Tell Beydar Overview

Joachim Bretschneider
This application requests support for the publication of the glyptic material from Tell Beydar (ancient Nabada) found during the excavation campaigns 1994-2001.

The site of Tell Beydar is located in Upper Mesopotamia, in the Upper Syrian Jezireh, a region called ‘Khabur’s Triangle’. More precisely it is situated 35 km North-Northwest of Hassake, at 36° 44” North and 40° 35” East.

Tell Beydar has four main phases of occupation. It was founded in the third millennium BC (2800-2350 BC; the Early Dynastic or Early Jezireh period). The second phase witnesses the founding of a new city by the Hurrians (ca. 1400 BC, the so-called Mitanni period). The third phase comprises the occupation of the Assyrians (in the 8th and 7th centuries BC). In a fourth and final phase the tell was partially reoccupied in the Hellenistic period (6th to 1st century BC), but thus far only the first phase has been properly investigated.

The topography of the site consists of a circular city (diameter of ca. 600 metres) with a fortified perimeter with seven gates – one of the so-called Early Bronze Age Kranzhügels of North Mesopotamia. On the acropolis the monumental city centre of the Early Dynastic IIIb period (2450-2350 BC) was exposed. This large official complex comprised a palace and four temples with storage rooms and workshops, and had one main access from the south, where a monumental staircase led past the temples directly to the entrance of the palace, itself set on a raised terrace. Excavations have also revealed one of the inner city gates, a granary, various dwelling houses and parts of the city wall. One of Beydar’s most surprising discoveries consisted of a considerable deposit of cuneiform tablets inscribed with a meticulous record of the palace’s bookkeeping. These written documents date to around 2400 BC and they represent the largest collection of Old-Semitic texts of the Khabur area.

Tell Beydar has also produced 1432 sealings and seals bearing 162 different seal designs, many of the finest quality. 1308 of these sealings can be ascribed to the final phase of the Early Dynastic official complex on the acropolis. This glyptic material is the largest corpus of Early Bronze Age sealings from North Mesopotamia that can be attributed to a single official household. It is also rather unusual that such a large amount comes from secure archaeological contexts. Many bullae come from floor or installation deposits and thereby give us information on exactly how and when the seals were used. The study of the different designs, the functional aspects and the contextual analyses of the sealings together with the information from the tablets will give a coherent picture of the official administration in an Early Bronze Age palace household. The well-preserved architecture together with the administrative documents provide a unique opportunity to study the functional organisation of the palace-area, as well as the multi-layered structure of the society on which it depended.

The catalogue text of the glyptic material (1994-2001) is ready. The first draft of the text for a monograph is also largely complete, although some sections that will put the glyptic of Beydar in a larger frame — like the chronology and the style in comparison with the other North Mesopotamian glyptic finds (e.g. Tell Brak, Tell Leilan, Ebla, Tell Mozan, Tell Chuera) — remain to be written, along with the introduction and concluding synthetic chapter. The existing manuscript needs to be revised substantially and camera-ready illustrations need to be prepared. It is anticipated that the project will take two years before the final manuscript is ready for publication, including the review process.