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The Excavations at Yanik Tepe, Azerbaijan, 1961 Second Preliminary Report

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 August 2014

C. A. Burney
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Extract

The excavations at Yanik Tepe, a prehistoric mound twenty miles south-west of Tabriz, were begun in 1960, when building levels of one period only were all that could be investigated. The site clearly required further excavations, if possible on a larger scale, and these were carried out during a period of eight weeks, beginning in mid-August 1961. All archaeological excavations must have an over-riding purpose, and that of the work at Yanik Tepe, itself a seemingly obscure settlement in a little known region, is to try to make this region to some extent comprehensible to students of the archaeology of Iran and of the Near East as a whole. The site was chosen originally by me with this objective in mind, with the particular hope that it might provide some much needed evidence for the prehistory of eastern Anatolia, and perhaps also of Trans-Caucasia, more especially during the third millennium B.C., commonly called the Early Bronze Age. But the purpose and extent of the excavations at Yanik Tepe were never intended to be confined to one cultural period, however interesting. It was hoped to reveal the story of this agricultural community in north-west Persia over a considerable period of time. This hope has already been realized, since the excavations of 1961, though requiring continuation in 1962, have uncovered remains of Late Chalcolithic levels of the mid-fourth millennium B.C. and of later periods down to c. 600 B.C. and beyond, in areas of the mound untouched in 1960 (see Fig. 1). The sequence of cultural periods is a very long one, even though there are gaps, especially in the second millennium B.C., for which other sites may have to provide the material evidence. Yanik Tepe was never a major town, but it should add very significantly to knowledge of the ancient Near East.

Type
Research Article
Information
IRAQ , Volume 24 , Issue 2 , Autumn 1962 , pp. 134 - 152
Copyright
Copyright © The British Institute for the Study of Iraq 1962

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References

1 For the preliminary report, see Iraq XXIII (1961), Pt. 2, pp. 138–53Google Scholar.

2 My thanks are due to the sponsoring institutions which supported the excavations and also to the staff of the expedition. I am grateful to the following for their contributions: the University of Manchester (£700); the University Museum, Cambridge (Crowper-Beynon Fund) (£150); the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford (£150); the British Academy (£100); the City Museum and Art Gallery, Birmingham (£100); the City Museum, Liverpool (£100); the Institute of Archaeology, University of London (V. Gordon Childe Memorial Fund) (£50). The members of the staff for the 1961 season were: Messrs. James Coulton, Nicholas Harington, Peter Warburton (Archaeological Assistants); Malcolm Colledge (Draughtsman); Peter Fordham (Architect and Surveyor). To them all is owed the success of the season's work, and above all to my wife, who was responsible for colour photography and keeping the register of finds, as well as for housekeeping, and without whose help the work of the Director would have been impossibly onerous.

3 The E.B.A. I period at Yanik Tepe was noi necessarily contemporary with the East Anatolian E.B. I period: it may well be more or less equivalent to the East Anatolian E.B. II period (see A.S. VIII (1958). pp. 164–72)Google Scholar.

4 Iraq XXIII, Pt. 2, pp. 145–6Google Scholar.

5 No. 30 has a bull's head at the base of its bridge-spout, suggesting derivation from an Urartian prototype. This, together with nos. 35 and 37, makes a date later than c. 600 B.C. improbable, while certain bowl forms (see footnote 33) seem to be immediate forerunners of forms of Achaemenid date, making a higher dating unlikely.

6 I am indebted to T. Cuyler Young Jnr. for this information.

7 The precise sequence throughout the Chalcolithic levels should become clear during the 1962 season.

8 Antiquity XXXIV (1960), p. 26Google Scholar.

9 Ibid. Three successive cultural stages, from early to late Chalcolithic, have now been distinguished, giving a complete sequence, in the Hasanlu area.

10 Burton-Brown, T.: Excavations in Azerbaijan 1948, p. 17ffGoogle Scholar.

11 Compare (e.g.) with a more naturalistic rendering of animals on a bowl from Sialic III (Ghirshman, R.: Fouilles de Sialk I (Paris, 1938)Google Scholar, pl. XIV, no. 3) and with a stylized variant from Sialk II (ibid., p. 28, fig. 3: 1).

12 The finest example, unfortunately in private possession, is a painted figurine from Hacilar.

13 Possibly from Mount Sahend, not far to the east of Yanik Tepe. A flake has been submitted for spectographic analysis, at the request of Mr. Colin Renfrew, of Cambridge.

14 The entire Late Chalcolithic sequence has thus been uncovered in this sondage, except for the deepest levels, not yet reached.

15 Antiquity XXXV (1961), pp. 239–40Google Scholar.

16 See my suggested scheme for the chronology of the East Anatolian E.B.A. (A.S. VIII, pp. 206–7)Google Scholar. Radio-carbon samples from Yanik Tepe will be analysed fairly soon.

17 Compare the diameters of (e.g.) Circles 2 and 16 (Iraq XXIII, Pt. 2, p. 144Google Scholar).

18 Antiquity XXXV, p. 238Google Scholar.

19 Iraq XXIII, Pt. 2, p. 146Google Scholar.

20 Antiquity XXXV, p. 238Google Scholar.

21 Fouilles de Sialk I, pls. XCII–XCIII.

22 Iraq XXIII, Pt. 2, p. 147Google Scholar.

23 Antiquity XXXV, p. 238Google Scholar (fig. 1) and Iraq XXIII, Pt. 2, p. 147Google Scholar.

24 Iraq XXIII, Pt. 2, p. 139Google Scholar, and Antiquity XXXV, pp. 237 & 240Google Scholar.

25 Altogether five sub-phases (1, 2, 2A, 3 and 4) were distinguished: they did not occur over the whole area, but were largely in the nature of modifications to individual rooms.

26 Fugmann, E.: Hama (Fouilles et Recherches de la Fondation Carlsberg 1931–8) (Copenhagen, 1958), pp. 208–36Google Scholar, especially 232–3.

27 Cf. Iraq XXIII, Pt. 2, Pl. LXXIII (no. 46) and also, for its general distribution, A.S. VIII, pp. 168–9Google Scholar.

28 Cf. (though in this respect only) the surface of the L.B.A. pottery from Beycesultan Level II, in south-west Anatolia. At Yanik Tepe, however, this metallic appearance was not obtained by the use of mica in the day.

29 A common occurrence on prehistoric mounds around Lake Urmia. Even pots which appear at first sight to be free of salt are found to need prolonged soaking in water before most of the salt can be removed.

30 Excavations in Azerbaijan 1948, p. 141ffGoogle Scholar.

31 See Science 1962, Vol. 135, no. 3504, pp. 639–41Google Scholar.

32 Expedition (Philadelphia), Vol. I, no. 3 (Spring 1959), p. 17Google Scholar, for the date of the destruction of the burnt level at Hasanlu. Grey ware was predominant from c. 1025–c. 800 B.C. (on the evidence of radiocarbon dates). There is no such grey ware in the pits at Yanik Tepe.

33 I am indebted to T. Cuyler Young Jnr. for this information.

34 I am indebted to Mr. David Stronach for this information.