A 'Royal' Cemetery from Tell Umm el-Marra: Ideology and Mortuary Ritual in Early Urban Syria

乌姆马拉特尔的“皇家”公墓：叙利亚早期城市的意识形态和丧葬仪式

• 批准号: 0545610
• 负责人: Glenn Schwartz
• 金额: $ 11万
• 依托单位: Johns Hopkins University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2006
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2006-04-01 至 2010-03-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0545610&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Royal; Cemetery; Tell; Umm; el

Support from the National Science Foundation will allow Dr. Glenn Schwartz to excavate an elite, possibly royal mortuary complex at Umm el-Marra, Syria, dating to the period of Syria's first urban civilization, ca. 2500-2200 BC. Previous excavation and survey work based at Umm el-Marra, located east of Aleppo in northern Syria, have revealed that the site was the predominant urban center of the Jabbul plain throughout the Bronze Age in the third and second millennia BC. Fieldwork at Umm el-Marra in 2002 and 2004 disclosed the presence of six tombs on the site's central high point containing artifacts of gold, silver, and lapis lazuli and the skeletal remains of up to eight individuals per tomb. Located nearby were installations containing the remains of sacrificed donkeys and human infants, indicating the rich (and somewhat disturbing) world of elite mortuary ritual in this period. In 2006 and 2007, Dr. Schwartz plans to conduct two excavation seasons in an area of 700 square meters in order to complete the excavation of the mortuary complex, to be followed by a year of analysis and publication. The size and spatial limits of the complex will be determined, additional tombs and installations will be excavated, and deeper excavations will permit the investigation of the origins and early history of this royal cemetery. Analysis of the human skeletal remains will provide information on the family relationships of the people buried in the tombs, addressing the question of whether these structures were the mausolea of individual dynasties, as well as supplying information on data on diet, health, and lifestyle. Through completion of the excavation of the royal cemetery, the proposed research will provide data on the ideological underpinnings of the first states in Syria, expanding our understanding of the role of ideology and religion in early urban societies, factors that have been neglected in previous research. A hypothesis proposing that the Syrian elites reinforced their authority through veneration of elite ancestors will be tested, and new data on ritual human sacrifice (implied by the tomb results) and gender and status hierarchies in early Syrian urban societies will be obtained. This research can be expected to reveal important new information on the dominant elites of early urban Syria, the bases of their power, and the emergence of Syrian urban civilization. Through such data, we will be able to better understand the different paths to civilization taken by the cultures of the ancient Near East, comparing Syrian urban societies with the better-known cases from Mesopotamia and Egypt.The broader impact of this project includes a continuing international partnership between Johns Hopkins University (USA) and the University of Amsterdam (the Netherlands) as well as the training of American, European, and Middle Eastern students in archaeological fieldwork. Data from the field project will be used in Schwartz's undergraduate and graduate classes, as well as in classes dealing with computer-generated architectural reconstructions at the Maryland Institute College of Art. The research will benefit the wider society by providing important new information on the origins and workings of the earliest urban civilizations, distant predecessors to our own.

在美国国家科学基金会（National Science Foundation）的支持下，格伦·施瓦茨（Glenn Schwartz）博士将在叙利亚乌姆马尔马拉（Umm el-Marra）挖掘一座精英的、可能是王室的陵寝建筑群，其历史可以追溯到公元前2500-2200年叙利亚第一个城市文明时期。此前在叙利亚北部阿勒颇东部的Umm el-Marra进行的挖掘和调查工作表明，该遗址在公元前三千年和公元前二千年的青铜时代是Jabbul平原的主要城市中心。2002年和2004年在Umm el-Marra进行的田野调查发现，在该遗址的中心高点有六座坟墓，里面有金、银和青金石的人工制品，每座坟墓最多有八个人的骨骼遗骸。附近有一些装置，里面有献祭的驴子和人类婴儿的遗体，表明这一时期精英殡葬仪式的富裕（也有些令人不安）世界。施瓦茨博士计划在2006年和2007年对700平方米的面积进行两个季节的挖掘，以完成对太平间的挖掘，然后进行一年的分析和发表。该建筑群的规模和空间限制将被确定，更多的坟墓和设施将被挖掘，更深入的挖掘将允许调查这个皇家墓地的起源和早期历史。对人类骨骼遗骸的分析将提供有关埋葬在坟墓中的人的家庭关系的信息，解决这些结构是否是单个朝代陵墓的问题，以及提供有关饮食，健康和生活方式的数据信息。通过完成对皇家墓地的挖掘，拟议的研究将为叙利亚第一个国家的意识形态基础提供数据，扩大我们对早期城市社会中意识形态和宗教作用的理解，这些因素在以前的研究中被忽视了。关于叙利亚精英通过对精英祖先的崇拜来加强他们的权威的假设将被验证，关于早期叙利亚城市社会中活人祭祀仪式（由坟墓结果暗示）和性别和地位等级的新数据将被获得。这项研究有望揭示早期叙利亚城市的统治精英、他们的权力基础以及叙利亚城市文明的出现的重要新信息。通过这些数据，我们将能够更好地理解古代近东文化走向文明的不同道路，将叙利亚的城市社会与美索不达米亚和埃及更为知名的案例进行比较。该项目的更广泛影响包括约翰霍普金斯大学（美国）和阿姆斯特丹大学（荷兰）之间的持续国际合作伙伴关系，以及对美国，欧洲和中东学生进行考古实地工作的培训。实地项目的数据将用于施瓦茨的本科和研究生课程，以及马里兰艺术学院的计算机生成建筑重建课程。这项研究将为更广泛的社会提供有关最早的城市文明的起源和运作的重要新信息，这些文明是我们自己的遥远祖先。