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CategoriesTells
Mounds made of layer upon layer of settlement.
🇹🇷 Turkey · Ancient village
PPNB to Late Islamic (8500 BCE–1400 CE) · Upper Tigris PPN → Halaf/Ubaid → Uruk → Mitanni → Assyrian → Islamic
Ilısu rescue mound with PPNB–Mitanni–Assyrian sequence before Tigris inundation.
🇸🇾 Syria · Ancient city
Early Bronze Age Ej II–IVa (Jezirah Early Dynastic to Akkadian) · North Mesopotamian Kish tradition, Semitic (Nabada Akkadian)
Circular walled 3rd-millennium city Nabada (c.2900–2200 BCE, Early Jezirah III), 28 ha upper town + lower town 20 ha, centre of western Jezirah after Tell Brak.
🇮🇶 Iraq · Tell
Neolithic Hassuna-Samarra (c.6000–5600 BCE) · Hassuna
Type site 1939–44 excavation by Seton Lloyd that defined the Hassuna painted pottery tradition of northern Iraq.
🇮🇶 Iraq · Ancient city
Ubaid to Old Babylonian (c.5000–1700 BCE; peak ED IIIb–Lagash II) · Ubaid → Sumerian (Lagash) → Akkadian → Ur III → Isin-Larsa → Babylonian
Lagash state capital with Gudea statues, 50,000 tablets and newly CT-mapped canal temple.
🇯🇴 Jordan · Tell
EBA through Mamluk; Iron II peak · Moabite/Ammonite frontier → Persian Yehud fringe → Byzantine
Madaba Plains giant tell (18 ha) — Iron Ammonite pillared building, 9th c. destruction and Persian reoccupation, largest in Jordan’s Madaba Plains.
🇸🇾 Syria · Ancient city
Early Bronze to Mitanni to Assyrian to Parthian · Hurrian Mitanni → Middle Assyrian
Stratified Jezirah tell Kahat (c.3000 BCE–1400 CE, peak Mitanni capital c.1500–1360 BCE and Assyrian Kahat) on Jaghjagh mid-Khabur.
🇸🇾 Syria · Tell
EBA-MBA-LBA (c.3500-1200 BCE) · Euphrates EBA to Old Babylonian/Mitannian
Tell Munbaqa (Ekalte) — buried eba-mba-lba tell/village at Raqqa Governorate.
🇮🇶 Iraq · Pyramid
Hassuna–Halaf, Uruk, Middle Bronze (6000–1400 BCE) · Zagros–Mesopotamian interface
Mound on former confluence of Little Zab dammed by Dokan Lake, excavated 1957–59 by Danish Jarmo team (G. J.
🇹🇷 Turkey · Ancient city
Iron Age (c.1000–676 BCE) plus Bronze substrate · Aramaean–Neo-Hittite Samʾal
Iron Age Samʾal 40 ha triple-walled (Kuttamuwa Stele, lion orthostats) in Islahiye valley.
🇮🇳 India · Ancient village
Early Harappan Padri 3300–2600 → Sorath Mature 2600–1900 → Late Harappan 1900–1800 BCE · Sorath Harappan (Possehl) coastal variant — Early to Late Harappan
Padri — Sorath Harappan village (3300–1800 BCE) on Gulf of Khambhat at Talaja, Saurashtra, excavated 1990–93 by V.S. Shinde (Deccan College).
🇸🇾 Syria · Tell
EBA-MBA-LBA (c.3500-1200 BCE) · Euphrates EBA to Old Babylonian/Mitannian
Tell Biasi — buried eba-mba-lba tell/village at Raqqa Governorate.
🇮🇱 Israel · Ancient city
Early Bronze to Hellenistic · Canaanite → Israelite → Assyrian
Largest Canaanite and Israelite tell in Israel (100 ha total: 12 ha upper acropolis + 70 ha lower city) — 'head of all those kingdoms' (Joshua 11:10) — with Middle Bronze earthen ramparts, Late…
🇸🇾 Syria · Tell
EBA-MBA-LBA (c.3500-1200 BCE) · Euphrates EBA to Old Babylonian/Mitannian
Tell Shaykh Hassan — buried eba-mba-lba tell/village at Raqqa Governorate.
🇹🇷 Turkey · Tell
EBA-MBA-LBA (c.3500-1200 BCE) · Euphrates EBA to Old Babylonian/Mitannian
Çavi Tarlası — buried eba-mba-lba tell/village at Şanlıurfa Province.
🇹🇷 Turkey · Ancient village
PPNA to Late PPNB / Pottery Neolithic · Upper Tigris Neolithic
Neolithic village (8300–5800 BCE) on the upper Tigris near Ergani, sequence spanning PPNA to Pottery Neolithic with world-firsts: earliest pig domestication evidence, early copper working (native…
🇯🇴 Jordan · Tell
EB through Persian; LB-Iron I transition key · Ammonite frontier; EB Canaanite → LB Canaanite/Ammonite
Ammonite wadi fortress with earliest Levantine four-room house (13th c. BCE) — LB-Iron citadel, casemate-rampart and Persian farm in Madaba Plains.
🇮🇶 Iraq · Pyramid
Early Dynastic to Old Babylonian (3000–1750 BCE) · Akkadian, Eshnunna, Babylonian
Provincial capital of Hamrin–Diyala corridor identified as Me-Turan, twin to Tell Haddad and Tell al-Sib excavated 1977–87 by Iraqi State Board before Hamrin Dam, yielding 3000 cuneiform tablets of…
🇮🇶 Iraq · Pyramid
Halaf, Ubaid (6100–5500 BCE) · Halaf culture
Low mound outside Mosul lending name to Late Halaf painted ware zenith, excavated 1933 by Max Mallowan and John Cruikshank Rose and 1976 by Ismail Hijara.
🇸🇾 Syria · Tell
EBA-MBA-LBA (c.3500-1200 BCE) · Euphrates EBA to Old Babylonian/Mitannian
Tell Fray — buried eba-mba-lba tell/village at Raqqa Governorate.
🇸🇾 Syria · Tell
Pre-Pottery Neolithic A to early PPNB · Levantine PPNA/PPNB (Qaramelian)
Pre-Pottery Neolithic tell (c.12,000–10,000 BP / 10th–8th millennium BCE) 25 km north of Aleppo on the Quweiq River, with five circular tower-sanctuaries (up to 7.5 m diameter) and cult structures…
🇪🇬 Egypt · Tell
MB Second Intermediate (Hyksos) → Late/Ptolemaic Jewish · MB Hyksos → New Kingdom On → Ptolemaic Jewish community (Onias IV)
MB Hyksos rampart fortress with Leontopolis Onias Jewish temple (160 BCE) — type-site for Tell el-Yahudiya incised ware bridging Hyksos and Jewish Egypt.
🇮🇶 Iraq · Temple complex
Late Uruk to Akkadian (c.3400–2200 BCE; temple peak ED II–III 2750–2350 BCE) · Uruk → Jemdet Nasr → Early Dynastic Sumerian (Diyala) → Akkadian
Oval Shara Temple with ED votive hoard and earliest saw-tooth niche architecture.
🇹🇷 Turkey · Ancient city
Chalcolithic to Phrygian (c.4500–700 BCE; peak EB III and Hittite Empire) · Hattian → Hittite (Nesite) → Phrygian
Hattian–Hittite fortified city with Sphinx Gate and Early Bronze royal tombs rich in solar-disk bronzes.
🇷🇴 Romania · Tell
Chalcolithic (4800–3500 BCE, Cucuteni A–B) · Cucuteni-Trypillia (Cucuteni A–B)
Hilltop tell Cetățuia at Cucuteni, Iași, eponym of Cucuteni culture (western Cucuteni-Trypillia), excavated 1884 by Teodor Burada and 1909–10 by Hubert Schmidt.
