ARCH 0351 / AWAS 0800 Introduction to the Ancient Near East

Brown University ~ Fall 2009

Landscapes of the Near East: environment and long-term history

September 29, 2009
Birth of Near Eastern archaeology

• Rediscovery (early travellers, antiquarians)

• Early archaeological work (mid 19th c. excavations),

mainly Layard’s Nimrud and Botta’s Khorsabad

• International phase (1860-1880)

decipherment of cuneiform script, Hormuzd Rassam’s work

• Large scale excavations (1880s to First World War)

University of Pennsylvania at Nippur, Germans in Babylon

• Scientific archaeology.
which took off especially after WWII, with Processual/New Archaeology
Nippur University of Pennsylvania Excavations 1888 onwards
German excavations at Babylon (new archaeological field techniques)
Director architect/archaeologist Robert Koldewey feeds cats
1899-1917.
 Tell Tayinat 1935-38

Mesopotamia in the late 19th and early 20th c. The land of large scale excavations
at massive mounds, producing pretty artifacts and tablets.
What is landscape?

“Landscape is the world as it is known to those who dwell therein,

who inhabit its places, and journey along the paths connecting them...”
Tim Ingold 1993: 156
"The lived body allows us to know what space,
place and landscape are, because it is the author of them all."

Christopher Tilley, The materiality of stone 2004: 3.

Landscapes as taskscapes
Pieter Bruegel the Elder (1525?-1569) The Harvesters (1565),
Oil on wood 118.1 x 160.7 cm, Metropolitan Museum of Art
Weltlandschaft landscape as a meaningful whole- a continuous world that we inhabit

Joachim Patinir, also called de Patinier and de Patiner (c. 1480 – October 5, 1524)
Landscape with St. Gerome, c. 1515-24. Oil on wood. Museo del Prado, Madrid, Spain.
Changing landscape around a dam construction on the Euphrates- South East Turkey, 1976-1999.
Sedimented landscapes and landscapes with memory:
ancient and modern settlements at the site of Tall-e
Malyan, Iran (ancient Anshan).
Cultural landscapes, planned cities:
Bishapur, Iran. Founded by Sasanian king
Shapur I in 3rd c. AD
Archaeology of landscapes (an interdisciplinary world)

•Archaeological survey

• Extensive- traditional “landrover” surveys, more successful in identifying large sites

• Intensive field-walking, that identifies “off-site” features, “specialty sites”, villages,
hamlets, extra-urban cult sites, “artifact scatters”, “linear hollows”, mining sites
• Architectural, topographic surveying, GPS
• Excavation sampling, surface scraping,

•Paleoenvironmental studies, Palynology: Holocene vegetation change, climatology, also dendrochronology

•Geomorphology: alluviation, soil erosion that buries archaeological sites, changing course of rivers,
coastlines, environmental degradation etc. “Boring” and “Coring”, soil sampling

•Ethnography of landscapes: what do contemporary societies make of their environment? Ethnobotany.

•Remote sensing (subsurface remains-electric resistivity, magnetometry, Ground Penetrating Radar),

non-invasive techniques, use of satellite imagery (declassified military surveillance images,
imaging spectrometers recording electromagnetic signals of the earth’s surface),
aerial (baloon, blimp, kite) photography

•GIS: Geographical Information Systems- spatial integration of landscape data.

Survey archaeology and world landscapes
Uruk and Nippur, urbanization in Southern Alluvium (4000-2900 BC)
villages, hamlets, towns and cities: socialization of the world
Palynology, paleobotany and paleoenvironmental
research
pollen diagrams from lake bottom sediments
Tell Brak, North Syria, immediate environs
Lienar hollows: CORONA Image

Nineveh-Mosul, North Iraq

CORONA Image
Google Earth: new ways of seeing, mapping the world?
Noah’s Flood at the Black Sea?
Ryan and Pitman hypothesis
 Transcaucasus
Anatolia

Syria

Levant
Iran
Mesopotamia

Egypt
ARCH 0351 / AWAS 0800 Introduction to the Ancient Near East
Brown University ~ Fall 2009

Landscapes of the Near East: environment and long-term history

September 29, 2009
What is then landscape?

“Landscape is the world as it is known to those who dwell therein,

who inhabit its places, and journey along the paths connecting them...”
Tim Ingold 1993: 156
Archaeology of landscapes (an interdisciplinary world)

•Archaeological survey

• Extensive- traditional “landrover” surveys, more successful in identifying large sites

• Intensive field-walking, that identifies “off-site” features, “specialty sites”, villages,
hamlets, extra-urban cult sites, “artifact scatters”, “linear hollows”, mining sites
• Architectural, topographic surveying, GPS
• Excavation sampling, surface scraping,

•Paleoenvironmental studies, Palynology: Holocene vegetation change, climatology, also dendrochronology

•Geomorphology: alluviation, soil erosion that buries archaeological sites, changing course of rivers,
coastlines, environmental degradation etc. “Boring” and “Coring”, soil sampling

•Ethnography of landscapes: what do contemporary societies make of their environment? Ethnobotany.

•Remote sensing (subsurface remains-electric resistivity, magnetometry, Ground Penetrating Radar),

non-invasive techniques, use of satellite imagery (declassified military surveillance images,
imaging spectrometers recording electromagnetic signals of the earth’s surface),
aerial (baloon, blimp, kite) photography

•GIS: Geographical Information Systems- spatial integration of landscape data.

Near Eastern Landscapes

• Lower Mesopotamia, a.k.a Southern

Alluvium in Southern Iraq (landscapes
of irrigated agriculture on the Tigris-
Euphrates basin)

• So-called “Fertile Crescent”: in more

scholarly terms Northern Syro-
Mesopotamia, i.e. Rolling hills
landscapes of dry-farming in North
Syria, Northern Iraq, Southeast
Turkey (oak-pistacio forests)

• High Plateau landscapes of Anatolia

(Turkey), Iran, and Transcaucuses

• The Black Sea Basin

• The Levant and the Eastern

Mediterranean Coastline, Cyprus (olive
orchards, wineyards and cedar
forests)

• Syro-Arab Desert Landscapes,

spotted with oases (compare to
Central Asia).
200 mm annual rainfall line and the distribution of barley and wheat in the Near East,
with some Epipalaeolithic and Proto-Neolithic settlements.
Spread of agriculture in the Near East
Southern alluvium : the marshes (lately drained by Saddam Hussein’s engineers).
Mudhif
Traditional reed structures
of Southern Iraq
 Section

Map

Southern alluvium. Irrigation system and settlement network in Southern Mesopotamia

(Postgate)
Cities on the move
 Hattusha

Karkamish
Nineveh
Kalhu

Babylon
Nippur
Jerusalem

Uruk
Ur Persepolis
Middle Euphrates and its tributaries:
River-side settlement in Syria