The Glyptic of Tell Chuera: Seals and Sealings of the 3rd Millennium BC

This volume provides a complete presentation of the seal impressions and seals excavated between 1955 and the Syrian Civil war in 2011 in Tell Chuera. With a total of 605 items showing 313 different designs the corpus forms a good basis to analyze the motivic repertoire of Tell Chuera, which is the only major site of the 3rd millennium BC in the centre between the Balikh and Habur that has been excavated on a large scale. Its location in a scarcely investigated area as well as the so far incomplete publication of the material have led to many discussions about the period/s in which the glyptic finds might have been used or produced. Since the majority of finds comes from secondary contexts, these contexts do not allow determining the age without references to other sites. One major part of this volume is therefore discussing the dating of almost the entire glyptic motives found within the borders of modern Syria and to create a chronological framework in which to integrate Tell Chuera’s glyptic. Besides the presentation and discussion of the date of the motives, the context of each specimen is presented with all available information. A brief discussion of the function of seals and sealings in Tell Chuera, especially in the area of the Kleiner Antentempel (Area K), concludes the volume.