The Birecik Dam Cemetery is an Early Bronze Age cemetery in the

Gaziantep Gaziantep, historically Aintab and still informally called Antep, is a major city in south-central Turkey. It is the capital of the Gaziantep Province, in the westernmost part of Turkey's Southeastern Anatolia Region and partially in the Medi ...

region in southeastern Turkey. This cemetery was used extensively for a very short period of time at the beginning of the third millennium BC. Birecik dam-GAP

Location and site description

This three hectare cemetery is located several hundred meters from the Birecik Dam on the

Euphrates River The Euphrates ( ; see below) is the longest and one of the most historically important rivers of West Asia. Together with the Tigris, it is one of the two defining rivers of Mesopotamia (). Originating in Turkey, the Euphrates flows through S ...

and is approximately 25 kilometers north of the ancient site of

Carchemish Carchemish ( or ), also spelled Karkemish (), was an important ancient capital in the northern part of the region of Syria. At times during its history the city was independent, but it was also part of the Mitanni, Hittite and Neo-Assyrian ...

. More than 300 graves were dug into the subsurface clay bed between 3100-2600 BC (Early Bronze IB-II), and despite the large size of this cemetery no attached settlement has been found.Sertok, K. and Ergeç, R. 1999. A New Early Bronze Age Cemetery: Excavation near the Birecik Dam, Southeastern Turkey. Preliminary Report (1997-98) ''Anatolica'' 25: 87-107

Summary of Excavation

The Birecik Dam Cemetery was discovered during the building of the Birecik Dam as part of the GAP project, and it was subsequently excavated during two field seasons in 1997 and 1998 by archaeologists associated with the Gaziantep Museum. 312 burials were excavated in a 300 x 200 meter area during this time, though it is thought that many more graves were destroyed by the clay mining prior to the official excavations. The burials that were excavated consisted predominantly of cist graves, though there were also a small number of cooking pot and storage jar burials. The cist burials were oriented NW-SW and most had similar dimensions. Between the graves were a number of shallow depressions and pits that were filled with various materials (such as food remains) that are thought to have been part of the burial ceremony.Sertok, K. and Ergeç, R. 2000. The Discovery of an Early Bronze Age Cemetery in the Middle Euphrates Area near Carchemish (Turkey). In ''Proceedings of the First International Congress on the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East''. Rome, May 18th-23rd 1998, Vol II (eds. P. Matthiae, A. Enea, L. Peyronel and F. Pinnock). Roma: Dipartimento di Scienze Storiche, Archaeologiche e Antropologiche Dell ‘AntichitaSquadrone, F. F. 2007. Regional culture and metal objects in the area of Carchemish during the Early Bronze Age. In ''Euphrates River Valley Settlement. The Carchemish Sector in the Third Millennium BC'' (ed. E. Peltenburg). Oxford: Oxbow, pp. 198-213

Artifacts

Burials in this cemetery frequently included grave goods. These items consisted of: ceramic vessels, metal objects, frit and talc beads, several examples of terracotta figurines, two

cylinder seals A cylinder seal is a small round cylinder, typically about one inch (2 to 3 cm) in width, engraved with written characters or figurative scenes or both, used in ancient times to roll an impression onto a two-dimensional surface, generally ...

made of limestone and carnelian, a flint blade and fifteen painted cups in the Ninevite 5 style of northeastern Syria. Ceramics were by far the most frequently item found in these burials with over 5,000 vessels found between the 312 excavated burials, and an individual tomb could contain up to 150 vessels. Due to damp soil conditions and the leaching of salt through the soil, the human remains were in very poor condition when compared to the ceramic, stone and metal objects In these burials, numerous similarities have been found with those at the contemporary site of

Arslantepe Arslantepe, also known as Melid, was an ancient city on the Tohma River, a tributary of the upper Euphrates rising in the Taurus Mountains. It has been identified with the modern archaeological site of Arslantepe near Malatya, Turkey. It was na ...

, also in Turkey, to the northeast of Birecik.

The similarities are not restricted purely to the structure, but also the type of furnishings in which metal objects predominate, especially numerous weapons and spearheads. One striking aspect, which is wholly similar to Arslantepe, is the way in which the metal spearheads are arranged, generally along the northern and southern sides of the tomb, but always along the internal sides of the cist.Schmidt-Schultz Tyedje, Schultz Michael, Sadori Laura, Palmieri A., Morbidelli Paola, Hauptmann Andreas, Di Nocera Gian Maria, Frangipane Marcella
''New Symbols of a New Power in a "Royal" Tomb from 3 000 BC Arslantepe, Malatya (Turkey).''
Paléorient, 2001, vol. 27, n°2. pp. 105-139

References

{{reflist Bronze Age Anatolia Archaeology of death Cemeteries in Turkey Archaeological sites of ancient Anatolia Archaeological sites in Southeastern Anatolia