Between 11th and 25th October 1977, an archaeological survey sponsored by the Institute of Archaeology, London University, was made in the area around Tell Rifa‘at. Thirty-four sites were studied. They were chosen because they were all marked on the 1:50,000 map with the title “Tell”. Twenty-four of them were found to have tells of ancient human occupation, while the rest could have gained the title because of their situation on some rocky prominence. The main purpose of the survey was to determine the settlement patterns in the area for every period of its past. A special interest of the expedition was the topography of Bit-Agusi, the Aramaean kingdom which flourished in the area in the 9th and 8th centuries B.C.