Ubaidian and Tell Halaf

However, to return to Mallowan’s sounding, which was now passing through the ’Ubaidian and Tell Halaf levels; the area was becoming increasingly restricted. By the time, Mallowan had come to the crucial last stage, where he could hope to excavate the levels underlying the earliest Tell Halaf occupation, he could not hope for finds on a large scale. Nevertheless, with the shaft reduced in dimensions to approximately eight feet square, his reward was by no means negligible.

From pavements directly above virgin soil,

he recovered a basketful of potsherds, ornamented with curious incised designs.

This pottery came appropriately to be known as “Ninevite One”: and for the ten

years which followed, these few sherds remained the only existing clue to the

pre Halaf occupation of Mesopotamia.

In 1942, an inspector of the Iraq

Antiquities Department, who was assisting Land Settlement officers in the

agricultural areas southwest of Mosul, sent into headquarters some bags of

surface pottery from mounds which he had found in that area. Examining one of

these, my Arab colleague, Fuad Safar and I were astonished to find that it

contained almost exclusively Ninevite I pottery far more, in fact, than had

been found by Mallowan at Nineveh itself.

Twenty miles from Mosul

They came from a mound called Hassuna, some twenty miles from Mosul, and understandably only a few days elapsed before an opportunity was found for us to visit it. The most intimidating aspect of the place proved to be its remote situation, on the extreme edge of the cultivated country west of the Tigris, with nothing beyond but the desolate Jasirah Desert, stretching away towards Hatra and the Dantesque landscape of the Wadi Tharthar. Nevertheless, there was a tiny village, and nearby, at the junction of two dry river beds, a small mound hardly more than fifteen feet high and a hundred yards in diameter.

Also the surface pottery appeared to be

Ninevite I, with a large number of interesting variations. So no doubt remained

that the site must be excavated. By the early spring of that year, we had

organized an expedition and were living in a tent camp on the site.

The excavation at Hassuna is one, which

will always remain in my memory, as distinguished by two unusual features. One

was the extreme demands which it made on one’s ingenuity as an excavator; the

other the disconcerting insecurity of our living conditions. The village itself

seemed to be outside the jurisdiction of the nearest police post: and beyond it

was a tribal area that no one within living memory had ever attempted to

administer.