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Hacınebi Tepe, a small site (3.3 hectare) located just north of the Birecki ford in southeastern Turkey.
Population replacement and presumably some use of force distinguish the third type of Uruk settlement—a large enclave. This situation envisages foreign settlers taking over pre-exisiting centres with a thriving economic network. Of the three types of Uruk settlement, these are the most difficult to discern. Evidence from Kuyunjik, the high mound at Nineveh, and at Tell Brak, points to a discontinuity in local Late Chalcolithic traditions. Whether this was linked with an increased presence of Uruk settlers is difficult to say at the moment.16 In Turkey, no settlements of this type have so far been discovered. The large site of Samsat, once thought to belong to this category, was probably at the centre of a cluster of indigenous settlements, where a limited range of Uruk items gained favor among the local elites.17
Scholars generally agree on one issue, namely that this expansion was fuelled by the desire of the growing powerful elite of southern Mesopotamia to obtain natural resources in order to construct buildings and manufacture goods that would legitimize their claim to authority. Herein lies a curious paradox. Whereas the extraordinary fertility of alluvium of lower Mesopotamian generated the agricultural surpluses that became the foundations for the earliest known urbanized state societies, the plains were not endowed with many of the raw materials requisite for the development of ancient complex societies. These commodities and luxury items, including timber, metals (especially copper, tin, gold, and silver), semiprecious stones (lapis lazuli and carnelian), chlorite, and obsidian, had to be obtained from distant lands.18
In their quest for resources, the main centers of lower Mesopotamian took advantage of the long-established routes of exchange and communication, such as the Euphrates River, and in the process instigated changes to existing social, economic, and political structures in the areas they settled. The extent of Uruk influence was so successful and vast, covering several thousand square kilometers, that good reason beyond the desires of vainglorious rulers would have been required. The construction of typically Uruk temples far from the homeland and the link between administration and temples (although these traits were by no means universal, especially in Anatolia) seem to suggest that political and religious ideology acted as a mitigating double helix for expansionism.
Late Chalcolithic 1 and 2 (LC 1–2): 4300–3650 BC
The lowest levels at Nors¸untepe were reached on the West Terrace (Levels 40–38) and on the south slope (JK 17, strata 28–12), which revealed part of a large building, although no coherent plan was recovered. A few Ubaid-like painted sherds enable it to be assigned to the latest phase of the Ubaid (or Terminal Ubaid).19 The predominant fabric, however, is Dark-Faced Burnished Ware. Both form and ornamentation—small knobs, incised geometric designs and impressed grain motif—link these vessels with Amuq D/E.20 The subsequent horizon at Nors¸untepe (West Terrace 37–35) is characterized by Coba bowls.21 Built by hand or on a tournette with plenty of
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chaff temper, Coba bowls have been found at many sites south of the Taurus Mountains, ranging from Mersin in the west through the Amuq and Maras¸ Plains to the Jerzirah, incorporating the Urfa and Adıyaman regions. They occur at sites in the Anti-Taurus, but further east around Malatya, and the Altınova Plain they tend to evolve into a different profile. Their easternmost occurrence appears to be the Mus¸ Plain.22
Late Chalcolithic 3 (LC 3): 3650–3450 BC
The Late Chalcolithic period is defined by two periods at Arslantepe that show a continuity of development. In the earlier period, VII, attributed to the early fourth millennium BC to about 3300 BC, a fledgling central authority was established and its presence is seen in monumental architecture. In the early and middle levels of this period, the settlement was already quite extensive and covered much of the mound. Evidence of town planning is seen in the segregation of residential and ceremonial buildings.23 Domestic houses, mostly rectangular in plan, were located in the northeast sector. Inside they were furnished with ovens and basins, and their floors sealed the graves of kin.
The western sector had a different character that is registered by imposing buildings positioned at what was then the highest vantage point on the site. The structures had thick walls that were built using a distinctive mud brick technique—edged with one or two rows of bricks—and the central wall cavity was then packed with mud and mud brick fragments. On the interior surface, the walls were plastered and painted with geometrical designs executed in red and black, foreshadowing similar depictions in the next period. Wall paintings in the first half of the fourth millennium BC, however, are fairly rare. At Nors¸untepe a house wall is decorated with a sketch in black and red of an animal with an elongated body and a mane of frizzy “hair,” whereas downstream at Tell Halawa, in Syria, we have a more complicated scene, also painted in red and black, apparently showing human figures encircling a large face.24 Although their meaning is unclear, these curious images point to an Upper Euphrates tradition in the Late Chalcolithic period.25 Arslantepe VII buildings are also distinguished by the use of mud brick columns that were thickly coated in plaster, a feature that links it to Tell Brak.26 That some of the rooms within the complex were used for storage is evident by the large number of pottery containers, grinding stones and pestles that were found on the floor. Although no clay sealings (cretulae) were recovered, the concentration of clay lumps in room A582 suggests that some form of administrative record keeping was practiced. Overall, then, the impression is one of importance that points to an emerging social and political complexity.
The upper level of Period VII at Arslantepe, located immediately below the structures of Period VIA, marks an important development and is represented by another series of imposing structures. One group consisted of juxtaposed oblong rooms (A850–842), originally thought to be storerooms, but now judged to be craft areas by the presence of ochre and the debitage of stone tool production.27 Nearby is a building (A900) of different character; it is monumental
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with a tripartite plan and has all the hallmarks of a ceremonial building redolent of structures erected in the southern alluvium of Iraq. Inside, the walls bore traces of paintings, but better preserved were two pairs of niches that were set one into each of the short walls of the cella, on either side of the entrance. A large podium and an accompanying fireplace set into the center of the floor would have enhanced the notion of ceremony. But this complex served another purpose, namely as a place to store and distribute commodities. This is vividly attested by hundreds of mass-produced bowls found strewn across the floor; others were stacked high upside down. Grouped neatly in one corner of the room, clay sealings were a reminder of past dealings. These buildings and the operations that they sheltered argue for a growing and powerful administrative elite that had clear political affiliations with the Syro-Mesopotamian region.
The beginning of Period VII at Arslantepe not only heralded changes in political and administrative structures; it also witnessed the emergence of new modes of pottery production that lasted for almost a millennium. Like architecture and settlement patterns, these novel traits, apparent in a range of different pottery shapes and fabrics, reflect basic changes in social organization and economic activities that spread across Greater Mesopotamia, including the Upper Euphrates region of Turkey.28 Over this vast area pottery is ascribed to the broad horizon termed ChaffFaced, which emphasizes the large quantity of straw inclusions that was added to the paste and clearly visible on the surface of vessels. The typology of these wares was first defined in the Amuq where they characterize periods E (at Tell Kurdu) and F (at Çatal Höyük) of the sequence, though their chronology still lacks precision.29 No longer interested in decorative pottery of high quality, such as that which characterized the earlier centuries, households now demanded wares that best served their new needs. Aesthetics gave way to mass production, and variety was replaced by standardization in a move that saw pottery production move out of the household to a centralized workshop. With the gradual specialization of crafts that mirrored the emergence of a stratified society, the emphasis was now on speed and quantity.30 The use of the potter’s mark during this period may have been how wares of individual workshops within a centralized manufacturing process were distinguished.31
Arslantepe VII pottery is largely coarse. Only a few fine examples were found that date to the very end of the period, and they do not belong to the chaff-tempered tradition. Coarseness of paste among chaff-faced vessels varies according to the size of each vessel, but in all cases containers were dipped into a thin slip, often red-orange, and some (Chaff-Faced Ware) were then given a perfunctory burnish when dry. In general, while the Arslantepe repertoire reflects the general trend that occurred in northern Syria and Mesopotamia, technical and typological differences are noticeable. Shapes are limited, and open forms were the most popular (Figure 5.2). Noteworthy are the mass-produced bowls that come in two broad types in the earlier levels: (a) Rounded bowls, which are flint scraped around the bottom, often bearing a potter’s mark at the base on the exterior, a type that grew out of the so-called Coba bowl; (b) conical bowls with a wide, flat base, not string cut, and a potter’s mark on the lower internal wall.32
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