Excavations at Umm el-Marra (ancient Tuba?) in the Jabbul plain east of Aleppo (36° 08' North, 37°41' East), conducted by the Johns Hopkins University and the University of Amsterdam 1994-2010, have provided important information on the flourishing urban civilization of Early Bronze Age (ca. 3000-2000 BC) western Syria. A complex of ten monumental elite tombs on the site acropolis, together with the sacrificial installations of buried equids and human infants, supplies a unique and sizeable set of data on elite ideologies and elite mortuary rituals, including ancestor veneration and animal sacrifice. The publication of the third-millennium BC results from Umm el-Marra will offer an important contribution to our understanding of early Syrian urban societies.
The publication project is directed by Dr. Glenn Schwartz.
*PROJECT FUNDING GENEROUSLY PROVIDED BY THE GETTY FOUNDATION*
