Finds 57
Main Information
| Finds ID | 57 |
| Site |
Hallan Cemi |
| Area |
ID 25 settlement |
| Research event | excavation: rescue Hallan Cemi excavation 1991 - 1994 |
| Finds type | small finds |
| Small finds category | tool |
| Small finds type |
Mace head Pestle Shaft straightener Vessel |
| Botany species | |
| Animal remains species | |
| Animal remains completeness | None |
| Animal remains part | |
| Lithics technology | |
| Lithics industry | |
| Lithics cores and preparation | |
| Lithics retouched tools | |
| Lithics unretouched tools | |
| Lithics raw material | |
| Obsidian | None |
| Obsidian amount | None |
| Pottery form | |
| Pottery detail | |
| Pottery decoration | |
| Pottery type | None |
| Amount | |
| Material |
bone chlorite limestone stone |
| Confidence | 5 |
| Comment | Hallan Cemi has yielded the remains of numerous stone bowls. These are typically made of either a grey/green-black chloritic stone or a white Iimestone and often decorated with finely incised and occasionally relief designs in both geometric and naturalistic motifs. The site has also yielded a series of small, finely polished stone pestles, many with sculpted handles. These are typically made of the same chloritic stone as the bowls, but a few examples made of sandstone also occur. The sculpted examples are formed into a variety of naturalistic forms, stylized to varying degrees. Recognizable motifs include goat heads, symmetrically paired laterally projecting straight or curved flangesthat seem to represent bovid horns, and one or more type of indistinct mammalian animal devoid of horns. These sculpted pestles, particularly those made of chloritic stone, are made to the same approximate scale as the stone bowls and were certainly capable of easily being used tagether with them. Other finds are vertically drilled stones that come in a variety of configurations and can best be described as mace heads. While only a few of the many drilled stones from the site clearly fall under the heading of maces, the examples in question are all again made of the same materials as the stone bowls, come in a variety of elaborated forms (e.g., oval, sub-triangular, sub-rectangular, domed), and are highly polished, as well as occasionally decorated. An other category of stone artifacts that are small notched batons, they are made of a relatively soft, micaceous grey metamorphic rock (perhaps a schist). On the single possibly intact example, the end opposite the notched tip is bluntly rounded, devoid of notches, and decorated with an incised hourglass design. There is some evidence of breakage and reshaping at the blunt end of this example, leaving open the possibility that this piecewas originally of a different form. ln fact, of the ca. 35 pieces of this type found, only the single "intact" example and another questionable example of the type has such a blunt end. All the remaining pieces of this type are either notched tip or shaft fragments. No other blunt ends were found. This suggests the possibility that these notched batons may actually have been bilaterally symmetrical (i.e., cigar shaped) in their original form and that the "intact" example is simply a broken one that has been repaired. The notches were simply cut into the stone, as if to keep a formal count of something. Another category of artifacts found at the site are relatively large, oblong, button-like objects made from animal bone. They are found in a variety of configurations, including ovate, rectangular, and sinuous and are also often decorated. An other category of finds are ovate, undecorated shaft straighteners made of the same chloritic stone as the bowls and other finds. |
Bibliography