Tell Brak
Tell Brak was an ancient city in Syria; it is one the earliest known cities in the world. Its remains constitute a tell located in the Upper Khabur region, near the modern village of Tell Brak, 50 kilometers north-east of Al-Hasaka city, Al-Hasakah Governorate. The city's original name is unknown. During the second half of the third millennium BC, the city was known as Nagar and later on, Nawar.
Starting as a small settlement in the seventh millennium BC, Tell Brak's urbanization began in the late 5th millennium BCE and evolved during the fourth millennium BC into one of the biggest cities in Upper Mesopotamia, and interacted with the cultures of southern Mesopotamia. The city shrank in size at the beginning of the third millennium BC with the end of Uruk period, before expanding again around 2600 BC, when it became known as Nagar, and was the capital of a regional kingdom that controlled the Khabur river valley. Nagar was destroyed around 2300 BC, and came under the rule of the Akkadian Empire, followed by a period of independence as a Hurrian city-state, before contracting at the beginning of the second millennium BC. Nagar prospered again by the 19th century BC, and came under the rule of different regional powers. In c. 1500 BC, Tell Brak was a center of Mitanni before being destroyed by Assyria around 1300 BC. The city never regained its former importance, remaining as a small settlement, and abandoned at some points of its history, until disappearing from records during the early Abbasid era.
Different peoples inhabited the city, including the Halafians, Semites and the Hurrians. Tell Brak was a religious center from its earliest periods; its famous Eye Temple is unique in the Fertile Crescent, and its main deity, Belet Nagar, was revered in the entire Khabur region, making the city a pilgrimage site. The culture of Tell Brak was defined by the different civilizations that inhabited it, and it was famous for its glyptic style, equids and glass. When independent, the city was ruled by a local assembly or by a monarch. Tell Brak was a trade center due to its location between Anatolia, the Levant and southern Mesopotamia. It was excavated by Max Mallowan in 1937, then regularly by different teams between 1979 and 2011, when the work stopped due to the Syrian Civil War.
Name
The original name of the city is unknown; Tell Brak is the current name of the tell. East of the mound lies a dried lake named "Khatuniah" which was recorded as "Lacus Beberaci" in the Roman [|map] Tabula Peutingeriana. The lake was probably named after Tell Brak which was the nearest camp in the area. The name "Brak" might therefore be an echo of the most ancient name.During the third millennium BC, the city was known as "Nagar", which might be of Semitic origin and mean a "cultivated place". The name "Nagar" ceased occurring following the Old Babylonian period, however, the city continued to exist as Nawar, under the control of Hurrian state of Mitanni. Hurrian kings of Urkesh took the title "King of Urkesh and Nawar" in the third millennium BC.
Alternative theories
Although there is general view that the third millennium BC Nawar is identical with Nagar, some scholars, such as Jesper Eidem, doubt this. Those scholars opt for a city closer to Urkesh which was also called Nawala/Nabula as the intended Nawar.History
Early settlement
In Brak Period A, the earliest small settlement is dated to the proto Halaf culture c. 6500 BC. Many objects dated to that period were discovered including the Halaf pottery.In Brak Period B, the Halaf Culture Halaf culture transformed into Period C Northern Ubaid, and many Ubaid materials were found in Tell Brak. Excavations and surface survey of the site and its surroundings, unearthed a large platform of patzen bricks that dates to late Ubaid, and revealed that Tell Brak developed as an urban center slightly earlier than better known cities of southern Mesopotamia, such as Uruk.
Late Chalcolithic
The first city
In southern Mesopotamia, the original Ubaid culture evolved into the Uruk period. The people of the southern Uruk period used military and commercial means to expand the civilization. In Northern Mesopotamia, the post Ubaid period is designated Late Chalcolithic / Northern Uruk period, during which, Tell Brak started to expand.Brak Period E
Tell Brak Period E witnessed the building of the City's Walls, and expansion beyond the mound to form a Lower Town, becoming a proto-urban city with a size of c. 55 hectares.Comparison can be made with Hamoukar in LC1-2 period, where the early urban settlement has been described as "a vast low or flat scatter of pottery and obsidian". The population density at both settlements was very low at that stage, so they appeared more like a scattering of various small sites in the same area: "... new indicators of social complexity appeared simultaneously with dramatic settlement expansion at Brak and Khirbat al-Fakhar , although not in the form known from later periods of northern Mesopotamian history. Both were extensive "proto-urban" settlements of low or variable density, with few other parallels elsewhere in the Near East." Another example is, Khirbat al-Fakhar already reached a massive size of 300 ha, or larger than the contemporary Uruk, itself.
Area TW of the tell revealed the remains of a monumental building with two meters thick walls and a basalt threshold. In front of the building, a sherd paved street was discovered, leading to the northern entrance of the city. Area TW covered an area of nearly 600 square meters up to a depth of 10 meters. A number of beveled rim bowls diagnostic of the Uruk period were found in the TW area.
Brak Period F
Tell Brak Period F can be subdivided into two phases early and late.In the Early Brak Period F, the early city-state continued to expand and reached the size of 130 hectares. Four mass graves, mainly sub-adults and young adults were discovered in the submound, Tell Majnuna, north of the main tell, and they suggest that the process of urbanization was accompanied by internal social stress, and an increase in the organization of warfare. The first half of period F, saw the erection of the Eye Temple, which was named for the thousands of small alabaster "Eye idols" and "Spectacle-topped idols" figurines discovered in it. Those idols were also found in area TW.
In Late Brak Period F interatction with Southern Mesopotamia increased, and an Urukean colony was established in the city. With the end of Uruk culture c 3000 BC, Tell Brak's Urukean colony was abandoned and deliberately leveled by its occupants.
Brak Period G & H
The Brak Period G, saw the site contracting during the following periods H and J, and became limited to the mound. In the Brak Period H, evidence exists for an interaction with the Mesopotamian south, represented by the existence of materials similar to the ones produced during the southern Jemdet Nasr period.Early Bronze
Brak Period J & K
During the Brak Period J and K the city remained a small settlement during the Ninevite 5 period, with a small temple and associated sealing activities.Kingdom of Nagar
Around c. 2600 BC, a large administrative building was built and the city expanded out of the tell again. The revival is connected with the Kish civilization, and the city was named "Nagar". Amongst the important buildings dated to the kingdom, is an administrative building or temple named the "Brak Oval", located in area TC. The building had a curved exterior wall reminiscent of the Khafajah "Oval Temple" in central Mesopotamia. However, aside from the wall, the comparison between the two buildings in terms of architecture is difficult, as each building follows a different plan.The oldest references to Nagar comes from Mari and tablets discovered at Nabada. However, the most important source on Nagar comes from the archives of Ebla. Most of the texts record the ruler of Nagar using his title "En", without mentioning a name. However a text from Ebla mentions Mara-Il, a king of Nagar; thus, he is the only ruler known by name for pre-Akkadian Nagar and ruled a little more than a generation before the kingdom's destruction.
At its height, Nagar encompassed most of the southwestern half of the Khabur Basin, and was a diplomatic and political equal of the Eblaite and Mariote states. The kingdom included at least 17 subordinate cities, such as Hazna, and most importantly Nabada, which was a city-state annexed by Nagar, and served as a provincial capital. Nagar was involved in the wide diplomatic network of Ebla, and the relations between the two kingdoms involved both confrontations and alliances. A text from Ebla mentions a victory of Ebla's king over Nagar. However, a few years later, a treaty was concluded, and the relations progressed toward a dynastic marriage between princess Tagrish-Damu of Ebla, and prince Ultum-Huhu, Nagar's monarch's son.
Nagar was defeated by Mari in year seven of the Eblaite vizier Ibrium's term, causing the blockage of trade routes between Ebla and southern Mesopotamia via upper Mesopotamia. Later, Ebla's king Isar-Damu concluded an alliance with Nagar and Kish against Mari, and the campaign was headed by the Eblaite vizier Ibbi-Sipish, who led the combined armies to victory in a battle near Terqa. Afterwards, the alliance attacked the rebellious Eblaite vassal city of Armi. Ebla was destroyed approximately three years after Terqa's battle, and soon after, Nagar followed in c. 2300 BC. Large parts of the city were burned, an act attributed either to Mari, or Sargon of Akkad.
Akkadian period
Following its destruction, Nagar was rebuilt by the Akkadian empire, to form a center of the provincial administration. The city included the whole tell and a lower town at the southern edge of the mound. Two public buildings were built during the early Akkadian periods, one complex in area SS, and another in area FS. The building of area FS included its own temple and might have served as a caravanserai, being located near the northern gate of the city. The temple was dedicated to the god Šamagan, god of animals of the steppe. The early Akkadian monarchs were occupied with internal conflicts, and Tell Brak was temporarily abandoned by Akkad at some point preceding the reign of Naram-Sin. The abandonment might be connected with an environmental event, that caused the desertification of the region.The destruction of Nagar's kingdom created a power vacuum in the Upper Khabur. The Hurrians, formerly concentrated in Urkesh, took advantage of the situation to control the region as early as Sargon's latter years. Tell Brak was known as "Nawar" for the Hurrians, and kings of Urkesh took the title "King of Urkesh and Nawar", first attested in the seal of Urkesh's king Atal-Shen.
The use of the title continued during the reigns of Atal-Shen's successors, Tupkish and Tish-Atal, who ruled only in Urkesh. The Akkadians under Naram-Sin incorporated Nagar firmly into their empire. The most important Akkadian building in the city is called the "Palace of Naram-Sin", which had parts of it built over the original Eye Temple. Despite its name, the palace is closer to a fortress, as it was more of a fortified depot for the storage of collected tribute rather than a residential seat. The palace was burned during Naram-Sin's reign, perhaps by a Lullubi attack, and the city was burned toward the end of the Akkadian period c. 2193 BC, probably by the Gutians.