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The Tigris-Euphrates Archaeological Reconnaissance Project

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The Tigris-Euphrates Archaeological Reconnaissance Project ANATOLICA XXXVIII, 2012 THE TIGRIS-EUPHRATES ARCHAEOLOGICAL RECONNAISSANCE PROJECT. Final Report of the Cizre Dam and Cizre-Silopi Plain Survey Areas Guillermo Algaze, Emily Hammer, and Bradley Parker with contributions by Ray Breuninger and James Knudstad Introduction The Turkish Government is currently implementing a substantial development program for southeastern Anatolia (the Güneydo÷u Anadolu Projesi) that has already seen the building of a number of dams on the Euphrates and Tigris rivers and their tributaries (Devlet Su øúleri Genel Müdürlü÷ü 1989; Kollars and Mitchell 1991). Another dam is now being erected just a few kilometers north of the modern town of Cizre. When completed, the dam’s reservoir will rise to the 409.4 m level and flood an area of ca. 21 square kilometers.1 Additionally, its water will be used to irrigate as much as 121,000 square hectares in the nearby Cizre-Silopi plain area. Spurred by these development plans, a multi-year effort was mounted between 1988 and 1990 to document the range of archaeological and historical sites that could be destroyed or damaged by these plans (Figs. 1-2).2 What follows is the final report of surveys in the areas affected by the Cizre Dam and its associated irrigation schemes. This report supersedes, and in many cases corrects, earlier preliminary reports of our work in the Cizre-Silopi region. Additionally, parts of it also complement new work conducted by Dr. Gülriz Kozbe (2008) and her team over much of the same area. Fieldwork took place over the course of 6 weeks, spread out between 1988 and 1989, and was made possible by the Department of Monuments and Museums of the Turkish Republic and the Salvage and Investigation of Historical and Archaeological Finds (TEKDAM) of Middle Eastern Technical University in Ankara.3 Research funds were obtained from a variety of private and governmental research foundations in the United States.4 1 Data kindly provided by Bey Nezih Sayan of Elektrik øúleri Müdürlü÷ü, Ankara. 2 Full and part-time field archaeological staff for the Cizre portion of our research in 1988 and 89 consisted of G. Algaze (now University of California, San Diego), Dr. Elise Auerbach (U. of Chicago), Dr. Deirdre Beyer Honça (Indiana University), Ms. Rosa Frey (U. of Toronto), Mr. Ömer Honça (Ankara University), Mr. James Knudstad, Dr. Chris Lightfoot (British Institute of Archaeology in Ankara) and Mr. Hakan Togul (Istanbul University). Mr. Knudstad also served as surveyor and drew all expedition plans, including those presented in this report. Our team also included an archaeological illustrator: Ms. Carlene Friedman (School of the Art Institute of Chicago), and a geologist: Dr. Ray Breuninger. 3 In particular, our research would not have been possible without the logistical and technical support given by Dr. Mustafa Özbakan, who was the director of the Center for Salvage and Investigation of Historical and Archaeological Finds (TEKDAM) of Middle Eastern Technical University at the time our surveys were conducted. Various Turkish government institutions and officials also extended invaluable logistical support in the field. Particularly helpful were Bey Naci Toy, then director of Mardin Museum, and Bey Musa Ülker, then researcher at the Museum. We also wish to thank the then district governor (Kaymakam) of Cizre, Bay Necati Küçükdumlu for his help and support. 4 The 1988-89 field seasons of the of the Tigris survey in the Cizre Dam and Cizre-Silopi plain was funded by grants from the Smithsonian Institution, the National Geographic Society, the British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara, and the National Endowment for the Humanities, an independent agency of the Government of the United States. Analysis of the survey materials was made possible by grants from the American Research Institute in Turkey, the American Council of Learned Societies, and the American Schools of Oriental Research. 2 GUILLERMO ALGAZE ET ALII SURVEY METHODOLOGY Survey Boundaries. Cizre Dam Reservoir area (Figs. 1-3) North of Cizre, within the deep gorges created by the Tigris and Kızıl Su rivers, the survey was limited to the areas directly affected by the construction of the Cizre Dam. The recording of sites was therefore arbitrarily limited to sites within terraces or benches at either side of the Tigris and Kızıl Su rivers located wholly or partially within the 420 m elevation contour (10 m above the maximum projected elevation of the Cizre Dam). The survey area thus delimited comprised a fork-shaped irregular area of some 18 square kilometers extending along a narrow stretch of the east and west banks of the Tigris and Kızıl Su river basins directly upstream (north) of Cizre. This area includes a handful of sites of substantial importance for our understanding of the history of the Upper Tigris basin in the Classical Age (below, Section VII). Survey Boundaries: Cizre-Silopi Plains (Figs. 1-3) Additionally, because of plans for the agricultural development of the plains east of Cizre and south of Silopi using irrigation water from the Cizre Dam and the Nerdüú Çay (above), our survey was extended to the plains area south and southeast of the town of Cizre. Due to security considerations in effect at the time of our work, the northern boundary of our survey was arbitrarily defined by the modern Cizre-Zakho road, which roughly follows the 500 m elevation contour. Our survey extended south from this arbitrary line to the international borders between Turkey, Syria, and Iraq, marked by the Tigris, the (eastern) Khabur, and Hezil Su rivers. The survey boundaries thus delimited encompassed a roughly triangular area of some 400 sq. km. Maps Sites identified in the Cizre Dam and Cizre-Silopi plain survey areas were plotted in the field onto 1:25,000 scale maps provided by the Center for Salvage and Investigation of Historical and Archaeological Finds (TEKDAM) of Middle Eastern Technical University in Ankara. These maps are now archived at TEKDAM and can be consulted by interested scholars. A much simplified version of the survey maps showing the natural topography of the survey area and the ancient sites found within it is presented here as Figure 3. Site Recognition During our first season in the Cizre area (1988), we limited our efforts to collecting and plotting the principal multi-period mounds in the survey region. Our second season (1989), in contrast, was largely devoted to identifying smaller occupations within the area. Small, relatively flat, single period sites not in close proximity to the larger mounds were initially traced by canvassing every village and asking local residents about locations yielding ceramics and/or flints in their neighborhood. After plotting such sites in our base maps, areas away from modern villages where similar conditions were replicated were subsequently investigated. Not surprisingly, away from the principal waterways, there was a close correlation between perennial sources of water and ANATOLICA XXXVIII, 2012 3 settlement location. This correlation is no doubt explained by the marked seasonality of and annual variability of rainfall in the area (below). In light of this, the survey team commonly walked transects looking for sites at either side of each wadi and minor tributary and in the immediate vicinity of each known spring. This allowed us to find and record an additional number of small, unmounded sites not reported by our informants. Collection Strategy Because of the extensive nature of the survey, sites were only visited once, and only sherds deemed to be diagnostic were collected. Small mounds or flat occupations were collected as single units. More complex mounds with distinct topographic subdivisions were subject to more detailed recording. In such cases, an attempt was made to delineate changes in settlement size through time by separately collecting each recognizable morphological area (i.e., individual terraces, nearby scatters possibly representing suburbs, etc.). Collection strategies employed for each individual site are specified in the Site Catalogue (Appendix 2). Periodization In delineating the chronological sequence of settlement within the survey universe, we followed Wilkinson’s (1990) lead in using, when possible, representative groups from small sites presumed to represent single period occupations. However, sites with such short-range occupations were not documented for all periods. In the latter case, a “type assemblage” was defined using materials from multi-period mounds that were datable by means of parallels in reliable sequences elsewhere. Representative ceramic assemblages for each successive settlement phase identified within the survey area are illustrated in Figures 15-29. THE LIMITS OF THE EVIDENCE The arbitrary nature of the survey boundaries noted earlier is particularly problematic in the Cizre-Silopi plains, where our reconnaissance was limited to the triangular area encompassed by the modern Cizre-Zakho road and the confluence of the Tigris and the combined Khabur/Hezil Su rivers (Fig. 3). This means that sites in the northern portions of the Cizre-Silopi plain up to the Cudi Da÷ piedmont within Turkey remain unrecorded (i.e., roughly between the 500 and 700 m contours). Additionally, although the Tigris, Khabur, and Hezil rivers mark the edges of the survey area, these waterways were fordable in places (below) and would not have isolated the Cizre-Silopi area from developments in the immediately neighboring plains. However, the nature of developments in those plains is unknown because no systematic
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