Jerablus Tahtani (formerly Tell Alawiyeh) is a small
tell on the right bank of 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 ...
four kilometers south 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 ...
in present-day
Syria
Syria, officially the Syrian Arab Republic, is a country in West Asia located in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Levant. It borders the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Turkey to Syria–Turkey border, the north, Iraq to Iraq–Syria border, t ...
.
Archaeology
The mound has an area of 1 hectare with a surrounding lower town covering about 12 hectares. A fort, built on the ashes of a burnt village, stood on the mound. The defensive wall exceeded 12 meters in height, including the glacis. A number of monumental tombs were found. One tomb (Tomb 302) contained a large number of "champagne vessels" and animal bones which were interpreted as evidence of mortuary feasting.
The site was first noted by
Leonard Woolley
Sir Charles Leonard Woolley (17 April 1880 – 20 February 1960) was a British archaeologist best known for his Excavation (archaeology), excavations at Ur in Mesopotamia. He is recognized as one of the first "modern" archaeologists who excavat ...
early the 1920s while he was excavating at nearby
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 ...
. It was excavated from 1992 to 2000 by the British as part of the Syrian government's
Tishrin Dam rescue project. As of 2000 the site was still not underwater. This project successively developed into the
Land of Carchemish project
The Land of Carchemish Project was a large archaeological research project at Durham University focusing on the archaeological site of Carchemish in northern Syria. It started in 2006 and was directed by Tony Wilkinson and Edgar Peltenburg. It bu ...
.
History
The site was occupied from the late
Uruk period
The Uruk period (; also known as Protoliterate period) existed from the protohistory, protohistoric Chalcolithic to Early Bronze Age period in the history of Mesopotamia, after the Ubaid period and before the Jemdet Nasr period. Named after the S ...
through the middle 3rd Millennium BC. Then, after a hiatus, it was occupied from the
Iron Age
The Iron Age () is the final epoch of the three historical Metal Ages, after the Chalcolithic and Bronze Age. It has also been considered as the final age of the three-age division starting with prehistory (before recorded history) and progre ...
through the Islamic period. Specifically, there were 5 occupation periods:
Ceren Kabukcu, "Early Agriculture in Northern Syria: Botanical Remains from Jerablus Tahtani", Masters Thesis, Trent University, May 2012
*Period 1 - Late Chalcolithic
*Period 2 - Early Bronze Age
*Period 3 - Iron Age
*Period 4 - Roman
*Period 5 - Islamic
See also
*Cities of the ancient Near East
The earliest cities in history were in the ancient Near East, an area covering roughly that of the modern Middle East: its history began in the 4th millennium BC and ended, depending on the interpretation of the term, either with the conquest by ...
*Jerf el Ahmar
Jerf el Ahmar () is a Neolithic site in northern Syria, which dated back between 9500 and 8700 BC.
History
Jerf el Ahmar contained a sequence of round and rectangular buildings, which is currently flooded by the Lake Assad following the constru ...
References
Further reading
*E. Peltenburg, "Jerablus-Tahtani", American Journal of Archaeology 101, pp. 122–123, 1997
*E. Peltenburg, "Tell Jerablus Tahtani, Syria, I. Mortuary Practices at an Early Bronze Age Fort on the Euphrates River", Oxford: Oxbow Books, Levant Supplementary Series 17, 2015
*Peltenburg, E., "Tell Jerablus Tahtani 1992-1996: A summary", In del Olmo Lete, G., and Montero Fenollos, J.-L. (eds.), Archaeology of the Upper Syrian Euphrates: The Tishrin Dam Area, Editorial Ausa, Barcelona, pp. 97–105, 1999
*Peltenburg, E., "The living and the ancestors: Early Bronze Age mortuary practices at Jerablus Tahtani", In del Olmo Lete, G., and Montero Fenollos, J.-L. (eds.), Archaeology of the Upper Syrian Euphrates: The Tishrin Dam Area, Editorial Ausa, Barcelona, pp. 427–442, 1999
dgar Peltenburg, "Diverse Settlement Pattern Changes in the Middle Euphrates Valley in the Later Third Millennium BC: The Contribution of Jerablus Tahtani", in Sociétés humaines, ed. Kuzucuoğlu and Marro, pp. 254–55, 2007
Sang, Li, "Burial practices of the third millennium BCE in the Middle Euphrates Region: an interpretation of funerary rituals", Unpublished PhD. Thesis, Tübingen, 2010
*Andrew J. Shortland, "An Antimony Bead from Jerablus Tahtani", Journal of the Historical Metallurgy Society 36/1, pp. 1–5, 2002
*Wilkinson, T. J., Peltenburg, E., McCarthy, A., Wilkinson, E., and Brown, M., "Archaeology in the land of Carchemish: Landscape surveys in the area of Jerablus Tahtani, 2006", Levant 39, pp. 213–247, 2007
External links
British Excavations at Jerablus Tahtani, Syria
{{Webarchive, url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160819161056/http://www.shca.ed.ac.uk/projects/jerablus/Webfront.htm , date=2016-08-19
Bronze Age Anatolia
Carchemish
Chalcolithic sites of Asia
Archaeological sites in Aleppo Governorate
Bronze Age sites in Syria
Tells (archaeology)