Revisiting Hanigalbat:

Settlement in the Western Provinces

of the Middle Assyrian Kingdom
JEFFREY SZUCHMAN
University of California, Los Angeles

Archaeological surveys and Assyrian texts have suggested to many

scholars that the pastoral nomadic predecessors of first-millennium BC Aramaean kingdoms became sedentary farmers in Syria
and Turkey at the end of the Late Bronze Age. By doing so, they
exploited the power vacuum in Hanigalbat that followed the
decline of the Hittite and Middle Assyrian kingdoms. However, the
anthropology of modern pastoral nomadism indicates that sedentarization is more likely to occur under conditions of political and
economic stability, rather than during periods of political chaos.
The rigid administrative and economic control over Hanigalbat
during the height of Middle Assyrian authority would, therefore,
have acted as a catalyst toward the early sedentarization of tribal
communities. Indeed, several archaeological surveys suggest that
new sites were occupied in the Middle Assyrian period that may
have been settled by sedentarizing pastoral nomads. These communities probably contributed to the regional social and economic
system of the Middle Assyrian kingdom, giving Aramaeans ample
time in which to develop the foundations for strong sedentary
dynasties and to adopt and adapt to Assyrian culture.

After the Mittani decline in the fourteenth century BC, the occupation and
administration of Hanigalbat, the territory of the former Mittani kingdom, were
among the greatest concerns of the expanding Middle Assyrian kingdom. The
success of the effort that Middle Assyrians expended in their western provinces
is evidenced by texts that allude to the agricultural productivity,1 labor supply,2

This paper was presented originally at the 2005 ASOR Annual Meeting in Philadelphia, and
some elements were first developed during a seminar conducted by Elizabeth Carter and
Guillermo Algaze at UCLA in the spring of 2005. I am grateful for their comments and for
the comments of Steve Rosen, Aaron Burke, and Jason Ur, which helped shape its final form.
1

See F.A.M. Wiggerman, Agriculture in the Northern Balikh Valley: The Case of
Middle Assyrian Tell Sabi Abyad, in R.M. Jas, ed., Rainfall and Agriculture in Northern
Mesopotamia, Proceedings of the Third MOS Symposium (MOS Studies 3, Leiden 2000) 171
231.
2

For example, YBC 12862, an Amuda text listing rations given to agricultural workers.

531
Studies on the Civilization and Culture of Nuzi and the Hurrians - 18
2009. All rights reserved.

532

JEFFREY SZUCHMAN

and international prestige3 that the occupation of Hanigalbat offered to the

Assyrian kingdom. These achievements, however, were by no means easily
accomplished. Assyrian officials faced a number of obstacles, including unwilling and idle laborers,4 foreign powers unwillingness to recognize Assyrian
rulers as Great Kings,5 and, perhaps most vexing to the Middle Assyrian
kings, the constant threat of aggression by local populations, especially the
semi-nomadic tribes of the Syrian Jazira.
In recent decades, new excavations, surveys, and publications of texts from
both within Hanigalbat and the Assyrian heartland have increased our understanding of the structure of the Assyrian administration and economy in Hanigalbat at the end of the Late Bronze Age. Our knowledge of the local populations of Hanigalbat, however, remains poorly understood. Published Assyrian textual sources and archaeological surveys of north Syria and Iraq can offer
new insights into the effects of the Assyrian presence on the local cultures of
Hanigalbat, especially the Late Bronze Age pastoral nomads who were the predecessors of the Aramaean dynasties of the first millennium BC. These seminomadic tribes are designated by the term alamu in texts from Adad-nerari I
(13071275) and Shalmaneser I (12741245), but Tiglath-pileser I (11141076)
was the first Assyrian king to append the designation Aramaean to this
group, consistently referring to them as alamu-Aramaeans. The first occurrence of this term appears in a report on an Assyrian campaign in Tiglathpileser Is fourth year.6

See P. Machinist, Provincial Governance in Middle Assyria and Some New Texts from
Yale, Assur 3 (1982) 137.
3 For example, in EA 16, Aur-uballit introduces himself as a Great King: S[ay] to
[, Great King], King of Egypt, my brother. Thus Aur-uballit, king of [Assy]ria, Great
King, your brother. I send as your greeting-gift a beautiful royal chariot out[fitt]ed for me,
and 2 white horses also [out]fitted for me, 1 chariot not outfitted, and 1 seal of genuine lapis
lazuli. Is such a present that of a Great King? See W. Moran, The Amarna Letters (Baltimore
1992) 3839.
4 For example, 92.G.138 from Chuera. See C. Khne, Ein Mittelassyrisches
Verwaltungsarchiv und Andere Keilschrifttexte, in W. Orthmann, R. Hempelmann, H.
Klein, C. Khne, M. Novak, A. Pruss, E. Vila, H.-M. Weicken and A. Wener, Ausgrabungen
in Tell Chuera in Nordost-Syrien I: Vorbericht ber die Grabungskampagnen 19861992
(Saarbrcken 1995) 20325:

ERN.ME la i-ri-qu

pl-ka-n i-il-a-u-nu
i-ri-a [G] i-u-u
a-di -mu.ME i--bu-ni
a-na SIG4.ME -ru-du-n

The troops should not be idle:

Assign them work areas!
They have dredged banks of the trench
As long as the weather is good
They should bring down the bricks.

5 See, for example EA 9, sent by Burra-Buriya to Egypt: Now, as for my Assyrian

vassals, I was not the one who sent them to you. Why on their own authority have they come
to your country? If you love me, they will conduct no business whatsoever. Send them off
to me empty-handed. Moran 1992, 18.
6

A.K. Grayson, Assyrian Rulers of the Early First Millennium BC I (1114859 BC) (The

REVISITING HANIGALBAT

533

1. Middle Assyrian Hanigalbat

1.a. Problems in the Study of Middle Assyrian Hanigalbat
Based on textual references to the mobility of alamu and their association with
marginal environmental zones, scholars are generally in agreement that the
alamu mentioned in the early Middle Assyrian texts and the alamu-Aramaeans of the later texts were a pastoral nomadic group that remained primarily
mobile as late as the eleventh century BC.7 But by the start of the Neo-Assyrian
resurgence in the Iron Age, Aramaeans, now appearing in Assyrian sources
without the alamu appellation, had established sedentary dynasties east and
west of the Euphrates. These Aramaean dynasties were the targets of Assyrian
campaigns beginning in the reign of Adad-nerari II (911891), who mentions
the Aramaean city of Gozan, modern Tell Halaf, in the early ninth century.8
Faced with evidence of Aramaean mobility at the end of the second millennium and sedentary Aramaean dynasties at the beginning of the first
millennium, many have concluded that Aramaeans settled en masse in Syria and
Turkey during the dark age between the Middle and Neo-Assyrian periods.9
According to this model, by becoming sedentary farmers, Aramaeans were able
to move in and fill the power vacuum in Hanigalbat that followed the demise
of the Hittite kingdom and the decline of the Middle Assyrian kingdom. To
some extent archaeological surveys in the Iraqi Jazira,10 northeast Syria,11 the

Royal Inscriptions of Mesopotamia Assyrian Periods 2, Toronto 1991)=RIMA 2, A.0.87.1 44

60.
7

G.M. Schwartz, The Origins of the Aramaeans in Syria and Northern Mesopotamia:
Research Problems and Potential Strategies, in O.M.C. Haex, H.H. Curvers and P.M.M.G.
Akkermans, eds., To the Euphrates and Beyond: Archaeological Studies in Honour of Maurits N.
Van Loon (Rotterdam 1989) 20127; R. Zadok, Elements of Aramaean Pre-History, in M.
Cogan and I. Ephal, eds., Ah, Assyria...: Studies in Assyrian History and Ancient Near Eastern
Historiography Presented to Hayim Tadmor (Jerusalem 1991) 10417; G. Bunnens, Aramaeans,
Hittites and Assyrians in the Upper Euphrates Valley, in G. del Olmo Lete and J.-L.
Montero Fenolls, eds., Archaeology of the Upper Syrian Euphrates, the Tishrin Dam Area,
Proceedings of the international symposium held at Barcelona, January 28th30th, 1998
(Barcelona 1999) 605624; H. Sader, Aramaean Kingdoms of Syria: Origin and Formation
Processes, in G. Bunnens, Essays on Syria in the Iron Age (Ancient Near Eastern Studies
Supplement 7, Louvain 2000) 6176.
8

RIMA 2:A.0.99.2,100.

Schwartz 1989; T.C. McClellan, The 12th Century BC in Syria: Comments on H.

Saders Paper, in W.A. Ward and M.S. Joukowsky, eds., The Crisis Years: The 12th Century
BC, from Beyond the Danube to the Tigris (Dubuque 1992) 16473; H. Sader, The 12th Century
BC in Syria: The Problem of the Rise of the Aramaeans, in W.A. Ward, ed., M.S. Joukowsky,
The Crisis Years: The 12th Century BC, from Beyond the Danube to the Tigris (Dubuque 1992)
15763; P.M.M.G. Akkermans and G. Schwartz, The Archaeology of Syria (Cambridge 2003)
367.
10

T.J. Wilkinson and D.J. Tucker, Settlement Development in the North Jezira, Iraq (Iraq
Archaeological Reports 3, Wiltshire 1995).
11

D. Meijer, A Survey in Northeastern Syria (Istanbul 1986).

534

JEFFREY SZUCHMAN

Lower and Upper Khabur,12 and along the Balikh13 seem to bear this out. These
surveys show a decrease in settlements during the Late Bronze Age, followed
by a marked increase in the number of Iron Age settlements,14 and the new
settlements of formerly pastoral nomadic Aramaeans probably contributed
significantly to this increase in settlement density.15
However, there are several problems with this model of Aramaean settlement. In the first place, it allows for just over a century, perhaps two generations, in which Aramaeans must have established these powerful sedentary
dynasties. Whether the early Aramaean Kapara palace at Tell Halaf, for
example, is to be dated to the early or late ninth century,16 there must have been
some prior dynastic growth in the Gozan region that facilitated the establishment of an urban capital there. The presence of early monumental Aramaean
art and architecture modeled after Hittite and Assyrian prototypes at sites such
as Tell Halaf and Zincirli suggest that these cities must have been the culmination of a lengthy process of settlement.
In addition to chronological inconsistencies, another drawback to this
scheme is that it stands in opposition to what the anthropology of pastoral
nomadism in the twentieth century makes strikingly clear: that sedentarization
is much more likely to occur under conditions of political and economic
stability, not during periods of political chaos such as that witnessed at the turn
of the first millennium BC. Although there are many factors and mechanisms
under which Near Eastern pastoral nomads become sedentary, ethnographies

12

W. Rllig and H. Khne, Lower Khabur: Second Preliminary Report on a Survey in

1977, AAAS 33 (1983) 187189; B. Lyonnet, La Prospection Archologique de la Partie
Occidentale Du Haut-Khabur (Syrie Du Nord-Est): Mthodes, Rsultats et Questions
Autour de lOccupation Aux IIIe et IIe Millnaires av. N. , in J.-M. Durand, ed., Amurru I:
Mari, bla, et les Hourrites (Paris 1996) 36376.
13 T.J. Wilkinson, Water and Human Settlement in the Balikh Valley, Syria: Investigations from 19921995, Journal of Field Archaeology 25 (1998) 6387; J. Lyon, Middle
Assyrian Expansion and Settlement Development in the Syrian Jazira: The View from the
Balikh Valley, in R. Jas, Rainfall and Agriculture in Northern Mesopotamia (Mos Studies 3,
Leiden 2000) 89126.
14

Wilkinson and Barbanes note that Iron Age settlements are probably under-represented in both Meijers northeast Syria survey and Lyonnets western Khabur survey. See
T.J. Wilkinson and E. Barbanes, Settlement Patterns in the Syrian Jazira During the Iron
Age, in G. Bunnens, ed., Essays on Syria in the Iron Age (Ancient Near Eastern Studies
Supplement 7, Louvain 2000) 417.
15 Wilkinson and Barbanes 2000; T.J. Wilkinson, Archaeological Survey and Long-Term
Population Trends in Upper Mesopotamia and Iran, in N.F. Miller and K. Abdi, eds., Yeki
Bud, Yeki Nabud: Essays on the Archaeology of Iran in Honor of William M. Sumner (Los Angeles
2003) 3951.
16

For dating of the Kapara palace, see I. Winter, North Syrian Ivories and Tell Halaf
Reliefs: The Impact of Luxury Goods Upon Major Arts, in A. Leonard Jr. and B.B.
Williams, eds., Essays in Ancient Civilization Presented to Helene J. Kantor (Studies in Ancient
Oriental Civilization 47, Chicago 1989) 32132 and E. Lipiski, The Aramaeans: Their Ancient
History, Culture, Religion (Leuven 2000) 12932.

REVISITING HANIGALBAT

535

indicate that a strong central administration is a prerequisite for sedentarization in most cases. As the settlement of Basseri in Iran,17 Yrk in Turkey,18
Bedouin in Jordan,19 and many other tribes in many other regions shows,
sedentarization, though not always dependent on political stability, becomes
much more viable under a strong centralized administration.
The fact that Near Eastern pastoral nomads practice a diversity of economic
pursuits and interact with settled communities via a diversity of mechanisms
is by now well established.20 The mechanics of sedentarization is another aspect
of diversity among pastoral nomadic communities. An individual family may
settle in an existing town, they may settle in a new town, entire tribes may settle
at once, or they may settle gradually over a number of years or generations.
Notwithstanding such diversity, it is clear that in a large number of cases,
sedentarization depends upon a strong central administration capable of maintaining peaceful conditions and a robust economy. For example, Barths famous
dictum that among the Basseri the wealthiest and the poorest tribe members
become sedentary is only possible under conditions of economic and political
stability. Similarly, in cases when nomadic groups are pressured to sedentarize
by the central administration in order to expand agricultural production, as in
the case of the Yrk in Turkey,21 or to reduce the autonomy of the tribes, as in
the case of Reza Shahs policies in Iran in the first half of the twentieth century,
a strong central government is essential. Thus, although the presence of a stable
urban regime does not necessarily lead to sedentarization, the process is certainly more likely to take place against a backdrop of political and economic stability.
In light of the evidence for sedentarization among modern pastoral
nomadic tribes, the current model of mass Aramaean sedentarization during
the dark age at the close of the Late Bronze Age seems inadequate. It is more
likely that Aramaean nomads would have begun to settle under the conditions
of political stability and economic control that the Middle Assyrian regime
brought to Hanigalbat after the fall of Mittani.

17

F. Barth, Nomads of South Persia (Boston 1961).

18

D. Bates, Nomads and Farmers: A Study of the Yrk of Southeastern Turkey (Anthropological papers of the Museum of Anthropology 52, Ann Arbor 1973).
19 K.S. Abu Jaber, F.A. Gharaibeh and A. Hill, The Badia of Jordan: The Process of Change
(Amman 1987); E.J. van der Steen, Tribes and Territories in Transition: The Central East Jordan
Valley in the Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Ages: A Study of the Sources (OLA 130, Leuven
2004).
20 P.C. Salzman, Multi-Resource Nomadism in Iranian Baluchistan, in W. Irons and N.
Dyson-Hudson, eds., Perspectives on Nomadism (Leiden 1972) 6068, among many others.
21 Bates 1973; D. Bates, Yoruk Settlement in Southeast Turkey, in P.C. Salzman, When
Nomads Settle: Processes of Sedentarization as Adaptation and Response (New York 1980) 12439.

536

JEFFREY SZUCHMAN

1.b. The Middle Assyrian Administration and Economy of Hanigalbat.

The Middle Assyrian provincial administrative system instituted by Shalmaneser I and Tukulti-Ninurta I (12441208) was similar to that applied by the later
Neo-Assyrian kings. Under this system, the Assyrian king was only three steps
removed from the population of the peripheries. Beneath him, the sukkallu rab,
or ar anigalbat, King of Hanigalbat, was in command of all provincial
administrators (bl pete). Within the provinces (putu) themselves, these bl
pete oversaw a population that was made up of local Hanigalbateans, peoples
from other conquered territories, and native Assyrians. This demographic and
administrative restructuring of Hanigalbat would have altered the lives of
pastoral nomad groups, which had not witnessed centralized control since the
decline of Mittani. The Middle Assyrian impact on alamu-Aramaeans would,
therefore, have been profound, forcing changes to their economy, range of
movement, and ultimately their social and political structure.
In addition to administrative control, the Middle Assyrian period ushered
a new economic structure into Hanigalbat. During the height of Middle Assyrian hegemony in Syria, the Upper Tigris and Khabur Basin became a focus of
agricultural production. The area of intensive cultivation around Middle Assyrian urban centers was probably expanded by implementing a new canal
irrigation system both in the upper and lower Khabur and in the Balikh valley.22
Some wealthy families were granted cities that served as agricultural production centers. Sabi Abyad, Tell Abyad to its north (Dunnu Aur),23 and Giricano
(Dunnu-a-Uzibi)24 on the Upper Tigris were among these Middle Assyrian
dunnu. In his study of the Middle Assyrian texts from Sabi Abyad, Wiggerman
describes dunnus as fortified agricultural production centers granted to an
individual family by the Assyrian king, the owner of which had a residence
both at the dunnu and at a city outside the dunnu.25 The sole purpose of a dunnu
was farming, and the farmers who worked the dunnu fields were dependent
employees of the dunnu-owning family. Middle Assyrian dunnus could be quite
large. Wiggerman calculates an area of 2076 ha of cultivated land at Sabi
Abyad.26 Radners analysis of the Giricano texts suggests to her that, at least in
the Upper Tigris region, dunnus accounted for most of the agricultural land in
22

H. Khne, The Effects of Irrigation Agriculture: Bronze and Iron Age Habitation
Along the Khabur, Eastern Syria, in S. Bottema, G. Entjes-Nieborg and W. Van Zeist, eds.,
Mans Role in the Shaping of the Eastern Mediterranean Landscape (Rotterdam 1990) 1530;
F.A.M. Wiggerman, Agriculture in the Northern Balikh Valley: The Case of Middle
Assyrian Tell Sabi Abyad, in R.M. Jas, ed., Rainfall and Agriculture in Northern Mesopotamia,
Proceedings of the Third MOS Symposium (MOS Studies 3, Leiden 2000) 171231.
23 See R. Koliski, Mesopotamian Dimtu of the Second Millennium BC (BAR International
Series 1004, Oxford 2001) 63.
24 See also E. C. Cancik-Kirschbaum, Die Mittelassyrischen Briefe aus Tall h Hamad
(Berichte der Ausgrabung Tall h Hamad / Dur-Katlimmu, Band 4, Berlin 1996).
25

Wiggerman 2000, 17274.

26

Wiggerman 2000, 18083.

REVISITING HANIGALBAT

537

the Middle Assyrian kingdom. 27 This dunnu system was thus clearly vital for
the functioning of the Middle Assyrian economy.
TABLE

REFERENCES TO PASTORAL PRODUCTS

IN PUBLISHED TEXTS FROM HANIGALBAT

Archive
Amuda
Giricano
Sabi Abyad
Rimah
Chuera
Fakhariya
Total

No. of Texts
5
15
3
97
11
7
138

References to
Pastoral Products

1
4
2

In contrast to this expansive agricultural production, sheep and goat

herding was probably not a significant feature of the dunnu system. At Sabi
Abyad, Wiggerman calculates an area of 1524 ha outside the cultivated land
that was available for pasture, waste, woods, etc.,28 but the extent of exploitation of this land by domestic shepherds is not certain. References to herd
animals, pasturage, or even wool or textiles is exceedingly rare in the Middle
Assyrian archives from Hanigalbat. In fact, out of 138 published texts from Tell
Amuda,29 Giricano,30 Sabi Abyad,31 Tell al-Rimah,32 Tell Chuera,33 and Tell
Fakhariya,34 only seven mention any items associated with pastoralism (Table
1). In some of these cases, it appears that shepherds function outside the purview of the dunnus authoritative scope. A text from Sabi Abyad, for example,
specifies the punishment to be meted out to the shepherd who does not return
to the dunnu at the specified time.35 The available evidence, therefore, suggests

27 K. Radner, Das Mittelassyrische Tontafelarchiv von Giricano/Dunnu-Sha-Uzibi: Ausgrabungen in Giricano I (Subartu 14, Turnhout 2004) 71.
28

Wiggerman 2000, 183.

29

Machinist 1982.

30

Radner 2004.

31

Wiggerman 2000.

32

H.W.F. Saggs, The Tell al Rimah Tablets, 1965, Iraq 30 (1968) 15474; D.J. Wiseman,
The Tell al Rimah Tablets, 1966, Iraq 30 (1968) 175205.
33

C. Khne 1995.

34

H.G. Gterbock, The Cuneiform Tablets, in C.W. McEwan, L.S. Braidwood, H.

Frankfort, H.G. Gterbock, R.C. Haines, H.J. Kantor and C.H. Kraeling, Soundings at Tell
Fakhariyah (OIP 79, Chicago 1958) 8690.
35 According to T9834, the punishment for tardiness is 100 blows (with a rod)
Wiggerman 2000, 200.

538

JEFFREY SZUCHMAN

that the dunnus were really purely agricultural enterprises,36 and that a large
portion of their meat, dairy, and textile products must have been acquired
through trade with pastoral nomads.
1.c. Potential Effects of Administration and Economy on Local Nomads
Hanigalbat in the late second millennium BC would thus have looked like a
patchwork of urban administrative centers like Ziyaret Tepe (Tuhan) and Tell
Sheikh Hamad (Dur Katlimmu), and family run agricultural production centers like Giricano and Sabi Abyad, occupied by ethnically diverse, dependent
farmers and a few herders (Fig. 1). Specialized pastoral nomads would have
ranged throughout the interstices of the dunnus and administrative centers,
supplying the agrarian-centered Middle Assyrian economy with sheep and
goat products. In such a highly specialized regional economy, the wealthiest
tribal elite stood only to increase their wealth in proportion to the increased
demand by dunnu owners and dependents for sheep/goat products that the
dunnu itself was not equipped to produce. The rapid accumulation of wealth
during this period may have been a factor that led to the early sedentarization

FIG. 1
Map of Middle Assyrian Hanigalbat

36

Koliski 2001, 10910.

REVISITING HANIGALBAT

539

of nomads. Wealthy tribal leaders would have reinvested excess wealth in land,
a maneuver that was likely encouraged by the Assyrian provincial administrators.
The consequences of the political and economic control exerted by the
Middle Assyrian administration over the inhabitants of Hanigalbat would have
facilitated the sedentarization of nomads in a number of ways. Canal irrigation
would have expanded agricultural land and diminished the amount of pasturage available to nomads. New urban administrative centers and agricultural
production facilities would have altered migration routes. Assyrian military
presence in Hanigalbat would have reduced raiding and enforced conscription
of tribe members. Taxation would have provided extra incentive for nomads to
supplement pastoralism with agriculture. In short, the Assyrian presence in
Hanigalbat must have imposed a significant burden on the pastoral nomadic
way of life and acted as a catalyst toward the sedentarization of large segments
of tribal communities.
2. Settlement in Middle Assyrian Hanigalbat
The extant textual and ethnoarchaeological data hint that the sedentarization of
nomads was not nearly as straightforward as the current model suggests. Mass
settlement was unlikely to have taken place rapidly in the administrative chaos
that came after the decline of the Assyrian kingdom. Rather, sedentarization
might have been underway already during the period of Middle Assyrian
expansion and control. Several archaeological surveys that have been undertaken mostly over the last two decades in the Iraqi and Syrian Jazira also show
some indications that new settlements were being occupied in the Middle Assyrian period in areas that would have been best suited to exploitation by pastoral
nomads. The existence of these new settlements supports the suggestion that
nomadic families were beginning the process of sedentarization during this
period.
2.a. The Limitations of Survey Data
Archaeological surface surveys naturally present a number of limitations in
terms of their analytical value. Because the surveys under consideration here
cover a very large area, they can present even greater difficulties for the analyst.
Nearly all the surveys were conducted based on visual scanning of the survey
area and interviews with local residents. This method of site identification and
the non-systematic nature of sherd collection at each site means that quantitative comparisons within and between survey regions are impossible. Furthermore, there are remaining problems in the pottery sequence for several periods,
including the Late Bronze Age, which makes attributing a particular site to a
particular historical period difficult. Finally, the problematic issue of site size
determination for a given period prohibits any rank-size correlation.
We must contend with an additional complication in the study of Late
Bronze Age Hanigalbat. That is, although the Late Bronze Age encompasses the

540

JEFFREY SZUCHMAN

rise and fall of two significant political entities, the Mittani and Middle Assyrian
kingdoms, it is often difficult to distinguish between the ceramic remains of
these two entities. The surveys examined here generally solve this problem by
treating the period as one chronological unit. For example, although Wilkinson
and Tucker subdivide the second millennium in the Iraqi Jazira into three
historical periods,37 they divide the ceramics into types that correspond only to
the first and second halves of the second millennium BC: Khabur wares and
Middle Assyrian wares respectively. Periodization of political history and
archaeological classification do not coincide here, resulting in maps of Middle
Assyrian period settlement that may incorporate the effects of the fall of the
Mittani kingdom. Therefore, the settlement decrease apparent in the Middle
Assyrian period might just as well reflect the ruralization, or even nomadization, that followed the collapse of the Mittani kingdom, rather than ruralization associated with Middle Assyrian occupation.
Finally, our particular interest in pastoral nomadism in the Late Bronze Age
hampers even further the utility of surveys. The larger the survey area, and the
less intensive the field methodology, the greater the chances are that a small site
of nomadic or tribal occupation will be missed. Yet it is precisely these types of
sites that are likely to yield information about temporary or incipient sedentary
occupations. This issue may detract from the utility of Lyonnets survey in this
study, which encompasses an extremely large area, and Meijers survey, which
lacks the benefit of three decades of refinements in survey methodology and
ceramic chronology. Despite these problems, when what one seeks are the
traces of a culture that is ephemeral to begin with, the general overview of
settlement that these surveys provide can be extremely useful. At the very least,
survey data can suggest a direction in which further research might proceed.
The surveys discussed below cover the territory west of the Assyrian
heartland from the Tigris to the northern Khabur. All these areas are well within
the dry-farming zone of Upper Mesopotamia, and in most years can sustain
both agriculture and pastoralism.
2.b. North Jazira Survey
The results of Wilkinson and Tuckers North Jazira Survey show a clear settlement increase from the Middle Assyrian period to the Late Assyrian period.38
This change may be attributable to the settlement of pastoral nomadic tribes
after the decline of the Middle Assyrian kingdom and throughout the Late
Assyrian period,39 but the changes in settlement between the earlier Khabur
and Middle Assyrian periods indicate that sedentarization may have been
taking place also during the Middle Assyrian period (Fig. 2a). In the Khabur

37 The Khabur period (20001500 BC); the Mittani period (15001300 BC); and the Middle
Assyrian period (13001000 BC). Wilkinson and Tucker 1995, iv, 59.
38

Wilkinson and Tucker 1995, Fig. 41.

39

Wilkinson and Tucker 1995, 62.

REVISITING HANIGALBAT

541

period twenty five new sites appear along wadis or around large centers like
Tell el-Hawa, locations that are optimal for agricultural production. These new
sites may indicate a general trend toward urbanization in the first part of the
second millennium BC.
In the Middle Assyrian period the rate of settlement and abandonment had
changed: sixteen sites are abandoned, and only eight new sites are established.
Although the high rate of site abandonment might reflect ruralization, the point
has already been made above that the map may conflate the effects of the
turbulent political history of the Late Bronze Age. There is an additional reason
to suggest that the trend is not simply the result of nomadization or ruralization
during the Middle Assyrian period. Three Middle Assyrian sites40 are established in the middle of the survey areatwo along the less cultivable slopes of
the wadi basin,41 and the third within the basin in the very center of the survey

FIG. 2
a. North Jazira Survey (adapted from Wilkinson and Tucker 1995)
b. Northeast Syria Survey (adapted from Meijer 1986)
c. Khabur Survey (adapted from Lyonnet 2000)

40

Sites 69, 105, and 157.

41

Wilkinson and Tucker 1995, 7.

542

JEFFREY SZUCHMAN

area. Together these three small sites, each about one hectare, occupy what
appears to have been a no-mans land in the preceding period, when settlements were clustered in the northern or southern poles of the survey area.
Though limited, this type of infilling of the otherwise crowded landscape may
be a clue that points to the early sedentarization of pastoral nomadic elements.
The two sites along the slopes of the basin, where rainfall runoff makes agriculture more unstable support the suggestion that these may be settlements of
sedentarizing nomads, who retained easy access to pasturage while increasing
agricultural, and therefore sedentary, activities.
2.c. Northeastern Syria Survey
East of the North Jazira survey, Meijer surveyed a large portion of northeast
Syria in 1976, 1977, and 1979 (Fig. 2b).42 Like Wilkinson and Tucker, Meijer does
not divide the Late Bronze Age ceramics into Mittani and Middle Assyrian
types, but he does distinguish between sites with Middle Bronze Age ceramics
and sites that specifically contain Khabur Ware.43 The settlement picture in
northeast Syria in the second millennium shows a remarkable decline in site
occupation between the Khabur Ware period and the Late Bronze Age.
Whereas 91 sites had Khabur ware, 38 sites in the region had Late Bronze Age
ceramics. But a look at settlement continuity shows that the change is in fact
more complicated than a simple decline in the number of Late Bronze Age
occupations. Of the Late Bronze Age sites, only 21 are in locations that had been
occupied in the previous period. Seventeen sites are new occupations, some of
which are located away from the water sources or between two wadis.44
Although many of these sites are abandoned in the Iron Age, the fact that
some of the new Iron Age settlements are located next to the Late Bronze Age
sites may indicate the successful occupation of those previously unsettled
zones, especially the sites in the southwest region of the survey. Again, in the
northeast Syria survey, we see a very small number of occupations in the Late
Bronze Age in environmental zones that may have been exploited by sedentarizing nomads.
2.d. Khabur Survey
Lyonnets survey of the western part of the Khabur triangle picks up in the west
where Meijers survey left off (Fig. 2c).45 Lyonnet identifies sites of the first half

42

D. Meijer, 1986.

43

Meijer does not, however, subdivide Khabur ware into individual classes.

44

Sites 262, 219, 90, 95, and 268.

45

Lyonnet, La prospection archologique de la partie occidentale du Haut-Khabur.; B.

Lyonnet, Settlement Pattern in the Upper Khabur (NE Syria) from the Achaemenids to the
Abbasid Period: Methods and Preliminary Results from a Survey, in K. Bartl and S.
Hauser, eds., Continuity and Change in Northern Mesopotamia from the Hellenistic to the Early
Islamic Period (Berliner Beitrge zum Vorderen Orient, Band 17, Berlin 1996) 34961; B.

REVISITING HANIGALBAT

543

of the second millennium, the Mittani period, and combined Middle-Late

Assyrian occupations. She notes that in the Middle Bronze Age settlement was
primarily concentrated in the eastern portion of the survey area, and suggests
that the lack of settlement in the west means that the Khabur itself was under
the control of nomadic tribes, those tribes that play a central role in the Mari
correspondence.46
From the first half of the second millennium to the Mittani period, the
number of sites decreases from 45 to 39, results that mirror Meijers and
Wilkinson and Tuckers. The sites that partially fill the void in the western area
in the Mittani period might indicate either the settlement of the nomads or new
occupations of sedentary Mittani. For the most part, the eastern portion of the
survey sites continue in the same location as sites from the preceding period.
The Mittani period, then, witnesses abandonment and the establishment of new
sites in the west, alongside settlement continuity in the east. This pattern
suggests that the nomads who may have been active along the western portion
of the Khabur triangle settled in this period and occupied new sites unaffiliated
with previous inhabitants.
In the Middle and Late Assyrian periods, the number of settlements increases to 69. These new sites can probably be explained both by the settlement
of nomadic tribes and the new occupations of urban Assyrians and relocated
Hanigalbateans. Unfortunately, because there is no distinction between Middle
and Late Assyrian ceramics, there is no way to tell whether the new sites are
established in the Late Bronze Age or Early Iron Age.
3. Conclusions: The Sedentarization of Nomads in Middle Assyrian Hanigalbat
The surveys discussed here hint that sedentarization may not have begun
during the Middle Assyrian decline, rather pastoral nomads may have been
settling during the height of Middle Assyrian expansion. Naturally, more
intensive surveys and excavations are needed to further support this suggestion, but it does seem clear that Middle Assyrian political and economic
stability set the stage for the sedentarization of the pastoral nomads of
Hanigalbat. Once the drive toward sedentarization had begun, tribe members
would start to migrate into urban centers, and campsites would slowly be
transformed into agricultural villages.
By encouraging, and in some cases enforcing, the early sedentarization of
Aramaeans, Assyria also facilitated the economic self-sufficiency that, alongside the persistence of a unique social identity,47 allowed for the establishment
Lyonnet, Mthodes et Rsultats Prliminaires dune Prospection Archologique dans la
Partie Occidentale Du Haut-Khabure, Depuis le Nolithique Jusqu la Fin Du IIe Millnaire
av.n., in La Djzir et lEuphrate Syrien: De la Protohistoire la Fin Du 11e Millnaire av. J. C.
(Subartu 7, 2000) 241253; B. Lyonnet, Prospection Archologique Haut-Khabur Occidental
Volume 1 (Bibliothque Archologique et Historique 155, Beirut 2000).
46

Lyonnet 1996, 372.

47

On tribal identity among sedentarized nomads, see K. Kamp and N. Yoffee, Ethnicity

544

JEFFREY SZUCHMAN

and growth of independent Aramaean dynasties. In the wake of the Middle

Assyrian withdrawal from Hanigalbat, the status and authority of Aramaean
tribal leaders would have increased, not only over their own tribes, but also
over the rural sedentary populations that they had been able to subjugate in the
absence of Assyrian authority. As the wealthiest and most stable producers of
the region, they became the military, administrative, and economic rulers of the
territory that they controlled.
According to Khazanov, when nomads expand into and conquer the
territories of sedentary communities, a synthesis takes place between the
relatively less developed social relations of the conquerors and the more
developed relations of the conquered.48 When Aramaeans conquered the
urban and peasant populations of sedentary communities in Hanigalbat,
therefore, the synthesis that Khazanov describes would have begun, so that by
the beginning of the Neo-Assyrian period, Aramaean society was already well
stratified, with wealthy Aramaean elites established in urban centers such as
Tell Halaf and Tell Fakhariya, and in control of an integrated and productive
agricultural and pastoral population.
Although the role of sedentarization as a factor in Iron Age settlement
increase must not be discounted,49 it should not be understood as a sudden and
explosive event. Viewed in this light, it becomes possible to reconcile the
bellicose nature of the Assyrian annals in regard to the Aramaean kingdoms of
the first millennium with the cultural integration evident in the monuments of
Aramaean sites. Just as sedentarization in the Middle Assyrian period planted
the seeds for the development of mature Aramaean dynasties, it also planted
the seeds for Aramaean adaptation to Assyrian culture. These adaptations are
reflected in Iron Age Aramaean artistic traits that emulate both their earlier
Middle Assyrian predecessors and their Neo-Assyrian contemporaries. The
sedentarization of Aramaeans is best understood as a long, gradual process that
involved complex cultural integrations and adaptations in addition to economic diversification, social stratification, and political consolidation.

in Ancient Western Asia during the Early Second Millennium B.C.: Archaeological Assessments and Ethnoarchaeological Prospectives, BASOR 237 (1980) 93, and references therein.
48

A.M. Khazanov, Nomads and the Outside World, 2 ed., Julia Crookenden, trans. (Madison
1994).
49

Wilkinson and Tucker 1995, 62.