Remarkable discoveries: the excavation in 2005

Tell Sabi Abyad is the archaeologists’ dream. Year after year the mound in the north-Syrian plain surprises us. True, we have to work hard and the sun is unrelenting, but we are richly rewarded every time. The year 2005 was no exception. Houses, platforms, ovens, hearth places and so on that were almost 9000 years old were discovered, all of them exceptionally well preserved. We came upon the oldest pottery of Syria, and perhaps even of the entire Near East. A unique prehistoric burial field was found. And again we discovered a number of clay tablets with cuneiform inscriptions from the Assyrian period.

The 2005 excavation campaign was wound up at the beginning of November. The team consisted of 30 people: archaeologists, specialists in every field, and especially many students, coming from the Netherlands, Syria, Germany, Poland, France and Sweden. In the field the team of excavators was assisted by more than 80 workmen from the nearby village of Hammam et-Turkman.

In 2005, as in the years before, we focussed on excavating occupation layers several metres thick from two completely different periods. On the one hand this was the period we call the Late Neolithic, dated roughly between 6900 and 6200 BC. And on the other hand it was the period known as the Late Bronze Age, to be dated at around 1230-1150 BC. This is the period when the Assyrians came to Tell Sabi Abyad and built a fortress at the top of the tell.

So far archaeologists have carried out little or no research into occupation layers from the Late Neolithic, around 6900 to 6200 BC, neither in Syria nor in the bordering regions. Therefore the results of our work at Tell Sabi Abyad are no less than unique. We have been investigating the occupational remains from this period on a large scale. By now we have excavated a series of prehistoric houses, partly or in their entirety. Most houses consist of quite a number of rooms, usually one large space to live in with a number of small rooms for storage. Into the floors of some of the buildings large storage jars had been sunk, with a thick gypsum layer on the inside to make them waterproof. Pottery that was still intact, grinding stones, flint tools and so on were also found on the floors of the houses, in the places where they had been left thousands of years ago...

Remarkable are the platforms built of large, heavy mud bricks, of which we have now uncovered several, either partly or entirely. The largest platform measures about 10 by 7 metres and is 80 centimetres high. Initially these platforms served to create a level plain for the construction of houses on the slope of the mound. They are very characteristic for the period between 6900 and 6200 BC. They do not appear in earlier nor in later periods.

Not so long ago we proudly announced the discovery of the oldest pottery known so far in Syria and maybe even in the entire Near East. In 2005, however, we found even older pottery, in and around the houses dating from 6900/6800 BC... The pottery is often polished on the exterior and sometimes even painted. This ware is unique and we have not yet come across it at any other site in the Near East.

A remarkable find is the discovery of a prehistoric burial field dating from between 6100 and 6000 BC. The existence of such a burial field was long suspected, but solid proof was hitherto lacking. The dead were lying on their sides with their legs raised high. One grave held two bodies: an adult next to a child. Funerary gifts occur now and again. One child wore a necklace of finely coloured stone beads. In another grave we found a ceramic bowl behind the head of the body.

The remains of the Assyrian occupation from the 12th century BC have also been investigated more closely. Around the Assyrian fortress which we excavated earlier we have again found remains of houses, work shops and barracks. In previous years we have discovered piles of clay tablets with cuneiform inscriptions at Tell Sabi Abyad. The 2005 campaign yielded texts as well: four this time.

In 2005 we have also begun the excavation of what we have termed Tell Sabi Abyad III, a small mound no more than a couple of hundred metres from Tell Sabi Abyad I, our main location of research. Our work at Tell Sabi Abyad III showed that this place was inhabited around 6900-6800 BC. But we have not reached virgin soil yet and we know that below the oldest architecture exposed so far there are layers several metres thick with remains of earlier settlements.

We owe great thanks to our sponsors for making the excavation at Tell Sabi Abyad possible each year. We have received financial and / or other support from the Netherlands National Museum of Antiquities, Leiden University, Groningen University, the Foundation for Anthropology and Prehistory in the Netherlands, the Royal Dutch Embassy in Syria, the Netherlands Institute for Academic Studies in Damascus, and of course from our own society of Friends of Sabi Abyad. We also warmly acknowledge the advice and actual assistance given to the expedition team in the field by the Syrian General Directorate of Antiquities. Thank you all very much!

If you want to know more about the 2005 campaign, go to: excavation 2005