A unique Halafian ceramic object from Shams ed-Din Tannira, Syria

Abstract

This article examines a unique artefact of the developed Halaf culture of the mid 6th millennium BC. It was found in the year 1990 at the site of Shams ed-Din Tannira on the shore of Lake Tabqa in Syria. The object, is richly decorated with bucrania and geometric ornaments, and is until now unpublished. It was originally exhibited in the Archaeological Museum in Raqqa and in the meantime has become part of the lost cultural heritage of Syria due to the civil war and the looting of the Raqqa Museum. Both the find spot of the ceramic artefact in a shallow pit filled with black ashy soil and no other finds or debris as well as the extraordinary size of this elaborately ornamented vessel, decorated with highly symbolic motifs indicate that it was not an ordinary object of a Halafian household thrown in a refuse pit. The object was more likely part of a “ritual deposit”. We shall argue here that this ceramic object was intentionally smashed and burnt by fire, perhaps within the context of some kind of “closing ceremony”. The function—as discussed in this paper—cannot not finally be determined. It may have been used as a vessel or as a drum in a ritual context.