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Umm el-Marra

Coordinates: 36°08′02″N 37°41′38″E / 36.133791°N 37.693819°E / 36.133791; 37.693819
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Umm el-Marra
Arabic: أم المرة
Umm el-Marra is located in Syria
Umm el-Marra
Shown within Syria
LocationSyria
RegionAleppo Governorate
Coordinates36°08′02″N 37°41′38″E / 36.133791°N 37.693819°E / 36.133791; 37.693819
Area25 ha

Umm el-Marra, (Arabic: أم المرة), east of modern Aleppo in the Jabbul Plain of northern Syria, was one of the ancient Near East's oldest cities, located on a crossroads of two trade routes northwest of Ebla, in a landscape that was much more fertile than it is today. Possibly this is the city of Tuba mentioned in Egyptian inscriptions listing cities that were defeated or destroyed in the Pharaoh Thutmose III's north Syrian campaign. The city of Tuba is also mentioned in epigraphic remains from Ebla, Mari, and Alalakh.

History

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Early Bronze

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Umm el-Marra VI: In the Early Bronze III (c. 2750/2700-2350 BC), Umm el-Marra was an important hub with about 3000-5000 inhabitants. At the beginning of this period, the region was wetter than today, but by 2500 BC climate became gradually drier.

Ebla Period

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Umm el-Marra V-IV: In the Early Bronze IV (c. 2350-2000 BC), the dry climate accelerated and led to the cities on the Jabbul Plain experiencing a collapse of central authority between 2200-2000 BC (4.2 ka event). Partial answers to the question, why these early centers were so brittle, may lie in the effects of sustained drought on overstressed primitive agriculture. Dr. Glenn Schwartz of Johns Hopkins, who has been doing field archaeology at Umm el-Marra, suggested in 1994 that "they placed extensive demands on their environments, continually intensifying their agriculture to feed more people. The added stress from a few dry years may have been the straw that broke the camel's back." Level V contains Tomb 1 with pottery similar to Mardikh IIB1 Ebla Palace G.

Middle Bronze

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Umm el-Marra Level IIId: In the Transitional EB IV-MB I, the site was never completely abandoned. Thus, this region saw some continuation as opposed to a collapse following the severe drought conditions that had prevailed. In the MB I (c. 2000-1820 BC) it gradually recovered.

Yamhad Period

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Umm el-Marra Levels IIIa-c: In the MB IIA (c. 1820 BC), the city saw a renaissance while controlled by the Amorites. At this time, it became a regional capital subject to the Great Kingdom of Yamkhad centered on Aleppo. A series of public works saw the construction of ramparts with a mudbrick city wall.

Late Bronze

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Mitanni Period

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During the Late Bronze, the site was under the control of various powers. It would at one point have been under the Mitanni Empire, and Thutmose III of Egypt might have campaigned in the area.

Hittite Period

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Following the military campaigns of Suppiluliuma I, it became part of the Hittite Empire following the Fall of Carchemish and the death of Tushratta of Mitanni around 1345 BC. The site was destroyed in the 14th century BC.

The Late Bronze Age collapse saw the city completely abandoned by 1200/1190 BC.

Classical Period

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After a long period of abandonment, the site was re-occupied in the Hellenistic and Roman periods.

Archaeology

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The site covers around 25 hectares. It was surrounded with a city wall with 3 gates and a defensive ditch. Excavation of Umm el-Marra began in the late 1970s and early 1980s with soundings by a Belgian team led by Roland Tefnin.[1][2][3][4] From 1994 until 2010, a joint archaeological team from the Johns Hopkins University and the University of Amsterdam worked at Umm el-Marra.[5][6][7][8][9]

A rare intact, unlooted tomb, ca. 2300 BCE, uncovered by Dr. Schwartz's team in 2000 at the site, made science press headlines, for it contained five richly-adorned adults and three babies, some of whom were ornamented head-to-toe in gold and silver.[10][11]

It may be the oldest intact possibly royal tomb yet to be found in Syria. Dr. Schwartz noted of peculiar aspects in the burial that they 'may hint at ritual characteristics, rather than a tomb simply reserved for royalty or elite individuals.' The interment, which was above ground in ancient times, included three layers of skeletons in wooden coffins lined with textiles. The top layer includes traces of two coffins, each containing a young woman in her twenties and a baby. The women were the most richly ornamented of all the occupants of the tomb, with jewelry of silver, gold and lapis lazuli. Also of interest on this level was an accompanying lump of iron, possibly from a meteorite. Geochemical analysis of the iron, based on the ratio of iron to nickel and cobalt, confirms that the iron was meteoritic in origin.[12] One of the babies appeared to be wearing a bronze torque, or collar.

In the layer below were coffins of two adult males and the remains of a baby at some distance from both men, close to the entrance of the tomb. This differs from the placement of the babies in the upper layer, where they were placed next to the women's bodies. Crowning the older man was a silver diadem decorated with a disk bearing a rosette motif, while the man opposite had a bronze dagger. The third and lowest layer held an adult male with a silver cup and silver pins.

All the individuals were accompanied by scores of ceramic vessels, some of which contained animal bones that may have been part of funerary animal offerings. Outside the tomb to the south, against the tomb wall, was a jar containing the remains of a baby, a spouted jar, and two skulls, horselike but apparently belonging neither to horses or donkeys. These equids were subsequently identified as kunga, a hybrid of domestic donkey and wild ass.[13][14]

Incisions on four clay cylinders dated to c. 2400 BC have been hypothesized to be Early Alphabetic Semitic writing, which would make them the oldest such examples.[15][16][17][18]

Modern village

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In 2004, Umm el-Marra had a population of 1,878.[19]

See also

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Notes

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  1. ^ Roland Tefnin, Exploration archeologique au nord du lac de Djabboul (Syrie): Une campagne de sondages sur le site d'Oumm el-Marra, 1978 Annuaire de lInstitut de Philologie et dHistoire Orientales et Slaves, vol. 23, pp. 71-94, 1980
  2. ^ Roland Tefnin, The Belgian archaeological mission in the East: Syria: Tell Abu Dann | Umm el Marra, Newsletter Archéologie Orientale Valbonne, vol. 2, pp. 8-11, 1980
  3. ^ Roland Tefnin, Exploration archéologique du tell Oumm el-Marra (Syrie du Nord): Campagne 1982, Syria, T. 60, Fasc. 3/4, pp. 276-278, 1983
  4. ^ Roland Tefnin, Tall Umm al-Marra, Archiv für Orientforschung, vol. 28, pp. 235-239, 1982
  5. ^ Hans H. Curvers, Glenn M. Schwartz and Sally Dunham, Umm el-Marra, a Bronze Age Urban Center in the Jabbul Plain, Western Syria American Journal of Archaeology, vol. 101, no. 2, pp. 201-239, 1997
  6. ^ Glenn M. Schwartz et al., Excavation and Survey in the Jabbul Plain, Western Syria: The Umm el-Marra Project 1996-1997, American Journal of Archaeology, vol. 104, no. 3, pp. 419-462, 2000
  7. ^ Glenn M. Schwartz et al., A Third-Millennium B.C. Elite Mortuary Complex at Umm el-Marra, Syria : 2002 and 2004 Excavations, American Journal of Archaeology, vol. 110, pp. 603-41, 2006
  8. ^ Batey, Ernest K., Tell Umm el-Marra (Syria), Seasons 2000-2006, Bioarchaeology of the Near East, vol. 5, pp. 1-10, 2010
  9. ^ Schwartz, G., H. Curvers, S. Dunham, and J. Weber, From Urban Origins to Imperial Integration: Umm el-Marra 2006, 2008, American Journal of Archaeology, vol. 116/1, pp. 157-93, 2012
  10. ^ Glenn M. Schwartz et al., A Third-Millennium B.C. Elite Tomb and Other New Evidence from Tell Umm el-Marra Syria, American Journal of Archaeology, vol. 107, no. 3, pp. 325-361, 2003
  11. ^ Glenn M. Schwartz, Hidden Tombs of Ancient Syria, Natural History, vol. 116, iss. 4, pp. 42-49, 2007
  12. ^ Jambon, Albert (2017). "Bronze Age iron: Meteoritic or not? A chemical strategy" (PDF). Journal of Archaeological Science. 88. Elsevier BV: 47–53. doi:10.1016/j.jas.2017.09.008. ISSN 0305-4403.
  13. ^ Grigson, Caroline. “Size Matters — Donkeys and Horses in the Prehistory of the Southernmost Levant.” Paléorient, vol. 38, no. 1/2, 2012, pp. 185–201
  14. ^ Glenn Schwartz’s excavations at Umm el-Marra yield evidence of elite kunga equids, oldest human-engineered hybrids - Johns Hopkins - January 25, 2022
  15. ^ https://archive.today/20241122155024/https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/worlds-oldest-alphabet-discovered/
  16. ^ Schwartz, Glenn M. (2021). "Non-cuneiform writing at third-millennium Umm El-Marra, Syria: evidence of an Early Alphabetic tradition?". Pasiphae. XV. Fabrizio Serra: 255–266. doi:10.19272/202133301018.
  17. ^ Rollston, Christopher (2021-04-16). "Tell Umm el-Marra (Syria) and Early Alphabetic in the Third Millennium: Four Inscribed Clay Cylinders as a Potential Game Changer". Rollston Epigraphy.
  18. ^ Robbins, Hannah (21 November 2024). "Evidence of oldest known alphabetic writing unearthed in ancient Syrian city". Johns Hopkins University.
  19. ^ مكتب الأمم المتحدة لتنسيق الشؤون الإنسانية: التجمعات السكانيّة السوريّة، التعداد السكاني العام 2004

References

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  • Jerrold Cooper et al., A Mittani-Era Tablet from Umm el-Marra, 2005
  • Schwartz, Glenn M, "Memory and its Demolition: Ancestors, Animals and Sacrifice at Umm el-Marra", Syria Cambridge Archaeological Journal, vol. 23/3, pp. 495–522, 2013
  • Schwartz, Glenn M., ed., "Animals, Ancestors and Ritual in Early Bronze Age Syria: An Elite Mortuary Complex from Umm el-Marra", Cotsen Institute of Archaeology Press, UCLA, 2024
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