Polish Archaeology in the Mediterranean (12.2000(2001))

TELL ARBID

SYRIA

AREA “SS”

In its present shape, area “SS” consists of
two steps. The southern, higher one meas-
ures 6 x 11 m, the lower one is c. 7 x 7 m.
Investigations on the southern of the
two steps started with the removal of
a Khabour-period structure discovered there
last year. This fairly irregular and poorly
constructed structure was composed of at
least four small rooms and occupied the
southeastern corner of the trench. West of
these remains is a space that had been used
as an industrial dump at the turn of the 3rd
and in the early 2nd millennium BC.
Fragments of this area had already been
exposed in past seasons in the old “S” trench
and in sector “SA”, so it looks like this area
had occupied almost the entire eastern part
of the tell summit. The layer accompanying
the four rooms mentioned above contained
mainly Khabour-ware sherds with an
insignificant addition of some earlier pieces.
This year, explorations continued with
the uncovering of stratum III, which is
dated to the same period as the layer above
it. The only architectural remains in this
stratum were unearthed at the southern
border of the trench. The upper part of this
substantial pise wall had been visible already
in the upper stratum; adjacent to it there
was a small cubicle, measuring c. 1 x 1.2 m,
made of mudbricks, of which only the
lowest course has survived. There do not
seem to have been many more courses and
no roofing, as the tiny room was filled with
ashes. More than any kind of room, it looks
like an enclosure used for cooling down
some very hot industrial ashes.
In the next layer (IV), the remains of
the pise wall are still present at the
southern border of the sector, among
tightly packed levels of ashes. In the same
stratum but further to the north, part of an
industrial installation was uncovered. It

consists of a shallow basin of unbaked clay,
measuring c. 0.6 m in diameter, and of
a narrow clay channel running westwards.
The walls of the basin were covered with
small stones and potsherds. No evidence of
heating excludes any kind of industrial
activity demanding higher temperatures.
It is more likely to presume some kind of
use of liquids in the basin.
Still deeper (in stratum V), the
southern pise wall, which is still present, has
two walls of the same material attached to it
on the northern side, forming an irregular
enclosure (c. 4 x 3 m) that opened to the
east. In its northern part there were some
shallow pits filled with ashes. This stratum,
like the earlier one, appears to represent
Khabour-ware period occupation.
The continuity of use and space
organization that is to be observed in the
“SS” area from stratum III to V (with the pise
wall on the south serving as a reference
point) is finally broken in layer VI, where
this wall disappears definitively. There are
instead the remains of some larger pise
structure, composed of two walls forming
a big “T” and creating thus two separate
rooms. One of the walls, aligned NW-SE, is
about 5.5 m long; the other, running
approximately SW-NE, is over 8 m long
and c. 0.6 m thick. In the southwestern
room, the pise walls cut into an older
mudbrick wall, itself aligned from east to
west. This was presumably the same kind of
structure as those intended to hold in place
industrial ashes, excavated previously in the
upper layers of the “SS” and “S” trenches.
Obviously, the character and function of this
part of the ancient settlement remained
unaltered from layer III to VI, despite
changes in the spatial organization of the
pise structures. Considering that the
ceramics from stratum VI clearly predate

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