Syro-Palestinian Archaeology - Archaeology in Syria

Archaeology in Syria

Coastal, central and southern Syria (including modern Lebanon) "constitute the major part of ancient Canaan, or the southern Levant," and according to Dever, the area is "potentially far richer in archaeology remains than Palestine." Yet, in the 19th century, Syria received significantly less archaeological exploration than Palestine. Beginning in the 1920s, large excavations have been conducted in such key sites as Ebla, Hama, and Ugarit. Albright envisioned Palestine and Syria within the same cultural orbit and, though best known for his pioneering work on biblical archaeology, he also foreshadowed contemporary scholars in using "Syro-Palestinian" to integrate the archaeology from Syria.

Syria is often acknowledged to be a "crossroads of civilizations", "traversed by caravans and military expeditions moving between the economic and political poles of the Ancient Near Eastern world, from Egypt to Anatolia, from the Mediterranean to Mesopotamia." While there is significant geographical and cultural overlap with its neighbouring regions, Akkermans and Schwartz note that specialists in Syria itself, rarely use the term "Syro-Palestinian archaeology" to describe their inquiries in the field. Syria can be seen as a distinct and autonomous geographical and cultural entity whose rainfall-farming plains could support larger scale populations, communities, and political units than those in Palestine and Lebanon.

Following the program of the French Mandate, the Syrian school of archaeology has an official antiquities department, museums in Aleppo and Damascus, and at least two important scholarly journals.