Tell Brak (36˚66’7 N, 41˚05’8 E) is one of Northern Mesopotamia’s earliest cities, with a large population, religious and secular institutions, and significant socio-economic complexity by the early 4th millennium BCE. The site is in the Upper Khabur region in northeast Syria, where rainfall agriculture and a key location in relation to trade and migration routes may explain its growth and continued occupation until the late 2nd millennium BCE. Between 1976 and 2011, the Tell Brak Project focussed on reconstructing Brak’s unique early urban landscape and economy during the 4th millennium BCE. This landscape involved the placement of powerful religious and secular institutions on opposite sides of the city, in locations of high visibility. Elsewhere on site, the clustering and increasing formalisation of industries in the late 5th–early 4th millennia BCE offer valuable evidence for incremental growth in economic complexity and the management of production. Further, urban edge zones are rarely excavated, but research at Brak has shown these were vital areas for city success, absorbing dangerous industries and noxious rubbish and providing open space for the shadow economy, graves and houses of new immigrants. Finally, the 4th millennium BCE material culture sequence from Tell Brak is unparalleled in the region and is an important resource for chronology and typological comparisons for excavations and surveys across northern Mesopotamia.
The publication project will be directed by Prof. Augusta McMahon.
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