Tell Hamoukar

A wide mound at the north-eastern corner of the Jazira, close to the borders with Iraq and Turkey. Its local name is Khirbat al-Fakhar, the ruin of pottery, after the density of sherds on the surface. Excavation put the site at the centre of a long argument: how did cities begin in northern Mesopotamia? The assumption that it all started in the south, at Ur and Uruk, has been open to question since Hamoukar.

Getting there

Reached on the road through the farming villages south-east of Qamishli. The village of al-Hurriya stands on part of the mound. The limit of the site is not marked on the ground, and no track leads straight to it, so you need directions from someone who lives there. Ask twice.

What to see

The main mound rising out of the plain, with the low lower town wrapping it on three sides. Black obsidian fragments lie on the surface like gravel. The stone does not occur in this region; the nearest source is around Mount Nemrut, roughly 170 kilometres to the north. Chemical analysis settled it.

What remains

The excavation was run jointly by the University of Chicago and the Syrian Directorate General of Antiquities. Work ran from 1999 to 2010. Thousands of clay sealings came out. These small lumps, pressed over doors and containers, are read as evidence of an organised administration. Eye idols of alabaster and bone were found too; the same type appears at Tell Brak.

What not to miss

The 2005 and 2006 seasons showed that the city was destroyed around 3500 BC. Slings and thousands of clay bullets were recovered, together with broad traces of burning and collapse across the residential quarter of the lower town. It was a siege. This may be the earliest urban warfare documented anywhere in Near Eastern archaeology. At its widest the settlement reached 300 hectares, larger than Uruk in the same centuries.