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NOTES
Luschan, op. cit., plate i. (In figure So, above, the
buildings marked E and F correspond with Von :on in
Luschan s J and K.) The complex, as ultimately vertible evidence. The triple doors between portico
used by Barrekub, is an interesting example of the
methods followed when the bit-hilani, which was and main room arc conjectural. One expects a
single wide door here, and need
not itself capable of extension, was too small for reconstructed plan on this point. not accept the
the builder’s purposes, and had to form part of a
40. There arc no inscriptions to date these build
larger whole. The portico of J (E in figure 8) r-«:
ings, but the very accomplished carving of the
is oil a level with the court, and the step leads
up from the portico to the main room. The lions and the identity of the carved pillar-base with
that of Barrekub’s Hilani IC at Zin^irli indicates the
stairs to the second storey are not placed in a
last third of the eighth century ij.c. Moreover, six
square tower, but between two long walls, on
sculptured limestone slabs of the time of Tiglath-
the left when one enters. The entrance room
pilcsar III were re-used as pavement. American
(Ji) is divided into two, and the main room
Journal of Archaeology, xu (1937), 8-15.
(J3) has a fixed hearth of bricks. All these arc 41. This route led from Nisibin via Guzana (Tell
merely unusual features. But the following illus Halaf), Harran, Khadatu (Arslan Tash) to the
trate the methods of enlargement: observe that Euphrates crossing at either Til Barsip or Car-
there is no proof for any direct connexion between chcmish. Til Barsip was taken by the Assyrians in
the bit-hilani (J) and the oblong building behind it;
856, Carchcmish was subjugated in 849, and finally
all the intermediate doors arc conjectural. It is taken in 717 b.c. Bittcl (Zcitschrift fiir Assyriologie,
possible that the first room was divided and that N.F., xv, 284) loses sight of the political signifi
J2, now separated by a door with a stone still from cance of this route, when he seeks to explain the
Ji, was made to serve as main room precisely be distribution of north Syrian art by claiming diff
cause J3 had become a space connecting the bit erent relations between Hurrians and Aramaeans.
hilani with the secondary rooms behind it. I11 any East of the Euphrates the country was Assyrian
ease it is the only inside room decorated with low from about 800 B.c. onward. West of the Euphrates
orthostats round its walls. The rooms at the back vassal princes maintained a degree of independence
of J3 include bathrooms and toilets (J6) and pre which called for palace sculpture, until die end of
sumably bedrooms, as in the Upper Palace. the eighth century when Assyrian governors had
Bit-hilani K was evidently planned in view of the everywhere taken the place of the local rulers.
available space. Beyond the main room there was 42. The date of the sculptures has for many
only room for the small room K3. The rest of the years been a matter of controversy, with Von
area was taken up by magazines (J14) belonging Oppenheim and Hcrzfcld arguing vigorously for a
to the complex J. The main room in K had a fixed Third-Millennium origin, which had always seemed
hearth and a low dais for a throne against a short impossible. The matter was settled in an article by
wall beyond it. At the west side of K arc a number Raymond Bowman, ‘The Old Aramaic Alphabet
of service and living-rooms, including a bathroom at Tell Halaf’, to which Robert J. Braidwood con
L6 with a handled bath-tub of bronze. Von Lus tributed an important study of the small objects
chan thinks of this suite of rooms as a harem, with from Tell Halaf in which lie compared them with
building J as the royal residence and building K the liis own discoveries at Tell Jedeidch in the plain ot
Antioch, American Journal of Semitic Languages and
ceremonial palace (op. cit., 261).
Literatures, lvui (1941)» 359-<>7- The archaeological
35. R. Naumann, Tell Halaf, n, figure 36. It was
p. 174 material gives a range from S50 to 600 b.c., the
placed about five feet in front of the easternmost
lion. At Carchcmish, too, polychrome glazed palacographic material points to ‘the last half of the
ninth or to the beginning of die eighth century
bricks were used (Woolley and Barnett, Carchcmish,
b.c.’. The authors of Tell Halaf II assign Kaparu to
in, plate 33). 850-30 b.c. They emphasize that the Aramaic
36. R. Naumann, Tell Halaf, u, figure 165. buildings of the Kaparu dynasty arc the first im
37. Op. cit., figure 184 shows this very clearly. portant remains on the site. The final publication
of the sculpture has not yet appeared. Baron Ma.
38. See above, n. 34 (p. 255). Oppenheim’s Tell Halaf A New CidUirc
39. The plan in American Journal of Archaeology, von
Oldest Mesopotamia (London and New York, I93il
XU (l937)* £gurc 4 011 P* 9 shows a side-entrance is boastful and misleading but well il ustrated.
mitted in the reconstruction of plate arguments, on 143 ff. intended to show that
I5^,C which was also published by the excavator.
256
