Tell Seker al-Aheimar

Tell Seker al-Aheimar is a low mound in the upper Khabur valley, west of Tell Tamer. It holds an unbroken sequence of layers from the first stages of farming village life: from the middle phase of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic to the Proto-Hassuna phase, when pottery was already in use. The Hasakah antiquities department dates the settlement back to 8000 BC. The mound is known for what came out of the ground rather than for anything standing on it, and whether it can be visited today could not be confirmed.

Where it is

On the upper Khabur, in the countryside north-west of Hasakah, west of Tell Tamer. The village of Seker al-Aheimar, which shares its name, lies beside it. The mound itself is not marked as a separate feature on maps, and the village position and the published site position do not agree, so this page carries no map.

What the excavation found

A Japanese team from the University of Tokyo, led by Yoshihiro Nishiaki, excavated the mound before the war in Syria. Here the team identified a pottery-using phase older than Proto-Hassuna and named it “Pre-Proto-Hassuna” (Paléorient, 2005).

The best-known find is a clay figurine of a seated woman. It stands just over 14 centimetres tall, is painted in two colours, and has no known parallel among the clay figurines of its period (Paléorient, 2007). Obsidian brought from eastern Anatolia was worked into blades on site, on a small scale but by skilled knappers (Paléorient, 2011). What went on inside the houses was studied through plant silica and traces of animal dung (Journal of Archaeological Science, 2014).

The well that made its name

The water well found in the Late Pre-Pottery Neolithic layer is the oldest known in Upper Mesopotamia. The curious part is that it was dug with the river close by. The researchers argue that the aim was clean water, that digging it took communal labour, and that it may also have had a ritual side (Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society, 2021). In January 2026 the head of the excavation presented the mound at a meeting in Japan as one of the most important records of the Syrian Neolithic.

Can you get there today

This could not be confirmed. No source from the past year describes access to the mound; the newest information is that scientific presentation of January 2026. In August 2021 the mound sat on a front line: its guard described how, besides rain and wind, shells landing nearby and unauthorised soil removal were wearing down the surface. In April 2026 mines and explosives exposed on the surface were reported on the dirt road between the village of Hirbeke and Ras al-Ayn, in the countryside north-west of Hasakah. The city of Hasakah has been under the administration of government security forces since 2 February 2026.

This page is not a recommendation to visit. The present state of the mound and the safety of the road cannot be known without asking locally.