Posted by Maude Pattullo on March 31, 1999 at 23:51:03:
In Reply to: Re: woven bags posted by Michael Wendorf on March 31, 1999 at 11:16:56:
Michael...
I begin a reply to your two postings of today, but do not have the time now (and am still grappling with this little box), to properly respond. However, I will try to get back to this tomorrow. I spent 9 years at Columbia University studying Ancient Near Eastern Art History and Archaeology; I bailed out in '82. I started my research in the Neolithic, and ended
with the ascent of Cyrus. And somewhere in this
greying head and on my sagging bookshelves is the
correct chronology, the place
names, and other assorted brick-a-brack to
elucidate my somewhat offhand comment of last
night.
The site was certainly not Tell Halaf, which is,
as you said "advanced." Rather, it was a
little agglomeration of not-even-mudbrick
dwellings up there in the Zagros.
As to the domestication of sheep, as well as
goats, emmer and einkorn wheat and barley, these
are generally believed to have taken place in
...you guys are gonna love this expression...the
hilly flanks of the Zagros and Taurus Mountains.
Basically Kurdish homeland, or a little lower down the slopes. An area that, in the 8th-7th
millennia, had adequate rainfall to produce a lush
springtime pasturage. The garden of eden was not
aswim in muck (ie., not down there in the estuary
of the T&E Rivers). It was up there where the
pasturage was good.
I cannot struggle here any longer...but I will say
that it has always been my firm conviction that
the Kurdish people are/were the Hurrians, the Ur-inhabitants of those beautiful hilly flanks,
who were
briefly and brilliantly overlorded by the Mitanni in the mid-2nd millennium, much in the way the
Chinese existed behind the Japanese scrim of
influence. Almost nothing at all is known about
the Hurri themselves, although anything
inexplicable from that geographic area, from
Diyarbakir south and east to Kirkuk and west in a
similar arc, is usually, by default, ascribed to
them.
Please remember, it is axiomatic that Hill People Cause Trouble. On every continent, in every
climate, this is true. But only if you are are a
dweller in the estuary or in the town, and wish to control all of
your hinterland, should this bother you.
It has seemed to bother far too many people in
power throughout history, and, by gum, it is still bothering them today.
Maude