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December 16, 2005
Shock and Awe
Excavations led by Clemens Reichel of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago and Salam al-Quntar of the Syrian Department of Antiquities have uncovered evidence of a major battle at Tell Hamoukar around 3500 BCE. And with it evidence of the preserved remains of the people that were overwhelmed.
"The excavators retrieved more than 1,200 smaller, oval-shaped bullets (about an inch long and an inch and a half in diameter) and some 120 larger round clay balls (two and half to four inches in diameter). “This clearly was no minor skirmish. This was ‘Shock and Awe’ in the Fourth Millennium B.C.,” Reichel said. [University of Chicago News Release]"
The University of Chicago has some great pictures on their website. Here's a couple of them. The first one, below, is of the clay "sling bullets" as they were discovered.
The second is of the "bullets" themselves.
Among the things that interested me is that these ballistae were compressed clay balls rather than the crudely shaped stones with which I am familiar. If you go to the University of Chicago's website, you can see all the pictures in full resolution.
As the new release says,
"Ironically, for archaeological work, ancient warfare has its advantages, especially when the besieged people may have been surprised. “Whatever was in these buildings was buried in them, literally waiting to be retrieved by us.” In addition to many objects of value that are left behind, buried under massive amounts of debris, such “frozen contexts” are vital for functional analyses, helping to identify architectural units as domestic units, cooking facilities, production sites or buildings of administrative or religious use.The mid-fourth millennium B.C. settlement at Hamoukar has many distinctively urban features. The area excavated so far contains two large building complexes built around square courtyards. Though both buildings follow closely a house plan known from other sites in Syria and Iraq, their function seems to have been non-domestic.
One of the structures contained a large kitchen with a series of large grinding stones embedded in clay benches and a baking oven large enough to fill a whole room, suggesting that food production occurred here beyond the needs of a single household. Each complex also contained a tripartite building (a unit consisting of a long central room surrounded by smaller rooms)."
It is interesting to read about the amount of fieldwork being done in Syria by joint America/Syrian teams.
Abdal-Razzaq Moaz, Deputy Minister of Cuture, in charge of Archaeology and Cultural Heritage, Syria, said, “Excavations at Hamoukar have played an important role in redefining scholar’s understanding of the rise and development of civilization in the world. The resumption of a joint Syrian-American archaeological venture at this time shows the Syrians are interested to have such collaboration in the field of archaeology which allowed to have cultural exchange and mutual understanding between the two people, and to share a world heritage which belong to all the humanity.” Besides the University of Chicago, Princeton, and the University of Pennsylvania and other universities have teams doing archaeological work in Syria, he said.
Perhaps the same archaeologists that are finding evidence of war in ancient times can be part of the effort to avoid war in our time. In this part of the world, archaeology may well be the diplomatic equivalent of ping-pong.
Posted by Duane Smith at December 16, 2005 8:42 AM | Read more on Archaeology |
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