Prehistoric City Discovered in Syria

A prehistoric town that had remained untouched beneath the ground near
Syria for 6,000 years is now revealing clues about the first cities in
the Middle East prior to the invention of the wheel.

The town, called Tell Zeidan, dates from between 6000 B.C. and 4000
B.C., and immediately preceded the world's first urban civilizations
in the ancient Middle East. It is one of the largest sites of the
Ubaid culture in northern Mesopotamia.

Now archaeologists from the University of Chicago's Oriental Institute
and their Syrian colleagues are studying the town, which sits below a
mound in an area of irrigated fields at the junction of the Euphrates
and Balikh Rivers in what is now northern Syria.

So far, they have unearthed evidence of the society's trade in
obsidian and production and development of copper processing, as well
as the existence of a social elite that used stone seals to mark
ownership of goods and culturally significant items.

The evidence here supports what archaeologists had long surmised, that
the Ubaid people were among the first in the Middle East to experience
division of social groups according to power and wealth.

Read complete article at --
http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/04/06/prehistoric-city-discovered-syria/
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Biblical Heritage Center
http://www.biblicalheritage.org