Iraq - Sinjar

The south Sinjar project started in 1989 with the survey of Tell Khoshi. As soon as 1990, the project was postponed due to the Gulf War. In 2001, we reactivated this project by adding the survey of Grai Resh and in 2002, we were allowed to carry an excavations and soundings program at the same sites. Our goal is to document the development but also the beginnings of urban settlement in that area from the fourth till the second millennium BC through investigations at two complementary sites, Grai Resh and tell Khoshi. Tell Khoshi illustrates one of the great cities of a 100 hectares that developed from Upper Mesopotamia to Southeast Anatolia, during the Early and Middle Bronze ages while Grai Resh yields data from the fourth millennium .

All the settlements of Mesopotamia were involved in trading networks, both regional and long-distance ones, according to both their strategic potential and their potential in raw materials. The unequal distribution of the various elements of this potential created a need for exchanges. Most of these contacts passed through either north or south Sinjar. In 2001, our survey revealed that Grai Resh was not limited to the 6 hectares plotted by Seton Lloyd in 1938. There is a lower settlement in the north-west and the south-west and the site is in fact about 32 hectares large. In 2002, we concentrated ourselves on two areas, A and B.

It corresponds to the cleaning of a section which was dug at the time of the construction of a road from Telafar to Sinjar. We were able to recognize three buildings levels all belonging to what we can call a grey ware culture ; its presence together with some others elements, increases from the oldest level to the younger ones. At the bottom of a pit dug through the underlying level, we uncovered a cist grave from a child. The body displays traces of woven material and 20 beads were uncovered around his wrist. Most of them are in carnelian, two in lapis-lazuli, one in obsidian and a small one in gold.

Area B corresponds to an extensive excavation, on the same mound as the one where Seton Lloyd had carried his excavations and soundings in 1939. It revealed several tripartite houses included into larger complexes. A workshop with a stamp, as well as several bevelled rim bowls elsewhere testify to the existence of specialized craft, production of means of exchange and control.

Far distance contacts are attested as soon as the very beginning of the fourth millennium and even earlier, through shells coming from the Gulf and gold, cornelian and lapis-lazuli coming most probably from Central Asia. Part of these exotic goods was discovered in a child burial and testify together with the carefulness of the building of the grave itself to the existence of a certain social hierarchy. Exotic goods remain rare and testify to contacts only. In contrast, exchanges at least with Anatolia are evident with the abundance of obsidian and basalt.

Bevelled rim bowls from the level belonging to the very beginnings of the fourth millennium illustrate early contacts with south Mesopotamia.