Tell Ahwain - Area 51

Tell Ahwain before excavation from the west bank of the Khabur River. A severe drought began in the Khabur River drainage began during the Fall of 1998. The Khabur River was bone dry during May and June of 1999. The Syrian Director General of Antiquities granted permission to the St. Louis Community College to conduct a rescue excavation at Tell Ahwain. The drought lasted 5 years.


Photograph during 2004 of Tell Ahwain after the creation of the Middle Khabur River reservoir

View of Tell Tuneinir from Tell Ahwain


Excavation units with masonry walls visible at Tell Ahwain.


David Nirgenau fills cloth bags with pottery sherds from a test pit in Area 51.
Two small tells are situated within a kilometer of Tuneinir. The taller tell is Tell Ahwain (Arabic, Brothers) while the shorter tell is Tell Hi'a (Arabic, Snake). Neither Tell Ahwain nor Tell Hi'a were described in the reports of the French or German archaeological surveys of the region to be impacted by the Khabur River reservoir. They were too small to be considered significant by the survey crews. The team from St. Louis Community College survived both small tells and realized that Tell Ahwain had a Medieval Islamic component.

David Nirgenau (a veteran of the 1998 excavation season at Tuneinir) volunteered to supervise two crews working at Tell Ahwain. A grid system was established for the site using the East-West base line from Tuneinir that runs through the Benchmark on the summit of Tuneinir. Most of the excavation units were virtually sterile though masonry walls were uncovered. One room did contain hundreds of undecorated pottery sherds. Among the sherds were three or four body sherds with Syrian letters painted on their surface.

The excavation of 14 excavation units (5 x 5 meter units with half meter balks) demonstrated that the structure was occupied during the Abbasid Period. An intact Abbasid Period lamp, identical to lamps from Areas 9, 10, and 11 was discovered in Area 51.

Three legible copper coins from the interior of the structure all belong to the Umayyad Period. Very few copper coins were minted during the Abbasid Period and Umayyad coins continued in circulation during the Abbasid Caliphate.


Stucco fragments decorated with Christian cross designs were discovered on the floor of the ruins. They are identical to the Area 9 monastery stucco specimens. The artifacts and architecuture of the Area 51 indicates that the building was a nunnery/monastery.


Excavation units and longitude/latitude from Area 51 calculated by a handheld GPS device.

Webpage created in 3 January 2004.
Webpage migrated 2 April 2008
Webpage revised 2 January 2009