Tell Khazna is the oldest complex in Syria, an almost completely preserved city that existed, according to official data of archaeologists, at the end of the 4th-3rd millennium BC. The temple complex is located in the Khabura valley (Northeastern Syria), 25 kilometers northeast of the city of Haseke (the center of the province of the same name Hasseke) - near the villages of Alyavi and Khazna in Syria.
The oldest Tell Khazna temple was excavated by a Russian archaeological team in northern Syria. It has a whole complex of buildings. Scientists believe that the temple was built in the fourth millennium BC. The architects of the most ancient Semitic peoples knew how to create very original buildings.
Tell Khazna is an oval village. In its central part, the architects erected a cone-shaped temple tower. Its height reaches eight meters. Everything in the tower is perfectly preserved, and in some places there are even fragments of old plaster.
The buildings are built with bricks, which are made of clay and straw.
The height of the tell is over 17 m, the average diameter is 150 m.
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In Syria, archaeological work began in 1988. In 2010, the excavations of the Tell-Khazna-I settlement in the province of Haseke (an integral part of Mesopotamia) were completed and they were preparing to start a new object, but the war began, and all work had to be curtailed. These were grandiose excavations - on an area of 5 thousand square meters. m and a depth of up to 17 m.
Apparently, in the 17th figure, archaeologists conclude that this structure is thousands of years old.
In the center of the prehistoric village, built in the shape of an oval, there is an 8-meter cone-shaped temple tower. According to the members of the expedition, it was perfectly preserved, even the plaster on the walls remained. The structure looks the same as 6 thousand years ago, a rare luck for archaeologists. All buildings, including living quarters, are made of clay bricks mixed with straw. The excavations have yielded many sensational finds. From a depth of almost 15 meters, archaeologists have raised a clay tablet dated to the 3rd millennium BC. e., in which the ancient agronomist kept records of the harvest.
The man of that time outwardly looked the same as the modern one. One of the burials found in the village testifies to the fact that ancient people had a rather large constitution. In a stone grave, scientists found the skeleton of a huge 2-meter man, buried, according to the then rite, on his side with bent legs. Perhaps from this it follows that over 6 thousand years the Semites have considerably reduced their growth. What was the reason is unknown..
Excavations at various depths have studied over 5000 m2 of its area, that is, almost the entire southern half of the tell, where the remains of more than 530 different structures have been cleared, including massive temple buildings and large public granaries.
The number of burial complexes discovered on Tell Hazna 1 reached 72. Among them are ground burials and burials in brick cysts and earthen vessels, accompanied by various implements - ceramics, including painted pots, bronze items and ornaments made of various beads. Most of them date back to the middle of the 3rd millennium BC. e.
Archaeologists did not completely clear the passages between the rooms. One gets the impression that the level of the floors and passages is strange.
And somewhere they dug deep.
Some of the thousands of finds:
Until recently, the territory of Syria was the only place where it was possible to conduct archaeological research in Mesopotamia. Now this opportunity has been lost, it is not known for how long.
Russian archaeologists have found many cultural treasures there - in particular, more than 300 statuettes of animals, decorations, seals depicting different scenes, and so on. Everything was transferred to the museums of Aleppo, Raqqa, Deir iz-Zor and other cities in Syria. Today they are all in the hands of Islamic State militants. The museums have been ransacked, and we know nothing about the fate of our finds.
When leaving, the arecheologists covered the monument itself. And yet - they hid there the materials left behind by the expedition, which the Syrians refused to receive - mostly fragments of ancient vessels. There are more than 100 thousand of them, all of them are described, encrypted. That is, they are of serious scientific value. Meanwhile, in December 2014, this territory fell under the rule of IS.
Features of the excavated site:
- the location of the temple on a number of successive artificial terraces;
- temple sacrificial pledges were found, associated with the most significant structures and confirming their involvement in cult activities;
- a complex of huge monumental structures for storing grain, indicating the concentration of public food supplies at the monument and the distribution functions carried out here.
- there are correct homogenously developing planning with the interconnection of virtually all buildings and the general oval outlines of the monument, marked by a series of especially monumental public structures;
- the singularity and extreme inexpressiveness of the residential part of the temple with the unconditional ritual nature of the main structures;
- the specific design of a number of walls with pilasters and niches between them, typical for public buildings and, above all, for the temple architecture of ancient Mesopotamia and the highlighting of such walls with colored plaster;
- the presence of tables for sacrifices and direct evidence of the latter;
- the connection between various fire actions, both industrial and - for the most part - and ritual in nature.
Somehow all this does not fit: a ritual complex, a granary and a crypt for burial. Could it be that a cataclysm caught the people here? They couldn't get out of their humble homes? And so many of the skeletons found inside the premises are given by historians as ritual sacrifices and other burials?
Let me remind you that very close, literally tens of kilometers away, there are one of the many Syrian craters, which, most likely, are not volcanic or impactful in origin, but are the result of the release of a huge amount of water, mud (clay) from the depths. And it is also possible that at some point dust, water vapor and poisonous gases. All this flowed to the surface and fell out in huge layers, as in the death of Pompeii. Only, unlike the latter, it was not volcanic ash that fell here, but dust, sand, possibly mud rains. But this hypothesis needs to be thoroughly studied. So far, only she can explain the filling of territories and hills on it with layers of abiogenic soil.