History of Syria - Prehistory

Prehistory

See also: Pre-history of the Southern Levant, Ancient Near East, Fertile Crescent, and Ebla

Since approximately 10,000 BC Syria was one of the centers of Neolithic culture (PPNA), where agriculture and cattle breeding appeared for the first time in the world. The following Neolithic period (PPNB) is represented by rectangular houses of the Mureybet culture. At the time of the pre-pottery Neolithic, people used vessels made of stone, gypsum and burnt lime (Vaiselles blanches). Finds of obsidian tools from Anatolia are considered evidence of early trade relations.

Cities such as Hamoukar and Emar played an important role during the late Neolithic and Bronze Age.

Archaeologists have demonstrated that civilization in Syria was one of the most ancient on earth. Around the excavated city of Ebla in northern Syria, an Italian mission led by Prof. Paolo Matthiae discovered evidence in 1975 of a great Semitic empire, spreading from the Red Sea north to Turkey and east to Mesopotamia and thriving from 2500 to 2400 BCE.

Ebla appears to have been founded around 3000 BCE and gradually built its empire through trade with the cities of Sumer and Akkad, as well as with peoples to the northwest. Pharaonic gifts found during excavations confirm Ebla's contact with Egypt. Scholars believe the language of Ebla to be among the oldest known written Semitic languages. The Eblaite civilization was likely conquered by Sargon of Akkad around 2260 BCE; the city was restored as the nation of the Amorites a few centuries later and flourished through the early 2nd millennium BCE until conquered by the Hittites.

During the 2nd millennium BCE, Syria was occupied successively by Canaanites, Phoenicians, and Arameans as part of the general disruptions associated with the Sea Peoples; the Phoenicians settled along the coastline of these area as well as in the west (Now Lebanon & The current Syrian coast), in the area already known for its cedars. Egyptians, Sumerians, Assyrians, Babylonians, and Hittites variously occupied the strategic ground of Syria during this period, as it was a marchland between their various empires.