Artifacts Unearthed in Syria Hint at Ancient Burial Rituals of Elite

New York Times ^ | October 24, 2006 | John Noble Wilford

[SunkenCiv]

Six years ago, archaeologists uncovered a solitary, undisturbed tomb in the ruins of an ancient city in northern Syria. Now, in subsequent excavations, they have exposed seven more tombs at the site, making this the only known elite, possibly royal, cemetery in Syria in the Early Bronze Age, from about 2500 B.C. to 2200 B.C... The modern name of the ruins is Umm el-Marra, about 35 miles east of Aleppo and 200 miles northeast of Damascus. Scholars think this is the site of ancient Tuba, the capital of a small kingdom that thrived on the east-west trade route connecting Mesopotamia with Aleppo and ultimately the Mediterranean Sea... Tuba, west of the Euphrates, was probably allied with the more dominant city-state Ebla, where archaeologists in recent decades have uncovered remains of imposing architecture and a library filled with clay tablets bearing cuneiform texts on northern Syria's economy and diplomacy in the middle of the third millennium B.C.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks DaveLoneRanger for sending the link.

---

Gold ornaments -- James Van Rensselaer IV

---

[SunkenCiv]

To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list. Thanks.

Please FREEPMAIL me if you want on or off the
"Gods, Graves, Glyphs" PING list or GGG weekly digest
-- Archaeology/Anthropology/Ancient Cultures/Artifacts/Antiquities, etc.
Gods, Graves, Glyphs (alpha order)

[BlackVeil]

and a library filled with clay tablets

It is great when they discover written records - a real window on the past. I always long for them to discover the lost library in Pompei, which some talk about. It may still exist, and now they can recontruct the charred scrolls.