a sounding at arslan tash. re-visiting the “bâtiment aux ivoires”, in r. matthews and j. curtis...

A Sounding At ArSlAn tASh. re-viSiting the ‘Bâtiment Aux ivoireS’

SerenA mAriA CeCChini, FABrizio venturi

AbstrAct

In a joint project of the General Directorate of Antiquities and Museums of Syria, the University of Bologna and the Musée du Louvre for the study and restoration of ivories unearthed in the so-called Bâtiment aux ivoires in Arslan Tash, a Syro-Italian archaeological expedition worked on the site between 2007 and 2009 with the aim of collecting new information about the context of the ivories. The first two campaigns were devoted to the relocation of the ancient buildings excavated in 1928 by the French archaeologists through a topographical and geo-physical survey of the mound. During the 2009 campaign a small sounding was made in area E2, revealing walls of the Bâtiment aux ivoires and two more ancient Neo-Assyrian phases.

1. IntroductIon

Since 2006, there has been a joint project of the general directorate of Antiquities and museums of Syria, the university of Bologna and the musée du louvre for the study and the restoration of the Arslan tash engraved ivories, unearthed by the French archaeologists in the so-called Bâtiment aux ivoires.1 in this northern Syrian City, as is well-known, French excavations in 1928 by the musée du louvre, directed by F. thureau-dangin, brought to light palaces, city walls and their gates, and temples with inscriptions which allowed for the identification of the site with the Assyrian city of Khadatu, a provincial centre of til Barsip/Kar Salmanu-asharedu. the results of the archaeological activities were quickly published (thureau-dangin et al. 1931) but unfortunately the Arslan tash excavation report lacks any reference to the material culture. Neither pottery findings nor field notes are currently available.

in the framework of the ivories study project, a joint Syro-italian archaeological expedition has been operating since 2007 at Arslan tash. the archaeological research

1 the project team during the 2007-2009 seasons was as follows: director: S. m. Cecchini and m. zarhal; Field director: F. venturi; Archaeological staff: g. Affanni, A. di michele, r. trojanis; geo-physical survey: F. Boschi and m. Silani; topographical survey: m. mascellani and i. mascellani. Sections and plans were realized by r. trojanis. Pottery drawings were made by S. martelli.

Serena maria Cecchini and Fabrizio venturi326

aims to find the missing data relating to the archaeological context of the discoveries from the 1928 season.

Although the problem of the origin and dating of the ivories and the construction and use of the Bâtiment aux ivoires are quite unrelated, in view of a general publication of ivory inlays and objects, we found it appropriate to investigate the archaeological area of the Bâtiment aux ivoires, in order to place it in a proper town planning history.

From a historical perspective, it is, in fact, only the gate lions that offer a possible dating. From Aramaic and Assyrian inscriptions engraved on them, recently read by Wolfgang röllig and hannes galter, we learn that ninurta-bel-usur, naming himself the district chief of Kar-Salmanu-asharedu and eunuch of Shamshi-ilu, built the walls and put the lions at the gates (For the Assyrian and Aramaic inscriptions, see galter 2004 and 2007; röllig 2009: 265-278. For the luwian inscription, see hawkins 2000).

From these inscriptions, it is evident that ninurta-bel-usur, although a eunuch and then an Assyrian official, acted as ruler; he also defines himself a native of Sirani and halahhi and therefore seems to have belonged to a local dynasty (galter 2004: 454-456; Bunnens, 2006: 98, note 76).

this new town was on the trade route to Assyria through harran and guzan. its foundation by ninurta-bel-usur could be directly related to the safeguarding of this road (thureau-dangin et al. 1931: 7). the event, based on the activity of Shamshi-ilu in Syria, could therefore be dated to 780 BC, as generally suggested (galter 2004: 450; röllig, 2009: 270).

hypothetically, we could also put this activity in the period of maximum autonomous power of Shamshi-ilu, under Ashur-dan iii (771-754 BC), when he was the only powerful man in the empire, as recently proposed by liverani (2008: 758).

the ivory furniture may have been donated to ninurta-bel-usur during this period by Shamshi-ilu, after the campaign of damascus in 773 BC, when the turtānu added an inscription to the back of his Pazargik stele, stating that the tribute received from King hadyan of damascus included a seat and a royal bed.

The topographic survey of the site was the first step of the archaeological project in 2007. the second step, in 2008, was the geo-physical investigation to locate the excavated monuments, now non-existent, in the context of the modern, highly dense urban texture. in fact, the present village completely covers the surface of the tell, as can be seen from the cadastral map (Fig. 1). S.m.C

2. the Geo-PhysIcAl survey And the rePosItIonInG of the AncIent buIldInGs

Since the site has been continuously occupied since the excavations of thureau-Dangin, there is no reliable fixed point with which to position the ancient buildings on the current village map. We therefore adopted the following procedures: firstly, we

A Sounding at Arslan tash. re-visiting the ‘Bâtiment aux ivoires’ 327

considered the approximate position of the east and west city gates as remembered by the old villagers; secondly, we analysed features in the contemporary urban layout, which might reflect the positions of the ancient structures. The external S-W street appears to follow the ring-shape of the ancient city wall. Furthermore, the so-called marais, a marshy depression around which the old village was set, still remains today, a low open area collecting the waste water from the nearby houses. Furthermore, on the low hill to the north, the western n-S road, the position of which cannot be far from the Babanu sector of the Assyrian palace, shows a sharp bent axis which appears to trace the ancient entrance to this building. moreover, we compared the contour lines of the thureau-dangin plan with those of the modern village; apart from some obvious differences, the latter shows analogies with the ancient morphology of the tell, still today a more-or-less horse-shoe-shaped low hill around the marais. the most marked difference concerns the northern sector which is now more advanced and steeply sloped towards the marais than before. this protrusion in the morphology of the tell probably corresponds to the dump area of the French excavations.

the sum of all this data has enabled us to propose a hypothetical position for the buildings excavated by thureau-dangin. on the basis of such positioning, we then identified 9 areas in the street network which became the subject of a geo-physical radar survey during the 2008 season (Fig. 1). Areas l, h and g are situated near the west city-gate and the fortifications; areas A and B are located on the current highest point of the village, and areas C, d, e and F fall inside, or in the vicinity of, the wide area occupied by the Assyrian palace and the Bâtiment aux ivoires. the instrument was set to provide radar profiles of the underlying structures to a depth of 3 m. The data processing gave interesting results in areas h-l and e2. Below these two east-West streets, at the junction with the ring-road bordering the village, the shape of an almost 5-metre-thick structure can undoubtedly be identified as the Khadatu city wall. The survey in area e2, which was thought to correspond to the Bâtiment aux ivoires, has also given indications of walls with n-S orientation. the topographical position and the good results of the survey led us to choose area E2 as our field of excavation. This elongated trapezoidal open courtyard should more-or-less correspond to the rooms situated to the north/n-e of the paved court of the Bâtiment aux ivoires. Consequently, we decided to open a 10 by 4 m. trench there.

3. the excAvAtIon

the structures relating to phase i appeared 50 cm below the topsoil: two walls with a nearly N-S, E-W orientation define two rooms which open to the east on to a larger space (Fig. 3). the composition of these walls leaves little doubt as to their identification with those of the Bâtiment aux ivoires as described by thureau-dangin in his report. A different use of materials and architectural techniques distinguished it from the Assyrian Palace, whose walls were completely built with crumbly red


mud bricks. By contrast, the walls of the Bâtiment aux ivoires were constructed with very compact whitish-yellow mud bricks laid on a rough-stone base. these walls, which in some parts originally stood to a height of 2 m, have been completely lost in area e2. the only trace of them may be represented by unit 2, a compact 30 cm-thick whitish layer composed of clay and brick fragments, which sealed the whole excavated area (Fig. 7). the bases (Fig. 3) are 120 cm wide, which corresponds to the average thickness of the Bâtiment aux ivoires walls, and were made, as described by thureau-dangin, of two courses of stone 40-50 cm high. these bases, as also described by thureau-dangin, were built on mud brick foundations, made with the same 38 x 38 cm whitish-yellow bricks used for the walls (Fig. 4), the only difference being the laying, which, in the case of the foundations, was less careful; thick layers of grey mortar-clay dividing the brick joints, with the external faces of the courses left irregular (thureau-dangin et al. 1931: 49-51). Foundation 14 does not break with the doors, as the bases do, but is a continuous, unique structure, which breaks abruptly only on its northern side. moreover, it is a half-brick larger than the base, giving a total width of 140 cm.

Thureau-Dangin correctly identified this structure as a sunken brick foundation, and not as a more ancient wall relating to a previous architectural phase. the trench-cut of the foundation, which we call unit 13, is clearly visible, and in the head of the wall it is possible to see the irregular half-bricks used to adapt the brickwork to the external cut.

From thureau-dangin’s report, we know that these foundations were composed of between four and six courses of bricks and could reach 1 m. in depth (thureau-dangin et al. 1931: 49-50, fig. 16). Unit 14 had 8 courses of bricks for a depth of 120 cm (Fig. 7). The brickwork follows the pattern of the walls, illustrated in his fig. 14 – alternating courses of three square bricks and two external half bricks with two square bricks in the middle.

The floors of the Bâtiment aux ivoires joined the walls at the level of the lowest course of the base. No evidence for such floors was found in the excavated area. thin horizontal layers of reddish clay, such as unit 7, are stratigraphically related to the lowest course of the wall-bases (Fig. 7), and it may be possible to interpret these layers as sub-floor make-up for the disappeared floors. The only sign of an original floor came from the southern room and corresponds to unit 17, a small group of black pebbles. We know that in the building, the only pebbled floor was that of the courtyard. it was paved with alternating squares of white and black pebbles in a checkerboard pattern (thureau-dangin et al. 1931: 43-44). the scanty remains and the lack of further original information make it difficult to say if our unit 17 could be the remains of that floor. Nevertheless, were this to be the case, our southern room would correspond to the courtyard, the northern room to vestibule 1, and the eastern space to room 6 (Fig. 2).

After removing part of the Bâtiment aux ivoires foundation, we continued our excavation, identifying two more ancient phases cut by the foundation trench. Phase


II (Fig. 5) is represented by the irregular cobbled floor 26, which extended over the whole excavated area. A simple installation was found in the south-eastern corner, consisting of a small depression lined by two 40 cm-thick walls. these had a nW-Se orientation and were made of reddish, gritty bricks. the presence of a layer of black ash inside the structure, and a cooking pot found in the vicinity, suggest a function related to cooking activities.

in phase iii (Fig. 6), the majority of the installations were also located in the southern square. The area was occupied by a 2.5 x 2 m room. The floor of this small space was completely taken up by two sunken installations consisting of large storage jars the bases of which had been cut away. Another locus, represented by floor 56 and tannur 59, was associated with this room. the walls were 40 cm thick, and had been partly removed, like tannur 59, by the Bâtiment aux ivoires foundation trench (Fig. 10). these structures follow the same orientation as that of phase ii and use the same reddish, gritty clay for mud bricks. moreover, these walls have no stone bases, and all of these features together define a marked difference between the architecture of phases ii-iii and that of the Bâtiment aux ivoires.

the complete removal of the Bâtiment aux ivoires foundation revealed a very clean light-yellow layer (unit 60). in order to verify that it could be considered virgin soil, we opened an E-W trench. The cross-section confirmed our hypothesis (Fig. 7). unit 60 lies upon two earlier layers (61 and 62) made up of compact clay lacking any signs of human activity, and which must, therefore, be considered as natural deposits. Phase iii, therefore, represents the earliest archaeological evidence in this area.

the pottery collected shows homogeneous features through all the excavated phases. Fine ware displays various forms such as goblets (Fig. 8:3), heavily carinated bowls (Fig. 8:12, 23), thin-walled plates or hemispherical bowls with plain rims (Fig. 8:10-11, 17-18). in phase iii they mostly possess an orange fabric, but during phase ii they have a light grey colour resembling palace ware types (Fig. 8:3, 6, 12). A few sherds of red slipped bowls with thickened rim were found in phase i. Common ware has an orange, pink or yellow fabric; plates with plain rims (Fig. 8:15, 19) and bowls with thickened in-turned rims (Fig. 8:4-5, 14, 20) are ubiquitous in all three phases. Jars have triangular or outwardly thickened rims. the cooking pots are of the hole-mouth type and have simple or inwardly thickened rims with rounded or square lips (Fig. 8:16, 24).

the most important object was found in the homogeneous whitish layer which sealed the phase iii structures (unit 35) – the upper half of a broken barrel-shaped cylinder seal (At.09.1) in black serpentine, with an antithetical scene illustrating a religious ceremony (Fig. 9). The scene shows a winged disc flanked by two bearded figures. The disc has a curled appendage at the top and flaring feathers with lower streamers. A very similar scene decorates some neo-Assyrian seals, where two figures, probably representing high-ranking personages, stand in front of a palmette under the sun disc (Cecchini: forthcoming). the style, the shape and the scene would seem to indicate a date in the 9th century BC, as suggested by parallels from the


Assyrian heartland and Tell Knēdiğ (Collon 1987:75, n. 340; 2001: 94-95, n. 162-163; Kulemann-ossen and martin 2000: 501, fig. 18).

4. conclusIon

the chronological relationship between the Assyrian palace and the Bâtiment aux ivoires is still an unresolved problem. From a stratigraphical point of view, the fact that the floors of the latter lay 4.60 m below that of the Bitanu’s court of the Assyrian palace (thureau-dangin et al. 1931: 42) might indicate an earlier construction of the Bâtiment aux ivoires. thureau-dangin gives some further information in his description of the southern limit of the Assyrian palace. near the edge of the acropolis, he discovered the structures of a more ancient building which he called Bâtiment B. these walls had whitish-yellow bricks and stone bases. they were preserved to a height of 50 cm and were used as foundations for the red brick walls of the Assyrian palace. Below these structures lay the walls belonging to a third building called Bâtiment A. on the southern slope of the acropolis, he did not find any other structures, and defined Bâtiment A as the most ancient structure identified on the acropolis. Evidence for the existence of an earlier building is probably also indicated in the northern part of the Assyrian palace. the sector, called Bâtiment Z, had thinner walls, and its floors, situated two metres below, were linked to the palace through a ramp built in room 49. in this case Bâtiment z was not destroyed but was partly preserved and connected to the Assyrian palace (thureau-dangin et al. 1931: 31-32).

Bâtiment B confirms the existence of an important architectural phase prior to that of the Assyrian palace, characterized by the same materials and techniques used for the Bâtiment aux ivoires, and supports, therefore, the hypothesis of an earlier date for its construction. unfortunately, the lack of a direct connection between the two buildings does not allow us to determine with certainty whether the Bâtiment aux ivoires was integrated into the Assyrian palace system, like Bâtiment Z, and existed, therefore, until the final destruction of the town, or if it was obliterated, like Bâtiment B, at the time of the palace’s construction.

however, taken together, the evidence leads us to a plausible reconstruction of the building sequence on the acropolis. the Assyrian palace was built on the top of the mound, partly by cutting into the previous structures, and partly by integrating them, by virtue of a terrace system linking the building on its northern and perhaps eastern side to the lower town, while presumably the southern edge of the acropolis sloped steeply toward the marais.

the date of the construction of the Bâtiment aux ivoires (and Bâtiment B) can be only conjectural. it must be placed in a period before the construction of the Assyrian palace, which presumably was built in the second half of the 8th century BC, and after phases iii-ii of area e2, dated by seal At.09.1 to the 9th century BC. A date in the first half of the 8th century BC fits well with the hypothesis of an important building


phase which occurred during the government of Shamsi-ilu and ninurta-bel-usur. nevertheless, we cannot exclude an earlier date in the time when Shalmaneser iii transformed til Barsip into the provincial Assyrian capital Kar-Salmanu-asharedu.

In his report, Thureau-Dangin (1931: 42-43) identified the throne room (8) and the courts of the babanu and bitanu in the plan of the Bâtiment aux ivoires (Fig. 2), underlining the features which linked it architecturally to an Assyrian palace; nevertheless the plan and the construction techniques of the former clearly show the local background from which it was conceived (Bunnens 1999: 619-620). the two juxtaposed wide rooms (1-2), one of which opened on to the bitanu’s court with a one-column passage, clearly recall the hilani type. the upper building at zincirli shows how, at western provincial sites, during the imperial period,2 this layout was adapted by the Assyrians to their typical architectural tradition (manuelli 2009: 119). the pebbled paving with checkerboard pattern was also in use in South-Anatolian and northern-Syrian territories from the second half of the 8th century BC.3 At nearby tell Ahmar, however, a pebbled court discovered on the western slope of the acropolis (area m) is dated stratigraphically to phase 5, corresponding to the first Assyrian occupation of the city in the second half of the 9th century BC (Bunnens 2009: 73-74). 4

the important role of local people within the Arslan tash social and political regional framework is indicated by the use of both Aramaic and luwian languages in the trilingual inscription on the city-gate lions. the Bâtiment aux ivoires, therefore, which displays a mix of local and Assyrian features, could have been built during this first stage of Assyrian occupation in the region.

Despite the Luwian-Aramean influences reflected in the inscriptions and the architecture, however, to judge from the ‘short’ stratigraphy detected in area e2 below the Bâtiment aux ivories, and by the Assyrian seal found in phase iii, and unlike tell Ahmar where a long sequence was discovered on the acropolis below the Assyrian levels (Bunnens 2002-2003), the history of Arslan tash seems to lie predominantly within the sphere of Assyrian interests in the area, beginning in the reign of Shalmaneser iii or his predecessor Ashur-nasir-pal ii. in these terms, the excavation would confirm Khadatu as a truly new Assyrian foundation.

on the basis of these considerations, we would tentatively outline three main stages in the history of the city. A village already existed on the hill of Arslan tash in the 9th

2 Building G is part of the III building period which starts in the first half of the 7th century BC (Pucci 2008: 44-48, 80, pl. 5)

3 Manuelli 2009: 123, fig. 8. Tell Ahmar has presented several examples: two in the Assyrian palace built in the second half of the 8th century BC, two in buildings e1-e2 and one in building C2 (Bunnens 1999: 620, fig.1a-c), which is dated between the second half of the 7th and the first half of the 6th century BC (Jamieson 2000: 267). the tille höyük and ziyaret tepe buildings are also dated in the late-Assyrian period, basically in the 7th century BC (Blaylock 2009: 134-135, fig. 7:6-7, 162).

4 Regarding the origin of this particular floor paving, an example from Gordion, and dated now to the end of the 9th century BC, suggests a Phrygian influence (Blaylock 2009: 158). Nevertheless, plain cobbled floors were frequently used to pave Bit Hilanis, squares and city gates in Syro-hittite citadels during the 9th–8th centuries BC.


century BC as an outpost on the road leading to til Barsip/Kar-Salmanu-asharedu. this period is represented by our phases iii-ii. during the long, powerful administration of the western province by turtanu Shamsi-ilu and his eunuch ninurta-bel-usur, the site became Khadatu, and attained the status of provincial capital with the construction of the city-fortifications and important buildings, most likely including the Bâtiment aux ivoires and Bâtiment B. this period corresponds to our phase i and must be dated to the beginning of the 8th century BC, although the possibility of an earlier construction in the time of Shalmaneser III cannot be ruled out. During the first two stages, even though under Assyrian control, the city had great political autonomy, and the role of local powers and culture was dominant. the situation probably changed at the time of tiglath-pileser iii, to whom the construction of the Assyrian palace should be attributed, when the new imperial programme, through a policy of centralisation, led to direct control of the western provinces. F.v.

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Fig. 1: the Arslan tash cadastral map with the geo-physical surveyed areas.


Fig. 2: the plan of the Bâtiment aux ivoires (from thureau-dangin 1931).


Fig. 3: Phase i. the stone bases of the Bâtiment aux ivoires (units 3-5).


Fig. 4: Phase i. the brick foundation of the Bâtiment aux ivoires (unit 14).


Fig. 5: Phase ii.


Fig. 6: Phase iii.

Fig. 7: the n-S section.


Fig. 8: the pottery of phases i-iii.


Fig. 9: the cylinder seal At.09.1 (Phase iii).

Fig. 10: the structures of phase iii and the Bâtiment aux ivoires brick foundation (phase i).

a sounding at arslan tash. re-visiting the “bâtiment aux ivoires”, in r. matthews and j. curtis...

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