Jerablus-Tahtani, Syria, 1996: Preliminary Report

Abstract

The fifth season of University of Edinburgh/British Institute at Amman for Archaeology and History-sponsored excavations at Jerablus–Tahtani in the neighbourhood of Carchemish, north Syria, was devoted to investigations of its Early Bronze Age occupation, Period 2 of the site's history. In order to evaluate occupation between the Uruk retraction and the construction of the fort initially reported in Levant 28, 1996, 7–9, in situ pre-fort deposits were explored in Area III. They indicate that the fort was built in the mid-third millennium B.C. The discovery of the south-east corner of the fort suggests that the high status Tomb 302 lies outside and at the foot of its walls. Several later levels of the sequence of intercalated buildings and well-furnished graves first tested last season were excavated in 1996. Results will eventually permit closer dating of the temporary abandonment of the site in the later third millennium B.C. and assessment of this event in relation to widespread settlement dislocations in the Near East at about this time.