Arpachiya

Arpachiya 

an Aeneolithic settlement of the fifth millennium B.C. near Mosul in Iraq. The inhabitants of Arpachiya practiced cattle raising and agriculture and lived in clay houses. Excavations have revealed barley, wheat, and emmer (spelt) seeds, stone hoes, and sickles with flint inserts. The house of a potter and pottery kilns, which were circular in plan (possibly intended for ritual purposes), have been excavated. The findings included polychrome ceramics, terra-cotta statuettes, and pendant amulets. The lower levels in the Arpachiya diggings belong to the Tell Halaf culture, the upper layers to the El-Obeid culture.

REFERENCES

Mallowan, M. E. L., and J. Gruikshank Rose. Prehistoric Assyria: The Excavations of Tall Arpachiyah, 1933. London, 1935.
Childe, G. Drevneishii Vostok ν svete novykh raskopok. Moscow, 1956. (Translated from English.)

V. M. MASSON