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Proceedings of the 10th International Congress on the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East Volume 2, 2018

The recent discovery and excavations of the mid/late 3rd millennium BC cities of Tell Al-Rawda and Tell Shʻaīrat, and the surveys conducted around them, unexpectedly highlighted the arid zone of inner Syria, to the north of Palmyra (in the so called ‘Shamiyah region’). In this article, the coauthors, who are also respectively co-directors of the two archaeological expeditions, demonstrate that Tell Al-Rawda and Tell Shʻaīrat have a common regular and geometric urban pattern, which indicates the cities are pre-planned ‘new cities’. This reveals the discovery of an urban model, also recognized in northern Syria and largely diffused in the steppe land. Both sites appear as key to understanding the dynamic of urbanization in Syria. They certainly illustrate the birth of a precocious territorial state, possibly connected to the ‘Very Long Wall’, onto the desert margins of Syria in a context of territorial conquest. This event took place around 2500 BC, before the construction of Palace G of Ebla. The paper also offers a comparison between different items of material culture from the two sites.

Circular Cities of Early Bronze Age Syria, 2020

The recent archaeological investigations carried out in Inner Syria and more particularly in the area of the Syrian steppe, the so-called Shamiyah region or Badiyat al-Sham, have highlighted the importance of this particular region, especially when attempting to understand early urbanization dynamics and to clarify the emergence of an early territorial state on the margins of the Syrian Desert. The mid-third millennium bc witnessed the foundation of several circular cities on the margins of the desert. This paper shows a synthesis of the work done on Tell Sh‘airat, which is located thirty-four kilometres south-east of the city of Homs. Our results show that Sh‘airat was a pre-planned city, a ‘new city’, and since its foundation, dating to 2600/2500 bc, the town was organized on a regular, circular plan constructed around a concentric network of roads and surrounded by fortified enclosures. Our data lead us to believe that the city of Sh’airat could have played an important political role and most likely was one of the main capital cities, perhaps the ‘regional capital’, of the Syrian steppe.

Levant, 2010

The article presents new evidence for activity of 4th and 3rd millennium BC date, from the basaltic landscape west of the Orontes River, near modern Homs, which provides an indication of the nature and extent of human activity at this time outside the main riverine basins. Through a consideration of the potential of the landscape, an analysis of the form, distribution and function of the main categories of structural evidence, and of the associated material culture, the article seeks to understand the nature of the activity undertaken in the area at this time. The material culture evidence is used to investigate the probable connections linking the communities exploiting this landscape with those in other parts of the Levant, including those occupying the marl landscape on the east side of the Orontes River. A consideration of contemporary activity in the Hauran, Jaulan and Negev, sets activity in the Homs basalts in the context of a region-wide increase in the exploitation of 'sub-optimal' landscapes, which lay beyond the prime agricultural areas.

2007

New work over the last thirty years on the archaeology of Syria-Palestine in the later sixth and seventh centuries has significantly questioned the once-accepted view of an economy in decline, seen in part as a contributory factor to the supposed “easy” conquest of the region. Coinage, ceramics, and settlement profiles depict, rather, an economic resilience that successfully weathered the political and military disruptions of the seventh century. The relative soundness of the economy at the end of the seventh century gave crucial support to ʿAbd al-Malik during the succession dispute with Ibn Zubayr, and following its resolution ʿAbd al-Malik’s reforms were to ensure decades of continuing economic prosperity in Syria-Palestine. In the eighth century, a standardized coinage ensured monetary confidence, townbased industries were built up on a major scale to supply regional markets, while improvements to the infrastructure of agriculture—rather than the introduction of new crops—and the exploration of natural resources promoted settlement in the countryside. Over two centuries, the economy had changed, bringing significant shifts in urban and rural settlement patterns, but had not, to any significant extent, failed.

The series will consider contributions in the following fields: -History, with an emphasis on regional, local, and micro-historical approaches.

Topoi 24/2: 649-653, 2021

Peter M.M.G. Akkermans (2014). In: C. Renfrew & P. Bahn (eds). 2014. The Cambridge World Prehistory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 1462-1473

This volume, fruit of an international conference held at the University of Udine in 2004, presents the results of an interdisciplinary Syro-Italo-German archaeological research project dedicated to understanding the ancient urban landscape and natural environment of Tell Mishrifeh, the ancient city of Qatna, during the Bronze and Iron Ages (3rd to mid-1st millennium BC). The first section of this important work, which is made up of 27 articles by archaeologists, philologists, and experts in various fields of natural science (geoarchaeology, archaeometry, archaeobotany, palynology, archaeozoology, physical anthropology and biochemistry), furnishes a complete panorama of the recent archaeological discoveries made in Mishrifeh and its hinterland since 1999. In the second, central section of the book a detailed study of the palaeoenvironment of the region and its evolution between the 3rd and 1st millennia BC is presented, whilst the third part covers the results of archaeological and palaeoenvironmental research in central-western Syria. The fourth section is dedicated to an analysis of human settlement and the regional landscape on the basis of written sources from Qatna and Mari. The volume concludes with two chapters which critically summarize and comment upon the results of the conference, and propose preliminary diachronic reconstructions ‒ with the aid of reconstructive drawings ‒ of the urban and natural landscapes of the Qatna region and the settlement of the nearby ‘marges arides’ of the Syrian Badiya.

The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology of the Levant (ca. 8000 – 332 BCE), Oxford, ed. / Margreet L. Steiner; Ann E. Killebrew. Oxford University Press, 2014

Urban and Natural Landscapes of an Ancient Syrian Capital. Settlement and Environment at Tell Mishrifeh/Qatna and in Central-Western Syria, in D. Morandi Bonacossi (ed.), 2007

The survey carried out in the ‘arid margins of northern Syria’, a region with great climatic and edaphic constraints, covered nearly 7000 km2. The large number of sites discovered, the repetitiveness of the types of situations and the analysis of the environments enables us to address the problems concerning the occupation of the land and human exploitation, in time and space. The Bronze Age, which had phases of high prosperity and of marked decline, provides a very good example. During this period, the fluctuations in population were particularly marked and reveal very different strategies of exploitation. A stable political situation could have contributed to a development of the occupation of the region at the end of the Early Bronze Age: sedentary settlements were numerous and occupied a territory which was probably defined to the east by a wall 200 km long. At the beginning of the second millennium (Middle Bronze Age) however, conditions changed: permanent habitation shrunk towards the west, protected by complex defensive systems (fortresses, forts and guard towers). As for the Late Bronze Age, as elsewhere in central Syria, there was a phase of recession which remains to be explained.

The study of settlement patterns in the Akkar plain and of storage facilities on the site of Tell Arqa during EBA IV lend evidence for a strong increase in cereal production in this region during the last centuries of the third millennium. This does not support the hypothesis of a climate change-induced crisis by the end of the millennium (the socalled 'crisis of 2100 BC'), at least in this area of the Levant. New practices for grain storage in stone-built, corbelled silos -vs. the earlier practice of storage in the basements of houses -are however introduced ca. 2000 BC. This, in addition to a renewed pottery repertoire and the probable wider availability of metal, hints to extended contacts with inland Syria, and the possible (and temporary?) influx of people from this region at the beginning of the second millennium. Such changes should be considered within the framework of relations between areas with different and complementary economic systems (a mediterranean-type economy on the coast and a widely pastoral-based one inland), which developed steadily, and parallel with the agricultural prosperity in the Akkar, during the later stages of EBA IV, rather than as the outcome of sudden natural and/or political events.

The survey carried out in the ‘arid margins of northern Syria’, a region with great climatic and edaphic constraints, covered nearly 7000 km2. The large number of sites discovered, the repetitiveness of the types of situations and the analysis of the environments enables us to address the problems concerning the occupation of the land and human exploitation, in time and space. The Bronze Age, which had phases of high prosperity and of marked decline, pro- vides a very good example. During this period, the fluctuations in population were particularly marked and reveal very different strategies of exploitation. A stable political situation could have contributed to a development of the occupation of the region at the end of the Early Bronze Age: sedentary settlements were numerous and occupied a territory which was probably defined to the east by a wall 200 km long. At the beginning of the second millennium (Middle Bronze Age) however, conditions changed: permanent habitation shrunk t...

W. Held – Z. Kotitsa (eds.), The Transition from the Achaemenid to the Hellenistic Period in the Levant, Cyprus, and Cilicia: Cultural Interruption or Continuity?, 2020

IV Sigel der Marburger beiträge zur Archäologie: MarbAr Titelbild: Persische Jagdszene im grab 1 von Marisa, 3. Jh. v. Chr. nach J. Peters -H. Thiersch, Painted Tombs in the necropolis of Marissa (Marêshah) (London 1905) Taf. 6 bibliografische Information der deutschen nationalbibliothek die deutsche nationalbibliothek verzeichnet diese Publikation in der deutschen nationalbibliografie; detaillierte bibliografische daten sind im Internet über http://dnb.d-nb.de abrufbar. bibliographic information published by deutsche nationalbibliothek The deutsche nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the deutsche nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliografic data are available on the internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de.

Proceedings of the 20th Congress of the UEAI, The Arabist 26-27, 2003

Antiquity, 2007

The Fertile Crescent of the Ancient Near East is well known for its early cities in irrigated farming regions. Here the authors describe the recent discovery and investigation of a planned, circular, mid/late-third millennium BC city beyond the limit of rain-fed cultivation in the arid zone of inner Syria. Founded on the initiative of an unknown power and served by pastoralists and cultivators, the research at Al-Rawda demonstrates how environmental constraints were overcome in order to establish and sustain new centres in demanding regions at a time of maximum urbanisation.

Excavation and systematic surface collection since 1999 have revealed the outlines of a unique site in northern Mesopotamia. Khirbat al-Fakhar is an extensive settlement of 300 hectares, primarily occupied during the LC 1-2 periods (ca. 4400-3800 cal BC). Systematic surface collection, satellite imagery analysis, and targeted excavation allow a preliminary characterization of its settlement, in particular the abundance of evidence for intensive obsidian manufacture. This unexpectedly large and early settlement presents problems of demography, nature of sedentism, permanence of occupation, and obsidian manufacture and trade. In this article we discuss these issues in light of current narratives on the development of societal complexity and urbanism in the region and argue that the site of Khirbat al-Fakhar presents a unique form of settlement that has characteristics of both villages and cities, qualifying it as proto-urban.

ORIENTAL INSTITUTE SEMINARS • NUMBER 11, 2017