Tell Shiyukh Tahtani. New light on the Bronze Age sequence

Abstract

This report briefly describes the latest results of the Italian rescue excavations at Shiyukh Tahtani on the Upper Syrian Euphrates. Fieldwork continued on the eastern slope of the mound, aiming to further investigate the Bronze Age levels. A main operation, halfway down the slope, focused upon the earliest MB I layers, where a group of burials was unearthed, mostly consisting of adult interments in oval pits and child pot burials. A most striking finding was the ‘Spinstress tomb’. At the foot of the slope, the exploration of a mud-brick compound, dating back to the early third millennium BC, continued. Here further remarkable evidence of massive domestic architecture in a fine Mesopotamian tradition was unveiled: its associated finds and intra-mural burials suggest a LC-EB transition showing that the site was quite active right after the collapse of the Uruk ‘colonies’ on the Syrian Euphrates.