Hamrin dam
Tell Abu Husaini
Tell Abu Husaini, included in the research project of the
Yelkhi area, in the Hamrin valley, was excavated in 1978-1979.
The
tell rose approximately 6 metres above the surrounding valley. However,
this height did not correspond to a rich succession of human occupation:
when the first inhabitants came here, they already found approximately
3 metres of natural elevation, caused by the buildup of flood sediments.
The place was therefore dry and well drained, despite its proximity to the ancient
bed of a branch of the Diyala river.
The site’s occupation took place
relatively late, if we consider that the Hamrin area was already inhabited
during the pre-ceramic Neolithic period. Its first phase of occupation,
directly on virgin soil, in fact dates back to the Calcholithic period,
and more exactly to the late Obeid period (late 5th millennium B.C.).
The tell was no longer occupied after this population left, apart from
its use as a burial ground during the later Isin-Larsa, Neo-Assyrian,
Parthian, Sasanian and Islamic periods.
The late Obeid
settlement displays
three settlement phases, that developed in a rapid stratigraphical succession
and with no interruptions, as also attested by the analysis of the ceramic
material that has homogeneous characteristics
without stylistic or chronological evolution.
The settlement
After a first phase (phase 1) essentially consisting of a greenish hard-packed “floor” with traces of fireplaces and a few remains of walls of quadrangular and circular rooms, phase 2 comprises several buildings composed of various rectangular rooms.
As the excavation concerned only a limited area of the site, it is difficult to reconstruct the buildings’ layouts. It is however possible to make out tripartite buildings (houses with a central hall or courtyard, and two wings of rooms), typical of the Obeid period throughout Mesopotamia. It is also possible to observe the presence of “buttresses” and offsets, also typical of Obeid buildings and which eventually had an enormous development in Mesopotamian architecture.
However, the site undoubtedly possessed a certain degree of planning, as terracotta gutters ensured good drainage and the flow of water away from houses almost everywhere.
In one building, a room contained a deposit of flint pebbles that were gathered from the river’s shore or from the nearby heights and that were probably used as the raw material for the fabrication of stone utensils.
The structures pertaining to the last phase were unfortunately very fragmented: as mentioned earlier, the site was no longer occupied afterwards; being just under the surface the structures were exposed to natural damage caused by erosion and to the more recent damage caused by mechanical ploughs.
Pottery
The materials recovered during the excavation outline the picture of a small agricultural settlement. Children were found buried under the floors of many dwellings. They were buried inside large bowls or bell-shaped vessels; another vase, overturned, closed off the opening, that often emerged from the floor, a symbol of sorts that kept the home’s inhabitants in contact with the deceased child.
The very abundant ceramics (approximately 40,000 vases and fragments were recovered) are perfect examples of the northern tradition of the late Obeid style, of which Tell Abu Huseini is one of the southernmost points of expansion.
The pottery wase made in a straw tempered, greenish or buff tempered, sometimes painted with simple and linear motifs, but more often incised with herringbone motifs or bands of horizontal or wavy lines. However, most of the vases were not decorated. On the threshold of urbanisation, the late Obeid period was by now quite distant from the splendid period of painted Neolithic pottery that expressed itself in the Hamrin valley as well as in the rest of Mesopotamia, culminating in the Halaf period.
Stone instruments are also abundant, and include flint and quartzite tools as well as beautiful obsidian (a volcanic rock of Anatolian origin) blades.