Urbanism on the margins: third millennium BC Al-Rawda in the arid zone of Syria.

Castel, Corinne ; Peltenburg, Edgar

The Fertile Crescent of the Ancient Near East is well known for its early cities in irrigated farming regions. Here the authors describe the recent discovery and investigation of a planned, circular, mid/late-third millennium BC city beyond the limit of rain-fed cultivation in the arid zone of inner Syria. Founded on the initiative of an unknown power and served by pastoralists and cultivators, the research at Al-Rawda demonstrates how environmental constraints were overcome in order to establish and sustain new centres in demanding regions at a time of maximum urbanisation.

Keywords: Early Bronze Age, Syria, arid zone, pastoralism, temples, urbanism

Introduction

Urbanism has taken many forms, but it is generally agreed that its earliest manifestations occurred in Mesopotamia during the fourth millennium BC, whether in the south or the north (Adams 1981; Van de Mieroop 1997; Algaze 2005; Lawler 2006). After a poorly understood, lengthy history in the north, one that involved expansion of what is often referred to as the Uruk phenomenon (Algaze 2005), a 'second urban revolution' with indigenous roots took place in Syria around the mid-third millennium BC. States and urban life with its associated institutions flourished in numerous cities founded in dry farming areas with minimum c. 200mm annual precipitation and in the Euphrates valley. About 2600-2400 BC, written documents used for administrative, diplomatic and religious purposes appear at such centres as Mari, Ebla and Tell Beydar (Figure 1; Akkermans & Schwartz 2003: 233-87; Quenet 2005).

The 200mm isohyet is a crude indicator for the limit of cultivation, since even above that line lies a 'zone of agricultural uncertainty' (Wilkinson 2000). Here cities only gained a precarious foothold because of the fluctuation of rainfall from year to year. Stretching unevenly in an east-west band just above the 200mm isohyet (shown on Figure 1), the zone includes centres along the Euphrates and the Balikh Rivers where the worst effects of precarious rainfall could be ameliorated by irrigation. However, the recent discovery of arid zone urban sites below that marginal strip, on the edge of the inner Syrian desert, calls for a re-assessment of the boundary. More significantly, they add a new dimension to the long history of urban development by suggesting that scholars have underestimated the strength of the impetus towards urbanisation in the Ancient Near East during the Early Bronze Age. Clearly, severe ecological constraints were overcome in the drive to the urbanisation of inner Syria. Founded around 2400 BC, Al-Rawda, one of the most impressive of these recent discoveries, highlights the rapidity of that dynamic.

[FIGURE 1 OMMITTED]

The early date of these steppe zone instances should not be read as yet another sterile claim to be the 'first'. Other examples of steppe land urbanism, such as those belonging to highly mobile groups in eastern Inner Asia, were usually founded in the political context of empires where they functioned as administrative, mercantile and military centres (Rogers et al. 2005). Empires were more readily able to generate the necessary labour for the construction of major urban centres, often created de nova where there had been no previous substantive settlement and executed according to a pre-existing plan. Al-Rawda, on the other hand, was constructed at the time of the emergence of short-lived territorial states with weak centralisation. As Alfonso Archi has written of these archaic states in their formative phase, they present 'a dichotomy: maximum power at the centre of the structure and maintenance of the original organization of the territory'(Archi 1992: 39). Equally important, society then lacked the horse and camel that underpinned the achievements of mobile peoples in the roughly analogous steppe settings of Mongolia. Lacking such resources, the creation of specialised centres in the mid-third millennium BC needs to be treated as the product of qualitatively different initiatives.

[FIGURE 2 OMITTED]

Al-Rawda and its environment

A Franco-Syrian mission has been excavating Al-Rawda since 2002. The site is located in the Shamiyeh, deep in the Syrian steppe, to the south-east of Aleppo and some 70km north-east of Tell Mishirfe/Qatna and beyond the 200mm isohyet (Figure 1). Thus the region has an arid climate and soil and such precipitation as there is varies from year to year (Figure 2). These conditions seem to have scarcely changed since the Neolithic. Fertile land is rare and rain-fed agriculture is sometimes locally possible but risky. Using Syrian government data, Wachholtz (1996) characterises this dry zone as 'steppe rangeland" essentially suitable only for grazing and visited by migratory Bedu.

The site of Al-Rawda is a low circular tell located where a valley floor broadens to form a fayda. The fayda provides a local environment favourable to agriculture since it benefits from the wadi al-'Amur which captures water from the Jebel Bal'as, the mountains north of Palmyra, and from other wadis flowing from the plateaux (Besancon & Geyer 2006: 20, 27, Figures 6, 13) and the slopes above the fayda. Regularly flooded by the wadi al-'Amur, its silty soils are deep and well-drained. Securely stratified palaeobotanical evidence for vines, peas and olive trees, whose presence would be inconceivable without irrigation (Herveux 2004), and the discovery of hydraulic structures in the fayda and in the micro-region around Al-Rawda (Moulin & Barge 2005; Barge forthcoming) prove that the potential of the local environment was exploited to the utmost during the Early Bronze Age IV (last third of the third millennium). Efforts were clearly made to expand the local biodiversity. Around the site, the plateaux situated above the valley offer large areas favourable for extensive grazing (Figure 3).

[FIGURE 3 OMITTED]

Al-Rawda as a 'new town'

Since the Early Bronze Age surface of the tell was virtually undisturbed, we conducted a geomagnetic survey to determine the urban plan of the site (Figure 4). The generated image clearly shows a very dense infrastructure of buildings organised within a distinctive network of concentric and radial streets, all set within a fortified enclosure. Its regularity signals the installation of an elaborate, pre-formulated urban plan devised by some central authority for a substantial population (Gondet & Castel 2004). We consider the identity of the participants below, but, in any case, it is clear that Al-Rawda comprises one of the rare 'new towns' known in the Bronze Age of the Ancient Near East.

[FIGURE 4 OMITTED]

With a distinctively circular plan, Al-Rawda extends to 11ha within its walls (Figure 5). If we include its fortifications, its surface area is 15 or 16ha. In addition, there was a lower town to the east, covering some 4ha. The site was surrounded by four lines of defence which functioned together for a period of time: two ramparts made of free-standing mud bricks resting on stone blocks and a double ditch. These defences were completed by a partly preserved dike which lies upstream from the tell to the south (shown as a 'long wall' on Figure 3). The interior of the town was accessed through five monumental, fortified gates (Castel et al. 2005: 59-61).

Inside its walls, the density of construction implies the former existence of a significant population. That it essentially comprised residential groups is confirmed by the excavation of three representative structures interpreted as houses (Figure 6; Castel et al. 2005: 67-70). The largest, with a courtyard, extended to 150m2 in its latest phase, and together with the others, it had arrangements for storage, cooking and working with chipped stone and basalt querns.

[FIGURE 5 OMITTED]

In addition to its monumental fortifications, planned spatial organisation and size, Al-Rawda's urban status is supported by the presence of specialised structures. At least two, possibly three religious complexes are scattered in the town. Two, known from geomagnetic survey, are identifiable thanks to their typical plan in antis, a type of religious structure characteristic of Bronze Age Syria (Akkermans & Schwartz 2003: 251). We have been excavating the third, in the north-east (sector 1).

By the latest occupation of the town, around 2100-2000 BC, the religious complex of sector 1 comprised two contiguous temples that stood in the same temenos (Figure 7). Also inside the spacious temenos, which extends c. 60m from the front of the temples, are several other religious structures, including a circular space with a 3.20m long 'standing stone' or betyl (Figure 8). They are proof of the importance of religious rituals outside the sanctuaries themselves and seem to testify to the existence of both types of cult, iconic and aniconic, during the Early Bronze IV in the Syrian steppe (Caste1 2006). We infer the original existence of iconic imagery from the mud-brick podium in the 'Holy of Holies' at the back of the main temple. Statues occur frequently in the temples of contemporary Ebla where there are also textual references to images of deities.

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[FIGURE 7 OMITTED]

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A survey conducted in the [100km.sup.2]Al-Rawda micro-region shows that it is far from isolated, and that there exists here a continuous archaeological landscape (Figure 9). At the end of the third millennium, the town appears to have been a 'central place' in the micro-region, within a network of smaller habitation and other sites. Their eastern limit is clearly marked by the wadi al-'Amur (Geyer & Calvet 2001: 59, Figure 2; Castel et al. 2005: 77). Various characteristics lead us to make a distinction between two types of sites: architectural remains, sherds collected from the surface and our study of the relationship between these sites and their environment. Some of them were certainly occupied by sedentary populations; others were occupied by semi-nomadic peoples or by a population of which only a part lived there year-round (Castel forthcoming a). These different habitation sites complement one another and reflect the diversity of settlement patterns, subsistence strategies and production systems in the steppe land of Syria during the Early Bronze IV period.

An associated necropolis of 78 tombs is situated on the plateau above the fayda to the west. Some 54 of these are shaft tombs dug into limestone crust (Castel et al. 2005: 74-6). On a larger scale, the extensive survey carried out by B. Geyer and his team in the arid margins has disclosed the existence of more than 90 Early Bronze Age IV sites (Geyer & Calvet 2001: 60-1, Figure 3). Al-Rawda, therefore, was part of a much wider settlement system and other major sites with the same urban structure, such as Tell esh Sha'irat, 32km south-east of Homs, are known in the steppe land. Nor is the extension of sedentary existence limited to the region of the Shamiyeh. In his recent survey around Tell Mishrife/Qatna in Central-Western Syria, D. Morandi-Bonacossi has shown that the area was also first intensively settled during the late third millennium BC (Morandi-Bonacossi forthcoming).

The economic basis

Excavated material like pottery, figurines and stone 'spades' from different sectors of Al-Rawda reveal clear cultural connections with the Orontes valley, Qatna and Ebla in the western part of Syria (Castel et al. 2005: 87-92; Boudier forthcoming). Exotic offerings in the main temple of sector 1 also indicate involvement in a long-distance trade network, linked to cities such as Ebla and Mari (Castel forthcoming b). The offerings include shells from the Mediterranean Sea and the Arabo-Persian Gulf, agate probably from India, lapis-lazuli from Badakshan in Afghanistan and Egyptian (?) alabaster. Al-Rawda's western orientation and inter-regional connections provide critical new evidence that inhabitants of the steppe lands of Syria at the end of the third millennium were in communication with dry farming and with Euphrates valley groups. The region was traditionally a favoured zone for seasonal migrations, hence pastoralists may have had a role in these connections.

Apart from relying on exchange, the site of Al-Rawda depended upon a mixed agro-pastoral economy and drought management. Cattle, pig and the remains of lambs and kids two to six/eight months are attested in the faunal record (Vila & El Besso 2006:117). Inhabitants grew barley, legumes and fruits, including grape and almond (Herveux 2004). In order to sustain viable production, the community took advantage of topographical and other nearby features, an exploitation that has left a remarkable variety of evidence (Figure 3). Long walls, sometimes grouped in large units, were seemingly linked to agricultural structures. The fayda possibly looked then as it does today, that is, compartmentalised by earth embankments disposed perpendicularly to surface water flow, allowing the irrigation of plots in a selective manner. All around Al-Rawda transverse walls across the natural incisions made by the secondary wadis in the limestone crust probably served as man-made terraces. These plots, watered with each rainfall, sheltered from the wind and located near the fortified urban centre could well have served for arboriculture.

Pastoralism was an essential, if not the principal, activity here in the Early Bronze Age. Archaeological remains that can be linked to this activity include stone circles, some of which probably served as animal enclosures, ponds and large-scale kites perhaps for managing animals (Figure 9; see Echallier & Braemer 1995). If it is not yet possible to demonstrate unequivocally that all these vestiges are contemporary with Al-Rawda, it is probable that at least some of them were in use during Early Bronze Age IV, given their proximity to the site, diagnostic sherds discovered in situ and the rarity of sites of other periods in the micro-region. Archaeozoological study confirms that sheep and goat predominated in the faunal assemblage (Vila & El-Besso 2006). In sum, the extensive water harvesting, terracing and stock management installations provide an unusually informative insight into a subsistence economy that was robust enough for the consolidation of urbanism.

Discussion

In his survey of Upper Mesopotamia, including the zone of agricultural uncertainty, Wilkinson calls attention to the development of very large settlements 'up to the limit of rainfed agriculture' (Wilkinson 2000: 3). We now see that large sites with urban characteristics in fact emerged beyond those limits in the third millennium BC. To what factors may we attribute such precocious developments?

Pulses of settlement in arid and marginal zones of Syria took place in varied climatic and historical contexts. Geyer's survey along the fragile internal rim of the Fertile Crescent in the region of Al-Rawda, between Aleppo and Palmyra, shows a sequence of such pulses: in the Early Bronze Age, Hellenistic, Roman and especially the Byzantine periods. All may be understood as part of a much wider trend of settlement growth and extension, the result of relatively stable political circumstances, favourable economic conditions and population expansion (Geyer & Rousset 2001: 114). Yet, increased agro-pastoral settlement in the Negev in the Early-Middle Bronze Age relates to urban collapse in the South Levant, so there is no straight-forward correlation between these factors (Rosen 1987). Climate has also been seen as an important variable, and while these major settlement phases may have coincided with enhanced atmospheric moisture levels, further research on the correlation of climate and settlement history, particularly higher rainfall as a causative factor of settlement expansion, is required. Discoveries at Al-Rawda disclose two important factors for this discussion. Firstly, its large population aggregate was situated in a favourable environmental niche well outside the conventional dry farming zone in an area that demanded irrigation for sustainable permanent urban settlement, and so there is need for caution about overly simplified divisions between the 'desert and the sown'. Secondly, other early instances of settlement growth in arid terrain are largely characterised by the proliferation of small sites, whereas this Early Bronze Age expansion into a formerly unoccupied region is remarkable for its urban nature. For example, sizable early Near Eastern examples such as Jawa in Jordan (Helms 1981) and Khirbet el-Umbashi in southern Syria (Braemer et al. 2004) lack the urban traits of Al-Rawda.

There is no consensus on the causes for the emergence of this remarkable third millennium urbanism on the margins, its internal evolution or the origins of its inhabitants. A distinguishing feature of many similar sites in marginal zones to the north is their annular plan with a citadel (lacking at Al-Rawda) at the core of a lower town, generally known as Kranzhugel (cup-and-saucer shaped). There is some evidence to suggest that they began at the centre and expanded to fill the space inside the outer, circular wall which was imposed, as if from a blueprint. The concept of this ideal city type with radial and concentric streets was ultimately derived from the earliest example which currently may be Mari, a 1.9km diameter site in the Euphrates River valley founded in the early third millennium BC (Margueron 2004) or at sites like Tell Chuera between the Balikh and Khabur Rivers which attained some 65ha by the mid-third millennium (Hempelmann in press). While the origins of the concept remain elusive, therefore, once established, it was widely emulated. Whether for political or other reasons, this planned spatial order symbolised a world view of planners and resident communities.

Marginal and arid zone urban sites of third millennium Syria are generally attributed to one of two groups: pastoralists or sedentary peoples. In the pastoralist model, it is assumed that spontaneous sedentarisation took place as part of trends towards urbanism, population increase and economic intensification (e.g. Lyonnet 1997; Meijer 1999). In this model, pastoralists with low archaeological visibility, in close contact with existing urban centres in dry farming areas, occupied the marginal zones prior to the creation of walled centres to protect their accumulated goods. The counter-intuitive view of mobile pastoralists constructing complex permanent settlements suggests that they were familiar with urban groups. While initial surveys have failed to detect traces of their earlier existence around Al-Rawda, absence of evidence does not necessarily equate with evidence for absence. The sedentary model, on the other hand, requires a migration of people to the fringes of sparsely populated terrain where they would need to optimise water harvesting techniques. In the case of Al-Rawda, they mobilised sufficient labour for the creation of a planned urban centre with temples in antis, like others in north and west Syria. Such concerted initiatives may have served as secondary or satellite centres established to exploit the resources of the pastoralists for thriving textile and other industries of extant urban polities (e.g. Danti 1997: 72; Gondet & Castel 2004). This directed settlement strategy was a result of policies by state authorities, and it implies the deliberate colonisation of sub-desert areas (Geyer & Calvet 2001: 66; Akkermans & Schwartz 2003: 259).

It may also be that these models polarise lifestyles and social identities that were in fact much more entangled, with nuanced gradations across a spectrum of subsistence roles. While the people who conceived Al-Rawda had a specific town plan in mind and were possessed of real understanding of sedentary life, it is difficult to imagine that there were no pastoralists there. They are evident from the archaeozoological and regional site evidence already described, and, in general terms, they are likely from ethnological comparanda which indicate a segmentation of activities by settlers of arid zones according to the seasons, climatic conditions, and the age and gender of individuals (Metral 2006: 100). The postulated dichotomy between farmers and herders was probably not so marked, since arid zones demanded flexible economic strategies in which members of the same extended families may well have been engaged in agricultural and pastoral modes of existence. Thus, co-existing mobile and sedentary peoples were probably involved to a greater or lesser extent. What is becoming clear is that these centres were not all created at the same time and that overall typological homogeneity should not be confused with identity of purpose. We need to examine the empirical data on a case by case basis before assuming that a common trigger underpinned the general pattern.

In the specific case of Al-Rawda, its foundation may be broadly dated to a time of nascent territorial states. We have textual evidence from Ebla and Marl that elucidates the growth of inter-regional spheres of influence by the twenty-fourth century in which states and people were obliged to submit to hegemonic rule (Archi & Biga 2003). Elites of the Ebla palace possessed widespread rural lands, but we do not have a clear idea of the locations of these holdings. That Ebla, some 150km north-west of Al-Rawda, also had interests in steppe land pasturage is clear from accounts of palace flocks of 70 000-80 000 sheep which were driven to the steppe at suitable times of the year (Archi 1992: 27). The arid hinterlands, therefore, were increasingly exploited by emerging territorial states for their economic and political value, so inevitably enmeshing areas seasonally occupied by pastoralists and affecting previously unoccupied zones.

Set in the context of these expanding horizons of control, one possible role for Al-Rawda may be as an organisational centre for the creation of allegiances amongst or with pastoralists, as a gateway for the exploitation of local resources in a frontier zone at the edge of Early Bronze Age settlement and as a strategically located centre to exploit burgeoning inter-regional Early Bronze Age trade, in this case on the route from western Syria to the Euphrates valley. As Wilkinson argues, appearance of large settlements in marginal zones with little agricultural potential was due to long distance trade and exchange with mobile pastoralists (Wilkinson 2000: 13-4). The constant transmission of textiles and their use in inflationary gift-giving by emerging states as they sought to enlarge their spheres of influence provided a strong stimulus for new sources of wool such as could be provided by distant pastoralists. Indeed, Kouchoukos (1998) argues that the growth of Kranzhugel in the very marginal Jebel Abd al-Aziz was stimulated by the commodification of textiles. In such a scenario, the impetus for the establishment of Al-Rawda could have come from an expansive centre like Ebla, but there is no reason to deny affiliated pastoralists a role in its creation. On the other hand, there is also tantalising inscriptional evidence that points to the existence of steppe land polities with a greater degree of independence. This raises the possibility that, as Wright argues in respect of the earlier Uruk period in the fourth millennium, 'urbanism occurred in the absence of a strong centralizing state and was able to thrive for at least a brief moment under the control of decentralized local groups' (Wright 2002: 7).

The Ebla twenty-fourth century BC texts mention tribal confederations to its south-east and to the south of Hama. The most important confederation was that of Ib'al which had small to medium-sized urban centres, the seats of 'kings' or 'princes' (Bonechi 1993: 186-88; Fronzaroli 2003: 124). Monthly accounts of the delivery of textiles also attest to a city 'Ib'al of the steppe' which at the apogee of Ebla's power was given gifts and hence was presumably still free (Archi & Biga 2003: 25). We do not know its exact location, but the city occurs in a list together with 'Da'u of the dam'. Following Bonechi (2001: 61), terms that deal with water control are used of areas in the steppes rather than the dry farming zone. There is also another Syrian power, Uras-mah ('Great/Lofty Land') which Bonechi locates in inner Syria, between Aleppo, Homs and Palmyra, that is broadly a region that encompasses Al-Rawda. The area name is qualified as 'of the steppe', it is associated with terms for reservoirs and water courses (wadis), and its leaders swore pacts with Ebla (Bonechi 2001: 61-2). These texts highlight the critical importance of water management, as we have seen, a key feature of the evidence recovered from the Al-Rawda fayda, and political and other relations between steppe-dwellers and regional state powers.

The conjunction of detailed textual records and this new archaeological evidence is a highly promising development. In this paper, we have presented two contrasting views for the impetus towards urbanisation at Al-Rawda: a state-led product or as a result of local initiatives. Reality may lie between. A priority for future research, therefore, will be to obtain greater chronological and geographic precision in both bodies of evidence in order to evaluate the identity and motives of the people who created urban centres on the steppes of inner Syria.

By way of provisional conclusions

After four seasons of investigation, Al-Rawda is emerging as a fully-fledged, arid zone urban centre, with the multiple functions characteristic of a town: fortifications, permanent residences, varied economic pursuits, specialised religious structures and funerary activity. Thus, we can consider that a large part of the population, if not all, lived year-round on the site.

The regular urban organisation, with its radial and concentric streets, indicates that this was a 'new town' constructed according to a pre-conceived design. The array of habitations, water management and animal control installations in its environs imply that it possessed a complex infrastructure at a time of expansion of sedentary sites in the marginal zones of central Syria in the second half of the third millennium BC.

Residents of this medium-sized urban centre were engaged in trade networks of different scales. It was probably a stopping place for caravans that crossed the steppe between the Euphrates and the region of Qatna. Almost certainly, it played an important role in the development of extensive pastoralism and wool production at the end of the third millennium and it served as a religious centre for both the sedentary people and pastoralists of the region.

Acknowledgments

Corinne Castel, Director of the French part of the archaeological expedition in Al-Rawda, wishes to express her immense debt to the Directorate-General of Antiquities and Museums in Syria who encouraged and supported the research discussed in this paper. In particular, she would like to thank Drs Abdelrazak Moaz, Tammam Fakouch and Bassam Jamous, General Directors since 2002, Dr Michel-Al-Maqdissi, General Director of excavations in Syria and Nazir Awad Co-Director of the excavation in Al-Rawda. She expresses her gratitude to all the French and Syrian researchers and students who form the multidisciplinary Al-Rawda team. The French-Syrian expedition in Al-Rawda is funded by the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the CNRS, the Maison de l'Orient et de la Mediterranee and the team 'Archeorient' (UMR 5133 of the CNRS) in Lyon, the French Archaeological Institute in Damascus (IFAPO/IFPO) and the General Direction of Antiquities and Museums in Syria. We are grateful to Maria-Giovanna Biga, Ralph Hempelmann and Daniele Morandi-Bonacossi for providing important information about Ebla, Tell Chuera and Tell Mishrife/Qatna respectively, and to anonymous reviewers for helpful comments. Thanks to Severine Sanz (CNRS, Maison de l'Orient, Lyon) for the preparation of illustrations.

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Corinne Castel Edgar Peltenburg

(1.) CNRS, Maison de l'Orient et de la Mediterranee, 'Archeorient; Environnements et Societes de l'Orient ancien', Universite Lyon II, Lyon, France (Email: Corinne. Castel@mom.fr)

(2.) Archaeology, School of Arts, Culture and the Environment, University of Edinburgh, Old High School, Edinburgh EH1 1LT, Scotland, UK (Email: e.peltenburg@ed.ac, uk)