Searching for a village in the Mosul hinterland: new evidence from the written sources on the Ottoman ruralscape; the case of Tell Zeyd

Annali Sezione Orientale, vol.85, no.1, pp.1-12, 2025 (Peer-Reviewed Journal)

The dynamic settlement and demographic patterns of the hinterland of Mosul were influenced by

various political, economic, and ecological factors. The area was dotted with a number of sites that

were settled and abandoned numerous times. This paper sets outto present a historical overview of

the economic and social attributes of one of these sites, Tell Zeyd, by using the documents of

Ottoman archives. It also combines documentary evidence and oral information with

multidisciplinary data from the Zeyd Archaeological Project(Ca’ Foscari University of Venice).This

research enhances our methodological understanding of the nature of the written sources, primarily

drawn from Ottoman archives, in the field of historical archaeology related to Near Eastern

landscapes.In the Ottoman period Tell Zeyd lay in a thinly populated area that was occupied mainly

by nomadic tribes but remote from major settlements and land routes, soit attractedvery little

attention from the Ottoman provincial bureaucracy in terms of documentation. In order to overcome

this documentary shortcoming,this paper evaluates thepast economic and social circumstances

relating to Tell Zeyd by taking into consideration the historical conjuncture of its surrounding

region in the Ottoman period.

Key Words: Tell Zeyd, Duhok, Mosul, Ottoman tahrirdefters, Historical Archaeology