Global Arab Network | Tal al-Khwaira - Civilizations Dating Back to the 3rd Millennium B.C., Says Archaeologists

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Tal al-Khwaira - Civilizations Dating Back to the 3rd Millennium B.C., Says Archaeologists

By Ruaa AL-Jazaeri

Wednesday, 11 November 2009 10:28

Ancient Raqqa city (North-eastern Syria) has witnessed the birth of many civilizations and foreign invasions. According to Archaeologists.

The successive kingdoms in Raqqa have played an important role in its development on the humanitarian and knowledge levels reflected by its archaeological ruins.

The archaeological ruins in the city show the architectural and cultural developments it has witnessed such as Tal al-Khwaira site to the north of Raqqa near the Syrian-Turkish borders between al-Ballikh and al-Khabour rivers.

Tal al-Khwaira is an important big archaeological city whose buildings and streets are one of the first architectural designs that was similar to Damascus city in the old ages and reflect how advanced were the nations who have lived in it.

The city has a circular shape nowadays and it contains the ruins of ancient fortresses that constitute a wall surrounding the city whose external facade consists of an artificial slope lies on huge stone bases, Archaeologist Mohammad al-Ezzo said.

In the past the wall was surrounded by a ditch that has disappeared throughout history due to the floods in al-Khwaira valley.

You can see a lot of holes at the wall thought to be the gates of the city and along the first wall lies the lower city that surrounds the center of the upper city whose area is estimated at 220 square kilometers.

The unearthed findings indicate that the lower city used to have a huge population of 75,000 people where the squares that were found in 1983 indicated that there were nine housing compounds in the lower city, while the ruins of the upper city were greater in number.

Excavations at Tal al-Khwaira site have started since the beginning of the second half of the twentieth century under the supervision of the German Institute in Damascus, said Director of Raqqa Antiquities Department Mohammad al-Sarhan.

The site witnessed three settlement stages, the first of which was in the third millennium B.C that was known as the Dawn of the Syrian Civilization where the settlement covered a wide area of the site while the second one was at the second half of the third millennium B.C and it was known as the Syrian Middle Age and the third stage was in the second millennium B.C.

During the first stage, Tal al-Khwaira civilization prospered and this prosperity was represented through building palaces, houses, and temples along the two sides of the long street that was known as Temples Street and their one-meter high walls have stood fast up till now.

You can see a lot of clay pieces at the site indicating that houses were built at the plain and at times of catastrophes and wars, citizens used to resort to the places located inside the wall of the city, but that didn't last for a long time where al-Khwaira settlement was uninhabited for anonymous reasons.

The German Archaeological Expedition ended its excavation works for the current season where it discovered a part of the main gate of al-Khawaira city and external wall in addition to the architectural style of the bridges, the internal gate of the wall and the main street connecting the lower and upper cities.

The German Expedition also discovered a channel for drawing water from the upper to the lower part of the city in addition to many rooms dating back to the Ancient Bronze Age and a temple built of big stones of different layers painted with grout. (SANA)

Global Arab Network