{"id":"TAHA2016-001","label":"Halula pierced rib blade","people_or_site":"Tell Halula (Neolithic farming village, Middle Euphrates)","country_current":"Syria","historic_region":"Middle Euphrates valley, c. 150 km east of Aleppo; Pre-Pottery Neolithic B to Halaf","macroregion":"Near East / Levant","local_name":"","source_term":"objeto perforado sobre costilla (pierced rib object)","source_language":"Spanish","object_description":"Long flat strip worked from the rib of a large mammal, pierced at its proximal end; complete, 200 mm long, 22 mm wide and 5 mm thick. The only complete one of six pierced rib objects from the site.","function_summary":"Not recorded.","attestation_type":"archaeological_find","source_key":"taha2016_halula_g4_complete","source_type":"academic_dissertation","source_url":"https://ddd.uab.cat/pub/tesis/2016/hdl_10803_368561/bt+1de1.pdf","page_or_plate":"Taha 2016, pp. 220–221 (type G.4, 'objetos perforados sobre costilla'; sole complete specimen 200 × 22 × 5 mm); chronology p. 58 fig. 11","map_confidence":"low","plot_status":"candidate_only","coordinate_basis":"Tell Halula mound, Middle Euphrates valley about 150 km east of Aleppo (Taha 2016 p. 50; Wikipedia site coordinate 36°25′N 38°10′E). Tell-level point; the blade's sector, house and phase are not recorded.","jade_complex_role":"","blurb":"In one house at Tell Halula, on the Middle Euphrates, someone painted the floor beside the hearth with twenty-three women in red, ranged around a square filled with lines. The village lasted some two thousand years. Its houses stood in rows, each with a large main room plastered in lime, and the dead were buried in that room's floor, near its door. Halula's bone-workers cut long, flat tools from the ribs of large animals, and a few of these they pierced at one end. This is the only one to survive whole: a strip of rib twenty centimetres long, barely two wide and five millimetres thick.","pull_quote":"","pull_quote_translation":"","pull_quote_cite":"","term_gloss":"","cls":"unknown","class_label":"Function not recorded","color":"#6B7884","is_candidate":true,"flags":[],"f_jade_complex":false,"f_women_taboo":false,"f_women_special":false,"f_snake":false,"f_archaeology":true,"archaeology_kind":"object","date_display":"c. 7800–5700 BC","date_qualification":"Tell Halula settlement sequence; the blade's occupation phase is not recorded and it is not directly dated.","date_basis":"site_horizon","date_confidence":"low","date_citation":"taha2016_halula_g4_complete, Taha 2016 pp. 50–51, 58 fig. 11, 305 table 49","sources":[{"citation":"Buchra Taha, Industria ósea en el Neolítico del Próximo Oriente: Estudio tecnológico y funcional del asentamiento de tell Halula (Valle del Éufrates, Siria), doctoral thesis, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (2016), pp. 50–59, 220–221","url":"https://ddd.uab.cat/record/165270"}],"source_citations":"Buchra Taha, Industria ósea en el Neolítico del Próximo Oriente: Estudio tecnológico y funcional del asentamiento de tell Halula (Valle del Éufrates, Siria), doctoral thesis, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (2016), pp. 50–59, 220–221","source_display":"Buchra Taha, Industria ósea en el Neolítico del Próximo Oriente: Estudio tecnológico y funcional del asentamiento de tell Halula (Valle del Éufrates, Siria), doctoral thesis, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (2016), pp. 50–59, 220–221","date_citation_display":"Taha 2016 pp. 50–51, 58 fig. 11, 305 table 49","object_display":"Long flat strip worked from the rib of a large mammal, pierced at its proximal end; complete, 200 mm long, 22 mm wide and 5 mm thick. The only complete one of six pierced rib objects from the site.","function_display":"Not recorded.","confidence_display":"low","attestation_label":"archaeological find","etymology_hedge":"","people_key":"tell halula","display_name":"Halula pierced rib blade","image":{"full":"assets/objects/hunt_fifty_2026_10_30/mus2026_336_31.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/hunt_fifty_2026_10_30/thumbs/mus2026_336_31.jpg","alt":"A small blade wrapped with cord above its museum accession label.","credit":"Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford, 1913.17.75","source_page":"https://www.prm.ox.ac.uk/collections-online#/item/prm-object-39568","rehosted":true,"representative":true,"caption":"El Kantara bullroarer 1913.17.75, one of the Pitt Rivers group","pool_id":"auto-hunt_fifty_2026_10_30--mus2026_336_31","auto_assigned":true,"last_modified":"2026-11-03"},"slug":"taha2016-001-tell-halula-neolithic-farming-village-middle-euphrates"}