Akkadian and Elamite Impact on Early Egypt. Part Two: Lost Culture of the Akkadians
by
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Some of the effects
of wrongly identifying (according to Anne Habermehl) the biblical “plain in the
land of Shinar” of Genesis 11:2
קְעָה בְּאֶרֶץ
שִׁנְעָר
with ancient Sumer,
in southern Mesopotamia, have been to prevent archaeologists, to this day, from
being able to identify the famous capital city of Akkad, but also from being
able to assign a relevant archaeology and culture to the Akkadian dynasty.
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The Halaf Culture
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“Uncertainty in
identifying exclusively Akkadian pottery has made it impossible to reconstruct
Akkadian settlement patterns with any confidence (Nissen 1993: 100)”.
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Most interesting, now, that Anne Habermehl’s geographical re-location of
the Babel incident:
Where in the
World Is the Tower of Babel?
finds a most significant and sophisticated ancient culture to accompany
it: namely, Halaf.
Habermehl argues for re-identifying “Shinar” with the Sinjar region of
NE Syria, thereby now providing an opportunity also for the proper
identification of the so far un-located city of Akkad. Habermehl thinks that
“the missing city of Akkad” may actually be Tell Brak.
I have come to accept substantially (though not every detail of)
Habermehl’s intriguing thesis and have subsequently written, with regard to
it:
Tightening the
Geography and Archaeology for Early Genesis
The long Akkadian empire phase
of history (c. 2350-2150 BC), so admired by subsequent rulers and generations, is
remarkably lacking in archaeological data. I noted this, along with a
peculiarity associated with Ur III, at the beginning of my:
Sargon of Akkad (Nimrod) as ‘Divine’
Shulgi of Ur III
“The Akkadian kings
were extensive builders, so why, then, so few traces of their work?
Not to mention, where
is their capital city of Akkad?
The Ur III founder,
Ur-Nammu, built a wall at Ur. Not a trace remains”.
This was the biblical era of
Babel and Nimrod according to my reconstructions.
My proposed initial solution to
the problem of a lack of appropriate data was to attempt to fuse the Akkadian
dynasty with that of Ur III (as in the above, and in Part Two: https://www.academia.edu/10118151/Sargon_of_Akkad_Nimrod_as_Divine_Shulgi_of_Ur_III._Part_Two_Merging_Akkad_with_Ur_III).
But here I want to highlight
the enormity of the problem.
Archaeologists have actually
failed to identify a specific pottery for the Akkadian era!
This is, of course, quite
understandable given that they (indeed, we) have been expecting to discover the
heart of the Akkadian kingdom in Sumer, or Lower Mesopotamia.
We read of this incredible
situation of a missing culture in the following account by Dr. R. Matthews, from
his book, The Archaeology of Mesopotamia:
Theories aand Approaches (https://books.google.com.au/books?id=9ZrjLyrPipsC&pg=PA152&lpg=PA152&dq=uncert):
The problems of
fitting material cultural assemblages, especially pottery, into historical sequences
are epitomised in the ongoing debate over what, if anything, characterises
Akkadian material culture in Lower Mesopotamia (Gibson and McMahon 1995; Nissen
1993; J. G. Westenholz 1998). Uncertainty in identifying exclusively Akkadian
pottery has made it impossible to reconstruct Akkadian settlement patterns with
any confidence (Nissen 1993: 100). The bleakest view has been put thus: ‘If we
didn’t know from the texts that the Akkad empire really existed, we would not
be able to postulate it from the changes in settlement patterns, nor … from the
evolution of material culture’ (Liverani 1993: 7-8). The inference is either
that we are failing to isolate and identify the specifics of Akkadian material
culture, or that a political entity apparently so large and sophisticated as
the Akkadian empire can rise and pass without making a notable impact on settlement patterns or any
aspect of material culture.
[End of quote]
Obviously, that “a political
entity apparently so large and sophisticated as the Akkadian empire can rise
and pass without making a notable impact
on … any aspect of material culture” is quite absurd. The truth of the matter
is that a whole imperial culture has been almost totally lost because - just as
in the case of so much Egyptian culture, and in its relation to the Bible -
historians and archaeologists are forever looking in the wrong geographical place
at the wrong chronological time.
It is my view that, regarding the
Akkadian empire (and following Habermehl), one needs to look substantially
towards Syria and the Mosul region, rather than to “Lower Mesopotamia”. And that
one needs to fuse the Halaf culture with the Akkadian one. The most important
contribution by Anne Habermehl has opened up a completely new vista for the
central Akkadian empire, and for the biblical events associated with it. The
potentate Nimrod, one might now expect, had begun his empire building, not in
Sumer, but in the Sinjar region, and had then moved on to northern Assyria.
Thus Genesis 10:10-11: “The beginning of [Nimrod’s] kingdom was Babel and Erech and Accad
and Calneh, in the land of Shinar. From that land he went forth into
Assyria, where he built Nineveh, Rehoboth-Ir, Calah and Resen,
which is between Nineveh and Calah—which is the great city”.
And these are precisely the
regions where we find that the spectacular Halaf culture arose and chiefly
developed: NE Syria and the Mosul region of Assyria.
Understandably
once again, in a conventional context, with the Halaf cultural phase dated to
c. 6100-5100 BC, there can be no question of meeting these dates with the
Akkadian empire of the late C3rd millennium BC. That is where Dr. Osgood’s
A Better Model for
the Stone Age
becomes so vital, with its revising of Halaf down to the
Late Chalcolithic period in Palestine, to the time of Abram (Abraham):
1.
In 1982, under the title 'A Four-Stage Sequence for the Levantine
Neolithic', Andrew M.T. Moore presented evidence to show that the fourth stage
of the Syrian Neolithic was in fact usurped by the Halaf Chalcolithic culture
of Northern Mesopotamia, and that this particular Chalcolithic culture was
contemporary with the Neolithic IV of Palestine and Lebanon.5:25
Figure
5. Diagram showing compatability of a sertial and parallel arrangement
(mushroom effect) of Mesopotamian Chalcolithic cultures.
This
was very significant, especially as the phase of Halaf culture so embodied was
a late phase of the Halaf Chalcolithic culture of Mesopotamia, implying some
degree of contemporaneity of the earlier part of Chalcolithic Mesopotamia with
the early part of the Neolithic of Palestine, Lebanon and Syria, as illustrated
in Figure 6.
This
finding was not a theory but a fact, slowly and very cautiously realized, but
devastating in its effect upon the presently held developmental history of the
ancient world. This being the case, and bearing in mind the impossibility of
absolute dating by any scientific means despite the claims to the contrary, the
door is opened very wide for the possible acceptance of the complete
contemporaneity of the whole of the Chalcolithic of Mesopotamia with the whole
of the Neolithic and
Chalcolithic of Palestine. (The last period of the Chalcolithic of Palestine is
seen to be contemporary with the last Chalcolithic period of Mesopotamia.)
[End of quote]
Dr. John Osgood has written further
of Halaf in
A Better Model for the Stone Age Part 2
but he regards the Halaf people
as the biblical “Aramites” [Aramaeans].
Since the Aramaeans, though,
tended to be a wandering nomadic people (Deuteronomy 26:5), I would not expect
their existence to be reflected in a culture as sophisticated as Halaf. Though
they themselves may have absorbed some of it. My preference, therefore, is for
Halaf to represent the Akkadians, especially as Halaf was the dominant culture
when Osgood’s Jemdat Nasr pertaining to the
Elamite Chedorlaomer, arose. This is how Dr. Osgood sees it:
Now if we
date Babel to approximately 2,200 B.C. (as reasoned by implication from Noah's
Flood 3)
and if Abraham came from Mesopotamia (the region of Aram) approximately 1875
B.C., then we would expect that there is archaeological evidence that a people
who can fit the description generally of the Aramites should be found well
established in this area .... What in fact do we find? Taking the former
supposition of the Jemdat Nasr culture being identified with the biblical story
of Genesis 14 and the Elamite Chedarloamer,4
we would expect to find some evidence in Aram or northern Mesopotamia of Jemdat
Nasr influence, but this would only be the latest of cultural influences in
this region superseding and dominant on other cultures.
The
dominant culture that had been in this area prior to the Jemdat Nasr period was
a culture that is known to the archaeologist as the Halaf culture, named after
Tell Halaf where it was first identified. One of the best summaries of our
present knowledge of the Halafian culture is found in the publication, 'The
Hilly Flanks'5.
It seems clear from the present state of knowledge that the Halaf culture was a
fairly extensive culture, but it was mostly dominant in the area that we
recognise as Aram Naharaim.
It is
found in the following regions. First, its main base in earliest distribution
seems to have been the Mosul region. From there it later spread to the Sinjar
region to the west, further westward in the Khabur head-waters,
further west again to the Balikh River system, and then into the middle
Euphrates valley. It also spread a little north of these areas. It influenced
areas west of the Middle Euphrates valley and a few sites east of the Tigris
River, but as a general statement, in its fully spread condition, the Halaf
culture dominated Aram Naharaim ….
The site
of Arpachiyah just west of Nineveh across the Tigris River appears to have been
the longest occupied site and perhaps the original settlement of the Halaf
people. This and Tepe Gawra were important early Halaf towns.
The settlement
of the Halaf people at these cities continued for some considerable time,
finally to be replaced by the Al Ubaid people from southern Mesopotamia. When
Mallowan excavated the site of Tell Arpachiyah, he found that the top
five levels belonged to the Al Ubaid period. The fifth level down had some
admixture of Halaf material within it. He says:
‘The more
spacious rooms of T.T.5 indicate that it is the work of Tell Halaf builders;
that the two stocks did not live together in harmony is shown by the complete
change of material in T.T.l-4, where all traces of the older elements had
vanished. Nor did any of the burials suggest an overlap between graves of the A
'Ubaid and Tell Halaf period; on the contrary, there was evidence that in the
Al 'Ubaid cemetery grave- diggers of the Al 'Ubaid period had deliberately
destroyed Tell Halaf house remains.’6
He
further comments the following:
‘It is
more than probable that the Tell Halaf peoples abandoned the site on the
arrival of the newcomers from Babylonia; and with the disappearance of the old
element prosperity the site rapidly declined; for, although the newcomers were
apparently strong enough to eject the older inhabitants, yet they appear to
have been a poor community, already degenerate; their houses were poorly built
and meanly planned, their streets no longer cobbled as in the Tell Halaf period
and the general appearance of their settlement dirty and poverty stricken in
comparison with the cleaner buildings of the healthier northern peoples who
were their predecessors.’7
He
further says:
‘The
invaders had evidently made a wholesale destruction of all standing buildings
converted some of them into a cemetery.’8
It is
clear from the discussion of Patty Jo Watson9 that the later periods of the Halaf people were found in the other
regions, particularly in a westward direction across the whole area of Aram
Naharaim, namely the Sinjar region, the Khabur head-waters, the Balikh River
system and the middle Euphrates. While the site of Arpachiyah had been
destroyed by the Al Ubaid people and the former inhabitants either dispersed or
destroyed, it seems clear that the Al Ubaid culture had not been so devastating
upon other areas where the Halaf people were but had been assimilated in some
way into their culture even though the Al Ubaid culture became dominant later.
We find this particularly suggested by Mallowan while discussing findings at
Tell Mefesh in the Balikh region (Balih).
He says:
‘The
pottery discovered in the house was particularly interesting, although
unmistakably of the Al Ubaid period, it revealed certain characteristics of the
T. Halaf phase of culture suggesting that the Al Ubaid period occupants at
Mefesh were, at all events in their ceramic, considerably influenced by their
predecessors.’10
He goes
on in speaking of the ceramics by saying:
‘But I
believe on grounds of the style of painting and the fabric that this is a
hybrid ware, and that it may indicate a fusion on the Balih of the peoples
representing the intrusive Al 'Ubaid culture with those of the older T. Halaf
stock. Elsewhere, the evidence generally indicates that with the intrusion of
the Al Ubaid peoples, the ceramic of T. Halaf rapidly disappeared but at Tepe
Gawra Dr E.A. Speiser indicates that he has found evidence of a pottery
representing a fusion of the two cultures and it is possible that when this
detailed evidence is finally published, it may tally with that obtained at T.
Mefesh.’11(emphasis
ours>
So it
seems that the culture of Upper Mesopotamia, previously Halaf, became affected
by the Al Ubaid culture from the south resulting in a continuous but changed
culture, with no doubt an admixture of the population in some way and in some
proportion.
I will
later attempt to show that the Al Ubaid culture is deeply associated with the
name of the Chaldeans, and that the Halaf people were subjected to a northern
migration and conquest as evidenced by the presence of southern names (from
Southern Mesopotamia) in the north. Such an example may be found at the site of
Harran, which represents a southern name and a religion that essentially had
its roots in the south, but was in fact a city in the north. This point becomes
greafly significant when we come to the migration of Abraham from Ur of the
Chaldees in the south up to the city of Harran and finally to Canaan. The way
had already been prepared by migration of Chaldean peoples who apparently had
attacked the major stronghold of the Halaf peoples in the north (which here I
am equating with the Aramites), but finally to dominate them in the Aram
Naharaim area culturally at least for some time to come.
There is
now no question that the early Halaf people in the north were contemporary with
the early Al Ubaid people in the south, here equated with a contemporaneity of
the Aramites with the Chaldeans.
Joan
Oates discusses this fact:
‘It is
quite clear that in the Hamrin at this time there were potters working in both
the Halaf and Ubaid traditions, perhaps even side by side in the same villages.
Certainly, the contemporaneity of these two very distinctive ceramic styles
cannot be in doubt. Such contemporaneity has always seemed a possible
explanation of certain chronological anomalies (Oates 1968 p. 1973, p.176) and
is indeed the only explanation that makes sense of the late Halaf 'intrusion'
at Choga Mami, where the Samarran and early Ubaid materials are very closely
related. The modern situation may perhaps provide a relevant parallel in that
villages of Arabs, Kurds, Lurs and Turcomans exist side by side, their
inhabitants often distinguishable by their dress and other cultural
appurtenances. In the Hamrin we have the first unequivocal evidence of such a
situation in near Eastern pre-history, where previously we had assumed a
'chest-of-drawers' sequence of cultures.’12
There is
a need, of course, to show that there was a general continuity of the culture
from the days of Halaf in the majority of Aram Naharaim through to at least the
days of Jemdat Nasr.
[End of quote]
Now that we have our chronology
and geography in proper place, we can expect to find a convergence between the
high quality Halafian and Akkadian cultures. Art, for example (http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Akkadian_Empire#Culture):
A finely
executed bas relief representing Naram-Sin, and bearing a striking resemblance
to early Egyptian art in many of its features, has been found at Diarbekr, in
modern Turkey. Babylonian art, however, had already
attained a high degree of excellence; two cylinder seals of the time of Sargon I
are among the most beautiful specimens of the gem-cutter's art ever discovered.
And in an article, “Samarra culture, Tell Halaf and
Tell Ubaid”, we read (https://aratta.wordpress.com/2013/08/09/figuring-out-identity-the-body-and-identity-in-the-ubaid/):
In the period 6500–5500 B.C., a farming society
emerged in northern Mesopotamia and Syria which shared a common culture and
produced pottery that is among the finest ever made in the Near East. This
culture is known as Halaf, after the site of Tell Halaf in northeastern Syria
where it was first identified.
The Halaf culture is a prehistoric period which
lasted between about 6100 and 5500 BC. The period is a continuous development
out of the earlier Pottery Neolithic and is located primarily in the Euphrates
valley in south-eastern Turkey, the Balikh valley and the Khabur in Syria, and
the Upper Tigris area in Iraq, although Halaf-influenced material is found
throughout Greater Mesopotamia.
The term «Proto-Halaf period» refers to the
gradual emergence of the Halaf culture. It reformulates the «Halafcultural
package» as this has been traditionally understood, and it shows that the
Halaf emerged rapidly, but gradually, at the end of 7000 BC.
Dr. Matthews’ “… problems [above]
of fitting material cultural assemblages, especially pottery, into historical
sequences …”, are, I think, solved by the following ‘assemblages’:
The term refers to a distinct ceramic assemblage
characterised by the introduction of painted Fine Ware within the later
Pre-Halafceramic assemblage. Although these new wares represent changes in
ceramic technology and production, other cultural aspects continue without
abrupt change.
The recent discoveries at various Late Neolithic
sites in Syrian and elsewhere that have been reviews here are really changing
the old, traditional schemes, which often presupposed abrupt transitions from
one culture-historical entity to another. At present, there is growing evidence
for considerable continuity during 7000-6000 BC.
At the northern Syrian sites, where the Proto-Halaf
stage was first defined, there is no perceptible break and at several sites
(Tell Sabi Abyad, Tell Halula) the Proto-Halaf ceramic assemblage appears to be
closely linked to the preceding late Pre-Halaf.
The key evidence for the Proto-Halaf period is the
appearance of new ceramic categories that did not existed before, manufactured
according to high technological standards and complexly decorated.
The similarities of these new painted wares from
one Proto-Halaf site to another points to strong relationships between
different communities. On the other hand, the evidence of local variety in
ceramic production would indicate a certain level of independence of local
groups.
….
The Halaf culture as it is traditionally
understood appears to have evolved over a very large area, which comprises the
Euphrates valley (until recently considered to be a peripheral area), the
Balikh valley and the Khabur in Syria but also northern Iraq, southern Turkey
and the Upper Tigris area.
The Halaf potters used different sources of clay
from their neighbors and achieved outstanding elaboration and elegance of
design with their superior quality ware. Some of the most beautifully painted
polychrome ceramics were produced toward the end of the Halaf period. This
distinctive pottery has been found from southeastern Turkey to Iran, but may
have its origins in the region of the River Khabur (modern Syria).
How and why it spread so widely is a matter of
continuing debate, although analysis of the clay indicates the existence of
production centers and regional copying. It is possible that such high-quality
pottery was exchanged as a prestige item between local elites.
“From that land [Nimrod] went
forth into Assyria, where he built Nineveh, Rehoboth-Ir, Calah and Resen, which is between Nineveh and Calah—which is the great
city”.
The most important site for the Halaf tradition
was the site of Tell Arpachiyah located about 4 miles from Nineveh, now located
in the suburbs of Mosul, Iraq. The site was occupied in the Halaf and Ubaid
periods. It appears to have been heavily involved in the manufacture of
pottery. The pottery recovered there formed the basis of the internal
chronology of the Halaf period. The Halaf culture was eventually absorbed into
the so-called Ubaid culture, with changes in pottery and building styles.
Early in the chalcolithic period the potters of
Arpachiyah in the Khabur Valley carried on the Tell Halaf tradition with a
technical ability and with a sense of artistry far superior to that attained by
the earlier masters; their polychrome designs, executed in rous paint, show a
richness of invention and a painstaking skill in draughtsmanship which is
unrivaled in the ancient world.
The best known, most characteristic pottery of
Tell Halaf, called Halaf ware, produced by specialist potters, has been
found in other parts of northern Mesopotamia, such as at Nineveh and Tepe
Gawra, Chagar Bazar and at many sites in Anatolia (Turkey) suggesting that it
was widely used in the region.
Arpachiyah and Tepe Gawra have produced typical
Eastern Halaf ware while a rather different Western Halaf version is known from
such Syrian sites as Carchemish and Halaf itself.
Hassuna or Tell Hassuna is an ancient Mesopotamian
site situated in what was to become ancient Assyria, and is now in the Ninawa
Governorate of Iraq west of the Tigris river, south of Mosul and about
35 km southwest of the ancient Assyrian city of Nineveh.
[End of quote]
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