The University of Chicago’s Excavations at Tell Ta‘yinat,
Amuq Plain, Southeastern Turkey
Heather E. Snow

The present research proposal seeks funding to facilitate the publication of the final report of the 1930s University of Chicago excavations at Tell Ta‘yinat in the Amuq Plain of southeastern Turkey.

The Amuq Plain forms a nexus of intercultural contact that linked Syro-Mesopotamia, the Anatolian highlands, and the Mediterranean littoral. It is a testament to the strategic importance of this narrowly confined area that an initial survey identified over 178 settlement mounds (Braidwood 1937), and the excavations of various multi-period sites (Chatal Hoyuk, Tell Ta‘yinat, Tell al-Judaidah, and Tell Atchana [Woolley 1955]) are further proof that the Amuq Plain was implicated in the cultural developments of these wider territories. Since the pioneering work of the Chicago Syro-Hittite Expedition in the 1930s, the resultant cultural sequence—known as the Amuq sequence—has been fundamental to studying the cultural developments of this region (Braidwood and Braidwood 1960).

The Amuq Plain has continued to play an important role in the ongoing study of the historical development of the early civilizations of the ancient Near East. In 1995, the Amuq Valley Regional Project (AVRP) was initiated with the aim of systematically documenting the rich archaeological record in the Amuq Plain. As an explicitly regional project, still a relative rarity in Near Eastern archaeology, the AVRP was designed to facilitate a multi-scalar approach to the investigation of the complex social, economic, and political institutions developed by the first urban communities to emerge in this part of the ancient world. The resurgence of interest in the Amuq Plain, stimulated in part by the results of the AVRP, have led to the reactivation of excavation projects at key settlement sites, including Tell Kurdu, Tell Atchana, and Tell Ta‘yinat.

The 1960 Braidwood volume provides an excellent overview of the cultural sequence for the region, however, it only details this sequence until the end of the third millennium BC (i.e. Amuq Phases A—J). There remains no systematic presentation of the second millennium (Middle and Late Bronze Ages), nor of the Iron Age material. In 1971, Haines, a staff member of the Syro-Hittite Expedition, produced a brief description of the architecture from the principal Iron Age strata uncovered at the sites of Chatal Hoyuk, Tell al-Judaidah, and Tell Ta‘yinat. However, the remarkably rich assemblage of associated material culture was not treated. Since these remains form one of the most comprehensive Iron Age assemblages for the region, the lack of a detailed final report represents a significant continuing impediment to our understanding of the historical development of this period.