Fortifications appear with increasing frequency and size within several settlements
of the Euphrates Valley after c. 2500 BC, and take on a variety of forms, including
defensive walls (some with casemate systems), sloping ramparts, towers, and fortified
city-gates (Cooper 2006 : 71 – 86 ). One also finds large, spatially segregated places of
worship, often revealing architectural monumentality and reflecting the presence of
well-established religious traditions. Especially noteworthy is the appearance, beginning
c. 2500 BC, of a simple, standardised temple commonly referred to as a long-roomed
temple or a temple in antis, due to its long thick walls or antaethat project outward
and form a shallow porch at the front. Such temples are particularly well known from
the site of Tell Chuera to the east of the Euphrates Valley, where at least four temples
have been well documented (Castel 2010 : 125 – 126 ). Within the Euphrates Valley itself,
temples in antishave been documented at the sites of Halawa Tell A, Tell Kabir, and
Qara Quzaq. The temple in antisat Halawa Tell A is particularly monumental in
proportions ( 20 x 13 m), and is well preserved, comprising not only its full ground plan
and associated cultic installations and equipment within, but also the religious precinct
around it, which included an encircling temenos wall, subsidiary rooms for storage, a
gate-house and a possible smaller subsidiary shrine (Orthmann 1989 : 63 – 66 ; Cooper
2006 : 154 ). Much less is known about the surroundings and original contents of the
temple in antisat Tell Kabir, although its preserved ground plan reveals it to have been
even larger in area than the one at Halawa, measuring 22 x 13 m ( 286 m^2 ) (Porter 1995 :
129 – 130 ). The two temples at Qara Quzaq are significantly smaller in area ( 35 m^2 and 112
m^2 respectively) (Del Olmo Lete and Montero Fenollós 1998 ; Olavarri and Valdés
Pereiro 2001 : 27 – 30 ; Castel 2010 : 129 ). Given our somewhat fragmentary evidence for
these Early Bronze Age temples, it is difficult at this point to reconstruct precisely the
nature of the religious ideologies and cult practices conducted within these sacred
complexes. Nonetheless, it is interesting to document the widespread appearance of the
temple in antis, which not only occurs in the Euphrates region and to the east at Tell
Chuera, but which has now been documented at Ebla and Tell al-Rawda to the west
(Castel 2010 : 124 – 126 ). We link this development to the growth of communication and
exchange networks among the settlements of these regions, and the desire, especially
on the part of the settlements’ religious and secular elites, to secure their inclusion within
a profitable network of exchange through the emulation of neighbouring cities’ material
cultural and ideological accoutrements (Cooper 2006 : 161 ).
Turning to western Syria, increasing socio-economic complexity does seem to be
indicated between 2700 and 2500 BCduring the EB III, especially if we take into
account the evidence from Ebla, which hints at the emergence of a city elite stratum
with considerable control over the city and its production and consumption (Mazzoni
2003 : 180 ). Elsewhere, EB III occupation has been documented at Syrian sites on the
coast (Ras Shamra, Tell Sukas and Tell Sianu) and further inland in the Orontes Valley
(Qarqur, Hama, Mishrifeh/Qatna and Tell Nebi Mend), although the limited archi-
tectural data do not allow one to ascertain the true size and complexity of these sites.
Regarding pottery, one sees the continuing prevalence of Red-Black Burnished Ware
along with another distinctive pottery ware, known variously as Pattern-Combed Ware
or Cross-Combed Ware. This hand-made, well-fired pottery, which usually takes the
form of restricted necked jars with light combing decoration, are thought to be related
to the production, transport and consumption of olive oil since they have been found
in their greatest abundance in areas where olive trees were grown prolifically in antiq-
–– Lisa Cooper ––