Polish Archaeology in the Mediterranean (8.1996(1997))

Arab Republic and the Warsaw University represented by the
Centre of Mediterranean Archaeology.1
The first season of explorations on Tell Arbid had three
principal aims. The most important one was to establish the precise
topography of the site and compare it with the map published by
Mallowan in the report about his activities in northern Syria.2
Precise measurements taken this year served to prepare a 1:500
topographic map of the site (Fig. 1). Its total surface was found to
exceed 38 ha and comprises the following:
1) citadel or "main" tell, as one might prefer to call it, measuring ca
440 x 300 m (surface of over 12 ha) and rising over 30 m above
the present surface;
2) "lower town" occupying the western part of the site and
measuring about 220 x 360 m, and finally
3) at least four secondary small mounds on the outskirts of the site.
One of the two modern villages, which currently exist within
the site limits, is located on the largest of them which measures
over 150 m in diameter and rises about 6 m.3 Even a cursory

1 The 1996 Tell Arbid mission comprised six archaeologists, four
archaeology students and one topographer. The staff of the mission included:
Ms Anna Smogorzewska, Mr. Miroslaw Olbrys, Mr. Andrzej Reiche,
Mr. Dariusz Szelqg, archaeologists from Warsaw University; Mr. David
Gimbel, Oxford University; Mss. Agnieszka Zysek, Ewa Wiewiorka, Joanna
Lorynowicz, Mr Leszek Talko (all students from Warsaw's University Institute
of Archaeology); Mr. Dariusz Pr^gowski (engineer topographer) and, finally,
Mr. Ahmad Serriye from the Direction General of Antiquities of the Arab
Republic of Syria and the author who acted as co-directors of the mission.
The mission profited from the generous help and constant support of the
General Direction of Antiquities for which we are very grateful.
We own also special acknowledgments to „Elektromontaz Export SA” and
its president Mr. Jerzy Lewandowski as well as to „AJRPOL” and its president
Mr. Maciej Strojnowski for their financial support, which was essentialfor
the success of our explorations.
Mallowan M.E.L., The Excavations at Tall Chagar Bazar and an
Archaeological Survey of the Habur Region. Iraq IV (1937), fig. 3.
3 The smaller, southern one of these villages (see map) existed there
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