Bronze Age cemetery emerges in Syria.

What began as a muddy chasm in a farmer's field in 1993 has now become a source of unexpected insights into the Early Bronze Age people who once flourished in what is now northern Syria.

Excavations in April at Tell es-Sweyhat, on the banks of the Euphrates River, uncovered a group tomb dating to between 2500 B.C. and 2250 B.C., according to initial estimates. Discoveries in the tomb, which may have been a family burial, set the stage for exploration of a surrounding cemetery that contains as many as 150 similar tombs, according to project director Richard L. Zettler, an archaeologist at the University of Pennsylvania Museum in Philadelphia.

"This ancient cemetery covers at least 2 acres and hasn't been looted," Zettler says. "It has great research potential."

Until now, knowledge of Early Bronze Age life in northern Mesopotamia, the land between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, came largely from prior finds at Ebla, Zettler notes. That ancient Syrian site includes a royal palace and thousands of tablets bearing written administrative records. Urban civilization first arose in southern Mesopotamia around 3400 B.C. (SN: 3/3/90, p.136).

The number and quality of goods in the Tell es-Sweyhat tomb suggest that people buried there were not royalty, Zettler asserts. They may have lived at a nearby town now being excavated by his team.

Work at the settlement began in 1989. Irrigation of a nearby field by a farmer 2 years ago caused the collapse of a sinkhole, offering the first peek at the tombs. This year, researchers dug about 10 feet through soil that had filled in a tomb shaft. There they found an oval burial chamber about 12 feet long and 15 feet wide.

Inside rested the bones of at least 10 people. One intact female skeleton and the partial remains of another person lay near the entrance to the chamber. Most of the rest of the bones were piled against a rear wall or scattered nearby. Bodies were probably thrown there "with apparent callous disregard," Zettler contends.

Various objects were buried with the bodies. These include pottery vessels, beads, shells, copper or bronze daggers, axes, javelin points, and a model chariot with wheels.

The tomb also yielded the bones of a whole pig and other animals.

The inclusion of what appear to be offerings to the dead signifies belief in an afterlife, Zettler says. For that reason, he finds it puzzling that most of the bodies were unceremoniously thrown together in a heap.

A survey of other sinkholes that have opened up in the field indicates the presence of another 100 to 150 burials of similar size, he adds.

Ongoing work at other Early Bronze Age sites in Syria has unearthed monumental tombs built for royalty, suggesting that a range of burial types existed at that time, says Glenn M. Schwartz, an archaeologist at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.

"But Zettler's site is very promising because, unlike so many others in this region, none of the graves has been looted," he asserts.