Tell Halula, the Neolithic Mound near Manbij

Tell Halula is an 8-hectare Neolithic mound on the right bank of the Euphrates, 25 kilometres north-west of Manbij. A village stood here from about 7750 BC to 6780 BC. What made the mound known are female figures painted on the floor of a house: they are counted among the oldest known images of people in the Middle East. This is an excavation site, and there is no information on visitor arrangements.

Where it is

The mound lies about 105 kilometres east of Aleppo, between Wadi Fars and Wadi Abu Ghalgal, which run down to the Euphrates, at 349 metres above sea level. The hamlet of Halula, which shares its name, is nearby. We found no verified coordinate for the mound itself, so we give no map pin.

What the excavations found

Since 1991 a Spanish team led by Miquel Molist of the Autonomous University of Barcelona has worked on the mound. About 2500 square metres have been opened, and the occupation deposit is 8 metres thick. The excavators identified 40 occupation phases: 1-20 belong to the Middle Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (PPNB), 21-34 to the Late PPNB, and 36-37 to the Halaf period. The PPNB is the stage when farming was established but pottery was not yet made.

Houses and burials

Twenty-one rectangular houses with three to five rooms were found. Beneath the lime-plastered floors of nine of them lay at least 107 burials. The dead were buried inside the house, under the floor the living walked on.

The oldest images of people

Female figures are painted on the floor of one of the houses. These paintings are cited among the oldest known depictions of people in the Middle East. The finds also include Byblos-type arrowheads that carry traces of lime plaster on their tangs.

Don’t miss

The arrival of pottery. The mound’s pottery sequence begins early in the 7th millennium BC, so the change from houses without pottery to layers with it can be followed in a single place. People who know Tell Halula only for its paintings often miss this.