by
Damien F. Mackey
““Uncertainty in identifying exclusively Akkadian pottery has made it impossible to reconstruct Akkadian settlement patterns with any confidence” (Nissen 1993: 100)”.
Dr. John Osgood
Dr. Donovan Courville would come to the conclusion, in his praiseworthy effort to bring Egypt and Mesopotamia into line historically and archaeologically with the biblical data (The Exodus Problem and its Ramifications, 1971), that the distinctive Jemdet Nasr (near Kish) period was archaeological evidence for the Dispersion after Babel.
Vern Crisler tells of it: https://vernerable.files.wordpress.com/2008/10/tower-of-babel1.pdf
Courville was quite confident that the Dispersion from Babel took place in the archaeological period known as “Jemdet Nasr.” …. The strata of Jemdet Nasr in Mesopotamia correlate to Early Bronze 1 strata in the Holy Land. It is believed that this period shows that an “intensive migration” took place from Mesopotamia into Syria, Palestine, Egypt, Asia Minor and into the Aegean islands.
Reference is made to W. F. Albright who had spoken of this period as a “transitional period” corresponding to Megiddo 19 and the lowest level of Byblos. …. It is further noted that this was a “narrow period” in Mesopotamian history, and that Jemdet Nasr had a “brief existence” and was “short.” …. The Jemdet Nasr period represents the beginnings of dynastic history, and thus represents a trend toward nationalism.
[End of quotes]
Following Dr. Osgood, I shall be suggesting a different context for the Jemdet Nasr phase, somewhat later than Babel.
My own view is that the Akkadian dynasty is represented by the sophisticated Halaf culture, currently dated to approximately (a massive) four millennia before King Sargon of Akkad (c. 2334 -2284 BC, conventional dating).
This Sargon I, ‘the Great’, may even be Nimrod himself. See e.g. my article:
Nimrod a “mighty man”
As we are now going to find, the conventional picture regarding the archaeology for the famous Akkadian and Ur III dynasties is hopelessly inadequate. Here is what I have written on this:
“Uncertainty in identifying exclusively Akkadian pottery has made it impossible to reconstruct Akkadian settlement patterns with any confidence” (Nissen 1993: 100).
Most interesting, now, that Anne Habermehl’s geographical re-location of the Babel incident:
… finds a most significant and sophisticated ancient culture to accompany it: namely, Halaf.
…. The long Akkadian empire phase of history … so admired by subsequent rulers and generations, is remarkably lacking in archaeological data. I noted this [before] ….
“The Akkadian kings were extensive builders, so why, then, so few traces of their work?
Not to mention, where is their capital city of Akkad?
The Ur III founder, Ur-Nammu, built a wall at Ur. Not a trace remains”.
…. here I want to highlight the enormity of the problem.
Archaeologists have actually failed to identify a specific pottery for the Akkadian era!
This is, of course, quite understandable given that they (indeed, we) have been expecting to discover the heart of the Akkadian kingdom in Sumer, or Lower Mesopotamia.
We read of this incredible situation of a missing culture in the following account by Dr. R. Matthews, from his book, The Archaeology of Mesopotamia: Theories and Approaches (https://books.google.com.au/books?id=9ZrjLyrPipsC&pg=PA152&lpg=PA152&dq=uncer):
The problems of fitting material cultural assemblages, especially pottery, into historical sequences are epitomised in the ongoing debate over what, if anything, characterises Akkadian material culture in Lower Mesopotamia (Gibson and McMahon 1995; Nissen 1993; J. G. Westenholz 1998).
Uncertainty in identifying exclusively Akkadian pottery has made it impossible to reconstruct Akkadian settlement patterns with any confidence (Nissen 1993: 100). The bleakest view has been put thus: ‘If we didn’t know from the texts that the Akkad empire really existed, we would not be able to postulate it from the changes in settlement patterns, nor … from the evolution of material culture’ (Liverani 1993: 7-8). The inference is either that we are failing to isolate and identify the specifics of Akkadian material culture, or that a political entity apparently so large and sophisticated as the Akkadian empire can rise and pass without making a notable impact on settlement patterns or any aspect of material culture”.
Obviously, that “a political entity apparently so large and sophisticated as the Akkadian empire can rise and pass without making a notable impact on … any aspect of material culture” is quite absurd. The truth of the matter is that a whole imperial culture has been almost totally lost because - just as in the case of so much Egyptian culture, and in its relation to the Bible - historians and archaeologists are forever looking in the wrong geographical place at the wrong chronological time.
It is my view that, regarding the Akkadian empire (and following Habermehl), one needs to look substantially towards Syria and the Mosul region, rather than to “Lower Mesopotamia”. And that one needs to fuse the Halaf culture with the Akkadian one. The most important contribution by Anne Habermehl has opened up a completely new vista for the central Akkadian empire, and for the biblical events associated with it. The potentate Nimrod, one might now expect, had begun his empire building, not in Sumer, but in the Sinjar region, and had then moved on to northern Assyria. Thus Genesis 10:10-11: “The beginning of [Nimrod’s] kingdom was Babel and Erech and Accad and Calneh, in the land of Shinar. From that land he went forth into Assyria, where he built Nineveh, Rehoboth-Ir, Calah and Resen, which is between Nineveh and Calah—which is the great city”.
And these are precisely the regions where we find that the spectacular Halaf culture arose and chiefly developed: NE Syria and the Mosul region of Assyria.
Understandably once again, in a conventional context, with the Halaf cultural phase dated to c. 6100-5100 BC, there can be no question of meeting these dates with the Akkadian empire of the late C3rd millennium BC. That is where Dr. Osgood’s “A Better Model for the Stone Age” (http://creation.com/a-better-model-for-the-stone-age) becomes so vital, with its revising of Halaf down to the Late Chalcolithic period in Palestine, to the time of Abram (Abraham):
…. In 1982, under the title 'A Four-Stage Sequence for the Levantine Neolithic', Andrew M.T. Moore presented evidence to show that the fourth stage of the Syrian Neolithic was in fact usurped by the Halaf Chalcolithic culture of Northern Mesopotamia, and that this particular Chalcolithic culture was contemporary with the Neolithic IV of Palestine and Lebanon.5:25 ....
….
This was very significant, especially as the phase of Halaf culture so embodied was a late phase of the Halaf Chalcolithic culture of Mesopotamia, implying some degree of contemporaneity of the earlier part of Chalcolithic Mesopotamia with the early part of the Neolithic of Palestine, Lebanon and Syria ….
This finding was not a theory but a fact, slowly and very cautiously realized, but devastating in its effect upon the presently held developmental history of the ancient world. This being the case, and bearing in mind the impossibility of absolute dating by any scientific means despite the claims to the contrary, the door is opened very wide for the possible acceptance of the complete contemporaneity of the whole of the Chalcolithic of Mesopotamia with the whole of the Neolithic and Chalcolithic of Palestine. (The last period of the Chalcolithic of Palestine is seen to be contemporary with the last Chalcolithic period of Mesopotamia.)
Dr. Osgood himself, however, regards the Halaf people as the biblical “Aramites” [Aramaeans]. (“A Better Model for the Stone Age Part Two”: http://creation.com/a-better-model-for-the-stone-age-part-2).
Since the Aramaeans, though, tended to be a wandering nomadic people (Deuteronomy 26:5), I would not expect their existence to be reflected in a culture as sophisticated as Halaf. Though they themselves may have absorbed some of it. My preference, therefore, is for Halaf to represent the Akkadians, especially as Halaf was the dominant culture when Osgood’s Jemdat Nasr pertaining to the Elamite Chedorlaomer, arose.
This is how Dr. Osgood sees the spread of the Halaf culture:
Now if we date Babel to approximately 2,200 B.C. (as reasoned by implication from Noah's Flood 3) and if Abraham came from Mesopotamia (the region of Aram) approximately 1875 B.C., then we would expect that there is archaeological evidence that a people who can fit the description generally of the Aramites should be found well established in this area .... What in fact do we find? Taking the former supposition of the Jemdat Nasr culture being identified with the biblical story of Genesis 14 and the Elamite Chedarloamer,4 we would expect to find some evidence in Aram or northern Mesopotamia of Jemdat Nasr influence, but this would only be the latest of cultural influences in this region superseding and dominant on other cultures.
The dominant culture that had been in this area prior to the Jemdat Nasr period was a culture that is known to the archaeologist as the Halaf culture, named after Tell Halaf where it was first identified. One of the best summaries of our present knowledge of the Halafian culture is found in the publication, 'The Hilly Flanks'5. It seems clear from the present state of knowledge that the Halaf culture was a fairly extensive culture, but it was mostly dominant in the area that we recognise as Aram Naharaim.
It is found in the following regions. First, its main base in earliest distribution seems to have been the Mosul region. From there it later spread to the Sinjar region to the west, further westward in the Khabur head-waters, further west again to the Balikh River system, and then into the middle Euphrates valley. It also spread a little north of these areas. It influenced areas west of the Middle Euphrates valley and a few sites east of the Tigris River, but as a general statement, in its fully spread condition, the Halaf culture dominated Aram Naharaim ….
The site of Arpachiyah just west of Nineveh across the Tigris River appears to have been the longest occupied site and perhaps the original settlement of the Halaf people. This and Tepe Gawra were important early Halaf towns.
The settlement of the Halaf people at these cities continued for some considerable time, finally to be replaced by the Al Ubaid people from southern Mesopotamia. When Mallowan excavated the site of Tell Arpachiyah, he found that the top five levels belonged to the Al Ubaid period. The fifth level down had some admixture of Halaf material within it. He says:
‘The more spacious rooms of T.T.5 indicate that it is the work of Tell Halaf builders; that the two stocks did not live together in harmony is shown by the complete change of material in T.T.l-4, where all traces of the older elements had vanished. Nor did any of the burials suggest an overlap between graves of the A 'Ubaid and Tell Halaf period; on the contrary, there was evidence that in the Al 'Ubaid cemetery grave- diggers of the Al 'Ubaid period had deliberately destroyed Tell Halaf house remains.’6
He further comments the following:
‘It is more than probable that the Tell Halaf peoples abandoned the site on the arrival of the newcomers from Babylonia; and with the disappearance of the old element prosperity the site rapidly declined; for, although the newcomers were apparently strong enough to eject the older inhabitants, yet they appear to have been a poor community, already degenerate; their houses were poorly built and meanly planned, their streets no longer cobbled as in the Tell Halaf period and the general appearance of their settlement dirty and poverty stricken in comparison with the cleaner buildings of the healthier northern peoples who were their predecessors.’7
He further says:
‘The invaders had evidently made a wholesale destruction of all standing buildings converted some of them into a cemetery.’8
It is clear from the discussion of Patty Jo Watson9 that the later periods of the Halaf people were found in the other regions, particularly in a westward direction across the whole area of Aram Naharaim, namely the Sinjar region, the Khabur head-waters, the Balikh River system and the middle Euphrates”.
[End of Osgood’s article]
Dr. Osgood had estimated the Halaf culture as having spread from east (Assyria) to the west: “First, its main base in earliest distribution seems to have been the Mosul region. From there it later spread to the Sinjar region to the west, further westward in the Khabur head-waters, further west again to the Balikh River system …”. Most likely, it was the other way around, with Nimrod (= Sargon of Akkad/Halaf culture) firstly having established his kingdom in the “Sinjar region”, biblical “Shinar” (Genesis 10:10): “The first centers of his kingdom were Babylon, Uruk, Akkad and Kalneh, in Shinar. From that land he went to Assyria, where he built Nineveh, Rehoboth Ir, Calah and Resen, which is between Nineveh and Calah—which is the great city”.
Andrew Moore had, as we read before, argued for a contemporaneity of the Chacolithic phase of Halaf culture with the Neolithic IV of Palestine and Lebanon ….
Archaeologically, we are now on the eve of the city building phase (inspired by Nimrod?) that will be a feature of Syro-Palestine’s Early Bronze Age. Presumably the Canaanites were heavily involved in all of this work (Genesis 10:18): “… the Canaanite clans scattered and the borders of Canaan reached from Sidon toward Gerar as far as Gaza, and then toward Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboyim, as far as Lasha”.
Ham himself, though, son of Noah and father of Canaan, gave his name to the land of Egypt (e.g., Psalm 78:51): “He struck down all the firstborn of Egypt, the firstfruits of manhood in the tents of Ham” (http://www.topix.com/forum/afam/T2OTBS4EEA84MJ67P/p2):
“According to the Bible the ancient Egyptians were descended from Ham through the line of Mizraim. Ham had four sons: Cush, Mizraim, Phut, and Canaan (Genesis 10:6). The name "Mizraim" is the original name given for Egypt in the Hebrew Old Testament. Many Bibles will have a footnote next to the name "Mizraim" explaining that it means "Egypt." The name "Egypt" itself actually comes to us from the Greeks who gave the Land that name (i.e. "Aegyptos" from the Greek). In addition to the name "Mizraim," the ancient Egyptians also referred to their land as "Kemet" which means "Land of the Blacks." Western historians, however, say that the word "Kemet" refers to the color of the soil of the land rather than its people. But, the word "Kemet" is actually an ethnic term being a derivative of the word "Khem" (Cham or Ham) which means "burnt" or "black." Ham, who was one of the three sons of Noah and the direct ancestor of the Egyptians, was black”.
Similarly, Ham’s son, Cush (Genesis 10:6), is considered to be the father of the Cushite Ethiopians, who were (are) black.
Ham’s brother, Japheth, became the god-Father of the Indo-European peoples such as the Greeks, who would identify him as Iapetos, the Titan, and the Indians, who called him Prajapti, “Father Japheth”.
Regarding Shem, I follow the Jewish tradition that Shem was the great Melchizedek - which view is chronologically acceptable. Genesis 10:10-11: “Two years after the flood, when Shem was 100 years old, he became the father of Arphaxad. And after he became the father of Arphaxad, Shem lived 500 years [long enough to have been able to meet Abram] and had other sons and daughters”.
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