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CategoriesTells
Mounds made of layer upon layer of settlement.
🇹🇷 Turkey · Ancient village
Late Neolithic → Halaf → Ubaid (6000–4300 BCE) · Halaf (North Mesopotamian painted) → Northern Ubaid
Halaf hamlet (c.6000–4300 BCE, 175 m) — classic Halaf tholoi type-site on Diyarbakır piedmont (Watson/LeBlanc 1968).
🇮🇶 Iraq · Tell
Old Babylonian to Mitanni, c.1900-1400 BCE (Shamshi-Adad, Hammurabi, Mitanni) · Old Babylonian / Mitanni (Karana / Qattara)
Tell al-Rimah (ancient Qattara/Karana) south of Jebel Sinjar: massive tell 40 ha with high ziggurat mound 30 m high (200×200 m base) and lower town.
🇪🇬 Egypt · Tell
Hyksos → New Kingdom capital → Third Intermediate (Tanis reuse) · Hyksos → Thutmoside → Ramesside 19th Dynasty → 21st Dynasty Tanis shift
New Kingdom Delta capital (18 km²) of Ramesses II over Avaris — stables for 480 chariot horses, bronze workshops and Pelusiac harbour, buried under Qantir silt.
🇸🇾 Syria · Ancient city
Early Bronze to Old Babylonian (Ebla to Hammurabi) · Semitic Ebla-Mari–Akkadian world, Dagan cult
Holy city of god Dagan at Euphrates-Balikh mouth, tell Bi'a = Early Dynastic Tuttul (c.2600–1700 BCE) where Ebla tablets locate Dagan's oracle and Sargon of Akkad stopped for blessing.
🇸🇾 Syria · Pyramid
Late Chalcolithic (Uruk Expansion) · Uruk-influenced North Mesopotamian (Nagar)
Late Chalcolithic Eye Temple platform at Tell Brak (Nagar) c.3800 BCE: 40×30 m earliest monumental terrace with alabaster eye idols — millennium precursor to ziggurat.
🇮🇳 India · Ancient village
OCP 1200 → PGW 1100–600 → NBPW 600–300 BCE · Upper Gangetic OCP → PGW → NBPW (Gangetic Iron Age)
Atranjikhera — PGW–NBPW stratigraphic type-site (1200 BCE–300 BCE) on Kali Nadi near Etah, excavated 1962–69 by R.C. Gaur (AMU).
🇹🇷 Turkey · Tell
Halaf to Islamic (5600 BCE–1500 CE) · Halaf → Ubaid → Uruk → EBA Syrian → Hittite → Islamic Harran
Harran Plain Tell A is a 2.8-ha Halaf–Ubaid mound 8 km northeast of Harran city on the Balikh floodplain — one of Wilkinson's mapped Harran plain tells tracking the shift from dispersed Halaf…
🇪🇬 Egypt · Ancient city
Predynastic to Ptolemaic to Late Antique · Egyptian (Lower Egyptian Delta)
Delta metropolis and cult centre of ram god Banebdjedet (Greek Mendes), capital of 16th Nome and briefly capital of 29th Dynasty (Nepherites I, c.399–380 BCE) under Persian-period independence.
🇮🇶 Iraq · Ancient city
Middle to Neo-Assyrian (1350–612 BCE) · Assyrian
Second capital of Assyria after Assur under Ashurnasirpal II (883 BCE), who built the Northwest Palace with 600 m of alabaster lamassu and bas-reliefs (Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III showing King…
🇮🇶 Iraq · Tell
Early Dynastic to Hellenistic (c.3000 BCE–100 BCE) · Sumerian → Akkadian → Babylonian → Hellenistic
Cutha (Tell Ibrahim, ancient Kutha/Gudua) is the Nergal cult centre on the Euphrates branch northeast of Babylon, famed in legend as 'Cutha of the Legend of Ner...
🇪🇬 Egypt · Tell
Iron Age (regional) · Iron Age
Northern Luxor Reservoir Central — Luxor, Thebes (53-26) at Luxor, Thebes, Egypt is a Iron Age (regional) tell of the Iron Age tradition, built c. 400 BCE for reservoir and associated settlement.
🇹🇷 Turkey · Buried city
Neolithic to Bronze Age (6000–1200 BCE) · Bronze Age
Titriş Höyük — Lower Town North Gate (Şanlıurfa) in Şanlıurfa, Titriş Höyük, Turkey is a Neolithic to Bronze Age (6000–1200 BCE) buried city attributed to …
🇧🇬 Bulgaria · Tell
Chalcolithic to Bronze Age (4500–1200 BCE) · Chalcolithic–Early Bronze
Durankulak — North Niche (Great Mound) in Dobrich, Shabla, Durankulak, Bulgaria is a Chalcolithic to Bronze Age (4500–1200 BCE) tell attributed to Chalcoli…
🇮🇶 Iraq · Pyramid
Early Dynastic to Old Babylonian (3000–1750 BCE) · Akkadian, Eshnunna, Babylonian
Provincial capital of Hamrin–Diyala corridor identified as Me-Turan, twin to Tell Haddad and Tell al-Sib excavated 1977–87 by Iraqi State Board before Hamrin Dam, yielding 3000 cuneiform tablets of…
🇹🇷 Turkey · Ancient city
Chalcolithic to Byzantine (5200 BCE–1200 CE; peak Hittite and Phrygian) · Central Anatolian Chalcolithic → Hattian → Hittite → Phrygian → Roman
Yozgat tell with 5200 BCE-to-Byzantine sequence bridging central plateau and Hittite north.
🇵🇸 Palestine · Ancient city
Iron Age capital to Crusader · Israelite → Assyrian → Herodian
Hilltop capital of Kingdom of Israel after 880 BCE (Omri bought hill from Shemer for 2 talents silver — 1 Kings 16:24) with Israelite palatial ivories (Samaria Ivories, Louvre) and Ostraca warehoused…
🇮🇶 Iraq · Tell
Early Dynastic to Ur III (c.3500–2000 BCE; peak Lagash 2500–2144 BCE) · Sumerian Lagash (ÉNSI rulers: Ur-Nanshe, Eannatum, Enmetena, Gudea)
Girsu (modern Tello/Telloh) is the sacred city of Lagash state — first Sumerian city ever excavated (1877) yielding Gudea diorite statues, Gudea cylinders (worl...
🇹🇷 Turkey · Tell
Neolithic to Ottoman (6000 BCE–1500 CE) · Neolithic → EBA → Hittite → Neo-Assyrian → Hellenistic → Roman
Cilician gateway lower town — Hittite sealings to Roman grid (Goldman 1934).
🇹🇷 Turkey · Ancient city
Late Chalcolithic to Neo-Hittite (5000 BCE–700 BCE; palace phase 3400–3000 BCE; Neo-Hittite 1200–712 BCE) · Late Chalcolithic / Kura-Araxes / Hittite / Neo-Hittite
Tell city type site for emergence of state and palace economy (3400–3000 BCE): Late Chalcolithic palace (Room A 900) with wall paintings, storerooms with mass-produced bowls, sword hoard (earliest…
🇮🇱 Israel · Ancient village
Middle PPNB · PPNB cult complex
PPNB cult and mortuary center (7500–6650 BCE) in the Nazareth hills, not a normal village but a regional feasting and secondary-burial site serving surrounding settlements.
🇧🇬 Bulgaria · Tell
Early Neolithic to EBA (5800–2200 BCE; ditch phase 4600 BCE) · Karanovo I–VI → Karanovo VI–Gumelniţa → Ezero
Massacre tell 4600 BCE — 30 perimortem skeletons in ditches (Katincharov).
🇸🇾 Syria · Pyramid
Early Bronze Age (EB I–II, c. 3000–2500 BCE) · Euphrates Early Bronze, Kranzhügel culture precursor
Tell on Euphrates terrace south of Carchemish, excavated by Algaze and Breunig as part of Euphrates salvage, revealing Early Bronze planned town with orthogonal streets, temple on high terrace and…
🇵🇸 Palestine · Ancient village
Natufian to Bronze Age (12,000 BCE onward; tower c.8300 BCE) · Natufian → PPNA/PPNB → Canaanite
Tell with Natufian through Bronze Age layers including Pre-Pottery Neolithic A stone tower (c.8300 BCE) and wall – among earliest monumental architecture and fortification. Biblical Jericho.
🇯🇴 Jordan · Tell
Chalcolithic-Iron Age (c.5000-600 BCE) · Levantine EBA to Iron Age (Jordan Valley)
Tell el-Hayyat — buried chalcolithic-iron tell/village at Irbid Governorate.
