Archeology, so people lived in ancient Mesopotamia 7 thousand years ago

In Helawa, Iraqi Kurdistan, in ancient northern Mesopotamia, the archaeological mission of the University of Milan has unearthed a series of circular housing structures (tholoi) from the Halaf period (6th and 5th millennium BC) with hearths, ovens and installations associated with the typical and beautiful painted polychrome ceramic of this cultural phase.

A subsequent building with unbaked brick walls was also found, consisting of small quadrangular rooms and larger rectangular rooms, probably a large house, datable to the end of the sixth millennium BC (Ubaid period).

The rooms of the latter building were equipped with various types of installations and inside them numerous tools in flint, pestles and smoothers in stone and ceramic with the characteristic monochrome painted decoration have been recovered. “This is a discovery of the greatest interest in the reconstruction of a crucial period of development of the farming and ranching communities in Northern Mesopotamia, documented for the first time in a layered sequence in the Erbil plain,” they explain by the interdisciplinary research group. led by Luca Peyronel, professor of Archeology and Art History of the Ancient Near East, of the Department of Literary, Philological and Linguistic Studies of the State University of Milan.

The tetradram of Alexander the Great
In the Aliawa site, which is characterized by a very long and uninterrupted occupational sequence from the protohistoric period to the Islamic era, however, the archaeologists worked in three different areas: in the highest part of the site, at the base of the southern slope and in the city low. In the area, a sector of an imposing Hellenistic building (4th century BC) was unearthed, probably connected to a defensive bastion of a fortified center with a distinctly military character. A very relevant discovery was that of a silver tetradram of Alexander the Great, a coin that spread throughout the vast Macedonian empire, minted in many mints and characterized by the effigy of the sovereign as Hercules (it has the skin of the lion nemeus) on one side and the image of Zeus on the other. A large area for the large-scale manufacture of ceramics, datable to the last centuries of the third millennium BC (Akkadian period) occupies almost the entire extension of the southern slope. Already identified in the 2021 campaign, it was explored in detail this year, through an in-depth analysis of the archeology of production. The limits of this complex, which currently extends over 300 square meters, are not yet known.

Discovered 50 furnaces
More than 50 furnaces for cooking the pots have been identified and excavated, built on three different terraces and connected by brick platforms. The furnaces show sophisticated systems for the diffusion of gases and heat, through horizontal pipes and vertical chimneys, with the combustion chambers found still full of ash and the firing chambers in some cases collapsed with still inside the pottery that had been placed. for the cooking. The level of conservation is therefore extraordinary and in the whole of northern Mesopotamia only one other comparable case of a production workshop of this kind is known. Finally, the most ancient occupation was reached, in the first half of the third millennium BC, referable to the so-called period of Nineveh 5. Some circular silos have emerged for the storage of agricultural products, mainly barley and wheat, and in deposits rich in remains plants have been found dozens of cretula (lumps of clay affixed to the containers that kept foodstuffs), with imprints of cylindrical seals. It was therefore an area intended for the centralized control of resources by the administration of a political entity that still has to be clearly defined. Aliawa of the Middle and Late Bronze Age (2000-1200 BC) must have been a large center of 30 hectares, probably linked to its economic role in manufacturing production and the surveys opened this year in the lower city (Area C and D) have provided supporting evidence. of this hypothesis with remains of furnaces, water drainage channels and many associated materials.

From the Neolithic to the Middle Ages
“The results of this year have been of extraordinary interest for the reconstruction of the ancient history of the region, from the Neolithic to the Middle Ages – underlines Professor Luca Peyronel – The two sites in fact have a very long occupation, which goes from the prehistoric phases (VII and VI millennium, periods of Halaf and Ubaid), to the development of the first complex societies and urban centers in the V and III millennium (Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age), to the formation of regional political systems and great supra-national empires in the II and I millennium BC, up to the Seleucid and Parthian period and the advent of Islam. A privileged observatory, therefore, which allows you to work on very different contexts and periods, through the succession of the various chronological and occupational phases, which in their overlap have led the two centers to become artificial hills over 22 meters high on the surrounding plain “.