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<< Our Photo Pages >> Tell Brak - Ancient Village or Settlement in Syria

Submitted by AlexHunger on Wednesday, 01 September 2010  Page Views: 18996

Multi-periodSite Name: Tell Brak Alternative Name: Nagar, Nawar, Tall Birak, Tell Birak
Country: Syria Type: Ancient Village or Settlement
Nearest Town: Al Hasakah  Nearest Village: Tell Brak
Latitude: 36.667222N  Longitude: 41.058333E
Condition:
5Perfect
4Almost Perfect
3Reasonable but with some damage
2Ruined but still recognisable as an ancient site
1Pretty much destroyed, possibly visible as crop marks
0No data.
-1Completely destroyed
3 Ambience:
5Superb
4Good
3Ordinary
2Not Good
1Awful
0No data.
3 Access:
5Can be driven to, probably with disabled access
4Short walk on a footpath
3Requiring a bit more of a walk
2A long walk
1In the middle of nowhere, a nightmare to find
0No data.
3 Accuracy:
5co-ordinates taken by GPS or official recorded co-ordinates
4co-ordinates scaled from a detailed map
3co-ordinates scaled from a bad map
2co-ordinates of the nearest village
1co-ordinates of the nearest town
0no data
4

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Tell Brak Statue menhir
Tell Brak Statue menhir submitted by AlexHunger : Statue Menhir from Tell Brak in Modern Syria now in Louvre Museum in Paris. Dated to about 2000-1600 BCE. (Vote or comment on this photo)
Ancient Settlement in Syria. Former settlement, which is now a 30 hectares mound on the Khabur River in northeast Syria. Artifacts from the Halaf and Ubaid periods indicate a long history, but the site is best known for its sequence of rich temples of the late Uruk and Jemdet Nasr periods when it was clearly an important centre.

The former city is most famous for its so-called Eye Temple which is richly decorated with clay cones, copper panels and gold work, similar to thase found in contemporary Sumerian temples in Mesopotamia. Later in the 3rd millennium BCE, Tell Brak became a provincial capital of the Akkadian Empire with the palace of Naramsin. The city was plundered after the fall of the Akkadian Empire but the palace was rebuilt in the UR III Period by Ur Nammu. A statue menhir is in the Louvre.

The Tell Brak Project website.

Note: See news story in comments on latest discoveries.
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"Tell Brak" | Login/Create an Account | 3 News and Comments
  
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Archaeological City Hosted the 1st Human Civilization by davidmorgan on Wednesday, 01 September 2010
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From coldrum:

Tell Brak (Nagar) is an ancient late Neolithic, Sumerian, Acadian and Middle-Late Bronze Age city on the Upper Khabur River. It is 45 km far from Hasaka city, 5,5 km from Damascus.

"In 1937-39, the British archaeologist Max Mallowan discovered Al-Ayoun Temple and King Naram Sin Palace built at a time when Tell Brak was a northern administrative center of the Acadian Empire," Director of Hasska Antiquities Department Abdul-Masih Baghdo said.

Studying pottery fragments found at Tel Brak archaeological site helped to date it to the sixth millennium BC as the oldest inhibited city, he added.

Its importance emerged from its geographical location as a part of a major route connecting the mountains of Anatolia with the large cities of southern Mesopotamia.

Architectural ruins at the site indicated to the Uruk settlement which covered an area of 1000 hectares. It flourished during the fourth millennium as center of trade and industry and handcrafts.

Near to the northern gate, excavation works uncovered 20 archaeological layers, the most ancient of which dates back to 3800 BC. A huge building with inscribed pottery and instruments inside was also discovered.

Archaeological inscriptions discovered in Ebla mentioned that Tell Brak was an important political center in northern Syria during the third millennium BC.

Incised ninevite 5 potteries with geometric and naturalistic animal motifs were also unearthed at the site.

A house with two furnitured rooms was discovered to the northwestern side of Tell Brak. Inside the house, silver instruments, lapis stones, carnelian beads, lion-headed eagle and copper rings were unearthed.

Tell Brak was the Capital of Hurrians after the end of Acadian Empire. Hurrians rebuilt King Naram Sin Palace in 2000 BC. At that time, Tell Brak was known as religious center and a home for goddess Nagar.

http://www.english.globalarabnetwork.com/201008277034/Culture/syria-tell-bra-archaeological-city-hosted-the-1st-human-civilization.html
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Archaeologists find new origin of ancient cities by coldrum on Wednesday, 17 October 2007
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Archaeologists find new origin of ancient cities

Excavations at a 6,000-year-old archaeological mound in northeastern Syria called Tell Brak are providing an alternative explanation for how the first cities may have grown.
Archaeologists have thought that many cities began in a single small area and grew outward, but evidence at Tell Brak indicates it was originally a ring of small villages that grew inward as it became a city -- the opposite of the conventional viewpoint.

The finds provide new insight into political development in the region.

"Urbanism does not appear to have originated with a single, powerful ruler or political entity," said archaeologist Jason Ur of Harvard University, who led the research reported Friday in the journal Science. "Instead, it was the organic outgrowth of many groups coming together."

The city, whose name is unknown, was located in the ancient empire of Mesopotamia, which encompassed what is now southern Iraq and northern Syria. The nearby city of Uruk in southern Iraq was thought to have been the oldest city in the world, but discoveries at Tell Brak suggest it may have developed contemporaneously with Uruk.

Legend holds that the great leader Gilgamesh built the city of Uruk, and that story has long served as a model for the development of early cities.

Studying potsherds, bones and other artifacts at Tell Brak, Ur and his colleagues concluded that sometime about 4200 B.C. to 3900 B.C., habitation consisted of six distinct clusters, each with an area of five to 10 acres, scattered around what is now the central mound.

Over the next several hundred years, the population grew more dense and expanded inward until, by 3400 B.C., Tell Brak was a full-fledged urban center spreading over an area of about 325 acres.

The finds, the researchers wrote, suggest that the study of early urban areas "must accommodate multiple models for the origins of cities."
http://www1.pressdemocrat.com/article/20070901/NEWS/709010382/1033/NEWS01
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Burial clue to early urban strife by coldrum on Wednesday, 17 October 2007
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Burial clue to early urban strife

Archaeologists working in Syria have unearthed the remains of dozens of youths thought to have been killed in a fierce confrontation 6,000 years ago.
According to Science magazine, the celebrating victors may even have feasted on beef in the aftermath.

The findings come from northeastern Syria, near Tell Brak, one of the world's oldest known cities.

More than 30 years of continuous excavation have revealed the site's remarkable sophistication.

Studies by British and American archaeologists published in the journals Antiquity and Science suggest Tell Brak was a flourishing urban centre at the same time as better known early cities from southern Iraq.

The work also indicates that, unusually, the Syrian city grew from the outside-in, rather than the inside-out.

A third paper, due to be published in an upcoming edition of the journal Iraq, details the burials at Tell Majnuna, 0.5km from the main urban site at Tell Brak.

Two mass burial pits have been excavated at this site. The first has so far revealed the bones of 34 young to middle-aged adults. Thus far, only a small portion have been excavated.

"There could be hundreds and potentially thousands," said Augusta McMahon, an archaeologist at the University of Cambridge, UK.

Ancient forensics

At least two skulls show signs of injuries that could have caused death. The absence of feet and hand bones and the fact that many of the skulls apparently rolled off when they were tossed in the pit hints that they were left to decompose before burial.

A mass of pottery, mostly vessels for serving and eating, along with cow bones were also found lying on top of the skeletons.

The experts interpret this as evidence for a large feast, according to the news report in Science.

A second mass burial pit has been found about 12m away. At least 28 individuals have been uncovered from this location.

Dr McMahon said she did not know whether the victors were defending or attacking Tell Brak.

"We need at least another season to understand what happened," said Joan Oates, an archaeologist at Cambridge and project director at Tell Brak.

She estimates that the Majnuna incident took place in about 3,800BC.

Tell Brak is a 40m-high, 1km-long archaeological mound in what would have been northern Mesopotamia.

Jason Ur, an anthropologist at Harvard University in Cambridge, US, and colleagues have carried out a study of the site's evolution by determining the placement and age of artefacts uncovered there.

Instead of growing from a populated urban centre in an outward direction, Tell Brak began as small settlements with space between them.

Eventually, the population grew more dense and moved towards the centre.

This, researchers say, supports the idea of a lack of centralised authority at Tell Brak.

It also suggests that more than one model of city development should be considered in studying Mesopotamian archaeology.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6971289.stm
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