Mid-third Millennium Research Articles

“CROPPING THE MARGINS”: NEW EVIDENCE FOR URBAN AGRICULTURE AT MID-3RDMILLENNIUM B.C.E. TELL BRAK, SYRIA

The excavation of a large administrative building at the city of Tell Brak in northern Syria saw the recovery of a considerable quantity of charred cereals dated to the mid-third millennium B.C.E. This remarkable discovery provides a rare snapshot into the nature of agriculture in Upper Mesopotamia during the Early Bronze Age. The material has been studied using a combination of primary archaeobotanical analysis, crop stable isotope determinations, and functional weed ecology to deliver new insights into cultivation strategies at Tell Brak as well as to contribute to the wider debate regarding trade and crop importation in this region. Specific crop regime choices also reveal how the farmers of Tell Brak were able to reduce the overall risk of crop failure by careful water management, a vitally important factor in this semi-arid region, with potential implications for the analysis of other large-scale urban agro-economies in the Middle East and beyond.

Production and Use of Ceramics in the First Millennium BC: Jebel Moya, Sudan

The site of Jebel Moya, situated in the center of the southern Gezira Plain in southcentral Sudan, has an occupational sequence spanning at least five millennia until around 2000 years ago. Renewed excavation is shedding new light on its occupational chronology and socioeconomic history, including activities such as burial, savanna herding, and domesticated sorghum cultivation practices dating to at least the mid-third millennium BC. In the present study, predominantly final phase pottery sherds from the first millennium BC to the start of the first millennium AD (Assemblage 3) have been analyzed via a combination of thin section petrography and instrumental geochemistry to determine their raw materials and place of manufacture and reconstruct their manufacturing technology. Organic residue analysis was also conducted to identify the products processed within vessels found at the site. The results suggest the existence of a well-developed local ceramic craft tradition that persisted for over one thousand years. Pots from Assemblage 3 were used to process, store, and consume animal and plant products, thus reinforcing emerging evidence for early agro-pastoral activities.

A Sacred Landscape of Sumer: Statuettes from Ur Depicting a Goat on a Tree

Abstract The statuettes commonly referred to as “Ram Caught in a Thicket” (2500 BC) may well be associated with what is known from later texts (2nd millennium BC) as the (daily) determining-of-the-fates ritual that occurred at sunrise. Symbolic elements (tree, rosette, leaf, possible mountain), and motifs (quadruped facing a tree) occur in other media—glyptic, musical instruments—and their meaning informs the unique combination of elements found in these two statuettes. It is proposed that the statuettes are offering stands. The composition as a whole represents a sacred landscape rather than a charming genre scene. It is likely that the statuettes were associated with the daily ritual of the determining of the fates, which would push the later attestations of that ritual and the cosmological view behind it back to the mid-third millennium BC.

SouthwestAsiancerealcrops facilitated high-elevation agriculture in the central Tien Shan during the mid-third millennium BCE.

We report the earliest and the most abundant archaeobotanical assemblage of southwest Asian grain crops from Early Bronze Age Central Asia, recovered from the Chap II site in Kyrgyzstan. The archaeobotanical remains consist of thousands of cultivated grains dating to the mid-late third millennium BCE. The recovery of cereal chaff and weeds suggest local cultivation at 2000 m.a.s.l., as crops first spread to the mountains of Central Asia. The site’s inhabitants possibly cultivated two types of free-threshing wheats, glume wheats, and hulled and naked barleys. Highly compact caryopses of wheat and barley grains represent distinct morphotypes of cereals adapted to highland environments. While additional macrobotanical evidence is needed to confirm the presence of glume wheats at Chap II, the possible identification of glume wheats at Chap II may represent their most eastern distribution in Central Asia. Based on the presence of weed species, we argue that the past environment of Chap II was characterized by an open mountain landscape, where animal grazing likely took place, which may have been further modified by people irrigating agricultural fields. This research suggests that early farmers in the mountains of Central Asia cultivated compact morphotypes of southwest Asian crops during the initial eastward dispersal of agricultural technologies, which likely played a critical role in shaping montane adaptations and dynamic interaction networks between farming societies across highland and lowland cultivation zones.

Who Holds the Keys? Identifying Female Administrators at Shahr-i Sokhta

ABSTRACT In recent years scholars who study ancient economies have sharpened their focus on the role of women within these networks and on use of seals in their administration. Yet, until recently, little attention has been paid to the relationship between sex and seal ownership and/or use. This paper uses the remarkable evidence from the site of Shahr-i Sokhta in Iran to address this question. While seals from the habitation areas of the site demonstrate significant changes in shape, material and iconography over time, those found in the necropolis establish who owned seals and how they were worn. On the practical side, excavated sealings document the administration of the site. This paper compares the physical and iconographic aspects of seals found in the cemetery with those of seals used for administrative sealing to identify different groups of people responsible for controlling goods and resources. I use the observed similarity between seals used for sealing and those found buried in women's graves to suggest that women were responsible for most of the administrative sealing at Shahr-i Sokhta in the mid-third millennium BC, and to call into question the often-unchallenged assumption that men were by default responsible for administration in ancient societies.

Metric Analysis of Permanent and Deciduous Teeth from Bronze Age Tell Leilan, Syria

Between 1979 and 1989 the skeletal remains of 21 adults and 38 children, yielding 317 permanent and 134 deciduous teeth, were recovered at Tell Leilan, Syria, the site of a major urban center during the emergence of complex state society in northern Mesopotamia in the mid-third millennium BC. Tooth crown dimensions (faciolingual and mesiodistal diameters, total crown area, and molar crown area) are presented and the last two serve as the primary units of comparison for a diachronic interpretation of tooth size variation in the ancient Near East. Both permanent and deciduous dental data support the pattern of dental reduction since the Middle Paleolithic that has been documented for Asia and Europe. The total crown areas for the permanent and deciduous dental samples, 1189 mm2 and 497 mm2 respectively, place this archaeological population at the smaller end of the crown area scale for the Near East; smaller in size than nearby Paleolithic and Neolithic populations. Given the paucity of odontological data for this area, this study contributes to the odontometric history of Mesopotamia and as a summary compilation and comparison of previously conducted odontometric work as it relates to the phenomenon of dental reduction within the ancient Near East.

Raman identification of cuneiform tablet pigments: emphasis and colour technology in ancient Mesopotamian mid-third millennium.

Cuneiform tablets tell the life and culture of Sumerian people in a sort of black and white tale because of the binary engraving technique. A leading question arises: did Mesopotamian people apply some kind of colour to decorate their tablets or to put emphasis on selected words? Some administrative and literary Sumerian cuneiform tablets of mid-third Millennium B.C. from the site of Kish (central Mesopotamia, modern Iraq) were dug up in twentieth-century and stored at the Ashmolean Museum of the Oxford University. Non-destructive micro-Raman spectroscopy is a powerful technique to detect the presence of residual pigments eventually applied to the engraving signs. Yellow, orange, red and white pigments have been detected and a possible identification has been proposed in this work. In particular yellow pigments are identified as Crocoite (PbCrO4), Lead stannate (Pb2SnO4); red pigments − hematite (Fe2O3) and cuprite (Cu2O); White pigments − Lead carbonate (PbCO3), calcium phosphate (Ca3(PO4)2), titanium dioxide (TiO2), gypsum (CaSO4.2H2O); orange pigment a composition of red and yellow compounds. These results suggest that Sumerian people invented a new editorial style, to overcome the binary logic of engraving process and catch the reader’s eye by decorating cuneiform tablets. Finally, the coloured rendering of the tablet in their original view is proposed.

Drying oil detected in mid-third Millennium B.C. Mesopotamian clay artifacts: Raman spectroscopy and DFT simulation study

The study of cultural heritage can take advantage of modern non-destructive analysis technique able to identify, among the others, the composition of the investigated ancient artifacts. In the present paper we applied Raman spectroscopy to analyze selected Mesopotamian materials from Kish kept in the Ashmolean Museum of the University of Oxford to investigate the pottery technique of that ancient people, with particular reference to the painting procedure. Beside the use of hematite and gypsum as red and white pigments respectively, the use of a near infrared laser excitation allowed to detect the presence of specific compounds applied at the pottery surface. Residual traces of the used oil were detected thanks to the fingerprint vibration at 1870cm−1 which is ascribed to the CC stretching of the cyclopropenoid compound of some fatty acids and, in particular, assignable to the use of oils derived by sterculiaceae and malvaceae plants. By using DFT calculations we simulated the degradation process of the hypothesized initial oil and we propose the attribution of the final compound revealed by Raman analysis. From the reported experimental results we propose that the oil was applied all over the surface of the pottery as a primer before the painting decoration with the use of the dry oil technique.

The hidden side of ritual: New palynological data from Early Bronze Age Georgia, the Southern Caucasus

The mid-third millennium BC, the approximate start of the Early Bronze Age III in the Southern Caucasus, witnessed the emergence of a new cultural horizon characterised by the use of barrow burials (or kurgans). One component of this so-called Early Kurgan Culture is particularly well represented in the Bedeni Plateau of Southern Georgia. Although these barrow burials are noted for their large wooden mortuary chambers and rich assemblages of grave goods, there is a hidden and equally important side of this funerary practice. Through the analysis of pollen and non-pollen palynomorphs, this paper argues that the funerary process involved the use of honey and of medicinal plants, which were probably tied together with flax string and placed in wooden or woven containers.

Gilgamesh among Us: Modern Encounters with the Ancient Epic by Theodore Ziolkowski (review)

Reviewed by: Gilgamesh among Us: Modern Encounters with the Ancient Epic by Theodore Ziolkowski Johannes Haubold Theodore Ziolkowski. Gilgamesh among Us: Modern Encounters with the Ancient Epic. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2011. xvi + 226 pp. 3 black-and-white ills. Cloth, $35. This book surveys modern receptions of the Gilgamesh Epic from the earliest lectures and publications of George Smith to recent reworkings of the epic in Western literature and art. The argument is divided into five chapters. After an introduction which outlines the contents of the poem and tells the story of its rediscovery, chapter 1, “The Initial Reception (1884–1935),” takes us from Leonidas Le Cenci Hamilton’s Ishtar and Izdubar of 1884 via the “Babel and Bible” controversy of the early twentieth century to the predominantly German reception prior to World War II. Several major figures make an appearance here, including Freud, Jung, Rilke, Hesse, Mann, Döblin, Canetti, and Pannwitz. Chapter 2, “Representative Beginnings (1941–1958),” takes up the thread of German engagement with the towering achievements of Hermann Kasack’s Die Stadt hinter dem Strom (61–64) and, especially, Hans Henny Jahnn’s Fluß ohne Ufer (67–74), an enigmatic re-imagining of the Gilgamesh story on a scale that deserves a monograph study of its own. Elsewhere, the reception of Gilgamesh continues with “four poets in English” (Lucas and Bridson in Britain; Olson and Corso in the United States; 48–59) and with the first musical settings, among them Martinů’s oratorio The Epic of Gilgamesh (75–77). Chapter 3, “The Popularization of Gilgamesh (1959–1978),” surveys new translations into the major European languages (79–80), and with them a range of popular responses. Ziolkowski notes a surge in adaptations for children, as well as other initiatives aimed at a wider public (81–82). It is against this background, he argues, that we need to see more ambitious experiments in musical and literary reception, including Per Nørgård’s opera Gilgamesh (105–7); Louis Zukofsky’s “canto 23” (which forms part of his larger poetic cycle entitled “A,” 85–88); Stanisław Lem’s review of an imaginary Gilgamesh adaptation in his A Perfect Vacuum (Doskonała Próżnia, 97–99); and the “fictional exuberances” of John Gardner’s The Sunlight Dialogues, Philip Roth’s The Great American Novel, and Rhoda Lerman’s Call Me Ishtar (99–105). Ziolkowski also draws attention to what he argues was the first overtly gay reworking of Gilgamesh, in Guido Bachmann’s novel of the same name (91–94). Chapter 4, “The Contemporization of Gilgamesh (1979–1999),” continues the theme of popularization in a political key: Ziolkowski takes us on a whistle-stop tour of late twentieth-century preoccupations, from successive crises in the Near East (109) to post-colonialism (109–10); the spread of psychoanalysis, both in a Freudian and a Jungian key (112–19); deconstruction (118–19); the rise of ecologism [End Page 669] (110, 123–35); and minority politics in the USA (135–38). Chapter 5, “Gilgamesh in the Twenty-First Century (2000–2009),” sets out to show that “Gilgamesh, who was born and flourished in the mid-third millennium b.c.e., is alive and well” (154). Ziolkowski identifies “a new focus” (167) on cultural and religious conflict in the wake of Samuel Huntington and the events of 9/11, although it must be said that the responses of Schrott and Begrich (171–78) do not fit this framework particularly well, and in practice much of the chapter seems designed to tie up loose ends. The book is equipped with a timeline of works discussed (199–205), end notes (207–20), and an index (221–26), but no bibliography. In lucid and unpretentious prose, Ziolkowski sets out what he sees as the most significant “Western” responses to the epic of Gilgamesh. He leaves the Near and Far East to “appropriately qualified scholars” (x): one hopes that others will take up the invitation, and that they will make connections with the materials explored in this book. Ziolkowski also passes over Latin America and the Caribbean—perhaps he felt there was nothing to say (for a possible starting point, see C...

A late fourth- to early third-millennium grave from Bahrain,c.3100-2600 BC

This article presents an exceptional burial that was excavated in 1986 by the National Museum of Bahrain. The presence of two ‘Jemdat Nasr’ style ceramic vessels in the grave makes it a unique testimony of occupation on Bahrain Island in the late fourth to mid-third millennium BC. A local cooking vessel also uncovered from the grave represents the earliest local pottery production so far uncovered in Bahrain.

Gunduk, Khanes, Gaugamela, Gali Zardak – notes on Navkur and nearby rock-cut sculptures in Kurdistan

: This paper discusses the rich but little-known Navkur plain, north-east of Nineveh, which is the probable location of the Battle of Gaugamela in 331 BC, and nearby rock-sculptures, with photographs illustrating new discoveries. The sculptures at Gunduk must now be dated to the mid-third millennium, and the evolution of the Khanes-Bavian sculptured complex can be followed from the Neo-Assyrian through the Greek, Parthian and Sasanian periods.

Multiregional Emergence of Mobile Pastoralism and Nonuniform Institutional Complexity across Eurasia

In this article I present a new archaeological synthesis concerning the earliest formation of mobile pastoralist economies across central Eurasia. I argue that Eurasian steppe pastoralism developed along distinct local trajectories in the western, central, and (south)eastern steppe, sparking the development of regional networks of interaction in the late fourth and third millennia BC. The “Inner Asian Mountain Corridor” exemplifies the relationship between such incipient regional networks and the process of economic change in the eastern steppe territory. The diverse regional innovations, technologies, and ideologies evident across Eurasia in the mid-third millennium BC are cast as the building blocks of a unique political economy shaped by “nonuniform” institutional alignments among steppe populations throughout the second millennium BC. This theoretical model illustrates how regional channels of interaction between distinct societies positioned Eurasian mobile pastoralists as key players in wide-scale institutional developments among traditionally conceived “core” civilizations while also enabling them to remain strategically independent and small-scale in terms of their own sociopolitical organization. The development of nonuniform institutional complexity among Eurasian pastoralists demonstrates a unique political and economic structure applicable to societies whose variable political and territorial scales are inconsistent with commonly understood evolutionary or corporate sociopolitical typologies such as chiefdoms, states, or empires.

Archaeozoological analysis of the osteological material from the Neolithic pile dwellings in the Dvina–Lovat area: economy and ecology

The faunistic material from several Neolithic sites in the Dvina–Lovat Area (Serteya II, VIII, X, XI, RudnyaSerteya, Dubokrai V, VII, Naumovo [layers A and B], and Usvyaty IV [layers A, B and α]) was studied. As shown by the animal remains, the subsistence of the early Neolithic settlements of North-Western Russia was based on hunting supplemented by fishing. Large ungulates constituted the preferred hunting prey, followed by fur animals. During the Middle and Late Neolithic the climate became cooler and drier, and the coniferous forests gradually replaced the mixed broad-leaved ones. The appearance of domesticates, the horse and cattle, was the most important feature in the sites of the mid-third millennium BC. The analysis of the osteological material leaves one in no doubt that the Neolithic pile dwellings were inhabited perennially. The occurrence of animal remains procured in the winter and summer proves that these were sedentary and not seasonal settlements.

Frontières et art mégalithique. Une perspective depuis le monde pyrénéen

The presence of Atlantic themes in the most Mediterranean area of the North of the Iberian Peninsula serves as an invitation to reflect on the validity of the traditional boundaries which defined the Pyrenees as the border between the megalithic worlds of the Atlantic and the Mediterranean. Indeed, the territorial extension of the Iberian megalithic art coincides with that of the French megalithic art of which some of the best examples can be found in the South-east. The metal weapons represented in Vizcaya and Navarra draw attention to the strong symbolic facet of an area traditionally considered as marginal, and coincide with the metal resources of these rich environments of great potential for herding and agriculture. The engraved Palmela point of KTV is the first of its kind identified in the South of Europe. Its integration within a megalithic construction confirms the long course of development of these tombs which underwent in the mid-third millennium cal BC one of their greatest moments of inflexion, at a time contemporary to the use of the Beaker assemblage.

The bird bones from Abu Salabikh

AbstractIn the course of excavations at Abu Salabikh in the 1970s and 1980s bird bones were recovered in small numbers from a range of contexts. These have been identified and are described here. In general, they give a picture of the contemporary rural environment round the city in the mid-third millennium BC, and shed light on contemporary diet. One unusual find in particular is discussed in more detail: that of an entire goshawk skeleton placed near a child in a grave with an adult (Grave 158). This is an interesting piece of evidence which might be taken to illustrate the practice of falconry in Early Dynastic Mesopotamia.

The diffusion of the cuneiform writing system in northern Mesopotamia: The earliest archaeological evidence

The invention of writing in southern Mesopotamia at the end of the fourth millennium BC had many and long-lasting consequences. As far as the Early Bronze Age is concerned, one of the most remarkable of these consequences is that the cuneiform writing system that gradually emerged in southern Iraq during the first part of the Early Dynastic period spread to northern Syria around the mid-third millennium BC. A flourishing scribal tradition was already firmly established throughout the Syrian Jezirah and inner Syria by the advent of the Akkadian period.It is difficult to establish the reasons and mechanisms that led the elites of northern Syria to borrow the practice of writing from their counterparts in southern Iraq. The steps in this process are even more unclear. Hence the aim of this paper is to gather material evidence that may help us shed light on those questions. As an archaeologist, I will not discuss here the content of epigraphical finds, but only their context and chronological attribution according to the chronological divisions in northern and southern Mesopotamia respectively.

Thirlings: A Neolithic Site in Northumberland

Excavation at Thirlings, Northumberland revealed very extensive pit and post-pit features of Neolithic date. Some were suggestive of circular, trapezoidal and possibly rectangular structures. Radiocarbon dates indicate activity commencing around the beginning of the fourth millennium BC and continuing intermittently until at least the mid-third millennium BC. The pottery assemblage was substantial, and included Early Neolithic Carinated Bowl, and later Neolithic pottery in a variety of impressed styles that include Peterborough Wares as well as Grooved Ware. This collection adds considerably to the pottery record from the period in Northumberland. There was some evidence for cereal cultivation. Spatial analysis of deposition on the site was undertaken alongside the abrasion analysis of the pottery sherds. Mechanisms to explain the findings are discussed, and the nature of occupation on the site is interpreted in light of recent thinking on the nature of the British Neolithic.

Picturing Ancient Nabada

The steppes of northern Mesopotamia near the Khabur River in present-day Syria are home to the ruins Of numerous ancient cities. One city, Nabada, excavated by a Syrian-European mission under the direction of Antoine Suleiman and Marc Lebeau, close to the modern village of Tell Beydar, reached its peak of prosperity around the mid-third millennium BCE. During this time, political and economic power in the region was concentrated in a few large urban centers including Kish, Lagash, Umma, Ur, and Uruk in modem Iraq and Chuera, Ebla, Mari, Nagar, Urkesh, Nabada, and Tuttul in Syria. Nabada and nearby cities probably served as relay stations for caravans traveling the ancient trade routes between Anatolia and southern Mesopotamia. In the first half of the third millennium BCE, Nabada's earliest inhabitants constructed a circular settlement six hundred meters in diameter enclosing an area of roughly twenty-eight hectares. A wall five meters thick built on a raised embankment protected the town. Even before the tell was excavated, the remains of the city's outer walls and the central mound were easily visible. An inner wall three hundred meters in diameter protected Nabada's palace and temples on a twenty-meter-high mound.

The Bampur Valley: A New Chronological Development

The study of history gives one access less directly but often no less vividly – to hundreds of years of recorded time. But it is only archaeology, in particular prehistoric archaeology, that opens up the almost unimaginable vistas of thousands and even a few millions of years of past human existence (Renfrew & Bahn, 2001: 117). The stratigraphical sequence at Tepe Bampur, which has been divided into six periods, was firstly studied by De Cardi in 1966 (Lamberg-Karlovsky & Schmandt-Besserat, 1977: 114). Her chronology is mostly based on pottery classification compared with other sites in Iran (Tosi, 1970a: 12), demonstrating similarity over the whole sequence. According to De Cardi’s chronology, the Tepe Bampur sequence begins with the mid-third millennium BC and ends in the early centuries of the second millennium BC (Tosi, 1974a: 31). The present paper aims to re-examine the comparative chronology of Tepe Bampur and present a new comparative chronology for the third millennium BC settlements in the Bampur Valley for the first time. The study is mostly based upon the first systematic survey of Tepe Bampur and a non-probabilistic survey in the Bampur Valley during July 2002 (Mortazavi 2004: 147). These surveys are the first systematic and non-probabilistic surveys of the valley since the time of Stein, and has provided important information concerning the settlement patterns and the chronology of the third millennium BC sites. This paper represents the first systematic study of the Bampur Valley in the Iranian Baluchistan during the third and second millennia BC. This study also pilots the first application and review of concepts of settlement patterns and comparative chronology of the valley based upon the ceramic typology using a combination of published data and new data recovered during fieldwork in 2002 and a survey in 2005.