Umm el-Marra

Umm el-Marra ‎, east of modern Aleppo in the Jabbul Plain of northern Syria, was one of the ancient Near East’s oldest cities, located on a crossroads of two trade routes northwest of Ebla, in a landscape that was much more fertile than it is today. Possibly this is the city of Tuba mentioned in Egyptian inscriptions listing cities that were defeated or destroyed in the Pharaoh Thutmose III’s north Syrian campaign. The city of Tuba is also mentioned in epigraphic remains from Ebla and Mari.

Umm el-Marra probably had three to five thousand inhabitants between 2800 BC and about 2100/2000 BC, when Tuba and other cities in the Jabbul Plain experienced a mysterious collapse of central authority that lasted about 200 years. Partial answers to the question, why these early centers were so brittle, may lie in the effects of sustained drought on overstressed primitive agriculture. Dr Glenn Schwartz who has been doing field archaeology at Umm el-Marra, suggested in 1994 that “they placed extensive demands on their environments, continually intensifying their agriculture to feed more people. The added stress from a few dry years may have been the straw that broke the camel’s back.” Simple daily life went on in Tuba, for the site was never completely abandoned, but at the renaissance of the city in 1800 BC, Amoritic names were now in control. Tuba went on to enjoy a second period of prosperity and power, as a “subsidiary capital” of the still shadowy kingdom of Yamkhad.

After a long period of abandonment, the site was re-occupied in the Hellenistic and Roman periods.

The site covers around 25 hectares. It was surrounded with a city wall with 3 gates and a defensive ditch. Excavation of Umm el-Marra began in the late 1970s and early 1980s with soundings by a Belgian team led by Roland Tefnin. Since 1995, a joint archaeological team from the Johns Hopkins University and the University of Amsterdam have been working at Umm el-Marra.

A rare intact, unlooted tomb, ca. 2300 BC, uncovered by Dr. Schwartz’s team in 2000 at the site, made science press headlines, for it contained five richly-adorned adults and three babies, some of whom were ornamented head-to-toe in gold and silver.

It may be the oldest intact possibly royal tomb yet to be found in Syria. Dr. Schwartz noted of peculiar aspects in the burial that they ‘may hint at ritual characteristics, rather than a tomb simply reserved for royalty or elite individuals.’ The interment, which was above ground in ancient times, included three layers of skeletons in wooden coffins lined with textiles. The top layer includes traces of two coffins, each containing a young woman in her twenties and a baby. The women were the most richly ornamented of all the occupants of the tomb, with jewelry of silver, gold and lapis lazuli. Also of interest on this level was an accompanying lump of iron, possibly from a meteorite. One of the babies appeared to be wearing a bronze torque, or collar.

Compiled by:Maysa Wassouf