Introduction:
Iraq and Syria are loaded with tells. The definition of a ''tell'' according to wikipedia:
"A tell, or tel, is a type of archaeological mound created by human occupation and abandonment of a geographical site over many centuries. A classic tell looks like a low, truncated cone with a flat top and sloping sides. The term is mainly used of sites in the Middle East, where it often forms part of the local place name."
There are hundreds of these tells in Syria and Iraq, especially in the northern regions of these countries. Many towns and villages have ''tell'' as a prefix, which usually indicates that the settlement was built on or near a tell.
However, when looking at photos of these tells, it looks like the vast majority of these tells are untouched (no excavations have taken place, or very little).
Main question:
Other than the instability of these countries, what other reasons are there for not excavating these tells? Are these tells not considered to be significant enough to invest the time and resources required to properly excavate them? (There are hundreds of these sites, so it would, obviously, be an extremely expensive and time consuming undertaking).
Follow-up question:
What are some good examples of excavated tells that revealed major historical monuments (such as uncovered lost cities/towns, castles, major artefacts, etc.)? And can we expect the same or similar results if the untouched tells were to be excavated?
Final word:
The majority of settlements near these tells consist of small, poor, and boring villages. Ancient history is buried beneath them, but most people are not even aware of it, or simply don't care. It would also be a major boost to the economy of these poor regions if the sites were excavated; new museums and historical sites to attract tourists.
"Tell" (or "tel"/"tal"/"tall") just means "hill" in Arabic. It's possible that it has an archaeological context as described by wikipedia for archaeologists but the basic answer to your main question as to why there are so many Arab towns with "Tell" in the name that haven't been excavated it's because there wouldn't be anything to excavate because the "tell" in question is not "a type of archaeological mound created by human occupation".
To your final question, I'm not convinced that ancient archaeological history, even when excavated, would necessarily be all that interesting from a tourism perspective, at least not locally. Oman has some extraordinary tombs near the town of Bat some of which are thousands of years old. And while I saw a few other tourists driving around trying to get a look, you're not going to end up with huge tourism profits in isolated locations just because you've discovered ancient artifacts of some description in that location. Now, put those artifacts in a museum and you might have something, but that's a different question, it's just a hill.
You can see an Arabic dictionary entry for tall here: http://ejtaal.net/aa/#hw4=129,ll=363,ls=5,la=464,sg=217,ha=83,pr=32,vi=92,mgf=141,mr=106,mn=144,aan=97,kz=224,ulq=452,uqa=69,uqw=212,umr=171,ums=126,umj=100,uqq=46,bdw=163,amr=100,asb=101,auh=269,dhq=81,mht=82,msb=38,tla=33,amj=89,ens=1,mis=1907
These tells are actually quite important. The main reason for a lack of excavation is precisely because of the instability of the countries involved. Prior to all the political upheaval, there were many studies being conducted in the region, some of which were producing quite exciting results, such as Tell Brak, a site excavated since the 1930s, that has given us a lot of important information, not least of which is excellent geoarchaeological studies by Wendy Matthews. Another incredibly important ancient site was Mari, in southeastern Syria. This was the location of an ancient city-state which gave us a lot of important texts as well (the Mari Archive) which illuminated the interactions of tribes and states in a very complicated relationship between urban centers and pastoralist hinterlands. The foremost authority on the Mari texts is Dr. Adam Miglio, whose book Tribe and State : The Dynamics of International Politics and the Reign of Zimri-Lim is an excellent resource on the subject. Renowned scholar Andre Parrot wrote that the Mari texts
brought about a complete revision of the historical dating of the ancient Near East and provided more than 500 new place names, enough to redraw or even draw up the geographical map of the ancient world
Pretty important!
There are a very large number of scholars whose work in Syria was interrupted by the instability of the last couple decades. Boston University had a field school excavation until 2010 at Tell es-Sweyhat, at which point the project had to be abandoned due to the Arab Spring revolts. All three of these example sites I mentioned were being actively excavated up until the Arab Spring revolts and the Syrian Civil War made foreign investigations completely untenable.
Iraq is a whole other matter entirely. There have been many, many excavations in Iraq, as it is the home of the ancient Babylonians, Assyrians, and Sumerians. Everything we know about those civilizations (which is a lot) is derived from excavations of tells. However, due to the political situation of the region, archaeological investigation of the area has unfortunately had to come to a halt, with little being done since the second Gulf War.
There are a number of reasons why so many tells remain untouched. First, people just haven't been able to investigate them yet, either because the money wasn't there, or the political situation made excavation untenable, or they were digging somewhere else in Syria or Iraq.
Another reason why they seem untouched is because archaeological sites go back to nature REALLY fast. Weeds grow like crazy, rainwater washes dirt back into the holes, excavation units used to be backfilled all the time by later excavations (especially decades ago when they were still developing good archaeological practice). For example, at Tell Gezer in Israel (a site excavated extensively for decades, beginning in the 1930s) it doesn't look like it's been particularly well covered, because it's all become overgrown. So part of what you're seeing is the sheer number of sites (we can't dig them all) and part of it is that some of them have in fact been excavated but have gone back to nature.
Are they worth excavating? Yes, I would argue that all of them have incredible amounts of information to provide, given the proper application of research questions. Can excavation be pursued now or the near future? Not unless a miracle happens and there is peace in the Middle East. Are some tells more important than others? It really depends on the research questions. Any archaeological excavation sets out a series of questions that they are investigating to find an answer to. If the city was an important one, they might be investigating to find out what the city or kingdom's administration was like, how it was ruled, what the political atmosphere was like, how people lived in the capital, as well as more detailed things about how the city itself worked. An excavation focused on a smaller, more hinterland city might focus on the daily lives of the hinterland, how it relates to the larger, more central cities, and how it was administrated. Obviously, there's more money for the bigger, more historically important sites such as Uruk, Nineveh, Babylon, Mari, etc, but with the right research questions, a scholar can get funding for any site.
The short answer is, there was plenty of archaeology going on in Syria and Iraq before the war, but the war pretty much ended it for now. If the war ends, archaeology will certainly return and pick up where it left off.
EDIT: stupid typos
