Tell Beydar is a site of ca. 22 ha size located near the right bank of the Wadi Uwaij, one of the tributaries of the Khabur river, ca. 30 km north of the provincial capital Hassake in a region defined commonly defined as the Syrian Jazira. With a long history of occupation, it is particularly known from its Early Bronze Age remains, interpreted, in this period, as one of so-called Kranzhügel of western upper Mesopotamia. Regular excavation campaigns started in 1992 in a joint initiative by ECUMS (European Center for Upper Mesopotamia Studies) and the Générale des Antiquités et des Musées (DGAM) joined the mission. The Syro-European archaeological mission at Tell Beydar was directed by Marc Lebeau (ECUMS) and Antoine Suleiman (DGAM). Seventeen excavations campaigns were undertaken at Tell Beydar between 1992 and 2010, in eleven areas of excavations, amounting to an area of ca. 1.5 ha. While the Early Bronze Age was the initial focus of the mission, the excavations also disclosed an extensive site that remained inhabited between the 3rd century BC and the 1st century AD. This settlement dated to the Seleucid-Parthian was never studied and published in its entirety, apart from a study mostly limited to the Area’s A “Palace” by Rodrigo Martin Gálan in 2003.
The data from Tell Beydar is particularly significant because its occupation during the Seleucid-Parthian period lasted for four centuries, providing the opportunity to establish a stratigraphically anchored sequence that can be tied in with the historically attested transformation of the region situated between the major powers of its time in the Mediterranean and Iran. At the same time given the fact that the Seleucid-Parthian period has generally been poorly studied archaeologically, Tell Beydar provides us with a unique opportunity to gain insight into the organization of the rural hinterland of urban centers such as Nisibis and Dura-Europos and to tackle the debate on the hybridity between the indigenous population and the new Greek and Parthian cultural and political influences.
The publication project is directed by Dr. Maria Da Conceição Lopes. She will be assisted by André Tomé, researcher at the Center of Studies in Archaeology, Arts and Heritage Sciences (CEAACP) and excavation supervisor at Tell Beydar between 2008-10.
