House and Household Economies in 3Rd Millennium B.C.E. Syro-Mesopotamia

House and Household Economies in 3rd Millennium B.C.E. Syro-Mesopotamia Edited by Federico Buccellati Tobias Helms Alexander Tamm BAR International Series 2682 2014 Published by Archaeopress Publishers of British Archaeological Reports Gordon House 276 Banbury Road Oxford OX2 7ED England [email protected] www.archaeopress.com BAR S2682 House and Household Economies in 3rd Millennium B.C.E. Syro-Mesopotamia © Archaeopress and the individual authors 2014 ISBN 978 1 4073 1328 3 Printed in England by CMP (UK) Ltd All BAR titles are available from: Hadrian Books Ltd 122 Banbury Road Oxford OX2 7BP England www.hadrianbooks.co.uk The current BAR catalogue with details of all titles in print, prices and means of payment is available free from Hadrian Books or may be downloaded from www.archaeopress.com Table of Contents Preface i Table of Contents iii The organization of pottery production at Tell Chuera: a technological approach 1 Taos Babour E2-mi2 – ‘women’s quarters’: the earliest written evidence 9 Vitali Bartash The domestic architecture at EB IV Kharab Sayyar 21 Patrick Biedermann Distribution and Dating of Glyptic Evidence from Early Bronze Age Tell Chuera 27 Anne Binder Understanding Households – A Few Thoughts 35 Federico Buccellati Neighborhoods in the Outer City of Tell Mozan, Ancient Urkesh: A case study from survey data 43 Caitlin J. Chaves Yates Introducing the anthropomorphic terracotta figurines from 3rd millennium B.C. Tell Chuera 53 Lanah Haddad iii House and Household Economies in 3rd Millennium BC Syro-Mesopotamia The Economy of Chipped Stone: Production and Use of Stone Tools at Early Bronze Age Tell Chuera (northern Syria) 61 Tobias B. H. Helms Spatial analysis of mass lithic and ceramic material: revealing the functional patterns of Tell Hazna I 83 Elmira Ibragimova Early Bronze Age Houses in Upper-Mesopotamia: Evidence of Dwellings or Private Enterprises? 95 Juliette Mas The Economy of Landscape. Agro-pastoralism in Uncertain Margins 103 Stefan Smith Domestic architecture in the southeastern lower town of Tell Chuera 115 Alexander Tamm Households in domestic contexts: a case study at Tell Chuera, Area K 125 Nicole Zelsmann iv Copyright material: no unauthorized reproduction in any medium Neighborhoods in the Outer City of Tell Mozan, Ancient Urkesh: A case study from survey data Caitlin J. Chaves Yates, Boston The call for papers for the workshop from which this paper not necessarily the same, particularly since administrative is derived described the need to move away from the study districts are usually larger than the neighborhoods. Dis- of elite institutions and ‘big men’ as the main avenue for tricts are often structured according to an idealized view understanding urban society of the third millennium Upper of how the city is organized, but often must address ad Mesopotamia. Traditionally the excavations of Mesopota- hoc and generative processes that function within the dis- mian tells have focused on the central tell areas uncov- tricts (Alexander 1972). ering temples, palaces and administrative buildings. The last two and half decades have seen an increasing attention Neighborhoods are a cultural universal – found in cities to household structures and non-elite aspects of society in throughout time and across the globe. For purposes of this the Near East (Stone 1987, 1997; Creekmore 2008; Ni- discussion a neighborhood is a socially (and possibly eco- shimura 2008; Pfälzner 2001). With increased attention on nomically) integrated grouping that provides for the daily the smaller scales within cities, archaeologists have begun needs of its residents, generally restricted the size of possi- to investigate the social structures that shape cities (M.L. ble face-to-face interactions (Keith 2003). Neighborhoods Smith 2003). are generally structured to address the daily needs of local inhabitants. Food production facilities, shops, storage and Levi-Strauss (1987) proposed the “house-society” model milling facilities are just some of the activities that may as a meaningful model for understanding both rural and be addressed within neighborhood communities. Districts urban society. This model proposes the household as the are generally larger with institutionally recognized bound- major organizing component of society. The household, as aries and “administrative or social significance” (M.E. an individual unit, is then a building block of larger soci- Smith 2010:137). Since districts are larger and organized ety, in this case, cities. In this paper I will explore the inter- in service to the centralized organization they generally mediate structures between households and cities – neigh- address larger social units and broader social structures borhoods and districts. Neighborhoods and districts bridge such as waste management, tax collection, and administra- the gap between understanding individual households and tion. Numerous aspects of ancient cities were undoubtedly larger societal structures. They affect how cities are organ- administered through both the generative and centralized ized, are administered and function. Neighborhoods have processes. For example, small alleyways and streets within primarily been studied within the disciplines of sociology neighborhoods may be built and maintained by the bor- and urban geography with a focus on the organization of dering households while main thoroughfares are planned, modern post-industrial cities.1 Some of the concepts de- built, and maintained by centralized institutions. Examples rived from the study of modern cities can be applied to from Old Babylonian cities demonstrate this phenomenon ancient cities as well. with small alleys repeatedly moved and restructured over time, while the main roads they connect to remain static As M.L. Smith (2003) and M.E. Smith (2010) have ar- (Keith 2003:63). gued, these mid-level units of neighborhoods and districts can be understood as a result of both bottom-up and top- An ethnographic example from Italy can help illuminate down social processes. Neighborhoods reflect the bottom- the kinds of different social processes at work within up, or generative, social processes, the organization and neighborhoods and districts. The small town of Croveo reorganization of households and private spaces. Urban in the Italian Alps is composed of only a few hundred geographers have found that the neighborhood is the households and could easily be integrated as if one neigh- “principal geographic anchor of social interaction” (M.L. borhood. The local residents, however, recognize several Smith 2003). The district instead represents the adminis- differences in the local geography, in particular separate trative and exogenously recognized groupings within the neighborhoods. Beola is a small sub-section of the village city. The boundaries of neighborhoods and districts are to the east and one of the recognized separate neighborhoods. In the 1600s this section of the village was organized to care for many of the daily needs of the inhabit- 1 See Smith 2010 and Marcus / Sabloff 2008 for a brief literature review ants solely within their own neighborhood. For example, of Urban Geography and sociology of cities within and archaeological residents installed their own mill for grinding wheat and context. 43 Copyright material: no unauthorized reproduction in any medium House and Household Economies in 3rd Millennium BC Syro-Mesopotamia other products. They also built a bakery for the communal baking of bread within the neighborhood, for the primary use of Beola’s citizens. These facilities are indicative of bottom-up localized social processes at work within the neighborhood. Beola was structured to provide for the daily needs of residents within their small scale neighborhood without relying on village-wide resources. Also within the neighborhood is a small chapel. The chapel was built in 1607 using funds raised from Beola’s residents and remains an important landmark in the neighborhood to this day. Although a church is situated in the center of Cro- veo, only a few hundred meters away, the neighbors within Beola commissioned a chapel within their own commu- nity. Although the construction of the chapel indicates the local agency in shaping their neighborhood, it also situates Fig. 1 Map of Syria showing locations of sites mentioned the neighborhood within the larger social and administra- in the text (after Akkermans and Schwartz 2003: 234). tive structures of society. The chapel is an official recognized outpost of the Roman Catholic Church and a part of the local diocese as administered by the authorities within the Church structures. Mardin, which cuts through the Tur Abdin and leads to the Taurus Mountains placing Mozan along a major trade Thus, the Beola neighborhood demonstrates first and fore- route. Paleoclimate data and geoarchaeological investiga- most, the ubiquitous presence of neighborhoods and the tion suggest that Mozan was surrounded by woodland and small-scale, “face-to-face” interactions that shape these regular streams in the Bronze Age (Deckers/Riehl 2007). spaces. The example also shows the ways that smaller In addition, Mozan receives about 420mm of rain a year, neighborhoods are integrated into larger social structures creating an area suitable for sustainable rainfall agriculture that are administered through top-down social processes. (Pustovoytov/Deckers/Goldberg 2010). The ancient city Beola serves as an example for understanding the kinds of would have dominated the surrounding plain, and would

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