- Source: Jerablus Tahtani
Jerablus Tahtani (formerly Tell Alawiyeh) is a small tell on the right bank of the Euphrates River four kilometers south of Carchemish in present-day Syria.
Archaeology
The mound has an area of 1 hectare with a surrounding lower town covering about 12 hectares. A fort, built on the ashes of a burnt village, stood on the mound. The defensive wall exceeded 12 meters in height, including the glacis. A number of monumental tombs were found. One tomb (Tomb 302) contained a large number of "champagne vessels" and animal bones which were interpreted as evidence of mortuary feasting.
The site was first noted by Leonard Woolley early the 1920s while he was excavating at nearby Carchemish. It was excavated from 1992 to 2000 by the British as part of the Syrian government's Tishrin Dam rescue project. As of 2000 the site was still not underwater. This project successively developed into the Land of Carchemish project.
History
The site was occupied from the late Uruk period through the middle 3rd Millennium BC. Then, after a hiatus, it was occupied from the Iron Age through the Islamic period. Specifically, there were 5 occupation periods:
Period 1 - Late Chalcolithic
Period 2 - Early Bronze Age
Period 3 - Iron Age
Period 4 - Roman
Period 5 - Islamic
See also
Cities of the ancient Near East
Jerf el Ahmar
References
Further reading
E. Peltenburg, "Jerablus-Tahtani", American Journal of Archaeology 101, pp. 122–123, 1997
E. Peltenburg, "Tell Jerablus Tahtani, Syria, I. Mortuary Practices at an Early Bronze Age Fort on the Euphrates River", Oxford: Oxbow Books, Levant Supplementary Series 17, 2015 ISBN 9781785701436
Peltenburg, E., "Tell Jerablus Tahtani 1992-1996: A summary", In del Olmo Lete, G., and Montero Fenollos, J.-L. (eds.), Archaeology of the Upper Syrian Euphrates: The Tishrin Dam Area, Editorial Ausa, Barcelona, pp. 97–105, 1999
Peltenburg, E., "The living and the ancestors: Early Bronze Age mortuary practices at Jerablus Tahtani", In del Olmo Lete, G., and Montero Fenollos, J.-L. (eds.), Archaeology of the Upper Syrian Euphrates: The Tishrin Dam Area, Editorial Ausa, Barcelona, pp. 427–442, 1999
[3]Edgar Peltenburg, "Diverse Settlement Pattern Changes in the Middle Euphrates Valley in the Later Third Millennium BC: The Contribution of Jerablus Tahtani", in Sociétés humaines, ed. Kuzucuoğlu and Marro, pp. 254–55, 2007
[4] Sang, Li, "Burial practices of the third millennium BCE in the Middle Euphrates Region: an interpretation of funerary rituals", Unpublished PhD. Thesis, Tübingen, 2010
Andrew J. Shortland, "An Antimony Bead from Jerablus Tahtani", Journal of the Historical Metallurgy Society 36/1, pp. 1–5, 2002
Wilkinson, T. J., Peltenburg, E., McCarthy, A., Wilkinson, E., and Brown, M., "Archaeology in the land of Carchemish: Landscape surveys in the area of Jerablus Tahtani, 2006", Levant 39, pp. 213–247, 2007
External links
British Excavations at Jerablus Tahtani, Syria Archived 2016-08-19 at the Wayback Machine
