Tell Sabi Abyad in the late Neolithic, ca. 6600-6000 BC

The oldest pottery of Syria!

For a long time archaeologists have suspected that the first pottery was made in Syria in the early 7th millennium BC. But many questions are still unanswered. What does this early pottery look like? What were the pots and jars used for? When exactly was pottery invented?

Research at Tell Sabi Abyad and at a number of sites in the neighbourhood had already pointed to the local presence of the oldest pottery. So far, however, we had to be content with stray sherds from often very poor contexts. We assumed that the occupational layers with the oldest pottery were buried very deeply under deposits several metres thick from a much younger period and therefore virtually inaccessible to us.

In 2002 we began a modest excavation on the north-western side of Tell Sabi Abyad, until then barely investigated.  Soon we began to suspect that remarkable occupational layers were hidden here – a suspicion that was confirmed during the large-scale excavations in the autumn of 2003. Immediately below the surface of the mound we came upon the remnants of dwellings containing very simple pottery. Indeed the very early pottery we had been looking for for so long! The vessels are made by hand and relatively coarse in nature. We have found bowls and large jars exclusively. Very characteristic are the jars with handles.

The vessels date from around 6600-6500 BC. It is among the oldest pottery of Syria known so far. However, under the remnants of the dwellings now excavated there appear to be even older occupational layers with even older pottery waiting for us… A unique find, which we will deal with in our next season of excavation.

If you want to know more about the 2003 excavations at Tell Sabi Abyad, please go to: pottery.

Prehistoric houses

The buildings in which the oldest pottery was found are very close together. The houses are rectangular. The walls – in some cases preserved to a height of 1.8 m – are made of small, hand-made mud bricks. In most cases there are no real foundations. The walls are simply placed on the rugged surface of the mound. In a number of cases buttresses were used to keep the walls in place.

Sometimes the buildings consist of only one spacious room, up to 5 by 3 metres large. The majority of the houses has a series of small rooms, however. A number of small storage rooms – each barely 1 by 1 m – were partly underground. Small openings in the walls appear to have provided light and ventilation.

Floors, doorways and hearths

The floors in the rooms are made of tamped loam. In a number of spaces we found traces of a hard, white-plastered floor. Sometimes the walls had a thin white plaster as well. Repeatedly we found imprints of coiled wickerwork in the white floor plaster. These are probably traces from baskets.

Small door openings gave access to the rooms. Some rooms appeared to be accessible only through low, half-round portholes in the walls.

In a number of rooms we found rectangular or horseshoe-shaped hearths. Such hearths were also found in the yards around the houses. The yards often had small, shallow firepits as well, with burnt stones on the floor (which served to retain the heat). The floors and the walls of some pits were covered with a thick white plaster. Probably these pits were used as basins or for storing goods.

Stone vessels

Besides pottery we found all kinds of objects on the floors of the various buildings, among them small, beautifully decorated stone pots. In one case we came upon three completely intact stone pots incorporated together within a wall of a house. We have not yet found a conclusive explanation. Were they perhaps part of a construction ritual?

We have also found basalt grind stones, bone awls and large numbers of flint tools. The flint assemblage consists mainly of simple flakes (“flake-oriented industry”), but we have also found scrapers, blades and a number of arrow or spear points. Obsidian – vulcanic glass from Turkey – was present in large quantities. More than 40% of the lithic material consisted of light-grey transparent obsidian, mainly in the form of very small blades.

A remarkable child burial

One of the buildings struck us because of its unusual shape and its dimensions. The building had two elongated rooms, each around 7 metres long and only 1 metre wide. The entrances were blocked with mud bricks. One room had a large, white-plastered basin, the other room had a hearth. On the north side of the building we found the remnants of a wall that had collapsed, undoubtedly part of this building. Put back into place imaginarily, the wall must have been at least 4 metres high. Therefore we cannot exclude the presence of a second storey.

We made a remarkable discovery with the find of three children’s skeletons on the floor of the room with the hearth. We have not found traces of a burial pit. The children were of different ages at the time of death: the youngest was around 6-7 years old, the oldest 12 years old. Two of the children were lying next to each other, one with its head pointing west, the other one with its head pointing east. The third child, the youngest, seems to have been placed in a sitting position on the outstretched left hand of the oldest of the two other children.

For the time being we do not know what to make of this building and the presence of the children. It is improbable that the building served for everyday activities. The unusual lay-out, the blocked doorways to the rooms, the large basin and the dead children suggest something quite different. Did this house perhaps function as a ritual “house for the dead”?

   Tell Sabi Abyad in the late Neolithic, ca. 6600-6000 BC
   Tell Sabi Abyad at about 6000-5900 BC
   Tell Sabi Abyad in the Middle-Assyrian period, ca. 1230-1180 BC
   Assyrian pottery kilns
   Assyrian cylinder seals
   Assyrian burials
   Assyrian cuneiform texts