SPANIARDS DISCOVER FORGOTTEN EUPHRATES CITY

[Bianca Markos]

ARCHAEOLOGY: SPANIARDS DISCOVER FORGOTTEN EUPHRATES CITY

(by Paola Del Vecchio) (ANSAmed) - MADRID - They have renamed it the city recovered from the Euphrates and it is found in the Syrian enclave of Tall Qabr on the banks of the river that, with the Tigris, was the centre of the birth of civilisation in Mesopotamia. It is a circularly planned city, dating back to 2,600 years before Christ. Galician archaeologists from an expedition from the University of Coruna made the discovery, led by Jean Luis Montero, who identified two layers dating back to from the IV to first millennium before Christ. Since 2008 the multidisciplinary expedition, made up of 20 people, has been working in the area known as the Hill of the Tomb in the Euphrates Valley on an excavation campaign in collaboration with the Syrian government in which various universities are participating with Spain's Superior Centre for Scientific Research (CSIC) and the Syrian Ministry of Culture. The expedition, according to what Montero told the media, located the remains of the city, dated to 4,500 years ago, and that of a fortress dating back to 1,300 years before Christ. Among the artefacts uncovered, a collection of ceramics that will allow researchers to understand how life was in an epoch privy of information. There was also a stamp of enormous artistic beauty, corresponding to those used by dignitaries, Montero assured. It is a clue that indicates the high possibility of finding the cities archive, according to what the excavation supervisors say, which would help us understand the era's political and diplomatic structure. Regarding the city, its localisation was possible thanks to geo-radar, carried out in collaboration with the University of Vigo, in Galicia, a technique which allows for preliminary work without digging. The surprise is that it was built on a circular plan, Montero observed. It is the second city documented in the area of the Euphrates on this plan. The other is some 200 kilometres from these ruins, and it was thought that the circular plan was something out of the ordinary. The results of the expedition, defined as a historic find, will soon be presented in Madrid. According to Montero, the concepts that we take for granted in the history books could be rewritten. It is not Pompeii, but according to the archaeologist, it is comparable proportionately. The objective of the expedition is to determine what the concept of border was from the IV millennium to the Byzantine period. The city could represent the passage from the rural cycle to the urban cycle, in other words the first cities in history and show the border of the Mari kingdom, the ancient rivals of Babylonia. The Galician archaeologists will continue to work in the area next year. The director of the project hopes to bring the walls to the surface as well as its secrets as a dam threatens to flood this piece of history. For this reason the team of researchers is preparing a report to sent to UNESCO, with an international appeal to protect the archaeological area and to ask at the same time for more resources and people to uncover the buried city. (ANSAmed).

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