Tell Halaf ( Arabic : تل حلف ) is an archaeological site in the Al Hasakah governorate of northeastern Syria , a few kilometers from the city of Ras al-Ayn near the Syria–Turkey border . The site, which dates to the sixth millennium BCE, was the first to be excavated from a Neolithic culture, later called the Halaf culture , characterized by glazed pottery painted with geometric and animal designs.
43-638: It is thought to have been historically named Guzana , i.e. the Biblical Gozan . Tell Halaf is the type site of the Halaf culture, which developed from Neolithic III at this site without any strong break. The Tell Halaf site flourished from about 6,100 to 5,400 BCE, a period of time that is referred to as the Halaf period . The Halaf culture was succeeded in northern Mesopotamia by the Ubaid culture (c. 5300-4300 BC). The site
86-420: A distinctly separate ideology from the religion of Judaism or what makes one a Jew , stating: "Jewishness is a religious term and not an ethnographical one. As regards to my nationality I am a Transdanubian, and by religion a Jew. When I headed for Hungary from Jerusalem I felt I was coming home." In 1890, Ignaz Goldziher published his work Muhammedanische Studien , inaugurating what Fred Donner has called
129-689: A later period. Goldziher was denied a teaching post at Budapest University until he was 44. He represented the Hungarian government and the Academy of Sciences at numerous international congresses. He received the large gold medal at the Stockholm Oriental Congress in 1889. He became a member of several Hungarian and other learned societies, and was appointed secretary of the Jewish community in Budapest. He
172-421: A small steam train. The costs totaled around 750,000 Mark and were covered by von Oppenheim's father's banking fortune. On arrival, the archaeologists discovered that since 1899 locals had uncovered some of the findings and heavily damaged them – in part out of superstition, in part to gain valuable building material. Oppenheim had recruited five hundred locals from Tell Halaf to help towards the excavation. During
215-497: Is in Deir ez-Zor, 6 are missing, 12 have been destroyed, and 55 have disappeared. In 2006, new Syro-German excavations were started under the direction of Lutz Martin (Vorderasiatisches Museum Berlin), Abd al-Masih Bagdo (Directorate of Antiquities Hassake), Jörg Becker (University of Halle) and Mirko Novák ( University of Bern ). Type site In archaeology , a type site ( American English ) or type-site ( British English )
258-513: Is not known how, were fundamental to the portrayal of Kapara along with their political power. By the end of the 9th century it was a famous Syro-Hittite state . In 894 BCE, the Assyrian king Adad-nirari II recorded the site in his archives as a tributary Aramaean city-state. In 808 BCE, the city and its surrounding area was reduced to a province of the Assyrian Empire . The governor's seat
301-582: Is not known. In 1899, when the area was part of the Ottoman Empire , Max von Oppenheim , a German diplomat travelled from Cairo through northern Mesopotamia on behalf of Deutsche Bank , working on establishing a route for the Bagdad Railway . On 19 November, he discovered Tell Halaf, following up on tales told to him by local villagers of stone idols buried beneath the sand. Within three days, several significant pieces of statuary were uncovered, including
344-669: Is the site used to define a particular archaeological culture or other typological unit , which is often named after it. For example, discoveries at La Tène and Hallstatt led scholars to divide the European Iron Age into the La Tène culture and Hallstatt culture , named after their respective type sites. The concept is similar to type localities in geology and type specimens in biology . Ign%C3%A1c Goldziher Ignác ( Yitzhaq Yehuda ) Goldziher (22 June 1850 – 13 November 1921), often credited as Ignaz Goldziher ,
387-762: The Masterplan Museumsinsel of 1999 brought up the idea of having the Western Palace front from Tell Halaf restored. With financial support from Sal. Oppenheim and the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft the Vorderasiatisches Museum engaged in its largest-scale restoration project since the reconstruction of the Ishtar Gate . From 2001 to 2010, more than 30 sculptures were reconstructed out of around 27,000 fragments. They were exhibited at
430-697: The Mosaic faith was unusual for a man seeking an academic career in Europe in the late 19th century. He turned down several academic appointments outside of Hungary and struggled to understand his faith while transcending conventional piety and patriotism. This fact is significant in understanding his work. He saw Islam through the eyes of someone who refused to assimilate into contemporary European culture. In fact, despite his fondness for Islam, he had little affection, if not outright scorn, for European Christianity. Goldziher viewed Zionism as an ethno-nationalist sentiment and
473-618: The Tell Halaf Museum in Berlin. Only upon the reunification of Germany in 1990 could those family members who were vested in the art, living in West Berlin, revisit the destroyed pieces in East Berlin. The pieces, after being reconstructed, boasted the cracks and imperfections of their war ridden existence (see photo right). Some even were left with the glass from the roof of the Berlin museum on
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#1732844913505516-514: The "traditional-critical approach" to the studies of early Islam and Islamic texts. In this work, Goldziher became the first academic in the West to understand the corpus of hadith texts within the purview of the conflicting political, religious, and social interests that was faced by the Islamic community in the initial centuries of its existence. Goldziher argued, against prior views about the authenticity of
559-477: The 7th century or the life of Muhammad has been widely accepted. Along with Joseph Schacht (1902–1969), who expanded on his work, Goldziher is thought to have authored one of the "two influential and founding works" of Islamic studies or "Orientalist" studies (Goldziher's being Muslim Studies ) according to Mohammed Salem Al-Shehri. Goldziher's works have taken on a renewed importance in recent times owing to Edward Said 's book Orientalism . Said himself
602-769: The French authorities. His share (approximately 80, or about two-thirds of the total) was transported to Berlin, while the other 35 were brought to Aleppo to form a core collection of today's National Museum . In 1929, he resumed excavations and the new findings were divided. Attempts by Oppenheim to have his findings exhibited at the newly constructed Pergamon Museum in Berlin failed, as the museum refused to agree to Oppenheim's financial demands. He thus opened his own private "Tell Halaf Museum" in an industrial complex in Berlin-Charlottenburg in July 1930. The museum's concept of presenting
645-672: The Pergamon Museum in Berlin in 2011 and at the Bundeskunsthalle Bonn in 2014. When the reconstruction of the Museumsinsel is completed around 2025, the Western Palace façade will be the entrance to the new Vorderasiatisches Museum. Artistically, the many fragmented sculptures tell a new story, not only of their ancient heritage, but of their journey in possession and the politics of the 20th century. Some sculptures were destroyed in WW2 in
688-706: The Tell Halaf artefacts. In 1943, eight German-owned orthostat reliefs stored in New York were seized by the US Office of Alien Property Custodian. Amid these negotiations and activities, the Tell Halaf Museum in Berlin was hit by a British phosphorus bomb in November 1943. It burnt down completely, all wooden and limestone exhibits were destroyed. Those made from basalt were exposed to a thermal shock during attempts to fight
731-465: The corpus, that these hadith were creations of later periods and that their origins often reflect the later types of interests by the community. The novelty of Goldziher's analysis, compared to earlier Muslim efforts that attempted to delineate between historical and ahistorical hadith, was that Goldziher's analysis were limited to hadith that had previously been considered authentic or historical in traditional Islamic narrative. Thus, Goldziher "inaugurated
774-576: The critical study" of the hadith's authenticity and concluded that "the great majority of traditions from the Prophet are documents not of the time to which they claim to belong" but created "during the first centuries of Islam," i.e. were fraudulent. This included hadith "accepted even in the most rigorously critical Muslim collections", which meant that "the meticulous isnads which supported them were utterly fictitious" ( R. Stephen Humphreys ). Instead, Goldziher argued in his book Muslim Studies , hadith were
817-443: The descendants of ʿAlī or, conversely, seeking to limit Alid legitimacy. As for isnads, Goldziher viewed them as a secondary attempt at justifying the traditions that particular actors cited during their controversies. The only relevant factor in evaluating the provenance and credibility of a hadith was its matn (content), and not its isnad. He was a strong believer in the view that Islamic law owes its origins to Roman law but in
860-462: The excavations Oppenheim found the ruins of the town of Guzana (or Gozan). Significant finds included the large statues and reliefs of the so-called "Western Palace" built by King Kapara , as well as a cult room and tombs. Some of the statuary was found reused in buildings from the Hellenistic period . In addition, they discovered Neolithic pottery of a type which became known as Halaf culture after
903-452: The exhibits is considered quite modern even by today's standards. In 1939, Oppenheim once more travelled to Syria for excavations, coming within sight of Tell Halaf. However, the French authorities refused to award him a permit to dig and he had to depart. Oppenheim also unsuccessfully tried to sell some of his finds in New York and again negotiated with the German government about the purchase of
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#1732844913505946-431: The final days of the war had severely damaged the building and the archaeological findings had to be dug out of the rubble. Once again, it was found that the locals had damaged some of the stone workings. Since he had made plaster casts during the original excavation, Oppenheim was able to repair most of the damage done to the statues and orthostat reliefs. He managed to achieve a generous division of his previous finds with
989-543: The fire and severely damaged. Many statues and reliefs burst into dozens of pieces. Although the Vorderasiatisches Museum Berlin took care of the remains, months passed before all of the pieces had been recovered and they were further damaged by frost and summer heat. Stored in the cellars of the Pergamon Museum during the period of communist rule under the GDR , the remains were left untouched. After reunification,
1032-413: The hadith literature, including in: reports supporting the legitimacy of dynasties; traditions addressing how believers should respond to ungodly rulers; hadith supporting particular positions in theological controversies; reports giving voice to local patriotism; reports praising the merits of particular localities, tribes or families; apocalyptic prophecies of conquests and rebellions; and hadith praising
1075-400: The model for a new spirit of Judaism at the close of the nineteenth century.' In Cairo, Goldziher even prayed as a Muslim: "In the midst of the thousands of the pious, I rubbed my forehead against the floor of the mosque . Never in my life was I more devout, more truly devout, than on that exalted Friday." Despite his love for Islam, Goldziher remained a devout Jew all his life. This bond to
1118-733: The museum after they had been seized by the Office of Alien Property Custodian. It conveys the fragmentation and division as Tell Halaf sat at the center of political governance and conflict. It also addresses the role of an encyclopedic museum in conversation and collaboration with the past, and its voices. Today, of the 194 excavated orthostat reliefs from Tell Halaf, 59 are in Berlin, 4 are in Paris, 15 are in London, 4 are in New York, 4 are in Baltimore, 34 are in Aleppo, 1
1161-535: The opinion of Patricia Crone his arguments here are "uncharacteristically weak". Goldziher's influence was a result of his careful investigation of pre-Islamic and Islamic law , tradition, religion and poetry, in connection with which he published a large number of treatises, review articles and essays contributed to the collections of the Hungarian Academy. Goldziher's own analyses were limited to and sampled from legal and theological hadith, but his approach
1204-570: The product of "debates and arguments within the emerging [Islamic] religion and society ... projected back into the time of the Prophet" and were a means of putting "support for one party or another ... into the mouth of the prophet" (in the words of G.R. Hawting). Tied to this, and Goldziher's observation of the massive scale on which hadith were forged, was his observation that each position in every political and doctrinal controversy could be paired with numerous supporting hadiths, each equipped with an isnad. Goldziher also observed replete anachronism in
1247-430: The remnants of Mitanni as a bufferstate to the independent Assyrians in the east. Tell Halaf became a Hittite city led by the viceroy of Carchemish. Ramesses III of Egypt states in an inscription dating to his 8th Year from his Medinet Habu mortuary temple that Carchemish was destroyed by the "Sea Peoples". This was a period of climate change and social unrest caused by drought, weakening the central powers, and marking
1290-536: The sculpture itself. The exhibition Rayyane Tabet / Alien Propert y by Rayyane Tabet at the Metropolitan Museum of Art displays the museum's orthostat reliefs and Tabet's graphite transfers, Orthostates , in tandem with his family heirlooms. The exhibition explores the task of locating and tracing provenance, particularly through reference to the Alien Property Act and the objects purchased at auction by
1333-510: The site and had it circulated to several leading archaeologists like Theodor Nöldeke or Ignác Goldziher to sign. Armed with this letter, Max von Oppenheim was now able to ask for his dismissal from the diplomatic service (which he did on 24 October 1910) while being able to call on financing from his father for the excavation. With a team of five archaeologists, Oppenheim planned a digging campaign that began on 5 August 1911. Substantial amounts of equipment were imported from Germany, including
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1376-445: The site where it was first found. At the time, this was the oldest painted pottery ever found (together with those discovered at Samarra by Herzfeld). In 1913, Oppenheim decided to return temporarily to Germany. The finds of Tell Halaf were left at the building he and his team had inhabited during the dig. Most of them were securely packaged and stored. The outbreak of World War I prevented Oppenheim from returning. However, Oppenheim
1419-435: The so-called "Sitting Goddess". A test pit uncovered the entrance to the "Western Palace". Since he had no legal permit to excavate, Oppenheim had the statues he found reburied and moved on. According to noted archaeologist Ernst Herzfeld , he had urged Oppenheim in 1907 to excavate Tell Halaf and they made some initial plans towards this goal at that time. In August 1910, Herzfeld wrote a letter calling on Oppenheim to explore
1462-612: The time of King Kapara, and the "North-Eastern Palace", the seat of the Assyrian governors. In the lower town a temple (or cult room) in Assyrian style was discovered. The site is located near the city of Ra's al-'Ayn in the fertile valley of the Khabur River (Nahr al-Khabur), close to the modern border with Turkey . The name Tell Halaf is a local Aramaic placename, tell meaning "hill", and Tell Halaf meaning "made of former city"; what its original inhabitants called their settlement
1505-584: The transition from the Late Bronze to the Iron Age. Furthermore, it saw the emergences of Neo-Hittite city-states. In the 10th century BCE, the rulers of the small Aramaean kingdom Bit Bahiani took their seat in Tell Halaf, re-founded as Guzana or Gozan. King Kapara built the so-called hilani , a palace in Neo-Hittite style with a rich decoration of statues and relief orthostats. These sculptures, even though it
1548-484: Was a Hungarian scholar of Islam . Alongside Joseph Schacht and G.H.A. Juynboll , he is considered one of the pioneers of modern academic hadith studies . His most important work is the two-volume Muhammedanische Studien ( Muslim Studies ), especially its second volume, which addresses questions of the origins, evolution, and development of hadith . Born in Székesfehérvár of German Jewish heritage, he
1591-644: Was a palace in the eastern part of the citadel mound. Guzana survived the collapse of the Assyrian Empire and remained inhabited until the Roman-Parthian Period. In historical times, the mound itself became the citadel of the Aramaean and Assyrian city. The lower town extended 600 m N–S and 1000 m E–W. The citadel mound housed the palaces and other official buildings. Most prominent are the so-called Hilani or "Western Palace" with its rich decor, dating back to
1634-740: Was able to sell some of the stone reliefs, pottery and other artefacts he had excavated to various museums after the war including the British Museum and Walters Art Museum in Baltimore. In 1926, Germany joined the League of Nations and it thus became possible for German nationals to conduct excavations in what was now the French-ruled Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon . Preparing for new excavations, in 1927 Oppenheim again travelled to Tell Halaf. Artillery fire exchanged between Osman and French troops in
1677-571: Was educated at the universities of Budapest , Berlin , Leipzig and Leiden with the support of József Eötvös , Hungarian minister of culture. He became privatdozent at Budapest in 1872. In the next year, under the auspices of the Hungarian government, he began a journey through Syria , Palestine and Egypt , and took the opportunity of attending lectures of Muslim sheiks in the mosque of al-Azhar in Cairo . In 1888 he wrote his main studies of Islam which attributed several traditions of Muhammad to
1720-403: Was extended into other categories of texts in the ensuing years, including Quran commentary, sira literature, and more, especially by Henri Lammens and Leone Caetani in the immediate years following his major work. Another effect of his work has been to shift the conversation away from the study of the type of history that can be reconstructed from these types of sources, which Goldziher thought
1763-567: Was made Litt.D. of Cambridge (1904) and LL.D. of Aberdeen (1906). Goldziher died in Budapest . Goldziher kept a personal record of his reflections, travel records and daily records. This journal was later published in his German mother tongue as Tagebuch . The following quotation from Goldziher's published journal provides insight into his feelings about Islam. Sander Gilman , in commenting on this passage, writes that, 'the Islam he discovered becomes
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1806-511: Was then abandoned for a long period. The Mitanni Empire controlled this region in the 15th century BC until around 1345 BC. In the Late Bronze, Suppiluliuma I of Hatti conquered the Mitanni stronghold of Carchemish, leading to the assassination of Tushratta of Mitanni around 1345 BC. With the fall of the Mitanni Empire, Carchemish became the seat of a hittite viceroy who ruled the region with
1849-571: Was very little, and into what they tell us about how Muhammad was represented in the second and third centuries of the Islamic era in literary sources. Some have sought to counter or refute Goldziher, such as by arguing for a larger role in the written transmission of hadith from early periods (such as by the Turkish scholar Fuad Sezgin, and among others like Azami and Abbott), although this approach has not found much traction amongst other scholars. Broadly, Goldziher's contention that hadith tell us little about
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