6,000-Year-Old City Found in Syria

05-29-2000, 06:19 AM

>From: macaroni@...
>To: Vrindavan Parker <vaidika1008@...>
>Subject: 6,000-Year-Old City Found in Syria
>Date: Wed, 24 May 2000 13:27:44 -0700
>
>6,000-Year-Old City Found in Syria
>
>© The Associated Press
>
>CHICAGO (May 23) - Archaeologists have uncovered the ruins of a
>6,000-year-old city in Syria, a find that suggests that urban civilization
>rose earlier than previously believed.
>
>Scientists from the University of Chicago's Oriental Institute found a
>protective city wall under a huge mound in northeastern Syria known as Tell
>Hamoukar. The wall and other evidence indicated a complex government at an
>early date.
>
>Until the discovery last year, the only cities uncovered by archaeologists
>dating back to 4000 B.C. were to the south in Sumeria, in southern
>Mesopotamia. The area between the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers, in what
>is now Iraq, has often been dubbed the ``cradle of civilization.''
>
>The discovery at Hamoukar, dating from the same period, suggests that ideas
>behind cities may have predated the Sumerians, said McGuire Gibson of the
>Oriental Institute.
>
>Among the features indicating the site was a full-blown city, not just a
>town: thin, porcelain-like pieces of pottery, indicating a sophisticated
>manufacturing technique, and huge cooking ovens, big enough to feed large
>numbers of people.
>
>There also were stamps to make impressions in wet clay - like primitive
>hieroglyphics - used to make tokens that served as records for trade
>transactions. The stamps were in the shapes of animals, including bears,
>dogs, rabbits, fish and birds.
>
>If Hamoukar was developing into a city at the same time as the Sumerians
>were building cities, it's possible that ideas for urban development came
>from an even earlier culture, he said.
>
>``We need to reconsider our ideas about the beginnings of civilization,
>pushing the time further back,'' said Gibson, who plans to present the
>findings this week in Denmark at the International Conference on the
>Archaeology of the Ancient Middle East.
>
>Gil Stein, a Northwestern University archaeologist who specializes in the
>same region and time period, said he thinks the find is significant.
>
>``Traditionally, scholars had viewed southern Mesopotamia as the area where
>urbanized states first developed, before spreading to less advanced
>areas,''
>he said.
>
>This summer, the archaeologists will continue to dig in the hopes of
>finding
>portions or royal palaces and temples - structures that would confirm that
>the site is that of a previously unknown early civilization.
>
>AP-NY-05-23-00 1235EDT
>
>Copyright 2000 The Associated Press. The information contained in the AP
>news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise
>distributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.
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>
>

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