418 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1933 



lithic period? The question could be answered only after a brief 

 dig on some chosen site. 



Gawra was visited during one of tlie concluding stages of the 

 survey (pi. 1). The tall conical mound outlined against the foothills 

 of southern Kurdistan was bound to impress at the end of a weari- 

 some Iraqian afternoon. Yet the appeal was not purely esthetic. 

 My somewhat perfunctory interest gave way to astonishment when 

 it became apparent that here was beyond any doubt the oldest site 

 that the country had yet presented. Tell-tale painted sherds and 

 archaic implements covered the slopes of the lofty mound practically 

 all the way to the top. If the upper strata contained Chalcolithic 

 deposits, what date was to be assigned to the lowest layers ? 



One other factor helped to make fascinating the strictly archeo- 

 logical prospects of Tepe Gawra. A long series of prehistoric strata 

 lay here above ground. Their excavation would entail therefore no 

 serious technical difficulties, particularly since the hill was narrow 

 and hence suitable for the removal of complete layers. A wide tell 

 calls for digging in sections, with the inevitable result that the con- 

 tinuity of the given strata is disturbed to some extent. To obtain a 

 cross-section of the accumulated deposits one must resort in such 

 cases to trial " pits ", digging underground and limiting the area of 

 the sounding as one descends. This method is of course the only one 

 that will yield the desired information within a comparatively 

 brief period of time. But it is cumbersome and costly, imposing 

 great hardships on the excavator and producing results that are nec- 

 essarily tentative. It has been employed within the last few years in 

 Ur, Warka (Erech), and Nineveh;^ also in such Palestinian sites 

 as Megiddo and Beisan. In 1927, however, the general interest in 

 the prehistoric remains of the Near East had not been aroused to a 

 point where it would warrant such experiments on a large scale. 

 At Gawra, on the other hand, there was no need of elaborate subter- 

 ranean operations, and that was one of the reasons why the mound 

 seemed to be such a valuable find. It represented the contents of an 

 ideal pit all exhumed, as it were, and arranged neatly in a definite 

 order; with the added advantage that the oldest remains, preserved 

 for once at the base of this uninverted cone, were bound to be more 

 plentiful than the others. The analysis of the contents could be 

 effected in this case with considerable economy of effort and expen- 

 diture. 



And yet, in spite of all this good fortune which all but betokened 

 the friendly intercession of some cosmic patron of archeology, the 

 examination of the site had its discouraging aspects. Were the 

 prospects of Gawra attractive enough from a practical standpoint 



»Cf. Amer. Journ. Archaeol., vol. 36, pp. 465-471, 1932. 



