We must now consider more closely the
manner in which these artificial hills come to be created. Any of the mounds
which we have mentioned in the preceding paragraphs would probably serve to
illustrate the broad lines of this process: but those in Mesopotamia will
perhaps serve our purpose best, since they are uncomplicated by the presence of
large stone buildings and at the same time provide examples of some anatomical
eccentricities seldom found elsewhere. This process, then, by which in
antiquity the repeated rebuilding’s of human habitations on a single site
created a perpetually increasing elevation, is by no means difficult to
understand.
The average life of a mud brick building
today seldom exceeds the span of a single generation: and in earlier times,
military conquest or localized raiding on a smaller scale would certainly have
accounted for demolitions that are more frequent. Roofs would be burnt or
collapse and the upper parts of the walls subside, filling the rooms to about a
third of their height with brick debris. Before rebuilding, the site would
usually be systematically levelled, the stumps of the old walls being used as
foundations for the new.
Prehistoric fortresses at Mersin
Thus, after a time, the town or village
would find itself occupying the summit of a rising eminence; a situation, which
had the double advantage of being easily defensible and of affording an
expansive view of the surrounding countryside. One remembers in a connection
how the walls of the little prehistoric fortresses at Mersin in Cilicia were
lined with identical small dwellings for the garrison; and each was provided
with a pair of slit openings from which a watch could be kept on the approaches
to the mound.
What, then, an excavator is concerned with
is the stratified accumulation of archaeological remains, unconsciously created
by the activities of these early builders. By reversing the process and
examining each successive phase of occupation, from the latest (and therefore
uppermost) downwards, he obtains a chronological cross section of the mound’s history,
and can, if circumstances are favorable, reconstruct a remarkably clear picture
of the cultural and political vicissitudes through which its occupants have
passed.
However, it must be remembered that the
procedure, which he adopts, itself involves a new form of demolition. For as
the architectural remains associated with each phase of occupation are cleared,
examined and recorded, they must in turn be removed in order to attend to the
phase beneath. In a Near Eastern mound, the product of an operation of this
sort is often a deep hole in the ground and very little else that could
interest a subsequent visitor to the site of the excavation.
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