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Mounds made of layer upon layer of settlement.
🇷🇴 Romania · Tell
Late Chalcolithic (Karanovo VI–Gumelniţa) · Gumelniţa–Karanovo VI–Varna complex
Type-site of Gumelniţa culture (c.4700–3950 BCE, Late Chalcolithic), 4-m tell on Danube Borcea island dominating copper-trade axis: two-storey Tell houses with plastered benches, Varna-grade copper…
🇮🇱 Israel · Tell
Early Bronze II to Iron II / Persian (c.3000–400 BCE; EB peak 2950–2650, Iron 1000–587) · EB Canaanite → absent MB → Israelite Judahite → Babylonian era → Persian
Double-stacked tell: 2950 BCE walled EB city plus Iron Age Judahite fortress-temple twin of Jerusalem.
🇹🇷 Turkey · Buried city
Early PPNB · Upper Euphrates PPNB
PPNB ritual settlement (c.8400–8100 BCE) on the middle Euphrates, sister-site to Göbekli Tepe with limestone T-pillars, terrazzo floors, and anthropogenic limestone sculptures of humans and birds…
🇮🇱 Israel · Tell
Early Bronze Age II–III (c.3000–2350 BCE) with MB II and Iron I–II reuse · EBA III Canaanite urban (Proto-Canaanite) — Jordan Valley city-state network
16 ha EBA III walled palace-city (2700–2350 BCE) with Palace B2 (6000 m²) — largest EBA town in Israel (Miroschedji).
🇹🇷 Turkey · Tell
EB I–III → MBA → LBA → Iron Age (3000–700 BCE) · Syro-Anatolian EBA (Euphrates tradition) → Amorite → Mitanni/Hittite
EB walled town (3000–2300 BCE) with 20 ha lower town — Carchemish-Aleppo plain urban gateway, Mitanni/Hittite contested.
🇮🇶 Iraq · Tell
Hassuna through Halaf and Ubaid (c.6000–5000 BCE); Hassuna, Samarra, Halaf early · Hassuna → Samarra–Hajji Muhammad → Halaf (Yarim Tepe facies)
Hassuna–Halaf type transition (c.6000–5000 BCE) with earliest updraft kilns and Halaf painted ware over Hassuna (Soviet Bader).
🇹🇷 Turkey · Tell
Late Chalcolithic to Early Bronze (3800–2300 BCE) · Uruk → Jemdet Nasr → Ninevite V → Early Dynastic
Kurban Höyük Dam Salvage Zone is the 6-ha lower terrace on the Euphrates left bank, salvaged before Atatürk Dam raised the lake 15 m over the valley.
🇪🇬 Egypt · Ancient village
Predynastic (Naqada I Amratian to III Protodynastic) · Naqada (Upper Egyptian protodynastic)
Type-site of Predynastic Upper Egypt — Naqada I–III cultures (c.4000–3000 BCE) that unified Egypt: eponymous cemeteries N7000+ graves at Naqada, Ballas, Nubt town (gold-worker's town of Seth).
🇮🇶 Iraq · Ancient city
Ubaid to Islamic · Sumerian → Akkadian → Babylonian → Kassite
Holy city of Sumer and Akkad, seat of Enlil (Lord Air) whose Ekur temple gave legitimacy to kingship — 'king without Nippur is no king'.
🇸🇾 Syria · Tell
Pre-Pottery Neolithic A · Mureybetian / Jerf Ahmar PPNA
Two PPNA villages (East and West, 9500–8700 BCE) on the Middle Euphrates now submerged under Lake Tishrin, famous for the earliest communal buildings with subterranean benches, decorated plaquettes…
🇹🇷 Turkey · Tell
Neolithic to Byzantine (6300 BCE–1300 CE) · Neolithic Mersin XXXIII → Chalcolithic Ubaid → EBA Cilician → Iron → Byzantine
Yumuktepe Mersin Re-evaluation Trench is the southern sounding of Yumuktepe — the Neolithic type-site for Cilician chronology (Garstang Mersin XXXIII–I, 6300–1300 CE) within modern Mersin.
🇹🇷 Turkey · Ancient village
Early Neolithic to Chalcolithic (6200–4800 BCE) · Fikirtepe → Karanovo I–III / Starčevo
Thracian tell bridging Anatolian Neolithic to Balkans (Karanovo sequence).
🇹🇷 Turkey · Ancient village
Late Neolithic to Early Chalcolithic · Burdur-Antalya (Hacilar-associated)
Neolithic to Early Chalcolithic lakeside shrine-village (c.6500–5500 BCE) in Burdur Lake District, famous for 'Martyrium' burnt shrine phase with mother-goddess and leopard reliefs, and hoard of…
🇯🇴 Jordan · Tell
EB through Mamluk; Iron II and Byzantine peaks · EB dolmen-builders → Iron Moab/Ammon → Nabataean → Roman/Byzantine Esbus → Mamluk
Biblical Heshbon on Dead Sea escarpment — Iron Moabite/Ammonite town to Hasmonaean, Roman Esbus, Byzantine mosaics and Mamluk farm, 15 m within 150×110 m mound.
🇺🇦 Ukraine · Hillfort
Late Chalcolithic Trypillia C1–C2 (3600–3400 BCE) Galicia · Cucuteni-Trypillia C1 Galicia–Podolia (Usatovo contact)
Monastyrok — Trypillia C1 hillfort (c.3600–3400 BCE, 3 ha, fortified promontory) on Seret River above Dniester, Chortkiv, Galicia–Podolia.
🇪🇬 Egypt · Ancient city
Predynastic to Greco-Roman to Medieval · Egyptian (Libyan → Saite renaissance → Persian)
Cult centre of Neith and capital of 26th (Saite) Dynasty (664–525 BCE) — Egypt's Late Period renaissance metropolis that reconquered to Aswan and traded with Greeks at Naukratis.
🇸🇾 Syria · Tell
Hassuna to Iron Age (6500 BCE–800 BCE) · Hassuna/Samarra → Halaf → Ninevite V → Mittani → Iron Age Aramean
Tell Mohammed Diyab Southern Extension is the 9.8-ha southern skirt of Tell Mohammed Diyab on the upper Khabur plain — a 30-m tell with one of the longest Neolithic-to-Iron sequences in inland Syria…
🇸🇾 Syria · Ancient city
Middle Bronze Age to Roman (c.1800 BCE–200 CE), peak Iron Age–Assyrian · Hittite → Neo-Hittite Luwian → Neo-Assyrian
Euphrates terrace city 35 ha (Hittite Masuwari → Assyrian Til Barsip, D-shaped walls, Hypogeum).
🇹🇷 Turkey · Tell
EBA to Iron Age (Karaz → Mitanni → Assyrian) · Karaz (Kura-Araxes) → Mitanni Hurrian → Assyrian Iron
Tigris ritual mound (2800 BCE–Iron) with LBA pillared cult hall — bell-ritual and Mitanni seals on EBA Karaz village, Ilısu Laneri project.
🇸🇾 Syria · Tell
Pre-Pottery Neolithic B · Damascene PPNB (Aswadian)
PPNB mega-village (8700–7500 BCE, ~18 ha at peak) in the Damascus basin/ Ghuta, irrigated by the Barada, considered the place of the earliest fully domesticated emmer wheat and barley in the world.
🇸🇾 Syria · Tell
Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (c.8200–7000 BCE) · PPNB (Damascus basin)
Anti-Lebanon PPNB village (c.8200–7000 BCE, plastered skulls, lime statues) 20 km SW Damascus.
🇮🇱 Israel · Tell
Neolithic to Iron Age/Crusader (peak Middle Bronze to Iron II, 2000–733 BCE) · Canaanite (Sidonian) → Israelite (Dan tribe) → Aramaean → Israelite kingdom → Assyrian
Bubbling Jordan spring tell with world's oldest intact triple mudbrick arch (1750 BCE) and House of David stele.
🇮🇶 Iraq · Pyramid
Proto-Hassuna, Hassuna, Samarran (6500–5500 BCE) · Hassuna culture
Between two wadis south-west of Mosul, this 1943–44 excavation by Seton Lloyd and Fuad Saffar defined the Hassuna culture — earliest ceramic Neolithic in northern Iraq — through 15 building levels.
🇹🇷 Turkey · Tell
Pre-Pottery Neolithic to Late Chalcolithic (c.9000–5500 BCE) · Central Anatolian Neolithic → Early Chalcolithic
Cappadocian Neolithic tells (7 m high, 2 ha) in the Melendiz plain below Hasan Dağı obsidian sources. Excavated since 20...
