Interesting as this illustration is of how
strati graphical formations can be created, this early mention of Egypt must
serve as an occasion to introduce certain reservations regarding that country,
in relation to the subject under discussion. For it should be said at once that
Egypt has certain characteristics which make it less suitable than others do
for the study of mounds.
This is perhaps partly to be attributed to
the abundant supply and general use of building stone, which greatly prolonged
the survival of Egyptian buildings. But it is also partly due to the fact that,
in the narrow valley of Upper Egypt, land is too valuable to allow large ruin
fields of brick buildings to remain derelict; and the fellahin have long since
discovered that the occupational debris with which such ruins are Hide, when
spread over their fields, makes the finest fertilizer available.
Burin any case, those who have approached
the subject of Egyptology will know that archaeology in Egypt, when it took the
form of actual excavation, has always been concerned almost exclusively with
stone temples, tombs and cemeteries. Mounds in Egypt are confined for the most
part to the Delta of the Nile; and, with so much else to attend to, their
excavation has till now been very considerably neglected.
So let us glance once again at the pattern
of countries in which mounds are everywhere found and have been more generally
excavated. From Egypt they spread northward through the Levant and westward
through Anatolia to the Balkans. Eastward they follow the curve of Breasted’s
“crescent” through the rich farmlands in the foothills of the Armenian
mountains to Iraq and Persia and so, southward of the Elburz range, to
Afghanistan and the Indus valley.
Mesopotamia
But the focal point of the whole area,
where mounds are so plentiful that they become the most characteristic feature
of the landscape, is the twin river valley of Mesopotamia which is in fact not
a valley at all but a vast province of partially irrigated alluvial desert. It
is a habit of thought to apply the name Mesopotamia to this basin of alluvium,
which represents half of modem Iraq. But it has come to be known to our own
generation that the first human settlers in this province, the ancestors of the
later Sumerians, were themselves comparative latecomers, and that the
undulating hill country of northern Iraq had a much earlier record of Neolithic
farming communities.
This may help to explain the impression,
which has grown upon one, after long periods of travel in those parts, that the
Assyrian uplands around Mosul and their westward extension through the valleys
of the Khabur and Balik rivers into North Syria must have been the most thickly
populated area of the completely ancient world. Certainly today, they are more
thickly studded with ancient mounds than any other part of the Near East.
No comments:
Post a Comment