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

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Corinne Castel  and
Edgar Peltenburg
Corinne Castel
Affiliation:
CNRS, Maison de l'Orient et de la Méditerranée, ‘Archéorient; Environnements et Sociétés de l'Orient ancien’, Université Lyon II, Lyon, France (Email: Corinne.Castel@mom.fr)
Edgar Peltenburg
Affiliation:
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)
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Extract

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 AgeSyriaarid zonepastoralismtemplesurbanism
Type
Research
Information
Antiquity , Volume 81 , Issue 313 , 1 September 2007 , pp. 601 - 616
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd. 2007

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