Two painted vessels

Under the direction of Max Freiherr von Oppenheim, excavations at Tell Halaf/Guzana were first undertaken in 1911–1913 and 1929. Since 2006, Syria’s Antiquities Authority and the Museum of the Ancient Near East have resumed investigation there. An important prehistoric cultural stage in the Near East from the 6th/5th millennium BC has come to be called the Tell Halaf culture, identifiable by the coloured ceramics characteristic of the site.