The Tell al-Judaidah Publication Project.
The Later Phases.
Lynn Swartz Dodd

This application requests support for preparation of the final site report for the post-2000 BC phases at Tell al-Judaidah in the Amuq Plain, Turkey. Tell al-Judaidah (36”56’ N 36”22’ E), is located in the Amuq Plain, Turkey on a major trade route between the Mediterranean coast and Aleppo, in inland Syria. This publication effort coincides with the seventieth anniversary of the excavations at Tell al-Judaidah under the direction of pioneering archaeologist, Robert Braidwood from 1934-1936. This research revealed that Tell al-Judaidah’s long occupation sequence extended from the Chalcolithic through the early Christian period. The presence of non-local material culture such as Aegean pottery, numerous Egyptian scarabs and Anatolian and Mesopotamian seals is but one indication of an extensive network that connected Tell al-Judaidah to the larger world. To date, only the pre-2000 BC remains at Judaidah have been published (Braidwood 1960). The post-2000 BC stratigraphy, non-architectural artifacts, and the contextual associations remain unpublished except for several object studies.

The Tell al-Judaidah Publication Project, under the direction of Lynn Swartz Dodd, intends a single volume of reports coordinating the stratigraphy, architecture and associated artifacts from the high mound of Tell al-Judaidah; and an Internet-accessible database that details all the finds and the entire corpus of excavation documentation. A comprehensive publication of Judaidah’s post-2000 BC remains will contribute to the Oriental Institute’s long-term research strategy that is aimed at investigating the growth of urban centers and rural settlements in this landscape during the last ten thousand years and at defining the nature of political control and the character of regional economic integration. Tell al-Judaidah provides an important chronological bridge between the collapse of the Late Bronze Age center Alalakh and the emergence of the Iron Age center at Tell Tayinat. The recently renewed excavations at Alalakh and Tell Tayinat make the resolution and publication of Tell al-Judaidah’s post-2000 BC stratigraphic sequence a major desideratum.