Chogha Mish, volume I: The First Five Seasons of Excavations, 1961-1971.

Chogha Mish, volume I: The First Five Seasons of Excavations, 1961-1971. By PINHAS DELOUOAZ and HELENE J. KANTOR, edited by ABBAS ALIZADEH. Oriental Institute Publications, vol. 101, Parts 1 (text) and 2 (plates). Chicago: THE ORIENTAL INSTITUTE, 1996.

Chogha Mish is a large (20 ha) mound about twenty-eight kilometers east of Susa in the southwestern Iranian province of Khuzistan. The site Consists of a high mound (250 x 150 x 23 m) and outlying terraces (400 x 300 x 8.5 m). Occupied intermittently from the seventh millennium B.C. to the first century A.D., Chogha Mish is one of the most important ancient settlements in northern Khuzistan. Excavations began in 1961 under the direction of P. P. Delougaz and Helene Kantor of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, and continued through 1978 until the Iranian Revolution. The present volume, planned as an interim report on the first three seasons, was transformed into a final report on the first five seasons after Delougaz's death in 1975. The publication, however, was not completed by the time of Kantor's death in 1993, and it was left to her former student, Dr. Abbas Alizadeh, to see the volume through to publication in 1996. One can only admire Alizadeh's patience and modesty in finally produci ng the volumes. He retains as much as possible of the original manuscript, yet manages to introduce essential corrections that add to its value.

The excavations sought to understand the history of the town; thus a very large number of trial trenches were made at strategic points across the site (p. 3). The publication of material from thirty-two trenches, seven soundings, and an operation called the Gully Cut offers a bewildering array of contexts and material to the reader.

A basic history of Chogha Mish can be sketched, based on this publication. The site maps (figs. 42-44) provide an overview of the excavators' conclusions concerning the size of the settlement in the various prehistoric phases, but it is clear from the text that many details remain to be added in future volumes.

Sometime towards the end of the seventh millennium B.C., a small village was founded at Chogha Mish (Archaic). The site appears to have been continually occupied over the next several millennia, and reached a size of about 13-15 hectares at the end of the Middle Susiana Period. Excavations in the ninth season, not included in this volume, revealed a substantially built burnt structure of this period, surrounded by a "fortification" wall (Kantor 1976). In addition, survey data indicate an important jump in the number of sites in the plain (Hole 1987, table 10). After the Middle Susiana Period, Chogha Mish was apparently abandoned and the main mound reoccupied only briefly in the Late Susiana phase, before it was abandoned again at the end of the fifth millennium (Terminal Susa A and Early Uruk phases, p. 303).

The whole site was resettled in the Middle and Late Uruk phases (c. 3700-3200 B.C.). Chogha Mish was deserted at the end of the Late Uruk Period (pp. 101-2, 305) and reoccupied only in the early second millennium when a "small fort" was constructed on the high mound (pp. 18-25). Chogha Mish was again abandoned for more than a millennium until it was partly populated again in the Late Neo-Elamite and Achaemenid period (c. 550-350 B.C.). After a final abandonment, it was reoccupied in the Parthian period. Much of the Parthian material published comes from closed contexts such as burials and a kiln (p. 8). Parallels with Susa date it to the first century B.C. This marks the last regular occupation of the site (p. 89).

Chapters 3-7 on the "Protoliterate Period" form the core of the book. Few coherent architectural plans of the period were identified, because the remains excavated lie just below the modern surface of the terraces. Enough was discovered to understand that the occupation included public buildings on the high mound (the presence of cones, elaborate cesspits, and enigmatic but impressive foundations), and a crowded urban area on the terrace below. Enormous quantities of Uruk pottery and a large number of sealings, clay balls, tokens, and a few numerical tablets came from the Choga Mish trenches. This material seems to fall into a relatively short time range--what is identified as Protoliterate b and is described by comparisons with Susa 19-17 or Middle-Late Uruk. Little material clearly datable to Susa 17A is published in this volume, and Early Uruk ceramics are absent (p. 102 and n. 165). [1] The closest ceramic parallels outside Susa (particularly with Acropole 18-17 and Apadana Tr. 1038) are with Warka VII-IV and Habuba Kabira along the Euphrates River in Syria (p. 102).

Large numbers of administrative artifacts--door and jar sealings, clay bullae (scellement fusiformes), clay balls (bullae), and a few numerical tablets also fall into the Middle-Late Uruk time range. Particularly important are the many sealed clay balls (bullae): thirty-eight complete examples and fifty-three fragments were found in the first five seasons. Schmandt-Besserat (1996: 42-43) counts about one-hundred-thirty specimens and seventy fragments from various places in the Middle East. Using these figures, about thirty per cent of all known examples come from the first five seasons of excavation at Chogha Mish.

Kantor's unraveling of the multiple impressions used on these balls is a tour de force. In working on the group of twenty-four balls found in R18:312, possibly in an archive, she noticed that three impressions were frequently used--one on the equator and two on either of the poles. She suggests that the central impression refers to the individual or offices primarily concerned with the transaction recorded; the polar seals, which vary in number, possibly represent the seals of witnesses to the transaction. [2] The clay balls, which can bear anywhere from two to five different seals, arc thus different in character from the tablets and other sealings where one impression is the norm.

The impressions illustrate spinning and the carrying of cloth, [3] churning, plowing, grain processing, storage, and potting. Kantor points out that the "city ruler" with flocks and vegetation and animals emerging from huts, common in Uruk, are missing from the Chogha Mish assemblage. Craft residues and toots recovered from the site such as spools, spindle whorls, and loom weights (pp. 107-8) linked to weaving; hoes, hand and grinding stones (pp. 261-78), clay and flint sickles linked to the processing of cereals; and potter's kilns and wasters (p. 29) provide independent evidence of these activities. The botanical report by Ann Woolsey (pp. 307-18) shows that agriculture in the prehistoric phases was focused on legumes, but by the Protoliterate phases grain production (wheat, barley) was emphasized.

Seal impressions also depict the "city ruler" seated on an animal-shaped chair and riding in a boat, as well as more typical representations of warfare, niched buildings, processions, various symbols (eye, gate post). The "Orchestra Seal" is the earliest depiction of the banquet scene, one of the most enduring themes of Mesopotamian art.

According to Delougaz and Kantor's interpretation, the distribution studies of the glyptic items indicate that the east quarter of the site was "occupied by individuals, whether officials or entrepreneurs, who kept accounts, sealed some of their doors, and opened sealed containers" (p. 127).

The Uruk (Protoliterate) occupation is relatively short-lived in comparison to the prehistoric phases, and is without clear local antecedents. It is thus tempting to see the relatively rapid expansion of Chogha Mish in the Middle-Late Uruk period as an attempt to exploit a rich area of unoccupied land in eastern Khuzistan and to link it to the expansion of settlement in Khuzistan in general (Johnson 1973: 101-13).

The chapters on the prehistoric periods are less easy to follow, since they focus primarily on the stylistic features of the various painted ceramic assemblages and their comparisons with other sites within Susiana, Mesopotamia, and the Iranian plateau. Alizadeh (table 42) presents a synthetic table, which outlines the sequence stretching from the "Archaic Period" though the Susa I period. [4] Several essential points emerge from these chapters: 1, At the end of the Archaic period the chaff-tempered "soft wares" are used together with a grit-tempered grey-green buff ware which is called "close-line" (fig. 34) at Chogha Mish. 2, This newly introduced ware finds its closest parallels at Tell el'Oueili in Mesopotamia (Ubaid O phase) and at Chogha Sefid in the Deh Luran plain (Chogha Mami Transitional Phase). 3, These painted wares are ancestral to the Susiana black-on-buff wares that develop with very close links to the Mesopotamian Ubaid I (Eridu) and Ubaid II (Hajji Mohamad) ceramic styles. 4, During the late Middle Susiana phase a number of new ceramic features appear. These include the manufacture of exceptionally thin fine ware and the use of decorative schemes that depict plants, animals, and occasionally humans. These traits mark the development of a distinct and separate ceramic style in Susiana that reaches its final phase in the Susa I period.

The illustrations of the ceramics and small objects are of uniformly high quality in this volume. The finds are presented with formal typological consistency and numerous parallels. The figures and plates thus offer a highly effective abstraction of the various archaeological assemblages and their stylistic development through time. [5] Save for the discussion of the glyptic by Kantor, this volume will be used and appreciated far more for its illustrations than its text. One hopes that future volumes will build on this foundation and present a more detailed view of each of the periods identified on the site.

REFERENCES

Hole, F. 1977. Studies in the Archaeological History of the Deh Luran Plain: The Excavation of Chagha Sefid. Memoirs of the Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan, vol. 9.

----. 1987. "Archaeology of the Village Period." In The Archaeology of Western Iran: Settlement and Society from Prehistory to the Islamic Conquest, ed. F. Hole. Pp. 29-78. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press.

Johnson, G. A. 1973. Local Exchange and Early State Development in Southwestern Iran. Ann Arbor: Museum of Anthropology, Univ. of Michigan.

Kantor, H. J. 1976. "The Excavations at Coqa Mis, 1974-75." In Proceedings of the IVth Annual Symposium on Archaeological Research in Iran; 1975 Nov. 3; Muzeh-e Iran Bastan, Pp. 23-41. Tehran: Iranian Centre for Archaeological Research.

Le Brun, A.; F. Vallat. 1978. L'Origine de l'ecriture a Suse. Cahiers de la Delegation Archeologique Francaise en Iran, vol. 8. Paris: Association Paleorient.

Le Brun, A. 1978. "Le Niveau 17B de l'Acropole de Suse, (campagne de 1972)." Cahiers de la Delegation Archeologique Francaise en Iran. vol. 9. Paris: Association Paleorient.

Schmandt-Besserat, D. 1996. How Writing Came About. Austin: Univ. of Texas Press.

(1.) Missing from the glyptic assemblage are the final Uruk "cushion-shaped tablets" of Susa 17B type (LeBrun and Vallat 1978: 30), and seals with the dotted circle drill-hole design. In addition, no tall beveled rim bowls or trough spouts (LeBrun 1978: fig. 20: 9; fig. 24: 9-10) are published from Chogha Mish. The very close relationship of the material recovered from Chogha Mish and the "Uruk colony" at Habuba Kabira indicates the possibility that these two settlements outside the Mesopotamian heartland are roughly contemporary.

(2.) A slight variation on LeBrun and Vallat 1978: 36, who also suggest that the Susa clay balls represent contracts.

(3.) Kantor argues that the figure on the Uruk vase, directly behind the priest king, carries an offering of cloth or a garment to the goddess. She then uses this more realistic presentation to identify the numerous seal impressions that show "cloth bearers."

(4.) Alizadeh appears inadvertently to have left out the Mohammad Jaffar, "Sefid," and "Surkh" phases of Chogha Sefid, which have close parallels with the earliest Archaic phases of Chogha Mish, even though these are cited in detail in the text.

(5.) Alizadeh has left the illustrations untouched since the figures of the lithic and faunal material are found in volume 2 without any references to them in the text, except to note that the reports were never received (p. xxv).

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Author:	CARTER, ELIZABETH
Publication:	The Journal of the American Oriental Society
Date:	Apr 1, 2001
Words:	1995
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