The Gazelle Jar from Tell Qara Qzq (Syria): an essay of interpretation1

Carmen Valds Pereiro I.P.O.A. (Barcelona)

1. Introduction. The purpose of this paper is the review of a ceramic jar excavated from the site of Tell Qara Qzq, in Northern Syria, during the 1991 season (fig. 1). From the beginning, this vessel was unofficially baptised as the gazelle jar, even if we were not sure of the specific meaning of the scene. Today, I would like to offer some hypothesis that would explain the meaning of the scene and its relation with the economic system of these small communities, which exist at the banks of the middle Euphrates during the middle and the end of the III millennium B.C. The symmetrical and schematic depiction give us the first impression of a group of dancing men under a row of caprids, but the nature of the interaction between the two groups could elude us. As is the case of the primitive rock art, schematic representation used to be full of symbolism, and the main issue to these people to represent through art is hunting and rituals, or rituals relating to hunting. In this paper we are going to argue that this jar supports the representation of a gathering/hunting technique used in the Near East during centuries by the people living the arid steppes to hunt large herds of gazelles. This technique requires a permanent or semi-permanent structure called desert-kites, that is not physically depicted on the jar, but whose symbolic or subconscious existence I would like to emphasize. 2. The archaeological background. Tell Qara Qzq has been excavated since 1989 by the Archaeological Mission of the Institute of Ancient Near East (University of Barcelona University of Murcia), directed by Gregorio Del Olmo Lete, as a part of the salvage project in the Tirin Dam area (Syria).2 The small tell is located on the left bank of the Euphrates river, some 30 km south of the Turkish border. The last season was carried out in 2000, when the site had to be abandoned by the rising of the flood level.
1. I am very glad to have the opportunity to present this contribution to Prof. Sanmartn, with whom I have shared the unforgettable experience of digging in the Near East, at the site whose material I am analysing in this contribution. 2. See Del Olmo ed. 1993, Del Olmo Montero Valds eds. 2001, Olvarri 1995, Valds 1999, id. 2000, for more information about the site. In the lower town, - still not published - some remains of tombs and later settlement (Area C, LR/EByz period) were also detected.
Studies Presented to Joaqun Sanmartn Aula Orientalis-Supplementa 22 (2006) 399-414

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Fig. 1. Jar with incised decoration from Tell Qara Qzq.

Five main occupation periods were identified on the tell: I) Roman period; II) Middle Bronze I-II; III) end of Early Bronze; IV) middle of EB; V) beginning of EB. During the MB it was occupied by a huge complex of silos with a small temple in antis in the middle. Another larger temple in antis (locus 10) was in use during the second part of the III millennium.

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The jar has already been published in the first volume of the final reports.3 The archaeological context was inside a stone-built silo (S-40) from level IV, smaller in size than those of the silo complex from the Middle Bronze Age. For this level we have no good layers of buildings or settlement, being mostly characterized by the pottery assemblage. This is mostly composed of wheel-made Simple Ware, along with an interesting group of the so-called Euphrates Ware or Euphrates Red-Banded Jars. The Reserved Slip Ware or the post-Ubaid Multiple-brush Painted Ware from the previous phase are completely lost, and we have not yet the EBIV caliciform assemblage. In fact, during level IV the decoration is almost absent, especially the paint has completely disappeared. The only decoration is incised, sometimes applied, but in small quantities, and this type seems to be more conspicuous when we are nearing the end of the III millennium. 3. The vessel and its decoration. The vessel4 is a globular medium-sized jar with narrow neck, everted rim and slightly rounded lip. The incised and impressed decoration is laid on the upper part of the body, under the neck. The motifs are framed by two parallel horizontal bands: the upper one a row of impressed circles, and the lower one a band of obliquely incised strokes. In between, two registers with scenes with a repetitive motive arranged in horizontal series: in the upper register is a four-legged animal, possibly a gazelle, shown in profile, and, in the lower one, an anthropomorphic figure alternating with a circular design filled with strokes, more or less converging in the centre. The human figure seems to be also in profile except for the upper body with the raised arms, but it is difficult to discern due to the high level of schematism. The only impressed motifs are the circles of the upper line, the rest is all incised with deep and broad strokes, the whole applied when the vessel was leather-hard. The depiction is quite outstanding in account of its geometrical, schematic and static approach. The design is figurative and linear but, unlike those figurative motives of the jars from this period in the Syrian Euphrates, the intention is not naturalistic. The motives are scarcely outlined with simple basic strokes, rigidly standing and not interacting between themselves. Nevertheless, we are not dealing with a still image, a scene frozen in time. The stillness of the scene stands out its symbolic character. Our knowledge of the meaning of the symbol will provide the movement. The sensation of scene is then created by the repetition of the same motive. If a lone figure represents a man, the repetition of almost the same figure creates a multitude. The interaction will be apparent through the relative position of the characters. Here we have the depiction of a man, of an animal and of a round wheel-like object, all three of them repeating themselves. The composition is aware of the morphology of its support. Like in a primitive zoetrope or praxinoscope, also the circular nature of the vessel helps to create the illusion of infinite movement thanks to the phenomenon of the retinal persistence. But, unlike those image devices, here the figures do not basically change, so, for us, the perspective doesnt matter. Whatever the side from where one held the vessels, the scene will always be the same. Therefore, what we really understand viewing the jar is a strongly vivid scene, a crowd of men scaring, guiding, and possibly shouting, a big herd of gazelles running ahead.

3. Valds 1994: fig. 27, p. 54, 121, pl. VIe. 4. Technical data: Reg. N. QQ91C1-208; location: Trench 311 SE, silo S-40; Simple Ware, wheel-made. Hard clay, slightly porous, reddish orange colour. Grit temper (fine, middle density). Cream slip on exterior surface, lost at the base of the jar. Incised and impressed decoration.

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4. The hunting technique of the desert-kites. A desert-kite is a large stone construction consisting in an irregular enclosure with an opening from which two or more long walls ran out, diverging and opening up forming a kind of tails, recalling from the air the shape of a kite, reason why that was the name given to them by the British pilots who fly the Air Mail route across Transjordan on the 1920s. Along the exterior face of the enclosure a series of circular cells were attached. The general assumption, using ethnographic parallels,5 is that they were hunting structures, to gather and mass-kill wild animals, especially gazelles.6 The animals were separated from the herd by groups of men scaring and herding them towards the funnel-shape passage (the guide walls) that, narrowing at the end, lead into the enclosure where the animals were gathered and killed, maybe by the men hiding at the peripheral cells.7

Fig. 2. A view of a desert-kite from <Eb n-Naga, Nejma valley, Syria.

This hunting technique begins in the late seventh millennium, and it is used during the Neolithic, Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age.8 There is a dense concentration of desert-kites in the basaltic zones of central and southern Syria, the Khabur basin, northern Jordan, Negev and Sinai and North Saudi Arabia.9 Various animals were reported to have been trapped within those walls: gazelles, oryx, ostriches or the local Equus, but the onagers and gazelles appear to have been the major sources of meat during the most likely periods of construction and use of desert-kites.10
5. The last representatives of this type of hunt in the Near East seem to have been the Solubba, a tribal group of gazelle hunters that still survive in the Arabian Pensinsula. The other animals that they deal with are the donkeys, of which they have big herds. Vid. Betts 1989. 6. At least, that would have been its primary use, as it seems that the structures were sometimes reused to gather domestic stock (Echallier Braemer 1995: 61). 7. Also described as devices to concentrate as many animals as possible within the shortest possible striking distance, and to facilitate the killing of as many individual animals as possible out of the group captured and cornered in the kite (Rosen Perevolotsky 1998: 110). 8. Helms and Betts 1987. 9. Van Berg et al. 2004, 90. 10. Pollock 1999: 105-107.

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The killing was a seasonal affair, as gazelle migrations in Jordan and Syria took place on a northsouth axis: at spring they moved to the north looking for better pastures, there the young were born and at the end of the summer they returned south.11 At Abu Hureyra, a Mesolithic camp located at the Syrian Euphrates valley (Tabqa Dam area), the amount of gazelle bones recovered (80%) made the archaeologist conclude that the community must have killed gazelle herds by means of some type of desert-kite, even if there were no physical remains of the structure. At that period the migrating gazelle herds still arrived quite intact till the Euphrates river, but later, in the Neolithic period the construction of massive networks of desert-kites in south and middle Syria and Jordan provoked that the amount of animals arriving to the north drastically declined.12 During the end of the Chalcolithic period and the beginning of the Early Bronze Age the gazelle meat only supplied a small protein surplus. Even so, the system never completely disappeared, as we have prove of its use also during the Roman period.13 Related hunting techniques have been reported to exist even at the XXth century. 5. Comparative material. 5.1. The jar and its decoration:

4 1 2

Fig. 3. Incised vessels of the same general cultural area and period: 1) Tell Qara Qzq; 2) Tabqa region; 3) Tell Bi>a; 4) Halawa.

The most striking parallel of the ceramic vessel with its decoration as a whole, can be found in another jar known to be originated from Syria, specifically from the Euphrates Tabqa Dam area (fig. 3: 2).
11. Legge Rowley-Conwy 1987: 79. 12. Ibidem, 81-83. 13. Echallier Braemer 1995: 55.

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The shape of the profile is almost exactly the same, a medium-sized globular jar, with narrow neck and everted rim, the lip a bit different in shape. The incised decoration is also developed on the upper part of the body, and it represents a gazelle-hunting scene. The essential difference between both jars is in the artistic style, figurative rather than schematic, and the overall disposition, movement and almost threedimensional rather than rigid and flat. Based on shape and style, the author proposes a chronology in the middle of the III millennium, even if she found the zenith of the decorative style during the EBIVB period.14 In this case the scene is easier to interpret. Unfortunately the jar belongs to that category of archaeological objects without context, bought for a museum and published from the point of view of its decoration and style. The jar from Tell Bi>a (fig. 3: 3)15 does not depict a hunting scene, nor does it present any human figure, but the shape of the vessel, the technique of the decoration and the distribution of the scene are the same. If we add the provenience (Euphrates valley, south but still near to the Tabqa dam region) and the chronology (end of EBIII or EBIVA), we are talking about the same cultural context. Instead, the Halawa sample (fig. 3: 4)16 is similar in the technique, the distribution of the motives and, in my opinion, the subject displayed. The men are above and the animals below, the animals are equids and the men are dressed, with the arms upside down. The posture of the arms is not important if we recall other depictions where the men leading the beasts are portrayed sometimes with the hands at their side or slightly onwards. That way we can accept the general meaning of the gesture as movement of the arms with the purpose to frighten the animals and lead them. As we said before, since Neolithic times the other big source of protein diet provided by the hunt, aside from the gazelle, was the onager.17 The makers of the jars must have been from the same cultural context, even the same tribe but, obviously, the depiction is not from the same hand. That fact is surmised by the different level of acquisition of the linearity, figurativeness, and naturalism involved in each one. Our jar seems to be the most linear and schematic, followed by the Halawa sherd, which is developing the men bodies and dresses, and the legs of the quadrupeds are separated as if walking. The Tabqa jar seems to have reached the culmination of the movement. 5.2. Desert-kite representations. The main source of pictorial representation of desert-kites is rock art. One of the best places where a big number of kite representations coexist with its actual archaeological remains is the Hemma plateau, the larger rock art complex in Syria, where the Archaeological Mission of Khishm is at present carrying out its research.18 These kite gravings are also dated during the EB (EJIIIB).19

14. Bhme 1992. 15. Strommenger 1989, Abb. 37. 16. Hempelmann 2001, Taf. 1.4. 17. Van Berg et al. 2004: 93. Another representation of the herding/hunting of onagers on a wall painting is found at Umm Dabaghiyah as early as Late Neolithic. The village was specialized in the hunt of the onager, which amounted to a 70% of the animal remains studied at the side, while the domesticated animals just account to an 11% (Kirkbride 1982: 19-20, Fig.8). 18. Van Berg Picalause 2003; ibidem 2006 (web), Van Berg et al. 2004. 19. Van Berg et al. 2004.

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Fig. 4. Rock carvings of desert-kites in the Hemma plateau (Syria).

As the researcher states, probably the most obvious association of a carved desert-kite and hunting lies in Kefra, sector F (fig.2, lower part) (fig. 5a in this paper): a character with a possible animal head seems to push an animal into a desert-kite, the morphology of the horns, quite different from the majority of other depictions of gazelles in the site, suggests that it could be a depiction of a Gazella subgutturosa. Indeed, the horns affect the form of a lyre, divergent from the basis of the skull and then slightly converging.20 Here we found the most repetitive representations of the relationship between the man with the raised arms and the caprid.21

Fig. 5. Representing interaction between the man with the raised arms, the caprid and the kite. a) Kefra and b) Bashkoy (Hemma plateau, Syria); c) Cairn of Hani (Jordan).

Of course there is always the possibility that in these representations those men were not hunting but herding the animals, just to regroup them. That is the hypothesis presented by Echallier and Braemer who think that the desert-kites are places used by pastoralists to herd cattle, as in many representations the animal depicted could be goats.22

20. Van Berg et al. 2004, p. 94. 21. Vid. Van Berg Picalause 2003 and 2006, and Van Berg et al. 2004. I would like to thank Prof. Van Berg to provide me with some unpublished images, as well as kindly allow me to use freely from its web page, www.espasoc.org/index.html. 22. Echallier Braemer 1995: 57-58, 61. Against it, see Rosen Perevolotsky 1998.

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5.3. Isolated motives. If we isolate the single motives from the jar we have five basic symbols, two figurative and three geometrical: the figurative are the anthropomorph and the zoomorph, and the geometrical are the circle with the converging strokes, that we will call the wheel just for the sake of expediency , the line of circles and the band of oblique strokes.

5.3.1. The anthropomorph: The identification of the anthropomorphic figure with a man seems not to have any kind of doubt, even if the posture gives pause. The upraised hands are unnaturally enlarged, emphasizing the gesture. Some literature use to call a man with likewise upraised hands, especially appearing in the glyptic, the dancing man, but, as we said before, we prefer here the identification as herder. Apart from the raised hands and the outstanding digits, another striking feature of the man is its head, quite elaborate. It could be some kind of mask or coiffure, but it is also true that the one line looking at the front could be the nose, and the three strokes at his rear, a kind of longhaired coiffure or hairdo. It also recalled a feather headdress.

Fig. 6. Comparison of head representations: 1) Qara Qzq; 2-4) Halawa; 5) Dhuwaila; 6) Sabi Abyad; 7) Kefra.

Fig. 6 is showing some comparative material related with the head depiction: 2 and 3 are incision on pottery, 4 is painting on wall23, 5 and 7 rock carvings, and 6 painting on pottery. The examples from Halawa24 (fig. 6: 2-4) come from EBIV levels, and at least two of them seem to recall curly haired locks. The halafian sherd from Sabi Abyad25 comes also from a nearby region (Balih valley, Northeast Syria) even if from an earlier period, while the rock art from Dhuweila26 is from a Neolithic hunting campsite in eastern Jordan.

23. Akkermans Schwartz 2003: 227, fig. 7.10. 24. Hempelman 2001, Taf. 1.1. Sherd with incised decoration. 25. Akkermans 1987, fig. 4: 4. 26. Betts 1987, fig. 2, pl. 1. In this case, the relationship between representations of gazelles with desert-kites are also evident.

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5.3.2. The zoomorph: That type of linear, schematic zoomorphic representation tends to be problematic in the identification. For the sake of accuracy the term Caprid is usually used as an archaeological collective name that encloses all horn porters that belong to the subfamilies Antilopinae and Caprinae or resemble these externally.27 But the kind of gazelle that was common from this area until the beginning of this century, the goitered gazelle (Gazella subgutturosa), has a characteristic type of horn that made it more easily identifiable through the representations amongst other ungulates or caprids: a kind of lire form, diverging at the base and converging again at mid body, with a slight torsion at the tip.28 At Northern Syria this is the type found between the bone remains at Tell Sheikh Hassan, Halawa, Tell Huera, o El Kown.29 In Neolithic Jordan, at Dhuweila they were the 90% of the animal remains, along with equid and hare.30 That type of gazelle did not jump, as others, but run with the neck straight in front, they are easily frightened and also they are easy to lead by a group of men to a trap, where the walls wouldnt need to be very high.31

Fig. 7. The goitered gazelle (Gazella subgutturosa)

At the end of the IV millennium there were still a good amount of gazelle that were massively killed in northern Syria,32 and during the III millennium, even if the meat originates mainly from domesticated cattle, among the wild hunt the gazelle is the main specie.33 In the characters of the Qara Qzq jar, apart from the circles, the only incised lines that are not straight are the horns of the animals. They are the only undulated shape in the entire scene. The author
27. Osten-Sacken 1991: 136. 28. Vila 1998: 37. It still survives in the deserts, semi-deserts, and hilly plains of central Asia, part of the Arabian Peninsula and the Iranian plateau, but in the antiquity its area reached the Eufrates Syrian valley. It dissapeared from regions as Syria at the beginning of the XXth century due to indiscriminate fire arms hunting. 29. Ibdem, 38-40. 30. Betts 1987: 215. 31. Rosen Perevolotsky 1998: 109. 32. At Tell Kuran, at the northern Syrian steppe, we have actually the archaeological evidence of a massive gazelle kill at the end of the IV millennium, where some 100 gazelle were butchered at the same moment, the meat cut and distributed to be carried out, leaving mainly the parts not able to be processed (Zeder 1995: 28-29). 33. Zeder 1998.

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could have perfectly made straight horns, which indicates the especial attention that they would have liked to address to that characteristic of the animal. 5.3.3. The wheel: That abstract motif has been the most difficult icon to find a meaning. The first idea was of a kind of reed cage to put the animals in but, as it has happened with the other symbols, the association of the scene with the desert-kites can also provide us with a possible explanation. We still dont have the answer, but we will just show some resemblances and coincidences. In a variety of cases, especially in the desert-kites from Southern Syria and Jordan, they are found together with another kind of stone-made structure, sometimes called wheel-houses, or jellyfish by the English pilots who baptized the kites.34 Its significance and use is still unknown, but in the instances when they have been excavated, they seem always to precede the construction of the kite itself, even been prehistoric in date.35 It seems that it was not a device related with the hunting technique. Nevertheless, it is possible that the author of the representation mentally associates the presence of the wheels among the running men, whether they had a real use in the hunt or not. In fig. 8: 3 we can see that the jellyfishes are distributed precisely inside and along the training walls that lead to the enclosure, and it would have been imperiously for the men to run through them.

Fig. 8. Comparison between 1) the round motif of the jar; 2) an aerial view of a wheel-house enclosure in the black basalt desert (Jordan); and 3) the map of a group of jellyfish between two kites in southern Syria (n. 3).

Less probable, they could be the isolated representations of the peripheral cells themselves, or even, just a decorative drawing with no meaning at all. The most obvious answer that it was really a wheel, does not seem to have, at this point, any meaning at all. 5.3.4. The line of circles: In the upper border of the scene we have a change in the decorative technique: it is the only instance, including reviewed parallels, when the impression of small circles, probably with the end of a reed or
34. ... il sagit de constructions circulaires structure interna radiale, leur fonction nest pas explique. Note 18, p. 48, in Echallier Braemer 1995. 35. Betts 1998. Also Echallier Braemer 1995: 54.

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cane, is used. As before, we can just assume that its presence is just decorative, with no meaning. The fact that it is located in the upper part of the jar, down the neck and near the animals, could lead to a resemblance with the end of the herding device, the final enclosure.

Fig. 9. The line of circles from the Qara Qzq jar (a) and a rock art (b) and three maps (c-e) of the enclosure of desert-kites with its surrounding cells.

This enclosure seems quite more open than the one in the Tabqa jar, as it is a row of circles instead of a herringbone. Thus, here the symbolic meaning of it as enclosure is quite more hypothetical if we could not relate it with the round nature of the cells surrounding the ending of the kite. 5.3.5. The band of oblique strokes: Aside from considering it a simple garland with no meaning, the only plausible explanation in this case could be that it is a kind of fence. And thus, along with the location down the scene (i.e. near as opposite to above as far in the artistic convention), we propose that it would be a representation of the guiding or travelling walls of the desert-kites. Using a recent review of the representation of fences and nets in the Near Eastern art, especially in glyptic,36 the best reminders of the Qara Qzq jar are shown below:

36. Osten-Sacken 1991.

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Fig. 10. Comparative of fences and nets: a) Qara Qzq jar; b and c) seals from the Uruk period; d) Early Dynastic from Ur, and e) Neo-Assyrian relief from Nineveh.

In fig. 10 b) we have the representation of fences associated with caprids (they seem more like ibexes here) and the dancing man. The example in c) really shows a stable, but it is interesting because of the similarities in the depiction of a reed wattlework reminding the QQ one. The Assyrian relief (e) shows clearly a hunting net, as it seems also to be the case in d), even if in that one we can also have a fence. Nevertheless, here the association between fence/net, caprids and birds reminds us of the scene in the Tabqa jar. This band seems therefore to show more a wooden fence than a stonewall. The general use of symbolism and schematism in these scenes could have represented that as the symbol of a wall, never mind the material used to really make it. But it is also true that, even if the stone-made kites are the most remarkable remains, there is a lot of references of kites made of other materials, tales of travellers or archaeological finds. The guiding walls of the Cairn of Hani representations seem to reflect wood fences. Travellers tales reported the use of nets or rows of rag pennants hung on slender poles instead of stone training walls.37 In the representation of the onager hunt in the wall paint in Umm Dabaghiyah the training walls are made with wooden hooks.38 Finally, it is also possible that the relatively low stone walls were superseded by an upper wooden construction, as was pointed out for the desert-kites of Wadi Umbashi.39 6. Conclusion: the desert-kites and the hunting scene hypothesis. As I have tried to demonstrate, all the existing motives in the jar could be symbolically associated with some of the aspects of the general strategy of the herding and mass-hunting system of killing wild animals related to the desert-kite, even if the representation does not portray the plant of the kite structure itself. We are dealing then with a not very recurrent but characteristic scene, especially associated with the globular jar shape. The common shape meaning the same use and the composition reflect a unique tradition or cultural group. The stylistic differences could be attributed to different chronologies, even if we are just talking about one or two generations. Taking everything into account, the general data of this globular jar with incised decoration of hunting scene seems to be around the end of the EBIII and EBIV,
37. Legge Rowley-Conwy 1987: 81. 38. Kirkbride 1982: 20, fig. 8. 39. Echallier Braemer 1995: 42.

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maybe even entering the II millennium.40 It is too bad that the more naturalistic jar has no archaeological context. At present nobody seems to actually confirm that the kite-scenes reflect hunting, not even with the abundant representations of animals and men inside the kites at the Hemma plateau.41 But, if we agree that the gazelle has never been semi or completely domesticated,42 and we also concede that our four-legged beasts are gazelles, there is no other option than to consider the scene from the Qara Qzq jar as a hunting scene. It is not the prosaic moment of the knife actually cutting the skin, but the pick of the game, the pursuit, when the physical capacity and skills of the men of the community, together with the goodwill of the gods, would be decisive for the success of the group activity. Therefore, the aspect worthy to be depicted and symbolized. * * * Does this artistic representation actually reflect an economic activity carried out by the community living at Qara Qzq during the second half of the III millennium? The current climate in the area of Qara Qzq, the upper Syrian Euphrates valley, is not much different from the one prevailing in the III millennium. The fertile margin of the valley is a narrow fringe, and then the steppe landscape suddenly begins. But, in this narrow fertile fringe the economy in this period is mostly based on agriculture and pastoralism. As it happens in the other sites of the area, the study of the animal bones of Qara Qzq levels III and II (end of EB and beginning of MB) indicates that the massive amount are from domestic species and the percentage of the gazelle is insignificant.43 In the surrounding area on the Middle Euphrates there are not remains of stone-made desert-kites. Knowing the gazelle migration habits, we could presume that hunting could have been a seasonal activity carried out by the sedentary communities of the area, and the structure could have been a temporal one, reed-made or with nets. But, in that case, it would not explain the exclusive nature of the jar, as it is the only sample of this kind found among the ceramic repertoire of Qara Qzq. All these facts seem to indicate that the real activity reflected in the jar did not take place within the local community. Instead, this situation would be understandable if the gazelle meal was provided by transhumant groups, not necessarily shepherds, but maybe nomadic hunters. The meat would be already processed, salted and dried, and the bone remains to be found at the site would be very few. That semi nomadic or transhumant group, in its aspect of mobile artisans, would manufacture also the globular jar. The main present ethnological parallel, the Soluba, were called wandering craftsmen, and they were hunting/gatherer/artisan groups with a multi-resource economy (is a hunter, smith, minstrel, and donkey herder) .44 This hypothesis of the transhumant population could also explain the stylistic similarity with the Hemma plateau representations.

40. The typology of the scene of the Tabqa jar has been paralleled by Prof. Van Berg with some of the Khishm scenes, caprids feeding from plants (Van Berg 2006, repport 2005), that he tentatively dated to the II millennium (personal communication). 41. Van Berg Picalause 2003: 558. 42. Rosen Perevolotsky 1998. 43. Nicols 2001. 44. Betts 1989.

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Provenience of the figures. Fig. 1: Valds 1994: fig. 27, p. 54, 121, pl. VIe. Fig. 2: P. Van Berg, Mission of Khishm, www.espasoc.org. Fig. 3: 2) Tabqa region, Bhme 1992, Abb.3, p.116; 3) Tell Bi>a, Strommenger 1989, Abb.37; 3) Halawa, Hempelmann 2001, Taf. 1.4. Fig. 4: P. Van Berg, Mission of Khishm, www.espasoc.org. Fig. 5: a) Van Berg et al. 2004, fig.2 lower part; b) Rock carvings, P. Van Berg, Mission of Khishm, www.espasoc.org; c) Echallier Braemer 1995, p. 57 (after G.L. Harding, The Cairn of Hani, Annual of the Department of Antiquities of Jordan 2 (1953): 8-56). Fig. 6: 2) Halawa, Hempelmann 2001, Taf. 1.1; 3) Halawa, ibdem, Taf. 1.5, detail; 4) Halawa, Akkermans Schwarts 2003, fig. 7.10, detail; 5) Dhuwaila, Betts 1987, fig. 2, detail; 6) Sabi Abyad, Akkermanns 1987, fig. 4:4; 7) Kefra, Van Berg et al. 2004, fig.2 lower part, detail. Fig. 7: left, Trident Press. www.arkive.org; right, Brent Huffman, www.ultimateungulate.com. Fig. 8: 2) http://www.ucl.ac.uk/prehistoric/index.html, report by B. Bewley and D. Kennedy, An aerial survey contribution to Prehistoric Archaeology in Jordan, 1998, fig, 2; 3) Echallier Braemer 1995, fig. 20, p. 50. Fig. 9: b) Betts Helms 1986, fig. 3: 6, rock carving, Jordan; c, d) Betts - Helms 1987, Saudi Arabia, fig. 10: 2, and Syria, fig. 12: 2 ; e) Echallier Braemer 1995, fig. 11. Fig. 10: Osten-Sacken 1991. b) Abb. 1, tabloid from Tepe Giyan, after R. Barnet, Homme Masqu ou Dieu-ibex?, Syria 43: 259-276; c) Abb. 4, seal from a Berlin museum, after E. Heinrich, Bauwerke in der altsumerischen Bildkunst, 1957, Abb. 15; d) Abb. 10, ED seal from Ur (SIS 4), after Heinrich ibdem, Abb. 23; e) Abb. 14, Assurbanipal palace at Ninive, after B. Meissner D. Opitz, Studien zum Bit Hilani im Nordpalast Assurbanipals zu Ninive, 1939. Figure below: Valds 1994: fig. 4:2; Betts - Helms 1987, fig. 11:2.

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