Lauren Ristvet and Harvey Weiss 2001

“The Ḫābūr Region in Old Babylonian Period”,
in W. Orthmann, P. Matthiae, M. al-Maqdissi (eds.), Archéologie et Histoire de la Syrie I. La Syrie de l’époque néolithique à l’âge du fer, Schriften zur vorderasiatischen Archäologie 1,1, Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 257-272.
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This paper deals with the reconstruction of two settlement hiatuses occurred in the Ḫābūr Region in Old Babylonian period, as testified by the results of the recent ten archaeological surveys and eight excavations undertaken in that region, leading to the discovery of new documentary sources.

The earlier hiatus is placed between 2200 and 1900 BC (Akkadian collapse and Amorite resettlement); the second hiatus, 1700-1500 BC, involved the end of the Old Babylonian period and the installation of the new regional system by the Mittanians.

The first section (pp. 257-259) is devoted to the analysis of the growth in development and settlements in the Ḫābūr during the 3^rd millennium BC, partially due to seasonal rainfall from the Mediterranean westerlies leading to a flourishing cereal agriculture in northern Mesopotamia, a fact also manifested by the dispatch of harvests from this area to the Akkadian capital around 2300 BC. This climate optimum underwent a collapse at ca. 1900 BC, the landscape being abruptly changed (and afterwards caused the earlier hiatus, occurred “seven generations since the Fall of Akkad” [p. 259, quoting Grayson]).

The second section (pp. 259-262) offers data from archaeological excavation in the area, mostly from Tell Leilān, Moḥammed Diyāb, Tell Brāk, Šāġir Bāzār, ‘Arbīd, Hamūkār and finally also Mōzān.

The third section (pp. 259-262) offers data from archaeological excavation in the area, mostly from Tell Leilān, Moḥammed Diyāb, Tell Brāk, Šāġir Bāzār, ‘Arbīd, Hamūkār and finally also Mōzān [“the palace along with the lower town were abandoned, reducing the 120 ha city to an acephalous town of less than 20 ha”, p. 262 (quoting Dohmann-Pfälzner and Pfälzner 2002, pp. 163-168].

The fifth section (p. 262) offers data from survey, underlining how both the total population and the ceramic production in the region drastically reduced; as for Mōzān, it is recalled how the only EJZ 5 (post-post-Akkadian) ceramic assemblage comes from the context of the so-called ‘Puššam House’, at Urkesh [see e.g. Rova 2011 and Schmidt 2012]: therefore, the authors suggest that the size-reduced site could have become a refugium for the new nomadized population.

The sixth section (pp. 262-265) describes the changing situation between 1950-1900 BC, when a resettlement of the area was encouraged by the return to a climatic favour framework, specifying some differences in site occupation (new villages vs. nomadic structures) between the western and the eastern portions of the Ḫābūr area.

The seventh section (pp. 265-267) focuses on the fluid settlement situation in the Ḫābūr area, including some sites (also Urkesh), where “early second millennium ‘hollow’ capital cities, containing administrative buildings but little domestic architecture, were common” (p. 265). The topic here moves from the monumental buildings of the third millennium BC, to the far denser settlements of the second millennium BC, recognizing the presence of monumental buildings in some sites, only (e.g. Tell Leilān), contrasting this pattern with that of other cities (including Tell Mōzān), where “smaller dependent settlements were the locus of densely packed domestic worker populations” (p. 267).

The eight section (pp. 267-268) describes the collapse and the establishment of the Mittanian lordship over the area (with the kingdom of Ḫanigalbat), stating the possible difference between the ‘aerly’ and ‘late’ Ḫābūr ware as the only meaningful way to discern the pre-Mittanian occupation from later periods.

The ninth section (pp. 268-269) begins with a historical question: was the second-millennium Amorite resettlement a failed experiment? The answer as follows: “Although there is evidence for some continuity in toponym survival, the Amorite resettlement of the Ḫābūr plains differed from the 3rd millennium settlement, and may represent the introduction of a dynamic agro-pastoralist economic strategy following the return of pre-4.2 ka BP precipitation. These new 3rd-early 2nd millennium data for dynamic settlements and environments indicates that the time has come to replace the static, functionalist, explanations of nomad-sedentary interaction in West Asia, with a dynamic, and historically contingent, model” (p. 269).

At the very end, three research key-points are suggested: 1) the necessity of further “stratigraphic excavation, ceramic quantification, and radiocarbon dating” 2) “the forces that drove Amorite sedentarization and regional resettlement require testing and definition” 3) “the collapse of the flexible Amorite resettlement requires examination in light of the Mitanni emergence, with stratigraphic excavations” (p. 269). - [About the topic of collapses and historical interfaces at Urkesh, cf. mostly Buccellati and Kelly-Buccellati 2002].