Proceedings of the 8 th International Congress on the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East Volume 3

Transcription

1 Proceedings of the 8 th International Congress on the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East Volume 3

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3 Proceedings of the 8 th International Congress on the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East 30 April 4 May 2012, University of Warsaw Volume 3 Archaeology of Fire, Conservation, Preservation and Site Management, Bioarchaeology in the Ancient Near East Islamic Session Selected papers from workshop sessions Edited by Piotr Bieliński, Michał Gawlikowski, Rafał Koliński, Dorota Ławecka, Arkadiusz Sołtysiak and Zuzanna Wygnańska 2014 Harrassowitz Verlag Wiesbaden

4 Cover illustration: Impression of a third millennium BC cylinder seal from Tell Arbid in Syria combined with the depiction of a mermaid a motif from Warsaw s coat of arms. Designed by Łukasz Rutkowski. Bibliografische Information der Deutschen Nationalbibliothek Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek verzeichnet diese Publikation in der Deutschen Nationalbibliografie; detaillierte bibliografi sche Daten sind im Internet über abrufbar. Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available in the internet at For further information about our publishing program consult our website Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden 2014 This work, including all of its parts, is protected by copyright. Any use beyond the limits of copyright law without the permission of the publisher is forbidden and subject to penalty. This applies particularly to reproductions, translations, microfilms and storage and processing in electronic systems. Printed on permanent/durable paper. Printing and binding: Memminger MedienCentrum AG Printed in Germany ISBN

5 CONTENTS FOREWORD OF THE EDITORS...XI PROGRAMME OF THE CONGRESS...XIII VOLUME III ARCHAEOLOGY OF FIRE AGNIESZKA PIEŃKOWSKA The Fire and Light. Mesopotamian Lamps from Polish Archaeological Excavations on Tell Arbid...3 ANNA SMOGORZEWSKA Cooking, Heating and Processing. The Function of Fire Installations in Household Activities at Tell Arbid (NE Syria)...17 MONICA TONUSSI Pierced Andirons and Vessel Supports for Fireplaces from the Caucasus to the Near East: A Way to Optimize the Heat of Fire?...31 KATHRYN GROSSMAN Fire Installations in a Late Ninevite 5 Complex at Hamoukar, Syria...47 SARA PIZZIMENTI A Light in the Darkness. Some Hints on Fire Perception and Rituality as Represented in 2nd Millennium BC Mesopotamian Glyptic...61 ELISA GIROTTO The Symbolism of Fire in War in Ancient Mesopotamia...73 PAOLO MATTHIAE Fire and Arts. Some Reflections about the Consideration of Art in Assyria...93 ALINE TENU, STÉPHANE ROTTIER Fire in Funeral Contexts: New Data from Tell Al-Nasriyah (Syria) SILVIA FESTUCCIA Metallurgical Activities and Moulds: the Case of Ebla KRISTINA A. FRANKE The Metallurgical Inventory from Tell Chuera: A Direct Comparison of Qualitative pxrf and Quantitative WDS Data NICOLAS GAILHARD Reflections on Experimentation and Innovations Process: the Origin of Iron in Anatolia...173

6 VI Contents JOHNNY SAMUELE BALDI Ceramic Production and Management of Fire Between Late Ubaid and LC1. The Potters' Kilns of Tell Feres al-sharqi LUCA PEYRONEL, AGNESE VACCA From Clay to Pots: Pottery Production and Workplaces in Syria during the EB III-IV ANDREA POLCARO Fire and Death: Incineration in the Levantine Early-Middle Bronze Age Cemeteries as Mark of Cultural Identities, or as Technical Instrument of Purification? FRANCESCO LEPRAI The Collapsed Wood Accumulation in the Well-Room of the Royal Palace of Tall Mišrife/Qatna: a 3D Reconstruction CONSERVATION, PPRESERVATION AND SITE MANAGEMENT ANDREW JAMIESON, DIANNE FITZPATRICK Sustainable Management Strategies for Near Eastern Archaeological Collections JEANINE ABDUL MASSIH The Roman House of Cyrrhus the Restoration Project ZEIDAN A. KAFAFI Modern Human Activities Impact on the Archaeological Heritage: an Example from the Site Jebel Abu Thawwab AHMED FATIMA KZZO The Image of Arab Museums. Some Consideration about the Presentation of Arab Museums in Internet Sites BIOARCHAEOLOGY IN THE ANCIENT NEAR EAST CHIE AKASHI Grazing and Fodder-Gathering in the Early Bronze Age Syria: the Case of Tell Ghanem al-'ali (TGA) RAFAŁ A. FETNER The Results of Anthropological Research of Human Remains from the Old Babylonian Tomb from Bakr Āwa, Iraq JACEK TOMCZYK, MARTA ZALEWSKA Pilot Study of Dental Erosion in the Middle Euphrates Valley (Syria)...329

7 Contents VII ANNE-MARIE TILLER Diagnosis of Skeletal Lesions within Levantine Upper Pleistocene Populations. Evidence from Early Nomadic Hunter-Gatherers at Qafzeh (Israel) Giovanni Siracusano, Giulio Palumbi Who'd be Happy, Let Him Be so: Nothing's Sure about Tomorrow Discarded Bones in an Early Bronze I Elite Area at Arslantepe (Malatya, Turkey): Remains of Banquets? ROBERT SATAEV, LILIYA SATAEVA Results of archaeozoological and archaeobotanical researches at the Bronze Age site Gonur Depe (Turkmenistan) EMMANUELE PETITI, ANDREA INTILIA, ARNULF HAUSLEITER Bioarchaeological Investigations at a 4th 3rd century BC Cemetery at Tayma, North-West Arabia ISLAMIC SESSION BETHANY J. WALKER Exercising Power on the Mamluk Frontier: The Phenomenon of the Small Rural Citadel, Case of Tall Hisban ABED TAGHAVI, HOSSEIN TAROMIAN An Archaeological survey of Tomb Towers and Sepulchral Buildings in Semiran City in Islamic Periods RAFFAELLA PAPPALARDO Wheel-free : The Islamic Handmade Pottery From Tell Barri (Syria) AYALA LESTER Reconsidering Fatimid Metalware JULIE BONNÉRIC An Archaeology of Light in Classical Islam: Studying an Immaterial Phenomenon in Medieval Mosques SOPHIA LAPARIDOU Identyfying Land Use Practices in Medieval Jordan Using Phytolith Analysis ALAN WALMSLEY Islamic Archaeology in Qatar: Al Zubarah and its Hinterland(s)...479

8 VIII Contents SELECTED PAPERS FROM WORKSHOP SESSIONS JEANINE ABDUL MASSIH Le Liban de la Fin des Royaumes Hellénistiques à l'avenement de l'empire Romain JULIEN CHANTEAU The Chalcolithic Shrine at En-Gedi. Aesthetics Symbolism Structure ZAUR HASANOV A Reflection of the Cimmerian and Scythian Religious Rites in Archaeology DAFNA LANGGUT Southern Levant Pollen Record, Palaeo-Climate and Human Impact from the Late Bronze Age to the Persian period DR. STEVEN MARKOFSKY Windows on a Delta Margin: A Case Study from the Murghab Delta, Turkmenistan JOYCE NASSAR A New Necropolis Uncovered in Beirut: Analysis of the Funeral Space Management inside a Classical Hypogeum (Preliminary Report) KRZYSZTOF ULANOWSKI Ideology or Religiosity? Factual Context of the Neo-Assyrian Concept of Kingship...591

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10 FIRE INSTALLATIONS IN A LATE NINEVITE 5 COMPLEX AT HAMOUKAR, SYRIA KATHRYN GROSSMAN 1 ABSTRACT In 2010, excavations in the lower town at Hamoukar, in northeastern Syria, revealed an architectural complex that included several large fire installations dating to the late Ninevite 5 period (c BC). These fire installations were built within a series of rooms arranged around an open-air courtyard. This paper combines a study of the installations themselves with an analysis of the artifactual assemblage from the complex. The paper has two aims: 1) to identify the goods produced in these fire installations, and 2) to discuss what these installations can tell us about the administration and organization of food production at Hamoukar during the late Ninevite 5 period. INTRODUCTION The mid-third millennium stands out as a key moment in the cycles of urbanization in northern Mesopotamia. During this period, settlements across broad swaths of northern Iraq, northern Syria, and southeastern Anatolia expanded significantly in size. In northern Iraq and northeastern Syria, this process of urbanization took place during a chronological period known as the late Ninevite 5 period (final Early Jezirah 2, c BC; see contributions in Lebeau 2011), named after a distinctive type of decorated pottery first recovered from early excavations at the site of Nineveh and later found at sites across the region. The sudden and nearly simultaneous expansion in settlement size at sites across northern Mesopotamia is well documented by scores of site-based and regional surveys, but the economic and political dynamics within these settlements at the time of urbanization are less well understood. Recent research at the site of Hamoukar in northeastern Syria is exploring how these dynamics played out over the course of several distinct phases in the life of one of these urban settlements. 2 1 Bradley University. 2 My most sincere thanks are due to Clemens Reichel and Salam al-quntar for their kind permission to study this material and for all of their help and advice both during and following my field research. Any errors are, of course, my own. This research was made possible by grants from the Wenner-Gren Foundation, the American Philosophical Society, the University of Chicago Division of the Humanities, and the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago.

11 48 Kathryn Grossman This paper presents the results of one aspect of this recent research, focusing on a single archaeological context: a complex of fire installations that dates to the late Ninevite 5 period. A detailed study of this complex provides a glimpse into Hamoukar s economic organization during the period immediately following the settlement s rapid expansion. The paper begins with a brief introduction to Hamoukar, before describing the fire installation complex in detail. This is followed by a discussion of how this context impacts our understanding of the administration and organization of food production as the settlement was expanding to accommodate a dramatic increase in population. HAMOUKAR: BACKGROUND AND RESEARCH HISTORY Hamoukar is a large tell located on the eastern edge of the Upper Khabur basin in northeastern Syria. Excavations at the site were conducted between 1999 and 2001 under the direction of McGuire Gibson (Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago) with co-directors Muhammad Maktash in 1999 and Amr al-azm in 2000 and 2001 (Syrian Directorate General of Antiquities and Museums). Since 2005, excavations have been directed by Clemens Reichel (University of Toronto) and Salam al-quntar (Syrian Directorate of General of Antiquities and Museums). During the Early Bronze Age, Hamoukar was one of the largest settlements in Upper Mesopotamia, with a total occupied area of approximately 105 hectares. A 15 hectare high mound (not all of which was necessarily occupied during the third millennium BC; see Ur 2010) rises 18 meters above the surrounding fields, with a 90 hectare lower town spreading out to the east, west, and south of the high mound. The lower town rises only 3-4 meters above plain level, attesting to a relatively short occupation during the Bronze Age. A modern village covers much of the central part of this lower town, restricting the areas available for excavation. A large, fairly flat area called the Southern Extension covers an area of approximately one square kilometer to the south of the main tell (see Ur 2010 for more on the morphology of the tell). There have been seven excavation seasons at Hamoukar, as well as one study season in Prior to the inception of my research, excavations had mainly targeted the Late Chalcolithic period (5 th and 4 th millennia BC) and the later third millennium BC. The well-preserved Late Chalcolithic remains at Hamoukar, in particular, have received wide attention in recent years. During the later part of the Late Chalcolithic period, occupation seems to have been restricted to the high mound. At least part of the settlement was destroyed in a major conflagration, which preserved a series of large buildings. An impressive artifactual assemblage including thousands of sling bullets that have been interpreted as evidence for a battle at the site was recovered from these buildings (see Gibson et al and Reichel 2006 for more on the Late Chalcolithic remains). Excavations in the later third millennium occupation levels at Hamoukar have been no less exciting. Extensive excavations by Jason Ur and Carlo Colantoni in Areas E and

12 Fire Installations in a Late Ninevite 5 Complex 49 H in 2001 exposed large houses with in-situ but smashed ceramic assemblages dating to the final occupation of the settlement during the Akkadian or Post-Akkadian period (Colantoni and Ur 2011). In Area C, excavations begun by Carrie Hritz in 1999 and continued by Tate Paulette since 2006 have brought to light a series of large buildings with similarly destroyed but in-situ room contents. So, although work at Hamoukar had focused on the late fourth and late third millennia BC, the 500 years intervening between these two exciting periods had not been the focus of any intensive study. EXCAVATION OF THE NINEVITE 5 LEVELS AT HAMOUKAR We know a lot, therefore, about the late fourth millennium and the mid-late third millennium at Hamoukar. What about the intervening time span, the 500 year-long Ninevite 5 Period? Prior to 2008, there had been no large-scale excavation of Ninevite 5 occupation at Hamoukar, but we did have compelling evidence that remains dating to this period would be extensive. Survey data from showed Ninevite 5 pottery bleeding out of the edges of the lower town and highlighted a dense scatter of incised-excised sherds along a gulley in the southwest corner of the lower town (Ur 2010). A densely packed layer of Ninevite 5 sherds was also recovered in 2001 during the excavation of a step trench (Area A) down the northern face of Hamoukar s high mound. From the survey data, then, it appeared that Hamoukar had been quite small during the early part of the Ninevite 5 restricted to the high mound and had then grown to more than 90 ha during the late Ninevite 5 period, a pattern of expansion mirroring that of other large sites in the Jazira. Despite the suggestions of the survey, the extent and depth of Ninevite 5 occupation at Hamoukar was still uncertain. During the 2008 season, therefore, we excavated a series of soundings across the lower town. These soundings were designed to test whether the site had been as suggested by the survey completely occupied during the late Ninevite 5 period. If the Ninevite 5 remains proved to be accessible and well preserved, we would go ahead with a second season of larger exposures in subsequent seasons. During the 2008 excavation season, five soundings were opened around the lower town, two of which were excavated down to virgin soil (Fig. 1). These soundings provided a preliminary view of the depositional history of the lower town, demonstrating conclusively that the entire lower town at Hamoukar was initially settled during the late Ninevite 5 period and that this mid-third millennium settlement was built directly on virgin soil. The soundings also showed that the Ninevite 5 levels in the lower town were deep, with multiple architectural phases that, in some places, amounted to more than 2 meters of intact deposits. Although the 2008 soundings had provided a glimpse of the architectural phasing in the lower town, a fuller picture emerged during the 2010 season. Based on the results of the 2008 soundings, two areas were chosen for broader excavations: Area E, on the northwest corner of Hamoukar s lower town, and Area H, near the center of the

13 50 Kathryn Grossman eastern edge of the lower town. We chose to excavate in these areas for several reasons. First, significant quantities of ceramic slag had been recovered from the 2008 sounding in area H, and we hoped to find more evidence for ceramic production in that area. Second, we had recovered nearly 2.5 meters of successive levels of large mudbrick walls dating to the mid-third millennium in the sounding in Area E, and we hoped that these might be part of some large, perhaps public, buildings in that area. The 2008 soundings had also shown that the Ninevite 5 levels in the lower town were completely sealed by a level of later third millennium architecture. Because this later third millennium level could not be properly excavated and still allow time to reach earlier phases during one season, we decided to reopen old excavations in Area E and Area H, where the later third millennium phases had already been excavated, mapped, and planned. This would allow us to remove the backfill, expose and remove the previously excavated later third millennium levels and move more quickly to the earlier, Ninevite 5 levels. 3 The Ninevite 5 remains uncovered in Area H at the very end of the 2010 season yielded the complex of fire installations discussed below. FIRE INSTALLATIONS IN AREA H The late Ninevite 5 remains in Area H spanned two 10x10m trenches; H1 (to the south) and H2 (to the north). This was the lowest architectural level excavated in Area H during the 2010 season. We were unable to excavate down to natural deposits in this area, but based on the elevation of virgin soil in the 2008 sounding which was located about 40 m to the north of Area H we were probably within 50 cm of it. Figure 2 shows the Ninevite 5 remains, dominated by a complex that includes a series of well-built rooms and fire installations surrounding an open courtyard. The rooms, oriented northeast-southwest, were surrounded by mudbrick walls that ranged from 50 cm to 1 m thick. The mudbricks were regularly laid and of a relatively uniform size (varying from 28x14x8 cm to 30x12x10 cm). Only the lowest courses of the walls remained, and later burial pits cut many of the walls (especially in trench H1). Nevertheless, preservation in this area was surprisingly good. The wall faces were easy to articulate, and the bricks were dense, well made, and light orange in color, easily distinguishable from the surrounding fill matrices. The plan of the architecture in Area H was coherent and uniform, and it seems likely that most of the walls were built in a single construction event. Only the interior portions of the western and northern walls of Room III do not seem to fit with the overall plan. These two walls were probably added later, perhaps at the same time as a cross-wall was inserted between Rooms III and IV. Five fire installations were exposed in trenches H1 and H2. Three of these (F.I.1, F.I.2, and F.I.3 on Fig. 2), were large, half-circles of mudbrick with thick mud plaster 3 The depositional history of Hamoukar s lower town will be discussed in more detail in Grossman 2013.

14 Fire Installations in a Late Ninevite 5 Complex 51 floors. The bricks had been partially baked by the heat of fires, and the thick clay floors had been burnt black. In all cases, only the final one or two courses of brick were preserved, 4 although collapsed brick debris inside the installations suggests that the walls rose higher, perhaps in a dome. There were few in-situ finds within these features; the only exception seems to have been the remains of a small, fragmentary tannur, found on the floor of fire installation 1. Fire installations 1 and 2 almost completely filled the rooms in which they had been set, while fire installation 3 occupied only a portion of the room in which it was located. The lack of space for standing near and accessing F.I.1 and F.I.2 suggests that they were accessed from the top or side. In addition to these large ovens, two smaller fire installations were uncovered in Room IV (shown on Fig. 2). These small, vertical tannurs were made of lightly baked clay and were very poorly preserved. They were so fragile that we were unable to excavate them fully and had to leave their lower portions encased in the surrounding matrix at the end of the season. The two tannurs were set on either side of two immense storage jars, which may have held the food products that were being cooked in this area. The large courtyard around which the rooms were arranged was particularly interesting. This broad area seems to have been an open air space. The floor of the courtyard was covered with alternating layers of ash and clay. It seems to have been routinely covered with rubbish and ash sweepings from the nearby ovens; then, from time to time, it was carefully covered with a floor of mud or clay. This repeated covering over with clay might have been intended to keep the ashy dust from rising up or perhaps to prepare the area for some other, as-yet-unknown, purpose. Excavations at Tell Arbid have revealed a similar and contemporary complex of fire installations (Ławecka 2008). The Arbid team has suggested that the large installations (which seem to be quite similar to the Hamoukar ovens) might have been used for drying or roasting grain. Indeed, numerous burnt grains 5 were among the few finds that we recovered from the floors of the Hamoukar fire installations. 6 ARTIFACTUAL ASSEMBLAGE OF THE AREA H FIRE INSTALLATION COMPLEX Unfortunately, this complex was neither destroyed violently nor abandoned abruptly, leaving few in-situ artifacts. Most of the portable goods seem to have been removed before the area was rebuilt in the succeeding phase. The artifacts that were recovered derived largely from rubbish that had been left in place when the complex was rebuilt in the succeeding phase. 4 It is possible that these fire installations never had tall brick sides, that they were only built a few bricks high. 5 Unfortunately, the grains from the 2010 season have not yet been analyzed by an archaeobotanist. 6 Although certainly these grains could also have come from animal dung fuel.

15 52 Kathryn Grossman In terms of the ceramic assemblage, only one complete vessel 7 was recovered, and the sherds were too small to reconstruct complete vessels. The fragmentary nature of the ceramic assemblage again suggests that few artifacts had been left in place when the complex was leveled off and rebuilt. Many Ninevite sherds with incised-excised decoration were recovered from this complex, and undecorated sherds, although less distinctive, probably date to the same period (Fig. 3). Sherds of strainers and cups were also found in the open courtyard. Several clay sealings impressed with cylinder seals were also recovered from the debris in the courtyard. These sealings had probably been broken and removed from jars and doors in the rooms surrounding the courtyard before being swept out as rubbish with the ashes from the fire installations. INTERPRETATION AS A BREWERY Based on the architectural and artifactual remains, it seems possible that this complex of ovens and rooms in Area H was used for brewing beer and baking bread. As mentioned above, the excavators at Arbid have suggested that their large ovens (similar in size, shape, and configuration to those from Hamoukar) may have been used for drying or roasting grain. Roasting is often used to halt the malting process, an important first step in the brewing process. Several burnt grains were also found on the floors of the large Hamoukar fire installations; unfortunately, we do not yet know whether these grains were sprouted barley (malt, in other words) or some other type of processed or unprocessed grain or, indeed, if they are the remains of dung fuel used to heat the ovens. Evidence from the artifactual assemblage also supports a tentative interpretation of this complex as a brewery. The large storage jars found in Room IV, adjacent to the ovens, may have been used for storing grain. Sherds from several tall ceramic strainers were also recovered from the debris in the courtyard. These are often interpreted as objects used in connection with brewing or beer consumption, again suggesting that some form of beer-related activity was taking place in this area. Other features also support the interpretation of this area as brewery. For example, two small tannurs flanked the large storage jars in Room IV. These might have been used for baking bappir, the lightly baked barley bread that was an essential ingredient in Mesopotamian beer. Of course, as suggested by some (Fisher and Paulette 2012), bappir may have been made in large domed ovens rather than tannurs. If this were the case, the large ovens in Area H might also have been used for baking bappir, rather than halting the malting process. An interpretation of this complex as a brewery is, of course, speculative, but a good deal of evidence points to this as a possibility. 7 Aside from the large storage jars in Room IV, which are treated here more like features.

16 Fire Installations in a Late Ninevite 5 Complex 53 ADMINISTRATION OF THE COMPLEX Although exact quantification of the production output is difficult to achieve, the scale of production of bread and/or beer in the Area H complex appears to have been fairly large; the multiple ovens that surrounded the open courtyard would certainly have supplied enough bread or beer for more than a single household, perhaps even enough for the surrounding neighborhood. A better understanding of how, and by whom, this complex was run could provide a glimpse into the broader economic organization of the settlement during the Ninevite 5 period. A unique set of door sealings has yielded some of our only evidence for how this complex was administered; this assemblage has also raised more questions that remain, as yet, unanswered. Door sealings are attested from earlier, contemporary, and later contexts at Hamoukar, but the examples from Area H are different from the norm. The set of sealings consists of four large clay sealings, each of which clearly sealed a door. They were recovered from the floor of Rooms III and IV, indicating that a door between these rooms was repeatedly opened and resealed. Unusually, however, these door sealings were incised with linear designs (parallel lines, oblique lines, and a five pointed star), rather than being seal-impressed. 8 These incised door sealings are illustrated in Table 1. The incised five-pointed star motif is of particular interest. This design was repeated as a pot mark on the shoulder of one of the large storage jars in Room IV, the small chamber that seems to have been locked by the door sealings. This star design was clearly incised on the pot prior to firing (Fig. 4). The repetition of this design on both a pot mark and a door sealing could be interpreted in a number of different ways. On the one hand, the motif may be an indication of a person or office with authority over both access to the room and the goods stored within the vessel. The star motif may, on the other hand, be seen as relating less to a particular office, individual, or institution, and more to the specific commodities either within the room or produced by the facility. The first possibility, however, seems more likely. The evidence of these motifs then suggests that there was some institution, household, or office that controlled access to the beer production facility. That the pot mark was incised pre-firing also suggests that jars were designated at the time of production for use in this particular facility. We can tentatively suggest then that some centralized institution or official exercised at least some degree of control over multiple kinds of production (beer, ceramics) and that the beer production in particular seems to have been taking place on a large scale. Most interestingly, this system seems to have been administered largely without cylinder seals the objects most often equated with complex administrative tasks in the absence of cuneiform texts. As we can see from this production complex at Hamoukar, the administration of large-scale food (beer) production 8 A fifth door sealing, recovered from Room II in the NE corner of trench H2, was impressed with a stamp seal, suggesting a separation in the administrative tools available to the person(s) with authority over Rooms III/IV and those with authority over Room II.

17 54 Kathryn Grossman was clearly feasible without cylinder seals. We do know that cylinder seals were in wide-spread use at Hamoukar during this period many impressed clay jar sealings were found in the rubbish fill of the adjacent courtyard. The administration of this complex production system without the use of seals, therefore, may be an indication that it was taking place outside of the more widely recognized administrative systems of northern Mesopotamia during the third millennium BC. It could be evidence of a neighborhood-based economic system, as opposed to one administered from a central institution such as a palace or a temple. Our understanding of this fire installation complex may change dramatically if we are able to excavate further, but the current political situation in Syria precludes any work in the immediate future. Bibliography Colantoni, C., Ur, J Area H: The architecture and pottery of a late 3 rd millennium BC residential quarter at Tell Hamoukar, northeastern Syria: in Iraq 73, pp Fisher, M., Paulette, T Fire in the Brewhouse: Toward an Archaeology of Brewing in Ancient Mesopotamia, paper presented at the 8 th International Congress on the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East, Warsaw, Poland. Gibson, M., al-azm, A., Reichel, C., Quntar, S., Franke, J. A., Khalidi, L., Hritz, C., Altaweel, M., Coyle, C., Colantoni, C., Tenney, J., Abdul Aziz, G., and Hartnell, T Hamoukar: Three seasons of excavation: in Akkadica 123(1), pp Grossman, K Early Bronze Age Hamoukar: A Settlement Biography, forthcoming PhD dissertation, Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, University of Chicago. Ławecka, D Heating places and ovens of the 3 rd millennium BC in sector SD on Tell Arbid: in Polish Archaeology in the Mediterranean XVIII (Report 2006), pp Lebeau, M. (ed.) 2011 Jezirah: ARCANE I, Turnhout. Reichel, C Hamoukar: in Annual Report of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, , pp Rova, E Ceramic: in M. Lebeau (ed.) JEZIRAH: ARCANE I, Turnhout, pp Ur, J Urbanism and Cultural Landscapes in Northeastern Syria: The Tell Hamoukar Survey, (Oriental Institute Publications 137), Chicago.

18 Fire Installations in a Late Ninevite 5 Complex 55 Table 1: Photographs of door sealings from Rooms III/IV

19 56 Kathryn Grossman Fig. 1: Plan of Hamoukar showing excavation areas through 2010.

20 Fire Installations in a Late Ninevite 5 Complex 57 Fig. 2: Plan of late Ninevite 5 period remains from Area H.

21 58 Kathryn Grossman Fig. 3: Representative ceramic assemblage from late Ninevite 5 period occupation in Area H.

22 Fire Installations in a Late Ninevite 5 Complex 59 Fig. 4: Photographs showing A) overhead view of Area H; B) star-incised door sealing with arrow to find-spot; C) large storage jar with incised star pot mark, arrows to find-spot and (D) detail of pot mark.