“Mozan,”
American Journal of Archaeology 95/4 (October), pp. 712-714.
Online version (JSTOR)
This brief paper (collected in a contribution edited by H. Weiss, entitled ”Archaeology in Syria”) reports the archaeological activities undertaken by Urkesh’s team at Tell Mozan during the 6th and the 7th excavation seasons (in 1988 and 1999, respectively).
The authors describe mostly third-millennium material (found, as a characteristic of Tell Mozan, just below the top soil) and focus on the High Mound, area B (to the East) and area A (to the West).
Excavations in Temple BA are described, located at the top of the mound, for sure “one of the major religious buildings of the ancient city” (p. 712). Four phases have been detected: 1) phase 1a (ED period), with a complete floor plan preserved; 2) phase 1b, when partition walls were built; 3) phase 2 (after a destruction by fire) is characterized by packing and levelling of the area; 3) phase 3, with traces of construction of a new building (probably abandoned before its completion); 4) phase 4, presenting a series of laminations covering a previous trench (end of the Khabur period).
A large step trench was opened in area A, where remains of the large public building A1 have been uncovered, similar to others attested at Tell Chuera, Tell Brak, Mari and Ebla but with many more rooms.
Another area was excavated, labelled area F1: from a floor deposit, two cuneiform, administrative tablets have been discovered, preserved for about half of their original size, dated to 2300-2200 BC, the northernmost third-millennium cuneiform texts ever found (displaying on onomastics with Hurrian, Akkadian and Sumerian names).
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