bronze age Sidon.pdf

Sidon during the Bronze Age:

Burials, Rituals and Feasting Grounds

at the “College Site”

Claude Doumet-Serhal

Beirut, was one of the most important urban centers of

the ancient Canaanite and Phoenician people, the old-

est city in Phoenicia, according to many early classical authors.

However, like other locations in modern Lebanon, in years past

most of what was known of its history came from contemporary

Egyptian, Assyrian, Babylonian, and Greek records. Little con-

crete evidence about its history in the Bronze Age was available.

For example, in 1937 and 1938 P. E. Guigues uncovered Middle

Bronze Age graves in the villages of Lebe‘a, Kafr-Jarra, and

Qrayeh (Guigues 1937, 1938, 1939), but these were located

in the foothills overlooking the city, not in the city proper.

Figures 1–2. Sidon, view of the College Site excavations located under what used to

be a school (hence the name). The excavation area lies in the heart of the Old City.

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114 NEAR EASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY 73:2–3 (2010)

T he city-state of Sidon, 30 km south of the Lebanese capital,

2Sd

A major obstacle to in-depth research into the heart of the

ancient city, the essence of any definitive knowledge, is mod-

ern Sidon, which covers

whatever lies below. How-

ever, thanks to the propi-

tious acquisition of three

downtown sites by Leba-

non’s Directorate General

of Antiquities (DGA) in

the early 1960s, access

to the ancient layers of

the city became possible.

Then, in 1998, permis-

sion was granted to the

British Museum to begin

excavations on the site of

the ancient city. 1 To date,

there have been twelve

seasons of excavation.

These new excavations

are located in an area

known as the College

Site (figs. 1, 2), so named

because a school used to

stand there. Situated in the heart of the old city of Saida, these

excavations have allowed archaeologists for the first time to fol-

low a sequence of development in Sidon from the Chalcolithic/

EB I periods through the Iron Age (Doumet-Serhal 2004a).

Judging from the architectural remains, the Middle and Late

Bronze Age occupation levels contained public buildings, which

may have been large structures of a religious character. In addi-

tion, more than one hundred burials from the Middle Bronze

Age have been excavated thus far.

2800 B . C . E . containing at least eight rooms (fig. 3). This struc-

ture is currently under excavation. The charred remains of roof

beams were found

on the floors in most

of the rooms. There

is no evidence for

what had been used

to cover the beams

to weatherproof the

roof, but it was prob-

ably some sort of

organic material such

as straw or thatch.

Carbon-14 analysis

of one beam found

on the floor of Room

2 revealed a prob-

able date of around

2600 B . C . E . (Ramsey

and Doumet-Serhal

2006, 20). A study of

the microstructure of

three samples of car-

bonized timber from

Rooms 1–3 showed the use of Olea euroapea (olive wood) and

Quercus sp. (deciduous oak; Allué and Griffiths 2006, 27). The

building’s rectangular mudbrick storerooms (fig. 4), which had

completely burned down, contained pottery and charred grain.

Over 160 kg of charred barley have been uncovered to date, as

The Third Millennium B . C . E .: The Onset of Urban

Development in Sidon

Early Bronze Age remains are poorly represented in Lebanon,

but at Sidon, six levels of occupation have been identified at the

College Site, ranging from the close of the fourth millennium

through the third millennium B . C . E . (Doumet-Serhal 2006).

At the earliest level of sandstone bedrock, the pottery assem-

blage is reminiscent of the Chalcolithic tradition, with its pedes-

tal-base vessels and V-shaped bowls. As a whole, the majority of

pottery types found on the bedrock level were open vessels for

eating and drinking. This pattern changes in subsequent levels,

where an increasingly large number of storage vessels, such as

jugs and especially jars, were used as containers for transporting

liquids and other commodities. This points to the beginning of

commercial activity.

Above the earliest level is a possible break in human habita-

tion illustrated by a thin layer of beach sand containing very few

sherds. We do not yet fully understand the reason for this hiatus,

but it must have been brief, since it did not adversely interfere

with the smooth development of the urban sequence.

On top of the sand layer, Sidon’s urban development begins

with the construction of an Early Bronze Age building around

Figure 4. The Early Bronze Age mudbrick storage rooms that

housed the burnt barley.

NEAR EASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY 73:2–3 (2010) 115

Figure 3. The Early Bronze Age building formed by eight rooms and built

in mudbrick.

well as a layer of plaster that covered the floors (figs. 5a–b) and

sealed the heaps of grain, most probably against rodents and

insects. Storage facilities were usually centrally located to best

serve the needs of the community. Furthermore, these facilities

lay in the vicinity of the harbor, where loading and unloading of

commodities took place.

Analysis of Sidon’s Early Bronze Age faunal remains (Vila

2004, 2006) revealed the existence of wild animals; never-

theless, domesticated species such as sheep, goat, cattle, and

pigs accounted for over 50 percent of the skeletal remains

(see below). Mesopotamian fallow deer, wild boar, aurochs (a

type of large wild cattle), and hippopotami were

all hunted, as were large carnivores such as

lions and bears. At Sidon, the hippopotami

were skinned, quartered, cut into smaller

pieces, and eaten (Vila 2004, 98). The

absence of skulls suggests that they

were processed elsewhere.

The evidence from Sidon is unusual,

since hunting is generally not consid-

ered to have been a normal activity

among the inhabitants of third-millen-

nium Levantine sites (Vila 2006). The cit-

ies and villages of this period for which evi-

dence of animal husbandry is available, mostly at

sites in the southern Levant, obtained their meat mainly from

rearing domestic animals. The part played by wild animals in

the economy of the southern Levant is virtually nonexistent,

accounting for only 1–2 percent of all animal remains. It would

thus appear that hunting did not play a regular part in the supply

of food among sites of the southern Levant—except at Sidon.

Moreover, the way wild animals were exploited is a phenom-

enon peculiar to this site. The kind of hunting that took place

at Sidon gives one pause because the specific animals selected

were uncharacteristic of hunters looking only for meat. If that

had been the object, the hunters would not have attacked the

most dangerous animals, such as the males of redoubtable spe-

cies, but would have pursued the females of boar and deer.

Therefore, one reason for this peculiar kind of hunt might have

been ideological rather than economic: hunters might have

been interested not only in the quantity of the meat but

also in the quality of the game itself. This could

imply that the hunt was about prestige and

might reflect the existence of a separate social

elite group made up of specialist hunters

(Vila 2006, 319).

Among the objects found in the EB

building mentioned above was a frag-

ment of a hippopotamus’s lower incisor

featuring a procession of animals carved in

bas-relief (Doumet-Serhal et al. 2008, 6–7).

This object, probably a handle, manifests a

certain influence affiliated to the Syro/Meso-

potamian animal repertoire of cylinder seals. Other

objects from Sidon with connections to Egypt, as well as to

Byblos further north on the Lebanese coast, have contributed

to the dating of the levels, along with the development of local

productions.

cer

Figures 5a–b. The charred barley being

excavated. Over 160 kg have been

uncovered to date. It was contained in

mudbrick silos sealed with plaster to repel

rodents and insects.

116 NEAR EASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY 73:2–3 (2010)

Storage facilities were

usually centrally

located to best serve

the needs of the

community.

Figures 6a–b. An

Early Bronze Age

seal impression

depicting a row

of dancing men.

The most noteworthy item discovered to date is a narrow

stump-base jug with black slip and vertical burnishing. This

type of jug, common in the so-called “foreign ware groups” of

First Dynasty Egypt, was discovered in the tombs of Saqqara

and Abydos. Many two-handled, slender, egg-shaped jars were

found in Sidon (e.g., Doumet-Serhal et al. 2008, 5). These ves-

sels closely parallel jars from the Fourth to Fifth Dynasties at

Giza in both shape and decoration. In addition, a small jug with

a loop-handle springing from its flaring rim to its shoulder and

surmounted by the head of a quadruped, “a ram in an upright

position with its head resting on the rim,” was discovered at

Sidon in 1998 (Doumet-Serhal 2009b). This head is similar to

one found on a twin jar from Byblos dated between 3100 and

2800 B . C . E . The latest Early Bronze Age level also produced a

large number of standardized holemouth vessels used in food

preparation.

The appearance of human fig-

ures on seal impressions at this

point in the third millennium

is one indication of the society

becoming gradually more sophis-

ticated. One seal impression

on a vessel shows a row of men

with long, straight noses and

sharply jutting, pointed beards

(figs. 6a–b). The two men in

front raise one arm with out-

stretched fingers, while the two

behind hold hands with their

arms extended downward. The

men in front can be compared to

a Syrian ritual procession involv-

ing a structure with devotees

standing on the roof, all of them

lifting one or both hands in the

traditional Syrian manner. The

other two, shown facing front-

ward with their heads and legs

turned to the right in profile and holding hands, are stylistically

closer to figures depicted on Palestinian seal impressions. The

lively execution of the Sidon seal and the arms pointing down-

ward are similar to that on an impression from Ur of a cult scene

with dancing human figures (Doumet-Serhal 2009a). A popular

local Sidonian theme is a grouping of “human and lion.” The

human is depicted with an oval head and an erect penis, prob-

ably symbolizing potency, and the arms are stretched upward.

One hand is depicted with outstretched fingers, while the other

hand seems to be holding a three-stemmed plant.

Figure 7. The sand level that covered the Early Bronze Age

stratum. This layer was more than a meter thick and made of clean

beach sand that was deposited on the site at the beginning of the

second millennium B . C . E . when it became a burial area.

The Second Millennium B . C . E .: A Period of Funeral

Feasting Rituals

Middle Bronze Age I/IIA in Canaan marks the beginning of

a new urbanized society and inaugurates an era of international

trade and cultural exchange in the eastern Mediterranean.

The continuous stratigraphy for

the Middle Bronze Age at Sidon,

with its unbroken chronological

sequence of pottery and other

artifacts, provides a vivid picture

of the city’s material culture dur-

ing this period. Indeed, continu-

ity is one of the most character-

istic features of ancient Sidon.

The beginning of the Middle

Bronze Age at Sidon is marked

by a thicker layer of fine sand

ranging from 90 cm to 1.4 m

deep (fig. 7). This sand was

brought from the nearby sea-

shore and apparently deposited

in great quantity on the site

before a new phase of building

commenced. It is also possible

that the inhabitants cleaned the

sand beforehand to produce a

fresh layer.

NEAR EASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY 73:2–3 (2010) 117

Figures 8a–c. Burial

78, excavated in 2008,

contained an adolescent

between twelve and

seventeen years old (a). A

miniature duck-bill axe was

found behind the skull and

a spearhead in front of the

face (b). The adolescent

was wearing a bracelet

with carnelian beads and

scarabs around the left

hand (c).

Middle Bronze Age Burial

Ground

Over one hundred Middle Bronze

Age burials have been found at Sidon.

Clearly, the site experienced a major

change of function at the end of the

third and the beginning of the sec-

ond millennium B . C . E ., since the Early

Bronze Age occupation level was cov-

ered with sand and became a burial

site. Significantly, no destruction or

interruption has been recorded to this

point.

There are also burials in subsequent

layers on top of the sand, allowing us

to trace the development of mortuary

practices until the end of the Middle

Bronze Age. A variety of grave types is

evidenced over time, starting with the

“warrior burials” (figs. 8a–c), which

are constructed graves (fig. 9) lined

with stones or mudbrick. The burial

goods include luxury items such as

bronze artifacts, weapons, and jew-

elry (figs. 10a–d). The graves include

single burials of warriors with weap-

ons, child burials with weapons and

jewelry, and one female burial. Com-

parable burials appear in Lebanon at

Tell Arqa; in Palestine at Gesher, Tel

Rehov, and Kabri; and in Syria at Bag-

houz. From the care given to the con-

struction of these single burials and in

light of the luxury items discovered in

the graves, some social observations

can be made about the beginning of

the second millennium B . C . E .

The types of burials change over

time, with the most common after

1750/1700 B . C . E . being in jars, with

some examples of flexed-position

adult burials in the ground. Based on

the mortuary evidence, one can draw

certain inferences regarding the social

structure of the community. First, the

occurrence of constructed single buri-

als in the MB IIA suggests an empha-

sis on the individual rather than the

group. In contrast, the emergence of

multiple burials after 1750/1700 B . C . E .

strongly indicates a greater emphasis

on groups. The constructed graves of

the late Middle Bronze Age contained

two to five individuals. It is also worth

noting here the increased formaliza-

tion of ritual practices. For example,

Figure 9 (above). A constructed grave for the burial of a child between nine

and ten years old (Burial 69).

118 NEAR EASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY 73:2–3 (2010)

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