Winfried Orthmann

By Raphaela Heitmann, Elisabeth Katzy, Mirko Novák, Jochen Schmid und Uwe Sievertsen
With contributions by Samer Abdel Ghafour, Sven Dvorak, Gabriele Elsen-Novák, Helen Gries, Andreas Fuchs, Joëlle Graber-Pesonen, Joëlle Heim, Tobias Helms, Christian Hübner, Lutz Martin, Hannah Mönninghoff, Winfried Orthmann und Marina Skaletz.

Tell Halaf, located in the north-east of the modern state of Syria and in the north of ancient Mesopotamia, is one of the most famous ruins in the Near East. Max Freiherr von Oppenheim's excavations at the beginning of the 20th century were followed by research by a Syrian-German mission from 2006 to 2010, which had to be abandoned prematurely due to the civil war. In addition to findings from the ceramic Neolithic (6th-5th millennium B.C.) and from the time of an Aramaic petty principality (10th-9th century B.C.), the research brought to light important buildings from the time when the site was a provincial capital of the Assyrian Empire under the name Gūzāna (9th-7th century B.C.). The eastern part of the citadel was then occupied by a monumental structure that can be identified as the palace of the Assyrian governor. In this volume, the results of the new excavations in the area of the governor's palace are presented in detail, those of the old excavations are critically reflected upon and both are interpreted in summary. The location, architecture, building history, stratigraphy, finds and pottery are presented in their entirety and extensively illustrated in order to gain an understanding of the functional structure of the building.