Acknowledgements

The 2001 excavation season at Tell Qarqur was the eighth season of the renewed excavations at the site. We would like to acknowledge the support of Dr. Abdul Razzak Moaz, Director General of the Directorate General of Antiquities and Museums of Syria; Dr. Michel Maqdassi, the Director of Excavations and their staff in Damascus and Abdurazaq Zaqzuq the Director of the Directorate's Hama District and Hama Museum, and his staff in Hama. We greatly appreciate the continued major financial support from the Catholic Biblical Association and support from its Executive Director, the Rev. Joseph Jensen, OSJ; support from private donors, in particular P.E. MacAllister and the Concordia Archaeological Society (of Concordia Seminary). Wa'al Hafian returned for a second year as our representative on the regional survey and Nomair Shaheen was the representative for the excavations on the tell at Qarqur. We worked with a total of six supervisors in the field. Our total number of workers from the village of Qarqur at the end of the season was 23 on the tell and two pottery washers at the Latin Church in Djisr Choghour. Rita Kachedourian completed all of the floatation for the season in Djisr Choghour. Samer Abdel Ghafour, our conservator for the third season now, worked with us for the last two weeks of the season on pottery from previous seasons and materials from this season. Megan Reinbold assisted in the excavation and removal of animal bones in square A42 and catalogued the bone samples for this season. We expect Susan Arter our paleozoologist to be with us in the 2002 season to analyze the bones from the 2001 and 2002 seasons.

Introduction

The excavations at Tell Qarqur since 1993 continue to be a multi-disciplined project working on a modest scale. The focus of the excavations has been to build a reliable collection of cultural materials in a geographically strategic area of the Orontes Valley, figure 1. A long sequence of occupation has been demonstrated at Tell Qarqur and we are tentatively blocking out the strata represented at the site. Our efforts have concentrated initially on the Iron Age levels. That effort continues, as we are gradually learning the nature of the occupation on different areas of the tell, and the extent and preservation of the sequence in each area. Many pieces of information lend support to identification of Tell Qarqur with a site of a similar name mentioned in Assyrian records. The battles fought by the Assyrian army under Shalmaneser III and Sargon II near Karkara/Qarqar are well known from modern accounts of the histories of this period. Our excavations have shown that the Iron Age occupation at Tell Qarqur is not confined to the ninth and eighth centuries BC, during Iron Age II, but can be traced back many centuries before Shalmaneser III. Iron I occupation levels have been excavated on the tell in Area B, at the highest point of the high southern tell, and on the extensive, low northern tell in Area D.

Tell Qarqur is also clearly a major Bronze Age site. So far only limited second millennium materials have been excavated but the Iron Age structures in most places have been cut down into EBIV levels. In Area A, we reached these levels in several unconnected squares and in the last two years have been working to connect the different areas, determine whether the structures are part of one large complex or are separate dwellings. Iron Age destruction has been uneven, so it is now clear that there are more phases than the four encountered initially. In the direction of the gateway only traces of the EBIVB occupation is preserved. We have reached monumental architecture of the EBIVA period in the context of a major destruction. In Area E, it became clear that we have almost a meter of reuse of the Early Bronze Age IVB building above the levels excavated earlier. This brings us into a very critical period chronologically and historically. The pottery continues the EBIV tradition but forms are clearly late. Characteristic features of MBI or of a transitional period between the Early and Middle Bronze Ages are not present. We have just reached this critical level, which is probably better preserved to the east. The botanical and zoological collections are becoming significant as we have moved out of the disturbed levels to well stratified materials in the past few years.

A long sequence of occupation has been demonstrated at Tell Qarqur and we are tentatively blocking out the strata represented on the site. Parts of forty-nine different squares have been excavated in five areas of the site, four on the high tell and one on the low northern tell, figure 2 and figure 3. Only sherds represent some strata at this point but architectural remains have been found in many strata (represented below with an asterisk) and block out a good part of the sequence.

Middle Bronze II*

Go to next section on Area A

last updated 12/11/02
Contact information:
  site director Rudolph Dornemann (dornasor@bu.edu)
  webmaster (asor@bu.edu).