistic period, as is evident also in Area 2, higher up in the eastern part of the citadel. Of particular interest is an early Hellenistic gold coin—a stater weighing 8.5 grams—bearing the name of Alexander the Great, which was found in 2008 in Area 3, near the modern surface of the upper mound.
Area 4: The South Lower Town In Area 4, a 400-square-meter (4,300 sq. ft.) trench was opened in 2007 to investigate the main street leading into the city from the south gate and to examine the structures flanking this street. A well-made cobbled street was found but it was disappointingly clean, as were the buildings beside it, which had probably been used for administration and storage. Hardly any pottery or other artifacts remained—not even the garbage one would normally expect in a street environment. Only the bases of large clay storage jars, too heavy to be moved, were still in place. But among the sparse finds was a stone cylinder seal carved in the Neo-Assyrian style, reflecting the administrative activity that took place just inside the gate in the last years of the city’s existence.
There is no sign that a violent destruction occurred before the final abandonment of this area—always a disappointment for an archaeologist! It seems that the city of Sam’al was evacuated in an orderly manner and swept clean sometime in the middle of the seventh century b.c., during the period of the decline and fall of the Assyrian Empire. After decades of imperial expansion, the tide had finally turned against the Assyrians; their garrison and governor presumably retreated towards the Euphrates River—and quite possibly took with them every man, woman, and child then living in the city. Of more value even than territory were the empire’s subjects, who could be resettled elsewhere and put to work in support of Assyria.
In future field seasons, the excavation trench in Area 4 will be widened to expose more of the south lower town, with the aim of understanding how this pivotal area of the city, just inside the main gate, was used during the Assyrian regime. The trench will also be deepened in order to study the sequence of pre-Assyrian remains and to document the changes in the urban fabric that took place as the city went from independence to Assyrian vassalage to direct rule as an Assyrian province. The earliest structures in the lower town were built nearly three centuries before the final abandonment of Sam’al and lie approximately 2 meters (6 feet) below the modern surface.
Areas 5 and 6: The North Lower Town Area 5 and Area 6 in the “North Lower Town” were opened in the summer of 2008. These areas will be the nucleus of a large horizontal exposure of a residential district in the Iron Age city. The initial work in Area 6—only 200 square meters (2,150 sq. ft.) so far—has already revealed a large, well-built domestic structure that was occupied in the latest phase of the city. Under it is an even larger building (to judge by the wall thickness) from earlier in the Iron Age.
A larger initial exposure in Area 5 of 450 square meters (4,800 sq. ft.) spans a street in the outermost part of the lower town near the city wall. On the north side of the street is a series of stone-paved rooms equipped with stone-lined drainage channels and basins that may originally have been plastered. These were possibly stables for horses or other livestock, or were used for some industrial purpose—further excavation is needed to clarify their function. The street itself is satisfyingly rich in trash, including animal bones, broken pottery, stone tools, and various lost or intentionally discarded objects made of iron and bronze. Of particular interest is an Egyptian scarab seal carved in stone, with a hole drilled through it for the string by which it had hung around its owner’s neck.
The Kuttamuwa Stele: A “Soul” in the Stone On the south side of the street in Area 5, a small part of another architectural complex was exposed—probably a domestic dwelling. A spectacular find provides an indication of whose house it was, namely, a royal official called “Kuttamuwa” (written KTMW in consonantal alphabetic script; the vocalization “Kuttamuwa” is not the only one possible, but it is a likely reading and has been chosen for use in nontechnical publications).
Kuttamuwa’s inscribed mortuary stele was found just below the modern surface after only a week of digging. The top of the basalt stele had been repeatedly scratched by modern plows tilling the wheatfield under which the Iron Age lower town now lies, the latest plowing having occurred just a few months before the excavation.
Fortunately, there was little damage to the inscription and to the image carved on the stone. According to the inscription, it depicts “Kuttamuwa, servant of Panamuwa,” who commissioned the carving of the monument during his lifetime. He was an official of King Panamuwa II, a ruler who sat on the throne of Sam’al from ca. 745 to 733 b.c. (or possibly King Panamuwa I, who ruled from ca. 790 to 750 b.c., although the style of the iconography suggests a date later in the eighth century). The round-topped stele weighs approximately 360 kilograms (800 pounds) and is 99 centimeters tall and 72 centimeters wide (about 3 feet by 2 feet). A detailed scholarly analysis of both the iconography and the inscription will be published in the November 2009 issue of the Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research.
Kuttamuwa’s mortuary stele is unique in its combination of pictorial and textual features. Moreover, it is extremely well made, being very delicately carved with a fineness of detail rarely found in nonroyal monuments of this period. Kuttamuwa is depicted on the stele as a handsome, bearded figure wearing a tasseled cap and fringed cloak and raising a cup of wine in his hand. He is seated on a chair in front of a table laden with food, symbolizing the pleasant afterlife he expected to enjoy. Beside him is his inscription, elegantly carved in raised relief, enjoining upon his descendants the regular duty of bringing food offerings for various gods and also “for my soul (NBŠ) that (will be) in this stele.”
This brings to mind an earlier Sam’alian inscription by King Panamuwa I (ca. 750 b.c.), in which that king expresses his desire that after his death, his “soul” (NBŠ) would eat and drink with the storm-god Hadad in the afterlife. The Kuttamuwa inscription now makes clear that in Iron Age Sam’al, a person’s “soul” (i.e., his enduring identity or life-force) could be localized in an object detached from his bodily remains—in this case, and presumably in other cases, a pictorial image of the deceased. No corpse was found in the stele chamber, which was clearly the locus of ritual meals in which the deceased Kuttamuwa was thought to eat and drink with the gods because on the floor in front of the stele were animal bones and fragments of polished stone bowls of the type depicted upon Kuttamuwa’s table in the stele itself.
Kuttamuwa’s stele is remarkably well preserved, being the first mortuary monument of its kind to have been found intact and upright in its original location, with its protruding tenon still inserted into a slot in a flagstone platform that had been built for it. It was set against a wall in the corner of a small room that had been converted into a mortuary chapel from an original function as a kitchen, judging by the two clay bread ovens found in an earlier phase of the room’s floor. This mortuary chapel was apparently an annex to Kuttamuwa’s house, with its own entrance from the street outside.
In future seasons, the rest of the building will be explored in order to understand the full context of the stele and the social position of its owner within Sam’alian society. This will be determined based on the size and organization of the household within the larger urban environment, and based on the activities and artifacts associated with its inhabitants. More generally, the excavation trenches in Area 5 and Area 6 will be greatly expanded in coming years in order to provide a window into the urban landscape in what has proved to be a well-preserved residential district.
Area 7: The South Gate A small excavation was begun in Area 7 at the end of the 2008 field season to investigate a structure that lies 60 meters (200 feet) south of the city walls, in what was long assumed to have been unoccupied open land. A farmer plowing his field in this area in August 2008 turned up a large carved orthostat, 1.25 meters (4 feet) tall, on which is depicted an elaborate “tree of life” and a standing figure holding a scepter. This sort of figure usually appears as one of several in a row of orthostats, representing a procession of high officials or political subjects. There are close parallels to this orthostat, in both style and content, at the site of Carchemish on the Euphrates, 100 kilometers (60 miles) east of Zincirli. At Carchemish, a row of such orthostats lines a wall beside a road that leads up to one of the gates of the city.
When its location was plotted, it became clear that the heavy basalt orthostat south of Zincirli, which weighs more than a ton, had left a distinct magnetic signature in the Neubauer Expedition’s geomagnetic map, which was created as part of an extensive geophysical survey conducted in 2007. A number of other magnetic features south of the city’s south gate are presumably a series of buried orthostats flanking a walled processional route leading into the city, whose existence had not been suspected. Furthermore, the geomagnetic map shows a building located east of the orthostat which appears to be a small extramural temple. Excavations were hastily expanded to include the area south of the city walls, confirming that there was indeed a structure buried at the spot indicated. In future seasons, the trench in Area 7 will be enlarged to encompass not just the extramural temple but also the orthostat-lined roadway that apparently extended from this temple to the south gate of Sam’al, making a curved or “bent-axis” approach.
[Last revised on May 10, 2009.] |
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The Neubauer Expedition to Zincirli
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AREA 1: The stone foundation of the outer city wall adjacent to the northeast gate (view to the southeast). |
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The Neubauer Expedition has now completed three field seasons at Zincirli, in the summers of 2006, 2007, and 2008. A total of 2,200 square meters (half an acre) have been excavated to date, revealing the latest phases of occupation in seven different areas of the site. Many more field seasons are planned in order to achieve large horizontal exposures, especially in the lower town, which was not previously explored. The results so far have been excellent, with a number of significant discoveries that add substantially to what the German expedition learned about ancient Sam’al more than a century ago. The areas chosen for excavation by the Neubauer Expedition are shown below, superimposed on the city plan drawn by Robert Koldewey in 1894. What follows is a summary of the major discoveries in each area. The full scientific publication of these finds will appear in a series of volumes to be published by the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago.
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AREA 2: Basalt lion sculpture excavated in the eastern citadel, just below the bottom of an 1888 German trench, whose outlines are visible in the soil section. The heavy block had been turned over onto its head in ancient times. Lower left inset—A frontal view of the sculpture, which schematically depicts the face, mane, and forelegs of a lion. It is possible that the stone was originally plastered or painted to fill in the details, but no trace of this remains. |
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AREA 3: The trench cut into the south side of the upper mound showing the Iron Age citadel glacis and the stone foundations of the citadel walls (the lower wall is the original wall, which was later replaced by the higher wall farther up the slope). Beneath the first citadel wall is an earlier earthen rampart, into which a perpendicular section has been cut. |
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Gold coin bearing name of Alexander the Great (Area 3) |
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The “soul in the stone”—an Iron Age royal official’s pictorial mortuary stele with 13-line inscription (Area 5) |
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Stone orthostat depicting a mythical “tree of life” and a high official—one of a series that lined the road into the city’s south gate (Area 7) |
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Assyrian cylinder seal found in administrative building near south gate (Area 4) |
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Iron Age lion sculpture (1.5 × 0.8 m) that once guarded the entrance of a large building in the eastern citadel (Area 2) |
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AREA 3: Robert Koldewey’s 1892 drawing of a cross-section through the citadel fortifications at a point about a hundred meters east of the new excavation trench shown below. |
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AREA 3: Photograph and plan of the same trench, facing south down the slope. The earlier citadel wall foundation is wider than the higher wall above it, and the earlier wall was constructed using the same “timber grid” method used in innermost of the outer city walls (as seen in the excavation in Area 1). |
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Egyptian scarab found in Iron Age street (Area 5) |
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AREA 4: Plan of the east-west trench excavated in the south lower town, just inside the south gate. The photograph provides a closer view of the clean-swept cobbled street that extended northward into the city from the gate, and of the small rooms constructed to its left. |
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AREA 5: Aerial view of the excavation in the north lower town, looking to the west. Kuttamuwa’s inscribed stele was found in the corner of a small room (indicated by the red arrow), which served as a mortuary chapel in which his descendants presented food offerings for his consumption in the afterlife. |
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AREA 5: Geomagnetic map of buried structures in Area 5 in the north lower town with a superimposed plan of the portion excavated in 2008. The location of the Kuttamuwa stele is shown in red, in the corner of a small room attached to a larger building, on the south side of a street that separated two building complexes. |
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AREA 1: Above—A view, facing southwest, of the excavation of the northeast gate’s inner tower foundations, inner chambers, and flagstoned entryway, which is visible on the far right . Below—Plan of the excavated squares in the northeast gate (the top of the plan is oriented to the south). |
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AREA 5: The partially excavated stele in situ on its flagstone platform in the corner of the room with its back against a wall. |
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AREA 6: Aerial view (facing west) of the initial 200-sq. m. excavation trench in Area 6, south of Area 5 and closer to the royal citadel. |
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AREA 6: Geomagnetic map of a domestic complex in Area 6 with a superimposed plan of the portion excavated in 2008. |
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AREA 7: Geomagnetic map of the south lower town (Area 4) and the south gate (Area 7). The magnetic signatures of the “tree-of-life” orthostat and the extramural building to its east—probably a temple—are clearly visible, about 60 meters south of the gate. (The large circular blot northeast of the temple is a modern electrical transmission tower.) |
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Sources |
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Contact: |
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Dr. David Schloen Associate Professor University of Chicago 1155 East 58th Street Chicago, Illinois 60637 |