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Tell Halaf

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Tell Halaf

Tell Halaf (Arabic: تل حلف) is an archaeological site in Al-Hasakah in northeastern Syria, a few kilometers from the city of Ras al-Ayn near the Syria–Turkey border. The site, which dates to the sixth millennium BCE, was the first to be excavated from a Neolithic culture, later called the Halaf culture, characterized by glazed pottery painted with geometric and animal designs.

It is thought to have been historically named Guzana, i.e. the Biblical Gozan.

Tell Halaf is the type site of the Halaf culture, which developed from Neolithic III at this site without any strong break. The Tell Halaf site flourished from around 6100 to 5400 BCE, a period of time that is referred to as the Halaf period.

The Halaf culture was succeeded in northern Mesopotamia by the Ubaid culture (c. 5300-4300 BC). The site was then abandoned for a long period.

The Mitanni Empire controlled this region in the 15th century BC until around 1345 BC.

In the Late Bronze, Suppiluliuma I of Hatti conquered the Mitanni stronghold of Carchemish, leading to the assassination of Tushratta of Mitanni around 1345 BC. With the fall of the Mitanni Empire, Carchemish became the seat of a hittite viceroy who ruled the region with the remnants of Mitanni as a bufferstate to the independent Assyrians in the east. Tell Halaf became a Hittite city led by the viceroy of Carchemish.

Ramesses III of Egypt states in an inscription dating to his 8th Year from his Medinet Habu mortuary temple that Carchemish was destroyed by the "Sea Peoples". This was a period of climate change and social unrest caused by drought, weakening the central powers, and marking the transition from the Late Bronze to the Iron Age. Furthermore, it saw the emergences of Neo-Hittite city-states.

In the 10th century BCE, the rulers of the small Aramaean kingdom Bit Bahiani took their seat in Tell Halaf, re-founded as Guzana or Gozan. King Kapara built the so-called hilani, a palace in Neo-Hittite style with a rich decoration of statues and relief orthostats. These sculptures, even though it is not known how, were fundamental to the portrayal of Kapara along with their political power. By the end of the 9th century, it was a famous Syro-Hittite state.

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