Tell El Fakhariya - Archaeology

Archaeology

The site is around 90 hectares in area, 12 of which are a high mound. Tell Fakhariyah came to the attention of Max von Oppenheim in the early 1900s. In 1929, during his excavations at Tell Halaf, he dispatched Felix Langenegger and Hans Lehmann to the site to do a field survey, resulting in the production of a contour map. . In 1940, a team from the Oriental Institute of Chicago and the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, led by Calvin W. McEwan, and which included Harold D. Hill, worked for a short period there, conducted several soundings, developed a contour map of the site, and collected various pottery and epigraphic objects. The later included 12 tablets and some fragments. The areas explored were mainly Middle Assyrian and Neo-Assyrian. In 1955, Anton Moortgat conducted two soundings at Tell Fakhariyah, dated to the Mitanni empire period. A brief excavation occurred in 2001 by the University of Halle-Wittenberg and the Syrian Directorate-General of Antiquities and Museums. After a survey in 2005, a team from the Free University of Berlin and SAHI - Slovak archeological and historical institute and the Syrian Directorate-General of Antiquities and Museums resumed work at Tell Fakhariyah for a month in 2006. Excavations continued in 2007 for a period of 8 weeks. In the 2009 season, 11 Middle Assyrian cuneiform tablets were recovered from a layer early in the post-Mitanni period of the site. In 2010, 40 texts and text fragments were found in the same context. Preliminary translation shows them to be administrative in nature. Eponyms link some to the reigns of Shalmaneser I and Tukulti-Ninurta I.