Syrian History   The Root of Urban Civilization Plunging into the remotest past of Syria is even more fascinating in the chronological sequence which covers the 4th and 3rd millenaries before our era. This does not mean that nothing took place between the 8th millenary we just mentioned, and the 4th, but because of the relatively limited perspective afforded to us by this historical introduction, we prefer to put in evidence this crucial period of the evolution of mankind when the first urban concentrations appeared with all their implications of social and political organization. Before entering into this subject, let us briefly mention the most appreciable achievements of this Neolithic era which brings us until 4000 B.C. (which is of course an approximate figure). Between the some thirty-eight centuries separating the Muraybet Man and the fourth millennium, societies based on agriculture increased their range of activities in Syria and elsewhere in the Near East, but they also perfected their stone tools, began livestock breeding, indulged in the art of wall painting (in Bouqras, end 7th to early 6th millenaries B.C.), developed new relations with other life (both toward gods and toward earlier human generations), and developed the making of potteries in a decisive way as of the 6th millenary, when the coastal area and especially the Djezirah (Tell Halaf cultures) were centers of life. Enclaves of Sumerian Culture Taking the 4th and 3rd millenaries, the birth and growth of urban civilizations upturned social organization in the Near East. Concerning Syria, the phenomenon happened beyond the present boundaries of the country, and was traced to south Mesopotamia. This part of the Near East which had already exerted its influence on Syria during the second half of the fifth millenary B.C. with the expansion of the culture called AI-Obeid (a site southwards of what is now Iraq) was thus at the origin of this extremely important mutation as it saw the appearance of a monumental architecture in cities governed by sovereigns and administered by a bureaucracy (scribes) which implied the evolution development of a system of writing and the creation of trade exchanges. It is in this sense that this civilization, named Ourouk in its archaic stage (3,300 to 3,100 B.C. of Sumerian stock) built relations with Syria. This took place initially in the form of trade settlements, perhaps as of 3,400 B.C., even before the invention of writing. From these commercial outposts merchants, from sites like Habuba Kebira and Aruda, used to send by waterway materials (cedar timber from Lebanon and the Amanus, stone, metals from Anatolia, elephant tusks from the Orontes Valley) to the alluvial areas where the Sumerians lived. Habuba Kabira, on the left bank of the Euphrates, was defended by a wall of bricks but survived only one century before being destroyed. The Sumerian influence did not disappear for all that. It reappeared later in various places and with an astonishing force at Mari, one of the for most sites in Syria. Located at the boundary of the specifically Syrian world and Mesopotamia, Mari had a non-Sumerian dynasty. Between 2600 and 2340 B.C. temples and palaces, Ziggurates or layered towers were built in this city on the bank of the Euphrates. Andre Parrot, who excavated in this area in 1933, discovered wonderful treasures of art, stone statues, sculptures, mosaics of mother-of-pearl, ivory, and stone competing with Sumerian masterpieces. This brilliant phase of Mari's civilization was to disappear in 2340, perhaps under the blows of another kingdom rooted in Syria, whose capital Ebla, was discovered in 1965, at 55kms southwest of Aleppo under the slopes of Tell Mardikh. It was the most extraordinary discovery in the Near East since World War II.       Previous - Next
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