Works In Progress - Overview

Zooarchaeological Project

Tell Leilan Zooarchaeological Project

The Tell Leilan Zooarchaeological Project (established in 2018 by Christina M. Carolus and Asa S. Cameron) is an interdisciplinary collaboration centering on the analysis of faunal skeletal remains recovered from the site of Tell Leilan. It investigates long term human-animal relations at the site through the generation of integrated datasets that combine primary zooarchaeological data collection (e.g. NISP, biometry, age and sex estimation, basic taphonomy) with a range of complementary bioarchaeological and biomolecular analyses. Areas of research interest include local animal economies and management regimes, paleoclimate and paleoecology, mobility, animal diet, domestication processes, and paleogenetics.

Leilan Region Survey: Topographic maps

The Leilan Region Survey topographic maps of individual sites were produced by Richard MacNeill and Harvey Weiss during the course of the 1997 survey season. The LRS survey sites were sherd collected by topographic areas, where definable, and in some cases also collected along transects extending out from the sites in order to capture off-site sherd distributions. The periodization of the sherd collections was recorded systematically in the field by Elena Rova, and subsequently by several students at Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia, and  by Lauren Ristvet. The occupational periods for the LRS sites are recorded in Lauren Ristvet, 2005, Settlement, Economy, and Society in the Tell Leilan Region, Syria, 3000-1000 BC.  Ph.D.

City gate: Introduction

The Excavations at the City Gate were conducted in May-June 2002 by Lauren Ristvet and Andrew McCarthy. Their research has generated new high-focus perspectives for third millennium urbanism and imperialism.

"Seven Generations Since the Fall of Akkad" Workshop

A workshop of fifteen archaeologists convenes May 1-4, 2012 in Warsaw to discuss the nature of the abrupt settlement reduction, “desertification and desertion,” that occurred across the rain-fed Habur Plains of Syria and adjacent regions at the end of the third millennium BC, part of the collapse of the Akkadian empire.

The Akkadian Schoolroom Tablets

In June 2002, Dr. Lucia Mori and Francesca deLillis Forrest excavated the single room house, directly across the street from the Akkadian Administrative Building, where 18 Akkadian school tablets and fragments were in a pile on the floor. Professor Lucio Milano examined the tablets in The National Museum, Deir ez-Zor.

Akkadian Empire Project

For the next ten or more years the Tell Leilan Project will focus multi-disciplinary fieldwork upon the total retrieval of the city’s Akkadian administrative building.

Geomorphological Field Survey Repo

In June 2002, Mark Besonen and Mauro Cremaschi retrieved intriguing new data for Tell Leilan region geomorphology and paleoclimatology.

Tablets and Sealings in the Lower Town Palace

The Lower Town Palace was excavated in 1985 by Peter Akkermans and Glenn Schwartz, and in 1987 by Peter Akkermans, Julia Frane, Annelou van Gijn, Holly Pittman, and Dominique Parayre.

Tell Leilan Region Survey

The systematic, total coverage, Leilan Region Survey (see Resources/Maps/Leilan Region Survey) has been developed over several seasons of fieldwork: