Tell Brak

Tell Brak is situated in the Upper Khabur plain of northeastern Syria. It is one of the largest ancient tells in northern Mesopotamia, over 40 m high, 800 x 600 m in area, with an extensive outer town including a corona of smaller tells surrounding the main tell. As a ‘Gateway City’, Brak controlled one of the major roads leading from the Tigris Valley north to the metal sources in Anatolia and west to the Euphrates and the Mediterranean. The tell itself was occupied from at least as early as 6000 BC to the end of the Late Bronze Age (Middle Assyrian), with settlement of ‘Ubaid to early Islamic date also attested in the outer town. Excavated areas of the site up to now date from the mid-fifth to the end of the second millennium BC.

Brak was first excavated by Max Mallowan in 1937-38. The modern Tell Brak Excavation Project was established by David Oates in 1976 in order to explore the then little-known 3rd millennium BC occupation of Northern Mesopotamia, of which the Khabur region constitutes its western extent. We now know Brak to have been ancient Nagar, one of the major ancient cities in the Near East. Since 1980, Joan Oates has also been responsible for field work at Brak and, following the death of David Oates in 2004, is now Project Director.

Aerial photo of Tell Brak

Vertical aerial photograph of Tell Brak  (see below)
Late 3rd millennium female figurine

The first objective of the modern project was to establish an archaeological framework within which to examine changing environmental, social and economic conditions in the 3rd millennium BC. Among the specific topics investigated have been the nature of the Akkadian imperial presence at the site, then known only through Mallowan’s ‘Naram-Sin Palace’ and its associated cuneiform documents; also the nature of the earlier independent and powerful kingdom of Nagar, attested in the cuneiform tablets from Ebla, and of the post-Akkadian settlement, almost certainly a city of the earliest known Hurrian kingdom late in the 3rd millennium. Indeed the lower part of the tell was apparently continuously occupied throughout the last century of the 3rd and into the 2nd millennium. The latter evidence is relevant to current environmental debates and reconstructions of settlement pattern collapse in the Post-Akkadian Period.

In 1985-7 a Mitanni Palace and Temple (LBA) were excavated on the highest part of the tell, providing rare evidence of Mitanni occupation within its ‘homeland’. Most recently, evidence for the growth of an early settlement dated to the late 5th millennium BC, displaying many of the characteristics of later urban sites, has been a major research focus. Well-stratified material has also been recovered from private houses of the late 5th to the 4nd millennium BC.

In 1994-96 Roger Matthews was responsible for a Leverhulme-funded project devoted to detailed contextual analysis. From 1998-2002 Geoff Emberling, as Field Director, continued the 4th millennium excavations together with further investigation of the third millennium city (Area TC); Helen McDonald also served as Field Director in 2000-2004. In 2002 an intensive survey of the Brak sustaining area (up to a radius of 20 km) was initiated, with Henry Wright as Field Director (2002-2006). Some 550 sites have been identified and recorded, and an intensive field-walking survey of the immediate environs of Brak itself, carried out by Jason Ur and Philip Karsgaard, has further extended our knowledge of the outer city at Brak itself, from ‘Ubaid to early Islamic times.

Late 3rd millennium BC Figurine

A new project is currently underway (since 2006), under the Field Direction of Augusta McMahon. The current excavation programme continues the important research into 5th millennium BC early urbanism and socio-economic complexity in Area TW. We are also investigating two unique mass graves of the early 4th millennium BC at one of the small mounds defining the limits of Brak's Outer Town. These graves, contemporary with an intensification of urbanism at the site, are allowing us to expand into research themes of prehistoric conflict and its resolution. We also have a long-term project to examine climate change and cultural continuities and discontinuities across episodes of environmental and political transition from the terminal 3rd millennium through the later 2nd millennium BC.  

We wish particularly to thank the Directorate-General of Antiquities and Museums in Damascus, without whose assistance and support this research would not have been possible.

© Tell Brak Project. This site was designed by David Thomas and was last updated on 11/01/2008. Text by Joan Oates and Augusta McMahon. The aerial photograph is courtesy of Hartmut Kühne and Norbert Grundmann. Photographer N. Grundmann; pilot, Abbad Samman; co-pilot, H. Kühne. Copyright Shech Hamad Excavation 1984.