A prehistoric burial field

In previous years we have discovered several dozens of prehistoric graves at Tell Sabi Abyad. Most of them date roughly from between 6200 and 6000 BC. Remarkably, they are almost exclusively children’s graves. There are virtually no adult graves. In 2005 this picture changed when we found a burial field specifically intended for adults.

So far we have excavated nine adult graves, but we believe that these are only the tip of the iceberg. This is undoubtedly the adult burial field that we have been looking for for so long (we hope to prove this in a future campaign). The recently found skeletons still have to be examined by specialists. Therefore we cannot say anything yet as to gender, exact age, traces of diseases, etc.

The burial field was created at the highest point of Tell Sabi Abyad and looked out over the village which at the time was located on the lower slopes and at the foot of the mound. Like the children’s graves, the adult graves date from around 6200-6000 BC as well.

The dead are lying on their sides, with their legs raised high – the typical grave posture of the time. In one grave we found two bodies: an adult next to a child. Burial gifts occur now and again. The child just mentioned had a necklace of finely coloured stone beads. In another grave we found a ceramic bowl behind the head of the body.

On the whole the adult graves appear to be little different from those of the children. The most important difference is that each group had a clearly separate burial place: the children on the slope of the tell, the adults at the top. The distinction appears to have been applied rigidly, although there are exceptions, like the aforementioned burial of a child together with an adult. There must have been a close tie between these two people: they both died more or less at the same time and were then buried together.

There is another difference between the graves of the children and those of the adults. In the case of one adult the skull appears to have been removed. This practice is part of what archaeologists call the “skull cult”, a ritual which arose around 10,000 BC and which remained in use in the Near East for thousands of years. The finds at Tell Sabi Abyad show that the skull cult was still actively practised in Syria in the late 7th millennium BC.

Archaeologists long assumed the existence of burial fields in the prehistoric Near East. So far they had hardly any solid evidence to support this assumption. Our excavations at Tell Sabi Abyad have now provided the evidence.