WESTERN SYRIAN/MIDDLE EUPHRATES–SUMERIAN
INTERCONNECTIONSThis overview of developments in the third millennium BCin the Euphrates River
Valley and western Syria has tried to show how much of the progression towards
increasing socio-economic complexity and urbanism were internally driven: that these
phenomenon were the natural outgrowth of structures already in place at the start of
the third millennium BC, and fuelled by the growth of local elite powers, possibly
through their interactions with one another, the production and trade of various raw
materials and crafted products, and the intensification of agricultural production. At
the same time, it is also important to consider the strength of the effects from the
outside during this period, particularly from Sumer in southern Mesopotamia.
Textual information attesting to connections between western Syria and Sumer
from the early centuries of the third millennium BCis scant, although we might suggest
that some form of communication and contact was made during this period, albeit in
a far less systematic and intensive manner than was witnessed in the previous Late Uruk
period. The second half of the third millennium, in contrast, appears to have been a
period of considerable interconnections. At the end of the Early Dynastic period, the
Sumerian ruler Lugalzagesi, for example, claims to have subjugated all of the lands as
far as the ‘Upper Sea’, the designation for the Mediterranean Sea (Frayne 2008 : 436 ).
While his claim of dominion over such a vast area is no doubt highly exaggerated, it
does show his awareness of the lands to the west, probably because of their rich
resources in materials such as timber and their locations on trade routes to metal
sources. The campaigns of Akkadian kings were undoubtedly motivated by southern
Mesopotamia’s continuing interest in exploiting the resource-rich areas of western Syria
and the areas accessible beyond it. Gudea, the Sumerian ruler at Lagash in the twenty-
second century BC, claims to have received timber from the Amanus Moutains and
textiles from Ebla (Klengel 1992 : 35 ; Edzard 1997 : 33 ). The Ur III dynasty at the end
of the third millennium was in close economic contact with Syrian centres such as
Tuttul (Tell Bi’a), Ebla and Urshu to the north, and it is possible that a Neo-Sumerian
king, Shu-Sin, launched an expedition which took him up into Syria, reaching Ebla,
among other cities, and ‘the land where the cedars are cut down’ (Klengel 1992 : 36 ;
Frayne 1997 : 301 ).
The archaeological record from Syria provides further proof of interconnections
with Sumer. Cylinder seals found in the Euphrates Valley and western Syria utilise
motifs and imagery prevalent in Early Dynastic southern Mesopotamia, although it
must be noted that such seals also bear local characteristics and are never slavish copies
of Sumerian prototypes (Schwartz 1994 : 164 , 167 n. 11 ). Stone sculpture from the site
of Tell Chuera to the east of the Euphrates, taking the form of alabaster worshipper
statues, compares favourably with similarly sculpted votive figures from the Diyala
region of southern Mesopotamia (Aruz 2003 : 63 ). The evidence from Ebla, dated to the
end of the Sumerian Early Dynastic period, provides some of the richest evidence
for contact with Sumer. Inscribed tablets from that site, although rendered in the
Northwest Semitic Eblaite language, employed the system of syllabic cuneiform
writing that was directly borrowed from pre-Sargonic Mesopotamia. Moreover, the
contents of several literary compositions and lexical texts from Ebla allow comparisons
to be drawn with the tablets excavated at Abu Salabikh and Fara in southern Iraq
–– Cultural developments in western Syria ––