Terqa 1999 Overview

Final publication of the excavations by the Joint Expedition to Terqa
Giorgio Buccellati and Marilyn Kelly-Buccellati

Our excavations at Terqa ended in 1986, and the publication program, which had been on schedule for the earlier seasons, came to a virtual stop. Partly, this was due to the fact that some graduate students were unable to publish their dissertations (as we had intended), and partly it resulted from the new responsibilities accruing from the growing importance of the new site where we had started excavations, Tell Mozan, which proved to be ancient Urkesh. Our publication record is by no means a total blank (see below, Appendix 1), but a large body of data remains unpublished. A grant from the White-Levy program would be a most welcome catalyst in allowing us to bring to a closure our work on the Terqa project, because through this grant we would be enabled to publish the final reports of the architecture, the stratigraphy, the objects and other finds.

The site of Terqa is significant several ways. As the most important province of Mari, it mirrored closely the image of the capital (from the administrative correspondence to the singular example of two identical plaques found one in each city). As the new capital after the fall of Mari, it provides us with the one of the most significant stratigraphic and historical links across the great divide of the 16"' century (if such a one existed!). Some of the "minor" finds from the excavations turned out to be of incalculable cultural significance, such as the discovery of cloves in a good Old Babylonian context (still to be properly published). Results from faunal analysis provided unexpected new evidence about animal husbandry in this truly "Amorite" town, and helped launch a whole new interpretive line of research in the age old question of the origin and nature of this ethnic group.

Final publication of the excavations conducted under our direction would provide a body of primary documentary data which is very significant for the field. Publication is envisaged in two major volumes. One on stratigraphy and architecture and the other on objects and other finds (the second volume is likely to consist of two physical volumes).