Introduction:
Rescue excavations were carried out at Giricano under the auspices of the Ilisu Dam Salvage Project between 18 August and 12 October 2000 in cooperation with the Diyarbakir Museum with generous financial support from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft and under the direction of Dr. Andreas Schachner. The site lies about 0.3 km north of the Tigris some 11 km south-east of the town of Bismil, and is endangered from the flooding by the construction of the Ilisu Dam.
 

The site was chosen for investigation because of its strategic position controlling a crossing of the Tigris. It was also considered this medium-sized site (ca. 170x120x25m) would provide an interesting contrast to the enormous site of Ziyaret Tepe which is situated on the opposite side of the Tigris and is currently being excavated by an international team directed by Tim Matney (University of Akron , USA). The site is founded on top of a low natural hill overlooking the Tigris flood plain.  The aim of the 2000 season was to investigate the stratigraphic sequence and to establish the nature of the main periods of occupation. In the course of the season one large and five smaller trenches were excavated. Three main periods of occupation were investigated during the first field season dating to the Late Bronze/Early Iron Age, Middle Bronze Age, and Chalcolithic. In addition there was an earlier Chalcolithic occupation as shown by the traces of the surface of an earlier mound at the bottom of one of our trenches and by the presence of painted Chalcolithic pottery on the surface of the mound which may date to the Halaf period.

Late Bronze - Early Iron Age transition
Apart from graves and later disturbances no remains of periods later than the Early Iron Age were found in the excavation. Immediately beneath the surface of the site a badly preserved level of this period produced examples of the typical handmade and grooved-rim decorated East Anatolian pottery of the Early Iron Age.

Below the Early Iron Age level were several pits, a fragmentary surface, and some ashy lenses. A large and only partly excavated pit is the main feature of this level. The regularly dug pit is sub-rectangular in plan with rounded edges. It contained large quantities of Middle  Assyrian sherds, which closely resemble the repertoire of sites in northern Syria and Iraq. Together with these Assyrian sherds some local forms also occurred.

Near the northern edge of this pit a pot containing 15 cuneiform tablets was found. Due to its position close to the surface within debris, which was disturbed by later graves and animal burrows, the precise relationship to the pit is not clear. Due to the precarious state of preservation of the unbaked clay tablets we decided to recover the pot as a whole and to fire it together with the tablets in a pottery kiln. Only after this procedure the tablets were recovered from the pot and further restauration was possible.

According to Karen Radner (University of Munich) the tablets record the commercial activities of a man called Ahuni, son of Kidin-Sin. In five texts he is described as coming from a village called Dunnu-ša-Uzibi, which may plausibly be identified with Giricano. In two texts Ahuni is identified as coming from Tušhan, which may lend support to the suggestion of K.-H. Kessler, that Ziyaret Tepe should be identified with this Assyrian city. 12 of the 15 texts are dated to the year of the limu Ili-iddina, who is mentioned on the Broken Obelisk, a monument attributed to the Middle Assyrian king Assur-bel-kala (1073-1056 BC). Since Ili-iddina is the fourth or the fifth limu of the reign of Assur-bel-kala the Giricano texts can be dated to the year 1069 or 1068 BC. Interestingly the texts already show many features of the Neo-Assyrian dialect. The fact that the archive contained valid loan documents which were not redeemed may suggest that Ahuni was prevented from recovering the tablets before the next harvest perhaps because Assyria lost control of the region to invaders from the north or west.

The Middle Bronze Age
Large well preserved mudbrick walls from three major consecutive buildings (Gebäude A-C) were found on the north slope of the mound. They are separated by a short hiatus from the younger levels. The later of these followed closely the plan of the older one. The close relationship between these architectural levels is also seen in the pottery inventory, which is nearly identical in all three buildings. Beside forms and wares typical for north-eastern Syria there are also pottery sherds which resemble East-Anatolian forms. In the latest building C a possibly Habur ware painted sherd was found together with the so-called Red-brown washed ware, which is the most distinctive ware found in the three buildings and which has parallels at northern Mesopotamian sites such as Tell Brak and Tell al-Rimah.

Attributed to the debris of the buildings a clay model of a house and a hemispheroid stamp seal with a rosette motif were recovered.

The Chalcolithic Period
On the southern side of the site a test trench produced well preserved architectural remains of a large and regularly planned building. From an external floor of the building some painted pottery and a clay bulla impressed with a stamp seal were found. The pottery, as well as some of the small finds from this area have their best parallels in the Gawra B period (Early Uruk) in northern Iraq (according to R. Gut, Das prähistorische Ninive, Mainz 1995).
 

Since Late Chalcolithic pottery especially Late Uruk beveled rim bowls were not found at Giricano, it seems that the settlement was abandoned before the Late Uruk period. Moreover finds dating to the 3rd millenium B.C.E. are lacking on the surface of the site as well as in the trenches excavated up to now.
 

The 2000 Team

Other sites in the Upper Tigris region
 

Contact:
Dr. Andreas Schachner
Institute of Near Eastern Archaeology, University of Munich, Germany
schachner@vaa.fak12.uni-muenchen.de

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This page was prepared by Dr. Andreas Schachner and members of the Giricano project-team in February 2001.
Copyright © Institute for Near Eastern Archaeology, University of Munich, Germany.