UNIVERSIDAD AUTÓNOMA DE MADRID
Proceedings of the 5th International Congress
on the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East
Universidad Autónoma de Madrid
Proceedings of the 5th International
Congress on the Archaeology of
the Ancient Near East
Madrid, April 3-8 2006
Edited by
Joaquín Mª Córdoba, Miquel Molist, Mª Carmen Pérez,
Isabel Rubio, Sergio Martínez
(Editores)
Madrid, 3 a 8 de abril de 2006
Actas del V Congreso Internacional
de Arqueología del Oriente Próximo Antiguo
VOL. III
Centro Superior de Estudios sobre el Oriente Próximo y Egipto
Madrid 2008
Colección Actas
©
ISBN (OBRA COMPLETA): 978-84-8344-140-4
ISBN (VOL. III): 978-84-8344-147-3
Depósito legal: GU-129/2009
Realiza: Palop Producciones Gráficas.
Impreso en España.
Diseño de cubierta: M.A. Tejedor.
5th International Congress on the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East
V Congreso Internacional de Arqueología del Oriente Próximo Antiguo
Scientific Committee Scientific Steering Committee
Comité Científico Organizador Comité Científico Permanente
Joaquín Mª Córdoba Manfred Bietak
Sergio Martínez Barthel Hrouda (honorary member)
Miquel Molist Hartmut Kühne
Mª Carmen Pérez Jean-Claude Margueron
Isabel Rubio Wendy Matthews
Paolo Matthiae
Diederik Meijer
Ingolf Thuesen
Irene J. Winter
Executive Commission
Comisión Ejecutiva
Ana Arroyo, Carmen del Cerro, Fernando Escribano, Saúl Escuredo, Alejandro Gallego,
Zahara Gharehkhani, Alessandro Grassi, José Manuel Herrero †, Rodrigo Lucía, Montserrat
Mañé, Covadonga Sevilla, Elena Torres
Technical collaborators
Colaboradores técnicos
Virginia Tejedor, Pedro Bao, Roberto Peñas, Pedro Suárez, Pablo Sebastagoítia, Jesús
González, Raúl Varea, Javier Lisbona, Carmen Suárez, Amanda Gómez, Carmen Úbeda,
Cristina López, José Mª Pereda, Rosa Plaza, Lorenzo Manso, Juan Trapero
Congress Venue
Sede del Congreso
Universidad Autónoma de Madrid
Facultad de Filosofía y Letras
Sponsorships
Apoyos y patrocinios
Universidad Autónoma de Madrid
Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia
Ministerio de Cultura
Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores
Comunidad de Madrid
Themes of the Congress
Temas del Congreso
1. History and Method of Archaeological Research
La historia y la metodología de la investigación arqueológica
2. The Archaeology and the Environment of the Ancient Eastern Cities and Villages
La arqueología y el entorno de las ciudades y las aldeas antiguas
3. Arts and Crafts in the Ancient Near East
La artesanía y el arte en el Oriente Antiguo
4. Reports on the Results from the Latest Archaeological Seasons
Informes sobre los resultados de las recientes campañas de excavación
Index - Índice
VOL. I
Á. Gabilondo Pujol, Prólogo...................................................................................... 17
P. Matthiae, Opening Speech........................................................................................ 21
J. Mª Córdoba, M. Molist, Mª C. Pérez, I. Rubio, S. Martínez, Bienvenida........ 25
Opening Lectures to Main Themes - Apertura de las sesiones temáticas
N. Chevalier, Considérations sur l’histoire de l’archéologie, ses origines et son développement
actuel.............................................................................................................. 31
S. Mazzoni, Arts, crafts and the state: A dialectic process............................................ 37
Papers and posters - Comunicaciones y pósters
M. Abdulkarim, O. Olesti-Vila, Territoire et paysage dans la province romaine de
la Syrie. La centuriatio d’Emesa (Homs) ............................................................... 55
G. Affani, Astragalus bone in Ancient Near East: Ritual depositions in Iron Age
in Tell Afis ........................................................................................................... 77
A. Ahrens, Egyptian and Egyptianizing stone vessels from the royal tomb and palace
at Tell Mišrife/Qa7na (Syria): Imports and local imitations................................... 93
B. Ajorloo, The neolithization process in Azerbaijan: An introduction to review............... 107
C. Alvaro, C. Lemorini, G. Palumbi, P. Piccione, From the analysis of the archaeological
context to the life of a community. «Ethnographic» remarks on the Arslantepe
VIB2 village .......................................................................................................... 127
Sh. N. Amirov, Towards understanding religious character of Tell Hazna 1 oval............. 137
Á. Armendáriz, L. Teira, M. Al-Maqdissi, M. Haïdar-Boustani, J. J. Ibáñez, J. González
Urquijo, The megalithic necropolises in the Homs Gap (Syria). A preliminary
approach................................................................................................................. 151
A. Arroyo, Akpinar.................................................................................................... 163
L. Astruc, O. Daune-Le Brun, A. L. Brun, F. Hourani, Un atelier de fabrication
de récipients en pierre à Khirokitia (Néolothique pré-céramique récent, VIIe millénaire
av. JC, Chypre........................................................................................................ 175
G. Baccelli, F. Manuelli, Middle Bronze Khabur Ware from Tell Barri/Kahat ..... 187
B. Bader, Avaris and Memphis in the Second Intermediate Period in Egypt (ca. 1770-
1770-1550/40 BC)............................................................................................... 207
F. Baffi, Who locked the door? Fortification walls and city gates in Middle Bronze Age
inner Syria: Ebla and Tell Tuqan.......................................................................... 225
L. Barda, El aporte de los mapas y descripciones antiguas en el ensayo de reconstrucción
de sitios arqueológicos, periferias y rutas (con uso del SIG)...................................... 245
C. D. Bardeschi, A propos des installations dans la cour du Temple Ovale de Khafajah..... 253
C. Bellino, A. Vallorani, The Stele of Tell Ashara. The Neo-Syrian perspective............ 273
D. Ben-Shlomo, Iconographic representations from Early Iron Age Philistia and their
ethnic implications................................................................................................... 285
A. I. Beneyto Lozano, Manifestaciones artísticas desde Oriente Próximo a Al-Andalus 305
L. Bombardieri, C. Forasassi, The pottery from IA II-III levels of Late-Assyrian
to Post-Assyrian period in Tell Barri/Kahat.......................................................... 323
B. Brown, The Kilamuwa Relief: Ethnicity, class and power in Iron Age North
Syria....................................................................................................................... 339
A. Brustolon, E. Rova, The Late Chalcolithic settlement in the Leilan region of Northeastern
Syria: A preliminary assessment.............................................................. 357
S. M. Cecchini, G. Affanni, A. Di Michele, Tell Afis. The walled acropolis (Middle
Bronze Age to Iron Age I). A work in progress..................................................... 383
B. Cerasetti, V. A. Girelli, G. Luglio, B. Rondelli, M. Zanfini, From monument to
town and country: Integrated techniques of surveying at Tilmen Höyük in South-East
Turkey.................................................................................................................... 393
N. Chevalier, Fouiller un palais assyrien au XIXe siècle: Victor Place à Khorsabad....... 403
L. Chiocchetti, Post-Assyrian pottery from the Italian excavations at Fort Shalmaneser,
1987-1990 ............................................................................................................ 417
X. Clop García, Estrategias de gestión de las materias primas de origen mineral en Tell
Halula: primera aproximación................................................................................ 441
A. Colantoni, A. Gottarelli, A formalized approach to pottery typology: The case of
some typical shapes from the Late Bronze Age in Northern Syria .......................... 455
A. M. Conti, C. Persiani, Arslantepe. The building sequence of the EB3 settlement
....................................................................................................................... 465
C. Coppini, Mitannian pottery from Tell Barri........................................................... 477
J. Mª Córdoba, Informe preliminar sobre las últimas campañas en al Madam (2003-2006).... 493
F. Cruciani, The atributes of Ishtar in Old Syrian glyptic and the Mesopotamian literary
tradition.................................................................................................................. 509
A. Daems, Alternative ways for reading some female figurines from Late Prehistoric
Mesopotamia and Iran............................................................................................ 519
10 Proceedings of the 5th International Congress on the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East
A. D’Agostino, Between Mitannians and Middle-Assyrians: Changes and links
in ceramic culture at Tell Barri and in Syrian Jazirah during the end of the 2nd
millennium BC....................................................................................................... 525
A. D’Agostino, S. Valenti, N. Laneri, Archaeological works at Hirbemerdon Tepe
(Turkey). A preliminary report or the first three seasons......................................... 549
M. B. D’Anna, R. Laurito, A. Ricci, Walking on the Malatya Plain (Turkey): Preliminary
remarks on Chalcolithic pottery and occupation. 2003-2005 Archaeological
Survey Project......................................................................................................... 567
I. de Aloe, A preliminary report on the 1995 Tell Leilan survey: The pottery from
the Hellenistic to the Sasanian Period ..................................................................... 575
F. Dedeoglu, Cultural transformation and settlement system of Southwestern Anatolia
from Neolithic to LBA: A case study from Denizili/Çivril Plain.................. 587
K. De Langhe, Early Christianity in Iraq and the Gulf: A view from the architectural
remains .......................................................................................................... 603
T. De Schacht, W. Gheyle, R. Gossens, A. De Wulf, Archaeological research
and CORONA: On the use, misuse and full potential of historical remote sensing
data................................................................................................................. 611
C. del Cerro, Life and society of the inhabitants of al Madam (UAE). Interdisciplinary
study of an Iron Age village and its environment.................................................... 619
G. M. Di Nocera, Settlements, population and landscape on the Upper Euphrates between
V and II millennium BC. Results of the Archaeological Survey Project 2003-2005
in the Malatya Plain .............................................................................................. 633
S. Di Paolo, Dalle straordinarie avventure di Lady Hester Stanhope alla «Crociata» archaeologica
di Butler: la politica «religiosa» dei viaggi delle esplorazioni scientifiche nella
regione di Damasco tra XIX e XX secolo.............................................................. 647
R. Dolce, Considerations on the archaeological evidence from the Early Dynastic Temple
of Inanna at Nippur.............................................................................................. 661
R. H. Dornemann, Status report on the Early Bronze Age IV Temple in Area E at
Tell Qarqur in the Orontes Valley, Syria ............................................................... 679
A. Egea Vivancos, Artesanos de lo rupestre en el alto Éufrates sirio durante la época romana.. 711
A. Egea Vivancos, Viajeros y primeras expediciones arqueológicas en Siria. Su contribución
al redescubrimiento de Hierapolis y su entorno ........................................................ 731
B. Einwag, Fortified citadels in the Early Bronze Age? New evidence from Tall Bazi
(Syria).................................................................................................................... 741
M. Erdalkiran, The Halaf Ceramics in Hirnak area, Turkey..................................... 755
F. Escribano Martín, Babilonia y los españoles en el siglo XIX................................. 767
M. Feizkhah, Pottery of Garrangu style in Azarbaijan (Iran).................................... 775
E. Felluca, Ceramic evidences from Bampur: A key site to reconstruct the cultural development
in the Bampur Valley (Iran) during the third millennium BC................................. 797
E. Felluca, S. Mogliazza Under-floor burials in a Middle Bronze Age domestic quarter at Tell
Mardikh – Ebla, Syria........................................................................................... 809
Index - Índice 11
VOL. II
S. Festuccia, M. Rossi, Recent excavations on the Ebla Acropolis (Syria).................. 17
S. Festuccia, M. Rossi Latest phases of Tell Mardikh - Ebla: Area PSouth Lower
Town ...................................................................................................................... 31
J.-D. Forest and R. Vallet, Uruk architecture from abroad: Some thoughts about
Hassek Höyük....................................................................................................... 39
M. Fortin, L.-M. Loisier, J. Pouliot, La géomatique au service des fouilles archéologiques:
l’exemple de Tell ‘Acharneh, en Syrie...................................................................... 55
G. Gernez, A new study of metal weapons from Byblos: Preliminary work..................... 73
K. T. Gibbs, Pierced clay disks and Late Neolithic textile production.......................... 89
J. Gil Fuensanta, P. Charvàt, E A. Crivelli, The dawn of a city. Surtepe Höyük excavations
Birecik Dam area, Eastern Turkey ............................................................... 97
A. Gómez Bach, Las producciones cerámicas del Halaf Final en Siria: Tell Halula (valle
del Éufrates) y Tell Chagar Bazar (valle del Khabur)............................................. 113
E. Grootveld, What weeds can tell us Archaeobotanical research in the Jordan Valley ... 123
E. Guralnick, Khorsabad sculptured fragments............................................................ 127
H. Hameeuw, K. Vansteenhuyse, G. Jans, J. Bretschneider, K. Van Lerberghe,
Living with the dead. Tell Tweini: Middle Bronze Age tombs in an urban context... 143
R. Hempelmann, Kharab Sayyar: The foundation of the Early Bronze Age settlement
....................................................................................................................... 153
F. Hole, Ritual and the collapse of Susa, ca 4000 BC................................................ 165
D. Homès-Fredericq The Belgian excavations at al-Lahun (biblical Moab region), Jordan.
Past and future....................................................................................................... 179
J. J. Ibáñez et al., Archaeological survey in the Homs Gap (Syria): Campaigns of 2004 and
2005....................................................................................................................... 187
A. Invernizzi, El testimonio de Ambrogio Bembo y Joseph Guillaume Grelot sobre
los restos arqueológicos iranios................................................................................. 205
K. Jakubiak, Pelusium, still Egyptian or maybe Oriental town in the Western Synai.
Results of the last excavations on the Roman city................................................... 221
S. A. Jasim, E. Abbas, The excavations of a Post-Hellenistic tomb at Dibba, UAE..... 237
Z. A. Kafafi, A Late Bronze Age jewelry mound from Tell Dayr ‘Alla, Jordan......... 255
E. Kaptijn, Settling the steppe. Iron Age irrigation around Tell Deir ‘Alla, Jordan Valley .... 265
C. Kepinski, New data from Grai Resh and Tell Khoshi (South-Sinjar, Iraq) collected
in 2001 and 2002................................................................................................. 285
A. Klein-Franke, The site in Jabal Qarn Wu’l near %iziaz in the region of San5an
(Yemen) .................................................................................................................. 297
G. Kozbe, A new archaeological survey project in the South Eastern Anatolia: Report of
the Cizre and Silopi region ..................................................................................... 323
P. Kurzawski, Assyrian outpost at Tell Sabi Abyad: Architecture, organisation of
space and social structure of the Late Bronze settlement ......................................... 341
12 Proceedings of the 5th International Congress on the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East
R. Laurito, C. Lemorini, E. Cristiani, Seal impressions on cretulae at Arslantepe:
Improving the methodological and interpretative references........................................ 351
A. R. Lisella, Clay figurines from Tell Ta’anek ........................................................... 361
M. Lönnqvist, Kathleen M. Kenyon 1906-1978. A hundred years after her birth.
The formative years of a female archaeologist: From socio-politics to the stratigraphical
method and the radiocarbon revolution in archaeology......................................... 379
K. O. Lorentz, Crafting the Head: The human body as art? ...................................... 415
C. Lorre, Jacques de Morgan et la question de l’origine de la métalurgie dans le Caucase.... 433
S. Lundström, From six to seven Royal Tombs. The documentation of the Deutsche
Orient-Gesellschaft excavation at Assur (1903-1914) – Possibilities and limits of
its reexamination.................................................................................................... 445
N. Marchetti, A preliminary report on the 2005 and 2006 excavations at Tilmen
Höyük.................................................................................................................... 465
O. Marder, I. Milevski, R. Rabinovich, O. Ackermann, R. Shahack-Gross, P. Fine,
The Lower Paleolithic site of Revadin Quarry, Israel............................................. 481
R. Martín Galán, An example of the survival of ancient Mesopotamian architectonical
traditions in Northern Jazireh during the Hellenistic period.................................... 491
A. C. Martins, Oriental antiquities and international conflicts. A Portuguese episode
during the 1st World War............................................................................... 515
K. Matsumura, Hellenistic human and animal sacrifices in Central Anatolia: Examples
from Kaman-Kalehöyük.......................................................................................... 523
P. Matthiae, The Temple of the Rock of Early Bronze IV A-B at Ebla: Structure,
chronology, continuity .............................................................................................. 547
M. G. Micale, The course of the images. Remarks on the architectural reconstructions
in the 19th
and 20th
centuries: The case of the Ziqqurrat........................................ 571
L. Milano, Elena Rova, New discoveries of the Ca’Foscari University – Venice Team
at Tell Beydar (Syria)............................................................................................. 587
I. Milevski, Y. Baumgarten, Between Lachish and Tel Erani: Horvat Ptora, a new
Late Prehistoric site in the Southern Levant ........................................................... 609
O. Muñoz, S. Cleuziou, La tombe 1 de Ra’s al-Jinz RJ-1: une approche de la
complexité des pratiques funéraires dans la peninsule d’Oman à l’Âge du Bronze ancien 627
L. Nigro, Tell es-Sultan/Jericho from village to town: A reassessment of the Early
Bronze Age I settlement and necropolis................................................................... 645
L. Nigro, Prelimiray report of the first season of excavation of Rome «La Sapienza»
University at Khirbet al-Batrawy (Upper Wadi az-Zarqa, Jordan).................. 663
A. T. Ökse, Preliminary results of the salvage excavations at Salat Tepe in the Upper
Tigris region............................................................................................................ 683
V. Orsi, Between continuity and tranformation: The late 3rd Millennium BC ceramic
sequence from Tell Barri (Syria) ............................................................................. 699
A. Otto, Organization of Late Bronze Age cities in the Upper Syrian Euphrates
Valley..................................................................................................................... 715
M. Özbaharan, Musular: The special activity site in Central Anatolia, Turkey................. 733
F. Pedde, The Assur-Project. An old excavation newly analysed .................................. 743
Index - Índice 13
C. Persiani, Chemical analysis and time/space distribution of EB2-3 pottery at Arslantepe
(Malatya, Turkey) ...................................................................................... 753
L. P. Petit, Late Iron Age levels at Tell Damieh: New excavations results from the Jordan
Valley..................................................................................................................... 777
L. Peyronel, Making images of humans and animals. The clay figurines from the Royal
Palace G at Tell Mardikh-Ebla, Syria (EB IVA, c. 2400-2300 BC)................. 787
P. Piccione, Walking in the Malatya Plain (Turkey): The first Half of the III millennium
BC (EBA I and II). Some preliminary remarks on the results of the 2003-2005
Archaeological Survey Project.................................................................................. 807
VOL. III
F. Pinnock, Artistic genres in Early Syrian Syria. Image and ideology of power in a
great pre-classical urban civilisation in its formative phases...................................... 17
A. Polcaro, EB I settlements and environment in the Wadi az-zarqa Dolmens and ideology
of death........................................................................................................... 31
M. Pucci, The Neoassyrian residences of Tell Shekh Hamad, Syria............................ 49
P. Puppo, La Tabula «Chigi»: un riflesso delle conquiste romane in Oriente ................ 65
S. Riehl, Agricultural decision-making in the Bronze Age Near East: The development of
archaeobotanical crop plant assemblages in relation to climate change....................... 71
A. Rochman-Halperin, Technical aspects of carving Iron Age decorative cosmetic
palettes in the Southern Levant.......................................................................... 93
M. Rossi, Tell Deinit-Syria MEDA Project n. 15 (2002-2004). Restoration training
programs................................................................................................................. 103
M. Sala, Khirbet Kerak Ware from Tell es-Sultan/ancient Jericho: A reassessment in
the light of the finds of the Italian-Palestinian Expedition (1997-2000)............... 111
S. G. Schmid, A. Amour, A. Barmasse, S. Duchesne, C. Huguenot, L. Wadeson,
New insights into Nabataean funerary practices...................................................... 135
S. Silvonen, P. Kouki, M. Lavento, A. Mukkala, H. Ynnilä, Distribution of
Nabataean-Roman sites around Jabal Harûn: Analysis of factors causing site
patterning ............................................................................................................... 161
G. Spreafico, The Southern Temple of Tell el-Husn/Beth-Shean: The sacred architecture
of Iron Age Palestine reconsidered........................................................... 181
M. T. Starzmann, Use of space in Shuruppak: Households on dispaly....................... 203
T. Steimer-Herbet, H. Criaud, Funerary monuments of agro-pastoral populations
on the Leja (Southern Syria)................................................................................... 221
G. Stiehler-Alegría, Kassitische Siegel aus stratifizierten Grabungen........................... 235
I. M. Swinnen, The Early Bronze I pottery from al-Lahun in Central Jordan: Seal
impressions and potter’s marks................................................................................ 245
H. Tekin, The Late Neolithic pottery tradition of Southeastern Anatolia and its vicinity ....... 257
H. Tekin, Hakemi Use: A newly established site dating to the Hassuna / Samarra period
in Southeastern Anatolia................................................................................. 271
14 Proceedings of the 5th International Congress on the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East
D. Thomas, The ebb and flow of empires – Afghanistan and neighbouring lands in the
twelfth-thirteenth centuries ....................................................................................... 285
Y. Tonoike, Beyond style: Petrographic analysis of Dalma ceramics in two regions
of Iran................................................................................................................... 301
B. Uysal, The technical features of the Ninevite 5 Ware in Southeastern Anatolia ...... 313
C. Valdés Pererio, Qara Qûzâq and Tell Hamîs (Syrian Euphrates valley): Updating
and comparing Bronze Age ceramic and archaeological data ......................... 323
S. Valentini, Ritual activities in the «rural shirines» at Tell Barri, in the Khabur
region, during the Ninevite 5 period ........................................................................ 345
K. Vansteenhuyse, M. al-Maqdissi, P. Degryse, K. Van Lerberghe, Late Helladic
ceramics at Tell Tweini and in the kingdom of Ugarit............................................ 359
F. Venturi, The Sea People in the Levant: A North Syrian perspective........................ 365
V. Verardi, The different stages of the Acropolis from the Amorite period at Tell
Mohammed Diyab.................................................................................................. 383
V. Vezzoli, Islamic Period settlement in Tell Leilan Region (Northern Jazíra): The
material evidence from the 1995 Survey.................................................................. 393
O. Vicente i Campos, La aplicación de las nuevas tecnologías de la información y la
comunicación en el yacimiento arqueológico de Tell Halula....................................... 405
N. Vismara, Lo sviluppo delle metodologie della scienza numismatica e la scoperta di
una nuova area di produzione monetale: il caso dell’identificazione della emissioni della
Lycia in epoca arcaica............................................................................................. 417
T. Watkins, Natural environment versus cultural environment: The implications of creating
a built environment................................................................................................. 427
N. Yalman, An alternative interpretation on the relationship between the settlement
layout and social organization in Çatalhöyük Neolithic site: A ethnological research
in Central Anatolia................................................................................................ 439
E. Yanai, Ein Assawir, Tel Magal and the peripheral settlement in the Northern Sharon
from the Neolithic period until the end of the Early Bronze Age III...................... 449
E. Yanai, Cemetery of the Intermediate Bronze Age at Bet Dagan.............................. 459
E. Yanai, The trade with Cypriot Grey Lustrous Wheel Made Ware between Cyprus,
North Syrian Lebanese coast and Israel.................................................................. 483
Workshops - Talleres de debate
Workshop I
Houses for the Living and a Place for the Dead
N. Balkan, M. Molist and D. Stordeur
(eds.)
Introduction: House for the living and place for the dead. In memory of Jacques
Cauvin ................................................................................................................... 505
P. C. Edwards, The symbolic dimensions of material culture at Wadi Hammeh 27.......... 507
Index - Índice 15
F. R. Valla, F. Bocquentin, Les maisons, les vivants, les morts: le cas de Mallaha (Eynan),
Israël ...................................................................................................................... 521
E. Guerrero, M. Molist, J. Anfruns, Houses for the living and for the dead? The case
of Tell Halula (Syria)............................................................................................ 547
D. Stordeur, R. Khawam, Une place pour les morts dans les maisons de Tell Aswad
(Syrie). (Horizon PPNB ancien et PPNB moyen).................................................. 561
I. Kuijt, What mean these bones? Considering scale and Neolithic mortuary variability...... 591
B. S. Düring, Sub-floor burials at Çatalhöyük: Exploring relations between the
dead, houses, and the living ..................................................................................... 603
P. M. M. G. Akkermans, Burying the dead in Late Neolithic Syria .......................... 621
T. Watkins, Ordering time and space: Creating a cultural world................................... 647
Workshop III
The Origins of the Halaf and the Rise of Styles
O Niewenhuyse, P. Akkermans, W. Cruells and M. Molist
(eds.)
Introduction: A workshop on the origins of the Halaf and the rise of styles.................. 663
W. Cruells, The Proto-Halaf: Origins, definition, regional framework and chronology.............. 671
O. Nieuwenhuyse, Feasting in the Steppe – Late Neolithic ceramic change and the rise
of the Halaf........................................................................................................... 691
R. Bernbeck, Taming time and timing the tamed......................................................... 709
M. Le Mière, M. Picon, A contribution to the discussion on the origins of the Halaf
culture from chemical analyses of pottery................................................................. 729
B. Robert, A. Lasalle, R. Chapoulie, New insights into the ceramic technology
of the Proto-Halaf («Transitional») period by using physico-chemical methods........ 735
H. Tekin, Late Neolithic ceramic traditions in Southeastern Anatolia: New insights from
Hakemi Use........................................................................................................... 753
M. Verhoeven, Neolithic ritual in transition............................................................... 769
Programme - Programa
16 Proceedings of the 5th International Congress on the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East
Taming time and timing the tamed
Reinhard Bernbeck, Binghamton
Abstract
Recent intensification of archaeological work on late Neolithic sites in the Jazira and southeastern
Turkey has produced a vast amount of new data. It is long-standing academic practice,
especially among historians and archaeologists, to deal with such a situation by classifying
and categorizing material into internally coherent entities, with the goal of identifying
new chronospatial entities. This paper calls into question the ways this process
is carried out. I argue for a constructivist notion of periods. Naming periods and assumptions
of cultural coherence result in distorted academic discourses that ask interesting questions
of socioeconomic or political relevance but frame them inappropriately. I use the example
of design grammars of Samarran pottery to illustrate my arguments.
Keywords: Historiography, periodization, Halaf, design grammar.
The praxis of periodization1
Textbooks on Near Eastern prehistory never miss the chance to describe at
some length the «Halaf culture.» Students are given a trait list that is easily
memorized: «tholos»-type buildings, fine painted pottery with bukranion motifs
and «cream bowl» shapes, and amulet seals. The Halaf culture is furthermore
described as «the first time in the Near East [when] there was a widespread cultural
horizon.»2
This sort of knowledge invites two questions. What are the origins
of such a culture,3
and what are the reasons for its demise? Both questions
have recently received heightened attention, in part because of renewed field
research.
When reflecting on such questions, it is sometimes worthwhile to consider
deeper issues that steer our constructions of chronologies. The assertion that one
1
I thank Olivier Nieuwenhuyse and Walter Cruells for inviting me to the workshop ‘The Origins of
the Halaf and the Rise of Styles’ at the ICAANE in Madrid. Special thanks to Olivier for many inspiring
email exchanges. I also thank Susan Pollock, Maresi Starzmann and Charlie Cobb for comments and
critical discussions and a lively group of students for sharing the fun of Madrid evenings with me.
2
C. Redman, 1978. The Rise of Civilization, p. 199. San Francisco: W.H. Freeman. Maps in other works
underscore this point, e.g. M. Roaf, 1990. Cultural Atlas of Mesopotamia and the Ancient Near East, p. 49. New
York: Facts on File; L. Copeland and F. Hours, 1987. «L’expansion de la civilisation halafienne: une interpretation
de la repartition des sites.» In J.-L. Huot, ed.: Préhistoire de la Mésopotamie, pp. 209-220. Paris: Editions
du CNRS.
3
P.P.M.G. Akkkermans, 1997. «Old and New Perspectives on the Origins of the Halaf Culture.» In O.
Rouault and M. Wäfler, eds.: La Djéziré et l’Euphrate syriens de la Protohistoire à la fin du deuxieme millénaire av.
J.C., pp. 55-68. Paris: Editions Recherches sur les Civilisations. S. Campbell, 1998. «Problems of Definition:
the Origins of the Halaf in North Iraq.» In M. Lebeau, ed.: About Subartu: Studies Devoted to Upper
Mesopotamia, pp. 39-52. Brussels: Brepols. W. Cruells and O. Nieuwenhuyse, 2004. «The Proto-Halaf Period
in Syria. New Sites, New Data.» Paléorient 30 (1): 47-68.
has identified a whole new chronological horizon poses all the questions of
periodization that have been of long-standing interest to philosophers of history. Do
historical periods have an objective background, or are they merely the constructs
of a community of researchers? Are the Proto-Halaf period, the Early Dynastic
period of Mesopotamia, or the European Renaissance based on any objective reality?
Such debates mirror disputes of 12th
and 13th
century scholasticism between
nominalists and realists. In the early 20th
century, Wilhelm Windelband and
Theodor Lessing took the ultra-constructivist stance according to which the past
is entirely sinnlos (meaningless).4
Heinrich Rickert5
and others took a realist stance
against Windelband, claiming that historical time lends itself to a segregation into
discrete units that have a grounding in past realities.6
In Western societies, the task
of authoritative Sinndeutung (meaning making) is left to historians,7
among whom
I include archaeologists. This position allows us to produce a pseudo-objective
narrative which sets itself apart from other, more openly fictional renderings of
the past in art, film or novel. And since all knowledge (Erkenntnis) depends on difference
and distinction, the intellectual process of periodization involves the
assessment of continuity and discontinuity. When discernible, discontinuity, or
sharp difference is the most productive way to «cut up» the flow of historical time.
But such an abstract notion is impractical without a referent: which principles
might we use to mark incisive moments? Friedrich Schiller, in his Antrittsvorlesung
at Jena University noted that the evident criterion for historical orientation is historical
efficacy (Wirkung), by which he meant a universal history based on Europe’s
development, a Eurocentric if not racist idea that seemed unproblematic in his
time. «Efficacy» was given a different, economic meaning with V.G. Childe’s Marxistinspired
three revolutions in human history, the Neolithic, urban and industrial,8
meanwhile supplemented by the digital revolution. Others, especially anthropological
archaeologists, have indulged in political classifications as a way to structure
and dissect history, reducing it to a series of forms of political organization.9
For most prehistoric archaeologists, though, the primary task of periodization
seems to be patently obvious,10
as we deal with material culture rather than highly
710 Proceedings of the 5th International Congress on the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East
4
W. Windelband, 1899 (2nd edition). Die Geschichte der neueren Philosophie in ihrem Zusammenhange mit der
allgemeinen Kultur und den besonderen Wissenschaften. Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel. T. Lessing, 1983 (original
publication 1919). Geschichte als Sinngebung des Sinnlosen. München: C.H. Beck.
5
H. Rickert, 1913. Die Grenzen der naturwissenschaftlichen Begriffsbildung. Eine logische Einleitung in die historischen
Wissenschaften Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr.
6
An argument for such realism comes - unexpectedly - from I. Hodder, 1995, «Material Culture in
Time». In I. Hodder, M. Shanks, A. Alexandri, V. Buchli, J. Carman, J. Last and G. Lucas, eds.: Interpreting
Archaeology. Finding Meaning in the Past, pp. 164-168. London: Routledge.
7
J. Rüsen (1994. Historische Orientierung. Bonn: Böhlau) speaks in this connection of Geschichtskultur.
8
V.G. Childe, 1936. Man Makes Himself. London: Watts & Co. Childe had alluded to these revolutions
before his 1936 book, but a visit to Moscow was likely instrumental in his sharpening of terminology. For
a detailed account of Childe’s ideas, see K. Green. 1999. «V.Gordon Childe and the vocabulary of revolutionary
change,» Antiquity 73: 97-109.
9
For a pertinent critique of these efforts, see N. Yoffee. 2005. Myths of the Archaic State, pp. 4-21. Cambridge,
Cambridge University Press.
10
E.g. K.J. Narr, 1978. «Zeitmasse in der Urgeschichte.» Rheinisch-Westfälische Akademie der Wissenschaften,
Vorträge, Reihe Geisteswissenschaften, 24. Westdeutscher Verlag.
complex social systems that are documented in written texts and statements of
intention by historical actors. At the most basic level, prehistorians have structured
long-term history since the early days of their profession by referring to technological
capabilities of working specific materials: stone, copper, bronze and iron,
and their respective «ages.»11
However, this 19th
century scheme seemed too simplistic
to geographers and ethnographers, who, under the influence of the classificatory
mood instigated by Friedrich Ratzel, German historical ethnology, the
Vienna Kulturkreislehre, and Clark Wissler’s «culture area» concept, made an attempt
to designate whole assemblages as «cultures» that could then be seriated in time
and space.12
These ideas are at the root of the «culture-historical method» which
is still the mainstay of much archaeological work.
Archaeological classifications of entire cultures are infused with an objectivist
attitude. We need only to recognize past reality in the «right way» in order to slice
up time correctly. Rarely is there a recognition that the knowledgeable (erkennendes)
subject may deeply influence,13
if not entirely determine chronological and other
historical order. I side with Lessing and Windelband in contending that archaeologists
impose a subjective structure on past, objectively existing material forms.
«Periodizing» is the production of coherent sectors of an essentially unwieldy,
boundless past and its remains. The reduction of the chaotic and incoherent to the
consistent and confined is characteristic of an ideologically charged procedure.
Meaning in history is never an integral part of the past, but a product of present
intellectual labor.14
History and prehistory are fables, pieced together by representatives
of specialized professions. What sets historians and archaeologists apart
from other makers of historical meaning, such as priests, story tellers, film makers,
museologists, or politicians is their «expertise,» a theoretical and practical
knowledge that is created and reinforced in a community that has set up firm standards
of knowledge production, a Denkstil,15
including such basic ones as the
refusal to invent evidence, to incorporate as much evidence into a narrative as possible,
and to stay within the realm of academic rationality.
However, these self-imposed restrictions do not automatically guarantee reliable
knowledge. Chronocultures such as Halaf are subjective, classificatory creations
whose acceptance by a field of scholars leads to reifications. Once ossified, traitTaming
time and timing the tamed 711
11
This focus on working different kinds of materials includes a strong evolutionary view of history.
On the social and academic conditions in which Danish researcher Thomsen developed this system in the
early 19th
century, see S. Hansen. 2001. «Von den Anfängen der prähistorischen Archäologie: Christian Jürgensen
Thomsen und das Dreiperiodensystem». Praehistorische Zeitschrift 76 (1): 10-23.
12
F. Ratzel, 1899. Anthropogeographie. 2nd edition. Stuttgart: J. Engelhorn.; F. Graebner, 1966 (original
publication 1911). Methode der Ethnologie. Oosterhout: Anthropological Publications. C. Wissler, 1923. Man
and Culture. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell.
13
The recognition and detailed elaboration of this phenomenon in the natural sciences reaches back
to L. Fleck’s Entstehung und Entwicklung einer wissenschaftlichen Tatsache. 1935. Basel: Benno Schwabe & Co.
Reprinted 1980 by Suhrkamp, Frankfurt.
14
J.H. Van der Pot, 1999. Sinndeutung und Periodisierung der Geschichte, p. 59. Leiden: Brill. In art history,
Riegl’s essay on monuments and time argues similarly, see E. Naginski, 2001, «Riegl, Archaeology, and the
Periodization of Culture.» Res 40: 135-152.
15
Fleck, op.cit, p. 187.
listed and mapped, archaeologists begin to ask «secondary» questions about genesis
and demise of their creations. At this point, the dialectical relationship of the
periodizing process is forgotten: present prehistorians constitute sociopolitical and
other complexities of the past through contemplation of the already ordered
archaeological materials. More importantly, they proceed to demarcate some differences
while conflating others. The outcome of periodization depends on our
present senses of time, history and material similarity. All of these senses are
themselves historical, so that prehistory’s knowledge production is fundamentally
substitutive, not cumulative. And the dialectical, dynamic nature of Sinndeutung
(meaning making) is in the last instance based in a constantly shifting present, not
a fixed past to be studied and learned.
In addition to its own dependency on historical contexts, periodization happens
in stages16
: the first one might best be called an «innovation stage» and
consists of giving coherence to an ensemble of knowledges that has become
unwieldy. The second stage is «investigative.» Questions of classification subside
for a limited time, to be replaced by higher-order interpretive issues such
as explorations of economic organization. The third stage is one of critique.
The period scheme, not so new any more, has shown its weaknesses. Following
the critique, the process recommences on this level and leads eventually to further
dissection of the temporal scale. Because of its cyclical nature, it is very
difficult to break through the whole enterprise and advance a radical critique
that ruptures not just the process, but the underlying archaeological praxis of
chronological knowledge production.
Period naming, growth and dissection: Near Eastern Prehistory
and Halaf
In light of new archaeological work at Sabi Abyad, Tell Halula and Tell Boueid
II, Chagar Bazar and Khirbet Garsour, it has been suggested that there is an entire
late Neolithic chronological horizon, the «Proto-Halaf,» stretching across Northern
Mesopotamia that we have failed to identify until recently. This horizon, characterized
by widespread similarities in pottery painting, was first dubbed «Transitional
Halaf» in publications of Sabi Abyad.17
The term Proto-Halaf has been proposed
by Cruells and Nieuwenhuyse18
and was discussed extensively at the Madrid workshop
for which this paper was originally conceived. This short period dates to
6100-5900 BCE. For some of the theoretical reasons outlined above, I want to
caution against a premature definition of such a new horizon. I rather would like
to deconstruct the praxis by which we identify new chronological horizons, focusing
on a particularly problematic issue for prehistorians, namely period designa-
tions.
712 Proceedings of the 5th International Congress on the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East
16
I have to admit that my critique of periodization turns here into a meta-periodization, that of the
praxis of research.
17
P.M.M.G. Akkermans and M. Le Mière, 1992. «The 1988 Excavations at Tell Sabi Abyad, a Later
Neolithic Village in Northern Syria.» American Journal of Archaeology 96 (1): 1-22.
18
W. Cruells and O. Nieuwenhuyse, op. cit.
Periodization problems will never be solved with new dating technologies.
As precise as radiocarbon dating and other methods may become in the future,
they will never relieve us of the task of creating post hoc historical entities, a
process that is fundamentally classificatory, as it relies on the recognition of differences
and similarities. How then do we arrive at a widespread acceptance of
chronocultural terminologies, such as Halaf, Samarra, Ubaid or Uruk? Underlying
this procedure is a truly scholastic attitude. In the realm of Near Eastern archaeology,
numerous projects come to mind that try to normativize that which defies
norms. In 1983, at a conference organized by the Tübinger Atlas des Vorderen Orients,
archaeologists attempted to find common ground on whether the Jemdet
Nasr period existed.19
The answer to such a question should be simple: of
course such a period never existed, as it was not recognized as such when lived
through. As a historical construct, it is a signature of a relationship between the
present and the past. By necessity, the relationship is unstable, as the present, not
an increasingly well known past, is the moving reference point. Another example
is the recent Santa Fe conference on the Uruk period.20
One of the major
goals was to assemble «authorities» who would devise a chronological scheme
acceptable by the community of international researchers. In this case, scholasticism
is coupled with cultural imperialism. Despite relativizing assertions about
a restricted application, the scheme, with its terminology «Late Chalcolithic 1-5»,
assumes far-reaching similarities by dint of naming. Among the ten invited participants
all except two were Americans. Not a single person from the Middle
East took part, not to speak of researchers from other non-western countries.
In this case, it is too early to predict the acceptance of the terminology. Sociopolitically,
it is a process of framing, the creation of what Derrida calls a parergon
for delimiting signs,21
in our example discourses, the setting of outer limits of an
artificial (pre)historical period. These are attempts at enforcing consensus in academia,
an ideological process that tries to empower those who delimit and others
who acquiesce to the framers. Of course, not all our classifications emerge from
such overtly «parergic» practices. Period standardization normally follows a pace
of academic discourse where mutual agreement develops slowly, sometimes
taking decades. For instance, notions of a «Protoliterate» and an «Uruk» period
were long used side by side until the two Denkkollektive22
merged, accepting
«Uruk» as a general period term.
Once a period has been generally accepted by a research community, it often
displays time-space accretions around the core, a type-site. An eponymous site is
often one that was excavated relatively early in the history of research. This is the
case for Tell Halaf, providing the terminological anchor for a period of ca. 1000
years, despite the fact that the bulk of the material found at Tell Halaf was not
Taming time and timing the tamed 713
19
U. Finkbeiner and W. Röllig, eds. 1986. Gamdat Nasr: Period or Regional Style? Wiesbaden: Dr Ludwig
Reichert, TAVO Beiheft B26.
20
M. Rothman, ed. 2001. Uruk Mesopotamia and its Neighbors: Cross-Cultural Interactions in the Era of State
Formation. Santa Fe: School of American Research.
21
J. Derrida, 1982. Margins of Philosophy. Translated by A. Bass. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
22
L. Fleck, op. cit., pp. 52-70.
even well stratified.23
The application of the notion «Halaf» to sites such as
Arpachiyah coincided with an art historical elaboration of the Halaf painted
pottery style by Max Mallowan.24
From his subjective focus on bukrania as a main
feature of Halaf pottery, it was only a step to mobilize this easily identifiable visual
element for an identification of sites as «Halafian.» Mallowan’s academic, classificatory
mind, further specifying tholoi, amulet seals and pottery shapes such as
«cream bowls» as typically Halaf, increased the tendency among prehistorians to
turn a pottery painting style into a «culture.» Single elements became sufficient, not
just necessary to classify a site as «Halafian.»
The effect of this implicit choice of a way to assign excavated assemblages to «the
Halaf» - as it is often called - was the construction of a vast geographical horizon with
significant temporal depth as the «Halaf culture.» Mapped and incorporated into the
collective consciousness of Near Eastern archaeologists, this artificial entity led to
new and absurd questions in the «investigative stage»: how were these widespread
«commonalities» possible at such an early time? How did people contact each other?25
Did trade or political exchange play a role?26
Why were the Halafians «anachronistic,»
living in a developmental cul-de-sac?27
Research on subsistence practices,28
motif
similarities29
and chemical composition of pottery30
has led undoubtedly to some
highly interesting results, but certainly not to answering those questions.
«Halaf» not only became a vast nation avant la lettre, reaching from the Hamrin
area with Tell Hassan in Iraq31
to Arjoune in Lebanon32
and Mersin in Cilicia,33
from the Syrian Euphrates in the south to Lake Van in the North,34
but also a cul-
714 Proceedings of the 5th International Congress on the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East
23
H. Schmidt, 1943. Tell Halaf. Die prähistorischen Funde. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. The history of this
truly «epoch-making» material is intriguing. Located at Baron von Oppenheim’s museum in Berlin, much
of it was shattered in bombing raids during the second World War, when the museum building was directly
hit. The now discolored fragments of the vessels, many of them originally excavated intact, were rescued
by A. Moortgat after the war and shipped from East to West Berlin, to be stored in the basement of
the Institut für Vorderasiatische Altertumskunde of the Free University (N. Cholidis and L. Martin, 2002.
Der Tell Halaf und sein Ausgräber Max Freiherr von Oppenheim, p. 56. Mainz: Philipp von Zabern.
24
M.E.L. Mallowan and J.C. Rose, 1935. «Excavations at Tell Arpachiyah 1933.» Iraq 2: 1-178.
25
P.J. Watson and S. LeBlanc, 1973, «A Comparative Statistical Analysis of Painted Pottery from Seven
Halafian Sites.» Paléorient 1: 119-136.
26
T.E. Davidson, 1977. Regional Variation within the Halaf Ceramic Tradition. Dissertation, University
of Edinburgh; N. Yoffee, 1993. «Mesopotamian Interaction Spheres.» In N. Yoffee and J.J. Clark, eds.:
Early Stages in the Evolution of Mesopotamian Civilization, pp. 257-270. Tucson: University of Arizona Press.
27
J.D. Forest, cited in J.L. Huot, 1994. Les premiers villageois de Mésopotamie. Du village à la ville, pp. 151-
152. Paris: Armand Colin.
28
P.M.M.G. Akkermans, 1993, op. cit., pp. 204-268 includes an excellent survey on the subject.
29
E.g. R.V. Gut, Das prähistorische Ninive. Zur relativen Chronologie der frühen Perioden Nordmesopotamiens.
Mainz: Philipp von Zabern.
30
T.E. Davidson and H. McKerrell, 1976. «Pottery Analysis and Halaf Period Trade in the Khabur
Headwaters Region». Iraq 38: 45-56.
31
P. Fiorina, 1987. «Tell Hassan: les couches Halafiennes et Obeidiennes et les relations entre les deux
cultures.» In J.L. Huot, ed.: Préhistoire de la Mésopotamie, pp. 243-255. Paris: Éditions du CNRS.
32
P.J. Parr, ed. 2003 Excavations at Arjoune, Syria. BAR, International Series 1134. Oxford: Archaeopress.
33
J. Garstang, 1953. Prehistoric Mersin: Yumuk Tepe in Southern Turkey. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
34
M. Korfmann, 1982. Tilkitepe : die ersten Ansätze prähistorischer Forschung in der östlichen Türkei. Tübingen:
E. Wasmuth.
ture with more and more time depth. Once it was clear that many of Mallowan’s
traits spread over much of the 6th
millennium, concerns about subdivisions of the
Halaf period were raised. As is often the case, pottery styles were used to make
subdivisions. Interestingly, these were based more often on shapes of pottery than
on painted designs, even though the decoration is the most striking trait of these
pots. At first, a tentative «Early-Middle-Late» subdivision was proposed.35
Work by
Peter Akkermans and his team has led to a more local subdivision based on the
sequence in the Balikh valley.36
And with recent excavations, we discuss a «PreHalaf,»
«Proto-Halaf,» «Early Halaf,» «Traditional Early Halaf», as well as «PostHalaf»
A and B.37
Thus, the spatial growth of «Halaf» –whatever hides behind the
name– is mirrored by its chronological expansion. From a point in geographic
space named Tell Halaf, modern academia has constructed a vast framework, a
«culture» with chronospatial divisions. Other frameworks border this «Halaf»
chronoculture in time and space like a three-dimensional puzzle without any interstices.
Halaf is bordered by the PNA (Pottery Neolithic A) in Palestine and
Chogha Mami Transitional in Mesopotamia, and followed by Ubaid. Time-spaces
without name are the white spots on the archaeological landscape, waiting to be
classified, labeled and integrated into already existing frames or to be distinguished
from them as something new: the «Proto-Halaf» is a good case for the dialectics
of assigning similarity («Halaf») in difference («Proto»).
Naming rarely comes without evaluation. «Terminal Ubaid» has a ring of deca-
dence,38
if not death to it. «Proto»-Halaf sounds like an awakening, a departure into
something new, an originality of a chronoculture. The values underlying this term are
decidedly more positive than an equally possible «Early Lower Halaf,» a notion that
might be employed by Palaeolithic archaeologists. Naming is interpretation. And namegiving
demarcates the limits of the questionable: would we ask, for example, what
caused the demise of the «Proto Halaf» - as has been asked for the Halaf period as a
whole?39
In a similar sense, one does not speak of the demise of Early Modernity, as
the understanding is that its essence is the destiny to be followed without break by a
later modernity. «Transitional Halaf,» applied by Akkermans and colleagues40
to the
same temporal entity as «Proto-Halaf,» does not lend itself to the question of an end
either. Still, the impression given by this term is very different, suggesting a transition to
Taming time and timing the tamed 715
35
A.L. Perkins, 1949. The Comparative Archaeology of Early Mesopotamia. SAOC 25. Chicago: University
of Chicago Press; C. Gustavson Gaube, 1981. «Shams ed-Din Tannira III: The Halafian Pottery from Area
B.» Berytus XXIX: 10-182.
36
P.P.M.G. Akkermans, 1993, op. cit.
37
W. Cruells and O. Nieuwenhuyse, op. cit., Table 2; S. Campbell, E. Carter, E. Healey, S. Anderson,
A. Kennedy and S. Whitcher, 1999. «Emerging Complexity on the Kahramanmaras Plain, Turkey: The
Domuztepe Project, 1995-1997,» pp. 7-9; 16-17.
38
This term is derived from «Terminal Susa A», with similar connotations. Interestingly, both periods
precede the Early Uruk period, which is present in both regions characterized by the earlier Ubaid and
Susiana pottery. However, Ubaid and Susiana ceramics share only general similarities so that the «terminality»
of both equals an interpretatio per appellationem.
39
C. Breniquet, 1996. La disparition de la culture de Halaf - les origines de la culture d’Obeid dans le nord de la
Mésopotamie. Paris: Éditions Recherches sur les Civilisations.
40
E.g. P.P.M.G. Akkermans and M. Verhoeven, 1995. «An Image of Complexity: the Burnt Village at
Late Neolithic Sabi Abyad, Syria.» American Journal of Archaeology 99: 5-32.
Halaf, and attaching the «Transitional,» whatever else it may be, as essentially «Halafian»
in character. When compared to «Proto-Halaf», it has the benefit of voicing instability
and flux. However, from the perspective of a philosophy of history, all periods
are transitions, so we should either bestow the attribute «transitional» on all or none.
At this point, the initial question is still without answer: is there any objectivity
to the term «Halaf»? Likely, such a question is wrongly posed, and we might do
better to ask what mode of objectivity underlies the term. In most archaeological works,
chronological issues are one-dimensional. Time is thought of in the abstract, as an
arrow with sectors that can be more and more refined as research progresses. A
«Neolithic» or «Chalcolithic» period may include early, middle, and late manifestations,
each with their subdivisions. As mentioned, the practical, stage-wise process of
chronological knowledge production leads inevitably to hierarchical classifications.
«Halaf» is inserted into a Late Neolithic or Early Chalcolithic, and is differentiated
into smaller units. This mindset applies a dendritic logic to linearized time: large
epochs include smaller chronological units down to the scale of site levels, an atomism
that produces absurd terms such as «Pre-Proto-Hassuna».41
Compared to prehistory,
history based on written documents does not fare much better and has a
longer, more entrenched tradition, to the point where chronocultures have fossilized
into academic positions and institutions, as professorships for historians of Early
Modern Germany, 20th
century American history, etc., attest.
Any clarification of these issues must deal with concepts of time.42
Recent
archaeological writing43
has focused on the difference between «experienced» or «substantial»
time as distinct from abstract, linear time. This is a bourgeois distinction, a subject
at the core of Thomas Mann’s Magic Mountain. Marx already noted this phenomenon
when he claimed in his Elend der Philosophie that «time is all, the human being is
nothing, at best an incorporation of time.»44
Capitalism has gone much further since
then and excludes most people from substantial time –nowadays not just workers but
all those consuming vast amounts of mediated experiences– by forcing on them the
vacuous products of a contemptuous culture industry. The true class character of time
appears in the idea of time sovereignty or Eigenzeit.45
The ability to decide independently
about one’s «use» of time is restricted to a very small economic and political elite.
If the distinction of abstract and substantial time, measured time and Eigenzeit is itself
a historical phenomenon of capitalism, how do we deal with time in narrating the past?
Some historians have been more reflexive about this issue than archaeologists.
Fernand Braudel’s temporal conceptions give different time scales specific quali-
716 Proceedings of the 5th International Congress on the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East
41
Reported in M. Verhoeven, «The Near East in the Far East - Tokyo Symposium.» Neo-Lithics 1/06,
2006, 37-40.
42
Kant’s Kritik der reinen Vernunft marks the conceptual break from time as an effect of movements (e.g.
G.W. Leibniz in his «third letter», Philosophical Writings, p. 200, London 1936) to time as the «a priori condition
of all appearances in general.» (Critique of Pure Reason, trans;. P. Guyer and A. Wood, 1997, p. A34.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.) On the issue of time and modernity in general: P. Osborne, 1995.
The Politics of Time. London: Verso.
43
E.g. R. Bradley, 1991. «Ritual, Time and History.» World Archaeology 23 (2): 209-219. M. Shanks and
C. Tilley, 1987. Social Theory and Archaeology, pp. 126-136. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press.
44
K. Marx, 1969. In Marx-Engels-Werke, vol. 4, p. 85. Berlin: Dietz-Verlag (translation R.B.).
45
H. Nowotny, 1989. Eigenzeit. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp.
ties, the largest scale being structural-ecological, a middle range economic, and the
small scale event-based.46
Many archaeologists, when picking up his ideas, have
used them as a selective toolbox and emphasized the longue durée, the one time
archaeologists can most easily deal with.47
But such a utilitarian approach to historiographic
ideas is inappropriate. Braudel insisted on the integration of time scales.
They are not for the choice of the archaeologist-shopper.
Braudel’s scheme is not itself without fault.48
First, its universalization, including
any application to prehistory, would be Eurocentric, as the qualifiers of time (e.g.
middle range as economic) are derived from a specific history, namely that of the
Mediterranean in the 15th to 17th centuries. What if, in a particular society, the
longest term scale is an economic time, the shortest a ritual one? Second, Braudel
does not envisage an interdigitating of different scales.49
Koselleck’s «Zeitschichten»
(temporal layers) provide a more complex and open concept of historical time.50
As he elaborates, recursiveness is the frame for the singular event. Any temporal
scale always includes recursive (or circular) aspects and singular (unique) moments;
both together produce a flux of time that can be experienced as meaningful by
humans, as repetitive in its already experienced elements and singular in its specific
details. If our archaeological constructs aspire to a claim of «realism,» we need to
conceptualize this dialectic relationship better.
There is no a priori relegation of, for instance, the ecological to a quintessentially
recursive feature, or the political decision to an event in linear time. If the
ecological is recursive and hence predictable in terms of seasons, its unique and
worrisome history is especially evident in times of global warming. A political
decision, whether third millennium BCE «reforms» or an attempt at reconciliation
in modernity, has its singular aspects. But historians would be wrong to forget its
precursors and its recursiveness.
An archaeology of traditions, as proposed by Timothy Pauketat,51
goes some way
toward addressing problems with recursiveness on a small scale, but neglects the sinTaming
time and timing the tamed 717
46
F. Braudel, 1949. La Méditerranée et le monde méditerranéen à l’époque de Philippe II. Paris: Colin. Braudel,
F. 1958. «Histoire et sciences sociales: La longue durée.» Annales E.S.C. 13 (4): 725-753.
47
E.g. M. Smith, 1992. «Braudel’s Temporal Rhythms and Chronology Theory in Archaeology.» In A.B.
Knapp, ed.: Archaeology, Annales, and Ethnohistory, pp. 23-34. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press and
other contributions in the same volume.
48
L. Althusser and E. Balibar, 1972. Das Kapital Lesen, pp. 126-127. Hamburg: Rowohlt.
49
The latter problem applies as well to strands of dogmatic Marxist prehistory, such as I. Sellnow’s
(1961) Grundprinzipien einer Periodisierung der Urgeschichte, Berlin: Akademie Verlag. This detailed and well
informed work fails when the author proceeds to propose her own chronologies. Her table, opposite p.
112, reveals all the weaknesses of a hierarchical approach that is sophisticated in the multiplicity of qualitatively
different times, but highly simplistic in their integration into one single scheme.
50
R. Koselleck, 1979. Vergangene Zukunft. 1979, Frankfurt: Suhrkamp; and R. Koselleck, 2000.
Zeitschichten, Frankfurt, Suhrkamp.
51
T. Pauketat, ed. 2001. The Archaeology of Traditions. Agency and History Before and After Columbus.
Gainesville: University Press of Florida. This volume takes its inspiration from Bourdieu’s theoretical ideas
of practice and his concept of habitus in the The Logic of Practice, 1990, Stanford: Stanford University Press.
For a critique from a historical perspective, see C. Calhoun, «Habitus, Field and Capital: the Question of
Historical Specificity.» In C. Calhoun, E. LiPuma and M. Postone, eds.: Bourdieu. Critical Perspectives, pp. 61-
88. 1993, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
gular, associated with linear time. Whether we consider these entities as traditions or
cultures, their identification is a claim about the duration of a basic recursiveness. So,
what is it that repeats itself in a «Proto-Halaf»? As the identification of a site or layer
as «Proto-Halaf» is based on pottery studies, we may say that superficially, specific
ways of making and using pottery are the quintessential repetitive act. For the true
objectivist, it would be important to identify not just the places where these practices
occurred, but also where they did not. There is an important but underestimated
difference between the unexplored space where practices may or may not have been
carried out and the explored spaces where they were not found. The latter are all too
often dismissed. Maps delimit a whole territory and assign it to a «culture.» This is
highly misleading. A network is a more appropriate spatial metaphor, a network of
sites whose interstices have a doubly unknown status. If researched through surveys,
it is often assumed that interstices framed by a circumference of sites of one «culture»
can be «filled» with cultural shading like a geometric shape in a computer graphics
program. We imagine a presence where we have found an absence, and such regions
become part of a specific culture despite evidence to the contrary.
Where no fieldwork has been done, similarly positive assumptions are made. Lack
of available evidence on a regional scale is treated as negative evidence in need of cultural
belonging. Here again, it is wrong to assume a continuous cultural presence
rather than network nodes. And this network needs to be turned into a three-dimensional
one that also includes the dimension of time. A comparative chronological
table, if realistic, would consist of diachronic emptiness with a few dots and connections
between them. Archaeological chronocultures need to be thought of not as
seamlessly fitting, sharply delimited, substantialized time-space blocks, but as networks
with fuzzy edges whose major characteristic is the «in-between.»
Finally, could we conceptualize Proto-, Early-, or Post-Halaf as empirically
derived chronospatial entities that are just communicational aides, a means to
ensure that we know what we talk about? Maybe. While I do not want to diminish
the practical necessities of scholarly communication, I contend that essentializing
appearances of past materiality into cultures does not further communication
about the past but distorts it into misguided interpretive disputes. Therefore, if
pottery at two sites is both similar and different (absolute sameness is excluded
even in the world of industrial production), there are reasons for these effects. We
cannot disregard processes underlying dissimilarities.
Archaeology, in its classificatory craze, has so much focused on the similar and
later on the «systemic,» the «pattern,» that the different was sidelined. It is this disregard
for the different that has produced fundamentally misconceived questions
of interpretation: What was the political organization of Halaf society?52
What do
«Halaf» burials look like?53
An entity that is historically defined by pottery styles
718 Proceedings of the 5th International Congress on the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East
52
P.J. Watson, 1983. «The Halafian Culture. A Review and Synthesis,» pp. 242-243. In T.C. Young,
P.E.L.Smith and P. Mortensen, eds.: The Hilly Flanks. Essays on the Prehistory of Southwestern Asia, pp. 231-
250. SAOC 36. Chicago: Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago.
53
P.M.M.G. Akkermans, 1989. «Halaf Mortuary Practices: A Survey.» In O.M.C. Haex, H.H. Curvers,
and P.M.M.G. Akkermans, eds., To the Euphrates and Beyond: Archaeological Studies in Honor of Maurits N. van
Loon, pp. 75-88. Rotterdam: A.B. Balkena.
cannot be assumed to be unified in terms of burying people. The frame of
reference for such a question is wrong. Similarly, utterly non-political characteristics
will not coincide with political units. Parts of «Halaf» chronoculture, but also
other contemporary entities may have been organized politically as emergent
hierarchies. But other chronospaces identified as «Halaf» may have been politically
structured in a radically different fashion. The end of «the Halaf» is not an end;54
at best, a social, economic, material or other transition, a change in traditions
imperceptible to those who enacted it, at the worst, the metaphors of life and
death imposed on an archaeological artificiality.
I submit that we need to be reflexive about the relations between naming
chronospatial entities and the interpretive questions we ask. First, we should
restrict naming of periods as much as possible to small sections of time and
space and give them idiosyncratic names, as was done in an exemplary fashion
by Frank Hole and his co-workers in their various projects in the southwest
Iranian Deh Luran plain.55
Second, and related to the first point, we should
abstain from the temptation of «adhesive chronocultures,» adding new ones to
a known entity. Third, there is a need to explore in more detail the rhythms and
scales of various kinds of historical time. It is not sufficient to write a history
of tripartite houses, of Canaanean blades or other items. The dialectical move
between historical questions and the objects mobilized for a historical narrative
will reveal scales of time. Various «modes of production,» to return to an old
but still relevant historical term, succeed each other at a pace that is different
from subsistence forms, or political organizations.56
Fourth, a multiplication of
such narrative constructions from different vantage points should lead to interdigitated
multiscalar chronologies, blurring the familiar and unrealistic boundaries
into narratives that are less discrete and more credible in their greater
incoherence.57
Semiosis in timespace
The following brief example, related to the question of a presumed ProtoHalaf,
will serve to illustrate these ideas. I start from a dual knowledge of the
Taming time and timing the tamed 719
54
Breniquet, op. cit.
55
F. Hole, K.V. Flannery and J. Neely, 1969. Prehistory and Human Ecology in the Deh Luran Plain. Memoir
No.1. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Museum of Anthropology; Hole, F., 1977. Studies in the
Archaeological History of the Deh Luran Plain. The Excavations of Chagha Sefid. Memoir No.9. Ann Arbor: University
of Michigan Museum of Anthropology. Cruells and Nieuwenhuyse (op. cit. p. 48) explicitly consider
this multifarious terminological possibility but reject it because of the risk of «losing out of sight
what constitutes the main characteristic of this stage, which is that it happened over such a large geographical
space.» Space appears as both constituting and constituted by a process of naming.
56
R. Bernbeck, 1996. «Dörfliche Kulturen des keramischen Neolithikums in Nord- und Mittelmesopotamien:
Vielfalt der Kooperationsformen,» pp. 40-41. In K. Bartl, R. Bernbeck and M. Heinz, eds.:
Zwischen Euphrat und Indus. Aktuelle Forschungsprobleme in der vorderasiatischen Archäologie. Hildesheim: Georg
Olms-Verlag
57
On this point, see also R. Bernbeck, «The Past as Fact and Fiction: From Historical Novels to Novel
Histories.» In S. Pollock and R. Bernbeck, eds.: Archaeologies of the Middle East. Critical Perspectives, pp. 112-
117. Oxford: Blackwell.
occurrence of Samarra-like pottery at Sabi Abyad and other sites, and a periodindependent
interest in the social and ideological relevance of rules –or grammars–
that underlie production processes of painted pottery and architecture.58
The concept of grammar should not be mistaken as a set of rules that is relevant
to a semantic dimension of material forms. I contend that design grammars underlie
general Sinn (connotative sense) of sets of painted patterns, and have nothing
to do with Bedeutung (denotative meaning).59
They flow from modes of productive
praxis and turn into unquestionable and unquestioned elements of pottery users’
lifeworlds. They retain their particular Sinn as fixtures of lifeworlds exactly because
they are «self-evident» and lack any Bedeutung. The spatiotemporal spread of such
sets of rules is a gauge of the extent of one dimension of past lifeworlds. Lifeworlds,
it needs to be emphasized, are not identical with cultures or traditions. The
latter two notions extend from the realm of contestation and negotiation to the
spheres of the unquestionable, whereas lifeworld captures only the unquestionable
sphere of human societies.
The internal complexity of design grammars is highly variable,60
and to my
knowledge, there is no comparative research that would allow us to specify a
characteristic temporal or spatial scale at which they occur. In practical life, design
grammars need to be constantly applied in order to persist; like language, they can
be mastered without ever being explicitly learned. However, there are exceptions.
Design grammars can be strictly circumscribed and kept socially above the level of
the self-evident in order to preserve their integrity.61
Pottery with affinities to Samarra from Sabi Abyad’s Burnt Village levels 6 to
4 provides an ideal case to investigate chronocultural similarity and difference on
a level deeper than that of appearances.62
A grammatical analysis cannot start with
720 Proceedings of the 5th International Congress on the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East
58
For a study of ceramic design grammars: R. Bernbeck, «Structure Strikes Back: Intuitive Meanings
of Ceramics from Qale Rostam, Iran». In J. Robb, ed. (1999): Material Symbols. Culture and Economy in Prehistory,
pp. 90-111. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University. For an example of architectural grammar, see
R. Bernbeck, «Die Vorstellung der Welt als Wille: Zur Identifikation von intentionellem Handeln in
archäologischem Kontext.» In M. Heinz, M.K.H. Eggert and U. Veit, eds.: Zwischen Erklären und Verstehen?
Beiträge zu den erkenntnistheoretischen Grundlagen archäologischer Interpretation, 2003, pp. 201-238. Münster: Wax-
mann.
59
G. Frege (1892, «Über Sinn und Bedeutung». Zeitschrift für Philosophie und philosophische Kritik 100: 25-
50) makes the useful distinction between «Bedeutung» as a static meaning that can be grasped with the
senses, whereas «Sinn» is the means that conveys what may be circumscribed in English as «sense.» Others
have distinguished these differences as denotation and connotation. For a critique, see U. Eco, 1972. Einführung
in die Semiotik, pp. 69-73. München: Wilhelm Fink. (original La struttura assente, Milano 1968.)
60
M.A. Hardin, 1983. «Applying Linguistic Models to the Decorative Arts: A Preliminary Consideration
of the Limits of Analogy.» Semiotica 46 (2/4): 309-322.
61
R. Bernbeck, n.d. «Neolithic Pottery». Chapter of Toll-e Bashi 2003, edited by S. Pollock, R. Bernbeck
and K. Abdi.
62
In this comparison, I use the extensive corpus published by M. Le Mière and O. Nieuwenhuyse,
1996. «The Prehistoric Pottery.» In P.M.M.G. Akkermans, ed.: Tell Sabi Abyad. The Late Neolithic Settlement,
Vol.I, pp. 119-284. Leiden: Nederlands Historisch-Archaeologisch Instituut te Istanbul. Some close parallels
to Samarran ware were recently published in O. Nieuwenhuyse, 2006. Plain and Painted Pottery. The
Rise of Late Neolithic Ceramic Styles on the Syrian and Northern Mesopotamian Plains. Ph.D. Dissertation,
Universiteit Leiden.
lumping material from several distant places, but must begin by sorting out the
regular from the exceptional, the abstract rule from concrete, improvised praxis in
one location. This can then form the basis for a regional comparison.
I start with an analysis of the Samarran assemblage, merging the pottery from
the neighboring sites of Samarra and Tell es-Sawwan.63
In a first step, I focus on
the regularities. The second stage, the comparative analysis, accentuates the exceptions
to the rules. Pottery designs from Sawwan and Samarra follow a rigid structural
canon which is based on three main vessel shapes that have commonalities in
decorative rules, and some shape-specific rules.64
Almost all sherds adhere to the
following four rules:
1) Designs are in registers and have to be separated by at least two horizontal
lines (Figures 1-4).
2) Four types of filling motifs of registers can be distinguished: main motifs
(«a» in Figure 1.1 to 1.3 and 1.5), edge motifs («b» in Figures 1.1-1.5), secondary
motifs («c»in Figures 1.1 to 1.5), and incised motifs (Figure 1.4d).
3) The use of three or more secondary registers, one above the other, is possible,
but two adjacent registers cannot contain the same secondary motifs (Figures
1.3, 1.4; Figures 2-4).
4) No secondary or main motif may be placed on the rim of a vessel, whether
inside or outside. However, all shapes require a main motif.
Three rules are shape-specific:
5) Under certain circumstances, bowls can have a large inner circular field that
is filled with figural motifs with a point symmetry (Figure 1.5).
6) Incised motifs can only be used on jars, immediately below the join of neck
and shoulder (Figure 1.4, Figure 4).
7) Secondary motifs above incised registers on necked jars cannot be repeated
on the shoulder of jars (Figure 1.4, Figure 4).
This simple grammar could be further elaborated by taking into account the
number of lines dividing registers, the secondary motifs that can be used in alternating
registers etc. I limit myself to these basic rules which provide me with an
effective tool of comparison to contemporary assemblages further west, at Sabi
Abyad on the Balikh, a comparison that is based on an explicit assessment of dissimilarities
and similarities at a level beyond appearances of material items.
I search for parallels by beginning with an all-pervasive rule of Samarran
pottery, the division of registers by at least two parallel lines (rule 1). In the «Transitional»
pottery from Sounding I at Sabi Abyad, only a few sherds adhere to this
criterion. Most sherds to which rule 1 is applied do not follow the other rules 2 to
7 of the Samarran assemblage.65
Rule 2 is a categorizing statement of motifs rather
than a compositional rule, and this is the only one that by and large applies to
Taming time and timing the tamed 721
63
Ideally they should have been kept separate for the analysis as well. However, the sample size from
either site alone would have been too small to elaborate a grammar.
64
For a much more detailed discussion see R. Bernbeck, 1994. Die Auflösung der häuslichen Produktionsweise,
pp. 129-141, Berlin: Dietrich Reimer.
65
For examples that are identical or very close to Samarran rules, see Nieuwenhuyse, op. cit, Plate 83,
13; Plate 84, 2 and 5, Plate 86, 8, 15, 24;
much of the Sabi Abyad pottery. Rule 3 presents a particularly sharp difference
between the two assemblages, as the avoidance of neighboring registers with similar
motifs was of no visible concern to Sabi Abyad potters. Furthermore, most if not
all shapes at Samarra and Sawwan require a main motif (rule 4), whereas at Sabi
Abyad, it is possible to simply fill the painting space on a vessel with an edge motif
and a sequence of secondary motifs. Rule 5 does not occur in any pottery from
Sabi Abyad, especially not the point symmetrical, naturalistic motifs on the inside
of open bowls, since bowls painted on the inside are extremely rare. While rule 6
is followed in some cases at Sabi Abyad,66
associated rule 7 does not apply.
There are only very few sherds at Sabi Abyad that follow the grammar of
Samarran pottery, and if they do, they contain simple decorations. While there are
clearly structural regularities that govern the painting of Sabi Abyad pottery (Figures
5 and 6), these seem to be very different from those of Samarran pottery.67
I list most
of the parallels in Table 1. However, the dissimilarities cannot be accounted for as
long as there is no all-encompassing attempt to construct a grammar for the Sabi
Abyad pottery. Thus, the table vastly skews the comparison in favor of similarities.
This structural comparison can be put in a wider context. Outside the Samarra
area on the Middle Tigris, substantial amounts of pottery with designs that
adhere to Samarran grammar occur only at one site, Baghouz.68
The examples
found at Sabi Abyad, Chagar Bazar, Boueid II or Halula,69
but also at Tell Hassuna,
Yarim Tepe and further east at Matarrah, do not adhere to any coherent design
grammar. If we want to call pottery from the Burnt Village at Sabi Abyad or from
other sites «Samarran,» there is at least a need to specify the criteria that turn a
sherd into a «Samarran» fragment. Is it motifs? Shapes? Whatever indices we
choose, what do they tell us about their social and spatiotemporal dimensions, and
consequently, what is their historical Sinn? Furthermore, at Samarra and Sawwan,
intrusive material with non-Samarran structures of design is relatively rare. Is the
perceived «intrusion» of Samarran material at Sabi Abyad possibly a product of
our pre-knowledge of Samarran assemblages elsewhere? If Sabi Abyad had
been excavated before Sawwan or Samarra, the classification process would
surely have been different. This implies that Sabi Abyad’s «Transitional» or
«Proto-Halaf» assemblage could be internally more consistent than has been
claimed so far. That, in turn, opens the door for the potential of other smallscale
entities of grammatical rule-sets in the Upper Khabur basin, in the Ilisu
Dam area and elsewhere.
722 Proceedings of the 5th International Congress on the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East
66
O. Nieuwenhuyse, op.cit. Plate 77, nos. 16, 21, 22; Plate 87, 13, 92, 6.
67
O. Nieuwenhuyse op. cit. pp. 175 ff..
68
R. Bernbeck, 1994, op.cit. pp. 182-190.
69
The published corpus for any site other than Sabi Abyad and Boueid is too small to allow a firm
assessment. From Boueid, there are three sherds that adhere to a Samarran design, see O. Nieuwenhuyse,
L. Jacobs and B. van As, 2002. «The Ceramics», in A. Suleiman and O. Nieuwenhuyse, eds.: Tell Boueid II.
A Late Neolithic Village on the Middle Khabur, Fig. 4.8, Nos. 10, 11, 13. Subartu XI. Turnhout (Belgium): Brepols.
The decoration of «Samarran» pottery from Hakemi Use is subject to a starkly different set of grammatical
rules (H. Tekin, 2004, «Prelinary Results of the 20001 Excavations at Hakemi Use.» In N. Tuna, J.
Greenhalgh and J. Velibeyoglu, eds.: Salvage Project of the Archaeological Heritage of the Ilisu and Carcemish Dam
Reservoirs. Activities in 2001, Ankara, p. 457-458, Fig. 10).
If the spatiotemporal spread of design grammars hints at some elements of
past lifeworlds, my comparative exercise reveals only their spatial limitations. I have
no room to determine a temporal scale of these rules, as this must be based on a
close stratigraphic inquiry in a micro-region. Whatever the result, changes likely
remained outside of problematizable spheres of social communication as well.
However, such doxic elements of the past provide a basis for historical Sinndeutung
in the present because of their generative stability. What Umberto Eco claims for
language in general is even more true for grammars, whether linguistic or other:
grammar is never the content of thinking, but that within which one thinks.70
Their
exploration is therefore more than an essential component of any understanding
of the past; it is part of its preconditions.
Conclusion
I do not advocate the dissolution of all chronological entities. As historiansarchaeologists,
we need to «order» time as a prerequisite for any interpretation.71
However, as Gavin Lucas notes, history and archaeology are narratives of time,
and periods are our chapters.72
Period definition and naming are processes of
opening entirely new chapters, or of redefining the narrative boundaries of old
ones. The academic professions of history and archaeology will surely not eschew
linear time and its inherent pressures for subdivision. This should not prevent us
from striving for more flexibility in dealing with different kinds and scales of
times, their relational nature and their past material and social referents.
In order to raise the problems that I have discussed here, I may have silenced
some of the nuances that are included in treatises on the phenomenon called «Halaf»
or «Proto-Halaf.» However, academic discourse takes curious shapes: there is a constant
va et vient between differentiated positions and implicit normative ideas that serve
as springboards for new research questions. What I am addressing here are those
norms that appear between the lines of our written texts. I am also aware of the fact
that after 70 years of research on «the Halaf,» its «un-naming» is literally impossible.
This is a typically academic problem: the unwillingness to get rid of customary standards
because of the communicative inconvenience and intellectual disorientation of
such changes. Our own cyclic processes of chronological Sinndeutung, in its stages
from innovation to investigation and critique, have an inbuilt irreversibility and tendency
towards atomization of linear time. What I plead for is a fundamental re-thinking
of the mechanisms that underlie this process of constituting not just an artificially
broken narrative about the past, but a narrow framing of possible future narratives
as well. The alternative could be pasts with a more open future. We need to recognize
the dialectical relations between present and past, and between researching subject
and historical object. The crescendo of imposed terminologies is none other than an
interminable series of impositions on past people.
Taming time and timing the tamed 723
70
U. Eco, op. cit., p. 410.
71
M. Gross, 1998. Von der Antike bis zur Postmoderne. Die zeitgenössische Geschichtsschreibung und ihre Wurzeln,
pp. 447-449. Wien: Böhlau.
72
G. Lucas, 2005. The Archaeology of Time, p. 50. London: Routledge.
724 Proceedings of the 5th International Congress on the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East
Fig. 1: Examples of Samarran pottery designs.
Taming time and timing the tamed 725
Fig. 2: Samarran design structures on open bowls (interior).
Fig. 3: Samarran design structures on sinuous-sided vessels.
.
726 Proceedings of the 5th International Congress on the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East
Fig. 4: Samarran design structures on necked jars.
Taming time and timing the tamed 727
Table 1: Structural comparison of Samarran and «Transitional» (Sabi Abyad) vessel
decorations (shaded: parallels). For schematic renderings of the structures, see
Figures 2-4 for Samarran pottery and 5-6 for «Transitional» pottery.
Fig. 5: Design structures on deep bowls from «Transitional» levels 6-4 at
Sabi Abyad.
S
728 Proceedings of the 5th International Congress on the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East
Fig. 6: Design structures on necked jars from «Transitional» levels 6-4 at
Sabi Abyad.