Abstract
SIR LEONARD WOOLLEY'S account of the first month's work on the British Museum's new archaeological site in Syria fully confirms anticipation of the nature of the evidence likely to be obtained at such a point as the mouth of the Orontes, which must have been an important centre of international and commercial intercourse from early times. Tel Sheikh Yusuf el Gharib, a low mound, so called after a local saint, on the right bank of the Orontes, he reports in The Times of June 4, has produced evidence of nine occupation levels. As virgin soil has been reached just below deposits which are dated at about the twelfth century B.C., it is evident that the mound begins with what can only be a later extension of the main settlement. Although in consequence no material of Mycenaean age or earlier is forthcoming, it has yielded finds of considerable interest and no little importance. The pottery, for example, includes possibly the finest example of Proto-Corinthian ware yet known, while the so-called ‘Cypriote’ ware, a class of ceramics appearing in Cyprus in the Early Iron Age without known local antecedents, occurs here rather earlier in the eighth level in such sudden abundance as to suggest a violent occupation, and possibly may eventually afford a clue to the cultural origins of this type in Asia. Especially fine examples of orientalising wares of the best sorts from the sixth and fifth levels, and innumerable fine fragments of Attic wares, belonging to the late sixth and fifth centuries B.C., some of which can be recognised as by known artists, from the fourth level point, in Sir Leonard's opinion, not only to a flourishing luxury trade with the ^Egean, but also to great enterprise on the part of the Athenians in establishing a flourishing commercial centre on this Asiatic coast at a time of tension with the great imperial power of Persia. Evidence was also obtained of intercourse with the Asiatic interior, the occurrence of a basalt bowl, showing a debased Hittite style in decoration, being noted. Such results hi a restricted area afford abundant promise from future excavation.
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Archæological Excavations in Syria. Nature 137, 979 (1936). https://doi.org/10.1038/137979a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/137979a0