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<< Other Photo Pages >> Tell Qarassa - Ancient Village or Settlement in Syria

Submitted by bat400 on Sunday, 22 September 2013  Page Views: 5818

Multi-periodSite Name: Tell Qarassa
Country: Syria Type: Ancient Village or Settlement
Nearest Town: Damascas  Nearest Village: Al Qamishli
Latitude: 36.830000N  Longitude: 41.460000E
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
 1 Ambience:
5Superb
4Good
3Ordinary
2Not Good
1Awful
0No data.
 no data 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.
 no data 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 Qarassa
Tell Qarassa submitted by dodomad : A cache of Neolithic skulls unearthed in Syria had been exhumed, separated from their bodies, had their faces smashed in and been reburied. But why? Image credit: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas Site in Syria (Vote or comment on this photo)
Ancient Village or Settlement in Sweida.
Early Pre-Pottery Neolithic B site. Buildings, some reused as cemetery. 9300-9100 BCE.

Source: Ibanez, J.J., Balbo, Braemer, Gourichon, Iriarte, Sanatana, Zapata, "The early PPNB levels of Tell Qarassa North (Sweida, southern Syria)," Antiquity.

Note: Stone Age skull-smashers spark a cultural mystery
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Tell Qarassa
Tell Qarassa submitted by dodomad : A cache of Neolithic skulls unearthed in Syria had been exhumed, separated from their bodies, had their faces smashed in and been reburied. Image: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas Site in Syria (Vote or comment on this photo)

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Nearby sites listing. In the following links * = Image available
 14.7km NNE 16° Shubat-Enlil Ancient Village or Settlement
 36.8km NNW 326° Girnavaz* Ancient Village or Settlement
 40.1km WSW 243° Tell Brak* Ancient Village or Settlement
 44.3km E 92° Tell Hamoukar Ancient Village or Settlement
 48.3km WNW 302° Urkesh* Ancient Village or Settlement
 71.4km SW 233° Tell Tuneinir Ancient Village or Settlement
 84.1km NNE 24° Cemka Hoyugu* Ancient Village or Settlement
 84.5km NNE 23° Boncuklu Tarla* Ancient Temple
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 91.7km ENE 65° Amarsava Ancient Village or Settlement
 95.0km SE 126° Rima Ancient Village or Settlement
 95.6km SW 224° Shadikanni Ancient Village or Settlement
 98.4km N 358° Hasankeyf* Ancient Village or Settlement
 98.9km N 358° Hasankeyf Hoyuk Ancient Village or Settlement
 104.7km NNE 18° Güzir Höyük Ancient Village or Settlement
 109.0km SE 126° Taya Ancient Village or Settlement
 117.3km NNW 339° Körtik Tepe Ancient Village or Settlement
 119.4km NNW 337° Müslümantepe Ancient Village or Settlement
 121.2km N 4° Ayngerm Yani Ancient Village or Settlement
 122.3km NNW 331° Ziyaret Tepe Ancient Village or Settlement
 122.6km NNW 336° Salat Tepe Ancient Village or Settlement
 125.4km NNW 330° Hakemi Use Tepe Ancient Village or Settlement
 126.3km W 270° Tell Halaf* Ancient Village or Settlement
 129.6km NNW 347° Demircitepe Ancient Village or Settlement
 149.1km SSW 206° Dur-Katlimmu Ancient Village or Settlement
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"Tell Qarassa" | Login/Create an Account | 3 News and Comments
  
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Re: Stone Age skull-smashers spark a cultural mystery by Talaiotik on Thursday, 18 August 2022
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This site is not the Tell Qarassa that is referred neither in the text nor in the paper. This one is another, much bigger Tell Qarassa. The actual site described is so far away to the south, near the Jordan border, in the province of as-Suwayda.
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Stone Age skull-smashers spark a cultural mystery by bat400 on Sunday, 22 September 2013
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An unusual cluster of Stone Age skulls with smashed-in faces has been found carefully separated from the rest of their skeletons. They appear to have been dug up several years after being buried with their bodies, separated, then reburied.

Collections of detached skulls have been dug up at many Stone Age sites in Europe and the Near East - but the face-smashing is a new twist that adds further mystery to how these societies related to their dead.


Juan José Ibañez at the Spanish National Research Council in Barcelona says the find may suggest that Stone Age cultures believed dead young men were a threat to the world of the living.

No one knows why Neolithic societies buried clusters of skulls - often near or underneath settlements. Some think it was a sign of ancestral veneration. "When people started living together [during the Neolithic period], they needed a social cement," says Ibañez. Venerating ancestors might have been a way of doing this. But the violence demonstrated towards the skulls in the latest cluster suggests a different story.

The 10,000-year-old skulls were found in Syria. Like those found in other caches, they have been cleanly separated from their spines, suggesting they were collected from dead bodies that had already begun to decompose. Patterns on the bone indicate that some had been decomposing for longer than others, making it likely that they were all gathered together for a specific purpose.


Most of the skulls belonged to adult males between 18 and 30 years old. One - belonging to a child - was left intact; one was smashed to pieces; the remaining nine lacked facial bones. "There was a pattern," says Ibañez. "The top of the skull and the jaw were there, but they were missing all of the bones in between." His team believes the facial bones were smashed out with a stone and brute force. "There were no traces of cutting," he says (American Journal of Physical Anthropology, DOI: 10.1002/ajpa.22111).

Ibañez reckons Stone Age people believed they would receive some benefit - perhaps the strength of the young men the skulls once belonged to - by burying them near or beneath their settlements. Why the faces were smashed in invites speculation.

It may have been an act of spite or revenge, says Ibañez. Or the skulls may have been brought together to create a "community of the dead", perhaps in order to spiritually interact with the living.

Other researchers suggest other reasons.
Thanks to coldrum for the link. For more, see, http://www.newscientist.com.
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