They got here from a mound referred to as Hassuna, some twenty miles from Mosul, and understandably only some days elapsed earlier than a chance was discovered for us to go to it.2 Probably the most intimidating facet of the place proved to be its distant scenario, on the intense fringe of the cultivated nation west of the Tigris, with nothing past however the desolate Jasirah Desert, stretching away in the direction of Hatra and the Dantesque panorama of the Wadi Tharthar. However there was a tiny village, and close by, on the junction of two dry river-beds, a small mound hardly greater than fifteen ft excessive and 100 yards in diameter. Additionally the floor pottery seemed to be Ninevite I, with a lot of attention-grabbing variations. So little question remained that the positioning have to be excavated. By the early spring of that 12 months we had organised an expedition and have been residing in a tent camp on the positioning.
The excavation at Hassuna is one which can all the time stay in my reminiscence, as distinguished by two uncommon options. One was the intense calls for which it made on one’s ingenuity as an excavator; the opposite the disconcerting insecurity of our residing situations. The village itself gave the impression to be exterior the jurisdiction of the closest police-post: and past it was a tribal space that nobody inside residing reminiscence had ever tried to manage.
The Jabur tribe, who have been our neighbours, had probably the most liberal concepts about non-public possession and there was normally a great deal of taking pictures in the course of the night time. It was a interval of war-time austerity: so the tyres of our automotive for example have been value one thing over 100 kilos a bit available in the market, and anything beneficial needed to be saved chained to our beds. Additionally there have been curious climate situations. One night time there was a freak storm of wind, of the type for which the district is well-known; and the subsequent morning the entire contents of our kitchen, together with heavy cooking-pots, have been recovered from a corn-field virtually 1 / 4 of a mile away. It may be imagined that these situations weren’t splendid for affected person and methodical work. However this was actually what was required.
The conformation of the Hassuna mound was a very attention-grabbing one, because it completely illustrated the phenomenon which we have now beforehand described as a “shift within the focus of occupation.” It was potential to know this earlier than beginning to excavate. Judging from the preponderance of “Ninevite I” pottery on the floor, the earliest occupation of the positioning was on the east aspect on the apex of the triangle shaped by the convergence of the 2 little river-beds, and it prolonged from there as much as the summit of the mound.
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