An Ubaid Village: Houses and Production at Tell Abada

Tell Abada lies east of the Diyala River in east-central Iraq’s Hamrin region, on a plain along the Zagros foothills. Other Ubaid settlements stood nearby. Inhabitants used fine-textured cultivable soils and organized life among rivers, seasonal watercourses and drier ground.

To salvage sites in a dam’s future reservoir, Sabah Abboud Jasim directed excavations from December 1977 to July 1978. More than eighty percent of the site was exposed. Three building levels, III, II and I from bottom to top, allowed researchers to study individual houses together with the village.

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Level II contained ten well-preserved independent building units separated by streets and open spaces. Many followed a tripartite layout: smaller rooms flanked a central hall or court, with doorways connecting the areas. Houses differed in size, and occupants added partitions as needs changed.

Buildings used sun-dried mudbrick with clay or gypsum plaster. Charred beams and reed impressions indicate that some halls were covered with timber, reed mats and mud. Querns, large jars, hearths and storage rooms placed grain processing, cooking and storage within recognizable spaces.

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Level III buildings yielded large storage jars, red ochre, pigment-stained grinding stones and gypsum discs, with kilns and abundant sherds nearby. Jasim associated these spaces with pottery production. The discs may have been parts of pottery turntables, placing residences close to working areas.

Some kilns separated a lower firing chamber from an upper chamber for vessels, with hot gases passing through a perforated grate. Other kiln forms, ovens and shallow hearths also existed. Making containers and cooking both used fire, but installations differed according to their uses.

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Courts in Level I preserved grain-storage installations. Reeds or straw covered the floor, upright mats formed a container, and grain was enclosed beneath plant material and clay. Mat impressions, stem impressions and charred grains preserve both resources and construction methods.

These installations occurred in different houses, keeping harvests within domestic spaces. Small rooms and jars also held goods. Concentrated storage required preparing materials, repairing containers and organizing their use, extending production activities beyond the harvest.

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Level I also contained gypsum-lined channels and joined pottery ducts. One northern channel reached a stone-lined basin. From the slope and enclosed ducts, the excavator inferred that it may have brought water from a nearby watercourse for drinking and other domestic purposes.

Other pottery ducts and a short drainage course near buildings show attention to both obtaining and removing water. Pipes, basins and houses formed an inhabited environment in which water supply required making components, connecting installations and maintaining routes.

References: [1]