Area TW: Archaeological Details

Area TW has been a focus of excavation since 1997 and presents an unbroken sequence of occupation from the late 5th through the early 3rd millennium BC.  
The currently-excavated levels are still substantially above the elevation of the modern plain, and we anticipate that levels of the earlier 5th and 6th millennia BC remain to be discovered here.
This area is currently providing evidence for the elaboration of industry and economic control contemporary with early urbanism.

(For more information on TW Levels 21 through 19, see the current research page.)

TW View

View of TW from the west

Level 20

Obsidian & shell from TW 19Perhaps the most important building in TW is a Level 20 monumental structure of unknown function, dated to the final centuries of the 5th millennium BC (Late Chalcolithic 2). Owing to its limited exposure, the building’s function is not clear, but it is undoubtedly an administrative building of some importance. 

The area exposed of this administrative building comprises the fore-court, entrance and parts of two rooms.  Its massive basalt threshold consists of a single stone measuring 1.85 x 1.52 m and 29 cm thick.  No comparable building has as yet been found elsewhere. A courtyard with sequential plastering layers lies outside the building to its north, and in the final phase of use of this building, a row of small rooms was built against its northern façade.  
An industrial area lies to the west, comprising a complex of rooms with at least four sub-phases of alteration and adaptation, plus large ovens, bins and evidence for manufacture of tools and objects of obsidian and shell. A street further west connects this area to the north entrance of Brak.

TW Level 20 plan

TW Level 20 Threshold Building

The Level 20 Building, shown in the lower right of the plan to left.

Level 19

The western industiral complex of Level 20 was succeeded by a much more imposing building in Level 19.  Its walls were over a metre wide in most places, and the four rooms exposed contained large ovens, clusters of spindle whorls, grind-stones, a sack of sling bullets abandoned in a corner, flint and obsidian tools and objects, and both unworked shells and mother-of-pearl inlay. 

Seal impressions from containers (jars and baskets) imply a tiered hierarchy of economic control was at work in this area, while seal imagery of lions is reminiscent of royal symbols from both  the Late Uruk and Neo-Assyrian Periods.

TW Level 19 plan

Level 18

Early in the 4th millennium another public building was constructed here (TW Level 18), also at present unique. This consisted of a formal, tripartite building together with a large courtyard, with ornamentally niched walls, in which were a variety of ovens which surviving evidence suggests served for the cooking of large quantities of meat.  This complex was situated next to a street leading apparently from the nearby north entrance of the settlement (the same street persists from Level 21), and the complex remained in use for a considerable period of time (TW Levels 18-14).

Opposite: one of the many ovens associated with the Level 18 Building (photo: David Thomas).

Domed oven

Level 16

To the east of and contemporary with this ‘roadside steak-house’ were several levels of houses, from which was recovered a great variety of well-dated archaeological information, including large quantities of faunal and botanical data, in particular from Level 16 which seems to have suffered a major destruction. It was in this level and Level 17 that objects of early 'Eye Temple type' were discovered in situ, allowing us to re-date Mallowan’s temple sequence to a period earlier than had previously been suspected.

 Opposite: destruction level of Level 16 building, c 3600 BC.

Level 16 Destruction
Level 16 buildings

Level 16 buildings, rooms 1 and 5-8 in the centre of the plan opposite.

During this period (Middle Northern Uruk or LC3) we find  the use of increasingly complex recording devices, including two small dockets apparently recording a number and a pictograph of a type of animal.  A large numerical tablet was also found.

 TW Level 16 bead hoard

This hoard of some 3600 gold, silver, carnelian, amethyst, rock crystal and other stone beads was found beneath the floor of a Level 16 courtyard.

Level 14

In TW Level 14 the settlement was levelled and rebuilt, although the continuity of pottery types suggests little if any change in the population itself. In the succeeding Level 13, however, South Mesopotamian Middle Uruk pottery and other artefacts appear for the first time.

Sherd paving

Southern and Northern ‘Middle Uruk’ pottery on a Level 13 sherd pavement.

Level 13 cylinder seal with a dancing bear

Drilled style cylinder seal, TW Level 13. The design includes a dancing bear and other animals.

Level 12

In TW Level 12 this area of the mound was again levelled and rebuilt. In this and the succeeding level the archaeological materials recovered were entirely of Southern Late Uruk types. We believe that Brak was a true southern Mesopotamian colony site at this time, and evidence for metal- and flint-working suggests at least two of the local products desired by the new inhabitants of the site.  It is clear also that wool was an important product, and the proportion of sheep/goat at the site rises to as much as 90% of the faunal material at this time.

Level 11 Plan, TW

(Click on plan to enlarge).

Southern Late Uruk pottery types

 Southern Late Uruk pottery types from Level 11
Above: Plan of Late Uruk level (12-11).  Part of a large house was excavated, of which room 6 (centre) was a flint-knapping area. Rooms 1-3 (on the west) appear to have formed some kind of suq-like or work-room structure. The pipe drain at the south comes from an unknown structure further to the east.

Canaanean blade core and lump of obsidian

Large Canaanean blade cores, the blades themselves and raw obsidian were found in Room 6; this lump of obsidian weighed over 2 kg.

Microblade holder

This clay microblade-holder from a Late Uruk house proves that small microlithic blades were still being manufactured at this time.
The upper levels in Area TW include two with examples of southern Jamdat Nasr pottery, indicating continuing contact with southern Mesopotamia after the Late Uruk ‘abandonment’.  This was succeeded by a period in which the material culture shares many similarities with that of the early third millennium in southeastern Anatolia as well as northern Mesopotamia and even the Early Dynastic I culture of the south.

© 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; photos by Joan Oates, Augusta McMahon and Helen McDonald.