Dawn of Urban Life Uncovered in Syria

Before the invention of the wheel and writing, a prehistoric civilization in northern Mesopotamia engaged in trade, processed copper and developed the first social classes based on power and wealth.

Evidence of the civilization that formed the basis of urban life in the entire Middle East lies beneath three large mounds about three miles from the modern town of Raqqa in Syria, according to U.S. and Syrian archaeologists.

The mounds, the tallest standing some 50 feet high, cover about 31 acres and enclose the ruins of Tell Zeidan, a proto-urban community dating from between 6000 and 4000 B.C.

At this time, much of Mesopotamia shared a common culture, called Ubaid, which led to the emergence of the first true city centers in the subsequent Uruk period (about 4000 to 3100 B.C.).

Although scholars have long understood the site’s importance (one of the first archaeologists to make a survey there in the 1930s was Sir Max Mallowan, husband of the mystery writer Agatha Christie) the mounds remained undisturbed for more than 6,000 years.

To archaeologists, it was a blessing.

Since Tell Zeidan was abandoned in 4000 B.C., broad areas of this large Ubaid temple-town can be easily reached as they are not buried beneath feet of deposits from later occupation periods.

Indeed, a Joint Syrian-U.S. excavation co-directed by Muhammad Sarhan from the Raqqa Museum and Gil Stein from the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, has unearthed important evidence for monumental architecture, widespread irrigation agriculture, copper metallurgy and long distance trade in luxury goods.

“All this flourished long before people domesticated pack animals for transportation or invented the wheel,” said Gil Stein, the U.S. co-director of the joint project.

Located at the crossroads of two major trade routes in the rich bottomlands of the Euphrates river valley, Tell Zeidan was also among the first societies in the Middle East to develop social classes according to power and wealth.

"The Ubaid people used widespread irrigation and agriculture, had powerful political leaders and experienced the first social inequality. Communities became divided into wealthy elites and poorer commoners," Stein told Discovery News.

One of the most important finds was a large, stone stamp seal depicting a deer. Elaborately carved from a red stone not native to the area, the seal is similar to another seal found at a site in northern Iraq, some 185 miles to the east of Tell Zeidan.

"The existence of very expertly carved seals with near-identical motifs at such widely distant sites suggests that in this period, high-ranking elites were assuming leadership positions across a very broad region. Those dispersed elites shared a common set of symbols and perhaps even a common ideology of superior social status," said Stein.

According to Guillermo Algaze, a specialist on the emergence of urban centers in the Middle East, Zeidan offers tremendous potential to learn about the Ubaid period.

“Work at this unique site has the potential to revolutionize current interpretations of how civilization in the Near East came about,” Algaze, professor of anthropology at the University of California, San Diego, said in a statement.

Picture: Red stone seal; Courtesy of Gil Stein, Oriental Institute, University of Chicago | Slideshow: Gil Stein, Oriental Institute, University of Chicago  | Video: Courtesy of Dena Headlee and Lisa Raffensperger, National Science Foundation.

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