West Kurdistan · Rojava · Ancient Mesopotamia
Tell Halaf (Guzana)
The site that gave its name to the Halaf culture of painted pottery, and later the Aramaean city of Guzana with its palace of stone giants.
- Period
- c. 6000 BC; palace 10th–9th century BC
- Place
- Serê Kaniyê (Ras al-Ayn)
- Region
- West Kurdistan · Rojava
- Age
- Ancient Mesopotamia
Around 6000 BC, farming villages across northern Mesopotamia shared a style of finely painted pottery and round houses, now called the Halaf culture after this mound at the head of the Khabur river.
Thousands of years later it was Guzana, an Aramaean capital. Its Western Palace, from the 10th–9th century BC, was entered between colossal basalt statues and lined with carved stone slabs. Many finds were taken to Berlin, shattered by bombing in the Second World War, and painstakingly pieced back together.
Chosen and introduced by Aram Mizuri, architect in Erbil