Walter Cruells

Chagar Bazar IX (Syria): A key Halafian site in the Sixth Millennium cal. BC

Walter Cruells has been a researcher at the University Autònoma of Barcelona since 1980 and is a member of the Mediterranean and Middle East Archaeological Research Group (G.R.A.M.P.O.). His main interests are in the Neolithic period in north-east of the Iberian Peninsula, where he worked for 25 years, sharing them as a director of “Cota Zero. Revista D’Arqueologia i Ciencia” – an archaeological annual journal. In 1989, he started a new research horizon, working on several archaeological sites in the Near East, especially in Turkey, Syria and Iraqi Kurdistan; again, centered in the Neolithic period.

His experience in Near East archaeology began as Assistant-Director at the site of Tell Halula (Syria), conducted by Miquel Molist in 1989, a cluster of sites on a large and complete sequence from mid PPNB period up to the end of the Halaf horizon. He was responsible for the Pottery Neolithic areas with special emphasis in Halaf architecture and ceramics. Since then, he has collaborated with different international archaeological and academic institutions, research groups and some worldwide key museums in Europe, Syria and Turkey. In this way, he worked at the site of Tell Amarna, being responsible of the study and publication of the Halafian period. Later, he joined a research project in Akarçay Tepe, Turkey, as a responsible for the VIIth milennium ceramics. From 1999-2010 he was  responsiblefor the field work, architecture and ceramics at the Halafian layers at the site of Chagar Bazar in northeastern Syria. Since 2015 he has cooperated with several archaeological projects in Iraqi Kurdistan. He is the co-director of this publication project with Dr. Anna Bach Gómez.