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The Early Bronze Age: Foreign Relations in the Light of Recent Excavations at Tell Arqa

Jean-Paul THalMann

The topic of «foreign relations» of the ancient cultures in the area of present-day Lebanon during the EBA is an especially difficult one, since scholarly attention has long since been focused upon the wealth of Egyptian artefacts from Byblos, when so little is known of closer relations between Byblos and other areas of Lebanon and of Lebanon with other areas than Egypt. In the current state of archaeological research, some preliminary caveats are certainly needed.

The first one is that our present knowledge of EBA cultures in Lebanon rests upon a very and much too limited number of sites1, most of which have been excavated on a small scale or by soundings only. The exception and most important of them is of course Byblos, but this site was excavated insuch a way that very little if any reliable evidence can be derived from it. Even though the best known aspect of the culture of Byblos during the IIIrd millennium – its strong connexions with Old Kingdom Egypt – is documented by a series of well dated artefacts, their exact relationship with the main local cultural phases cannot however be ascertained. Currently available evidence also suggests that Byblos was the very one site with such direct external contacts on the coast of the central and northern Levant.

Since no foreign artefacts similar to or comparable with those from Byblos are known anywhere else in Lebanon, it will be necessary to reconstruct the possible patterns of intra- and inter-regional relationships on the basis of comparisons between local cultural assemblages. Fortunately, recent and strictly controlled excavations of IIIrd millennium settlements have been going on since the mid-nineties at Tell Arqa2, and more recently at Tell Fad’ous-Kfarabida and Saida3. This is the primary – but still limited and preliminary – evidence upon which an assessment of the EBA cultures in Lebanon can now safely rest. A first and cursory examination of the pottery from these three sites shows similarities, but also significant differences which might ultimately be ascribed to regional, chronological or socio-economic factors, or to contacts with various external areas.

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techniques in pottery making in the northern Levant during the EBA are urgently needed. The same also holds true in other fields such as the development of metallurgy and the diffusion of metal artefact types.

The EBA sequence at Tell Arqa

Of the three above-mentioned sites, Tell Arqa is the only one where an almost complete sequence of IIIrd millennium occupation is presently available: it is conveniently summarized on the stratigraphic section (Fig. 1) completed after the seasons of 2005 and 2008.

The earliest excavated level 18, ascribed to cultural phase S of the Akkar4, was burnt down ca. 2700 BC. The destruction layer, the excavation of which began in 2008, is more than 1,5 m thick, and the architecture is beautifully preserved. The buildings (dwelling houses) were of mudbrick on stone foundations (Fig. 2) and had an upper storey, the collapsed debris of which formed the thick destruction layer. The upper storey was supported by an internal timber structure of posts resting upon stone bases located in the corners and/or at mid-walls, and in the center of the rooms. This building technique is identical to what could be reconstructed with more details for the domestic architecture of Arqa level 165. A similar use of timber, with slight, probably chronological or regional variants, but always involving the use of internal posts along the walls, is now well attested at Fad’ous6 and Saida7,

A second problem is that we presently lack a proper chronological framework. The threefold subdivision of the period as used in the southern Levant, or the different systems currently in use in inner Syria, are of little help for the classification of recently excavated material from Lebanon. We need a new system derived from local stratigaphies correlated through typological comparisons and absolute 14C dates. This should be possible within a few years on the basis of new data from the three above-mentioned recent excavations.

A last – but not least – difficulty lies in our still limited understanding of the evolution of pottery making techniques, especially during the second half of the IIIrd millennium when pottery production, originally a household-based activity resulting in a wide variety of local wares, gradually shifted to workshops with the progressive introduction of turning or throwing on the potter’s wheel. A wider regional distribution and circulation of more uniform or readily identifiable wares should then be expected. Since the diffusion of new techniques and technical types is certainly more significant for the understanding of middle- or long-range relations than the haphazard occurrence of a handful of exotic sherds or artefacts, it would be necessary to precisely track down the early occurrences of turning and throwing on the wheel in the northern Levant; this «invention» originated in southern Mesopotamia by the middle of the IVth and probably reached the north of the Levantine coast during the first half of the IIIrd millennium. But this process is still very poorly understood and detailed studies of

Fig. 1- Schematic section of EBA levels 18 to 15 at Tell Arqa.

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each room is provided with a cobbled fireplace and one large stone mortar encased in the floor, show that houses were probably small and comprised of one or two rooms only. All rooms, however small, have stone bases, often of fairly large size, in the corners and along the walls (Fig. 6). In most cases two, sometimes three bases were found on top of each other, corresponding to the successive floors and stages in the maintenance and refurbishing of the houses. There is no evidence for the presence or absence of an upper storey.

Level 16 (early phase P) was established on a completely new layout between 2500 and 2400BC and burnt down ca. 2200 BC. Since it has already been parttly published in detail10, only the main features which set it apart from the earlier levels need be mentioned here. There is now evidence of an organized plan, with a circular street running along the edge of the tell, and blocks of houses separated by narrow, radiating streets. Houses were built in mudbrick on high stone sockles, with an upper storey supported by an elaborate inner timber framework – reconstructible in almost every detail from the collapsed debris of burnt layer 16A-B. The «tradition» of wooden posts on stone bases along the walls is therefore continued, although the stone bases are much smaller than their counterparts of level 17, even so small that, were not charred remains of the posts frequently discovered in situ, the bases could hardly be identified as such.

But the most characteristic and new feature probably is that each house had its own granary – a room subdivided by thin mudbrick walls into small units or «cells» for the storage of cereals11. During the two centuries or so which can be ascribed to the duration of level 16, storage space was increasingly needed, doors at ground level were blocked and all available space at ground level was converted to storage. At the time of the destruction ca. 2200BC, living space was entirely located on the upper storey.

A survey of the Akkar plain, both south and north of the Nahr el-Kebir12, also shows that a rapid increase in the number of sites occured just before or towards the middle of the IIIrd millennium, and their uniform distribution is indicative of the optimisation of available agricultural land. Together with the trend towards increased storage capacity at Arqa, this hints to profound changes in the settlement patterns and economics of the region, when agricultural colonization

in addition to the long-since known, so-called «seven pillars houses» and the large buildings with central hall of Byblos8. This building technique, linked to the wide availability of local timber, can now be considered as a characteristic feature of the EBA cultures in the coastal area of Lebanon throughout the IIIrd millennium.

The succeding level 17 begins with a layer (17D) of flimsy floors resting directly on top of the burnt remains of level 18, and small houses dug into the destruction layer. It is probably still to be ascribed to the end of phase S. The settlement was then rebuilt on a new layout (Fig. 3) beginning with layer 17C. Cultural phase R corresponds to the later layers of level 17 (17C-17A). The duration of this phase can be estimated to about 250 years from the initial date of the level 16 settlement shortly after the middle of the IIIrd millennium9. All stone sockles of walls clearly show two major stages of rebuilding (Fig. 5), corresponding to layers 17C and B; very large boulders or roughly hewn and squared stones are frequently used. The final stage 17A is very badly preserved, either as an impoverished settlement, or it was widely eroded by the initial buildings of level 16.

A zigzag-shaped street (17/5), partly cobbled and provided with a central channel for runoff water (Fig. 4), runs across the middle of the excavated area. All buildings, with the probable exception of the large, only partly excavated building 17/6 (Fig. 3), are dwelling houses. No single house plan can be traced out within the narrow limits of the excavation; but the frequent occurrence of double walls, and the fact that

Fig. 2- Mudbrick architecture of level 18.

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Fig. 3- Plan of level 17 main phases (17C-B).

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level 15 was until now estimated to about 200 years, accounting for at least three successive rebuilding stages, and its final destruction fixed to ca. 2000BC on the basis of a single 14C date14; the possibility of a slightly higher final date, or of a more complex history of level 15, might now be considered on the basis of new samples from the 2005 season – but this has no bearing upon the topic discussed here.

Assemblages of Arqa phases S to P and their correlations

Phase S (Pl. 1: 1 and Pl. 2)

The hallmarks of phase S pottery are pattern combing, used mainly on medium- to large-sized jars, and lozenge pattern burnishing. All vessels are hand-built by coiling. Most shapes have close parallels in Byblos and are also at home within the typological horizon of palestinian EB II/early EB III. Pattern-combed jars come in a variety of sizes and two basic types, (1) a tall, slender one with handles attached at about mid-height (Pl. 1: 1 and 2) a plumper one with rounded body and probably no handles. On all jars, a characteristic feature is that attaching the handles results in a more or less pronounced deformation or pushing inwards of the body. Type (1) jars are found from level 18 (Pl. 1: 1) to level 17B (Pl. 1: 2) with

of the plain and wider reliance upon a primarily cereal-based agriculture developed there for the first time13. Arqa and two sites north of the Nahr el-Kebir, Tell Kazel and Tell Jamous, probably functioned as the earliest «central places» and small regional urban centers from the middle of the IIIrd millennium on.

After its destruction ca 2200BC, the settlement at Arqa was immediately rebuilt. Level 15 (later phase P) is very poorly preserved, but its walls are built directly upon the walls of level 16 and the general plan of the settlement is the same; storage facilities take over most of the ground floor area, as in level 16. Although some variation in the frequency of pottery types can be observed, the assemblage of level 15 is very similar to that of level 16. This shows that the destruction ca. 2200 BC, however fierce, does not represent a major cultural break at the regional scale. The duration of

Fig. 4- Street in level 17, with cobbled surface and runoff water channel.

Fig. 5- Wall of building 17/6 showing major construction phases 17C-B.

Fig. 6- Room 17/7 with parietal and corner stone bases.

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with a row of impressions at the base of the neck; globular jugs with narrow (Pl. 2: 2) or wide (Pl. 2: 3) mouth; and slender jugs with tall neck, ovoid body and pointed or stump base (Pl. 2: 4 to 7) – this latter type has numerous parallels at Byblos16. In addition, small hemispherical bowls (Pl. 2: 8 and 9) are extremely frequent. Most are wet-smoothed, but a fair number of them are burnished inside and/or on the bottom outside; others have a short everted neck (Pl. 2: 10) and in most cases probably a small loop handle. Many rim fragments of such bowls bear soot marks, showing that they were widely used as lamps.

only minor variations, and probably span both phases S and R at Arqa. Both types of combed jars are also attested by recent finds at Saida15.

Spherical pots (Pl. 2: 12) are produced either in plain ware (as storage vessels) or in heavily calcite-tempered cooking ware (as cooking pots). All have a short straight neck, frequently slightly concave inside: this latter feature seems to be characteristic for level 18, and not to be found afterwards.

Most other shapes are lozenge-pattern burnished, although the burnishing is frequently irregular and more akin to criss-cross scribbling than to patterning. They include small jars (Pl. 2: 1) , always decorated

Pl. 1- Pattern-combed jard from levels 18 (1) and 17B (2), with details of combed surfaces.

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Pl. 2- Main pottery types of phase S.

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but still limited – experiments with the potter’s wheel gradually assume a more important role in pottery making.

The shape repertoire continues the tradition of phase S. Pattern-combed jars of type (1) are certainly produced until the end of phase R (Pl. 1: 2). Jars of type (2) are characterized by an extremely fine profiling and finishing of the wet-smoothed necks and rims (Pl. 3: 12 and Arqa I, Pl. 49); a diagnostic feature for phase R jars is a row of herringbone impressions at the base of the neck. A number of such jars have pot-marks, but cylinder-seal impressions, frequent at Fad’ous, Byblos and Saida, are as yet not attested at Arqa. Spherical pots are all in cooking ware (Pl. 3: 9 and 10) and have a holemouth-type rim: this is also diagnostic for phase R. All types of jugs from phase S are continued, but with vertical burnishing only and occasionally red burnished slip (Pl. 3: 5 to 7); the type with everted conical neck (Pl. 3: 6), always very finely made and carefully burnished, is probably new to phase R.

Single-handled cups or mugs with rounded body and short everted neck (Pl. 3: 1 to 3), and open bowls with one horizontal handle on the rim (Pl. 3: 4) are also new and a hallmark of phase R repertoire, the former ones being the obvious forerunners of one of the most diagnostic types of phase P20, but there are few other examples of continuity into the succeeding period. The small bowls/lamps of level 18 are attested by a number of fragments from level 17, but most of them may be residual and this shape was probably no longer produced, since very many fragments of bases from cups or small jugs with soot marks from level 17 were obviously re-used as lamps. But rare fragments of four-spouted lamps, probably the earliest examples of this type, also occur from level 17C upwards.

The repertoire of phase R is very close to the «main phase» recently excavated at Fad’ous 21: non-systematic comparisons and presently available 14C dates suggest that Fad’ous corresponds well with late phase S and early phase R. Close but still to be precisely defined comparisons for phases S and R can be drawn with Byblos, the EBA levels at Saida and more generally EB II-III Palestine, showing that Arqa had at the time strong cultural affinities or contacts with southern Lebanon and the southern Levant. Regional differences however exist, as evidenced by the absence

Phase R(Pl. 1: 2 and Pl. 3) – (see also ARQA I, Pl. 46-53)

The assemblage of phase R partly continues the tradition of phase S, but is also marked by the introduction of new technical and morphological features. Pattern combing is still used on jars, but horizontal combing seems to be almost as frequent – so far as can be determined from body sherds only. Lozenge or scribbled burnishing is replaced by vertical burnishing. Rare examples of red burnished slip (Pl. 3: 5) and of a decoration of cross-hatched lozenges in brown paint over a whitish slip17 are attested: such rarities have been until now found only from level 17B upwards, but it is impossible upon visual examination to tell whether they are locally made or imported.

New practices in ware tempering are introduced. Although basalt was already but seldom used as tempering material, most of the pottery of phase S is limestone- and calcite-tempered, with occasional addition of riverbed sand; basalt is used more and more frequently during phase R, until a «standardized» mixture of mainly basalt and finely pounded limestone becomes a diagnostic feature of most phase P wares18.

The pottery of phase R is, as during phase S, hand-built by coiling; but very regular finishing marks on most small pots (e.g. Pl. 3: 2 to 4) and on all necks and rims of jars (e.g. Pl. 3: 11) imply the finishing and maybe partial shaping of basically coil-built vessels on a moderately fast rotating device – a technique we originally termed «mixed» and which is otherwise known as «wheel-coiling». This is the earliest occurrence in the Akkar, probably by the end of phase R, of techniques related to turning on the potter’s wheel; they become more frequent and explicit only during phase P. The overview of pottery-making development as outlined in Arqa I: 101-106 was certainly exceedingly optimistic in its simplicity and will be modified by closer and technologically dedicated observations19 . But its main conclusion remains valid after a bulk of phase S and R pottery have been excavated and examined in 2005 and 2008: an «old» tradition of household-based pottery production by coiling comes to an end with phase R and gives way to a «new» tradition from phase P on, when workshop-based production and the first –

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Pl. 3- Main pottery types of phase R.

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represented in the earlier stage (level 16) of phase P.This shows that the regional changes which occur,

as outlined above, towards the middle of the IIIrd millennium, are concomitant with a shift in cultural contacts and relations from the southern Levant to the north and inland Syria. A similar trend can also be inferred from the metal artefacts. Very few have been found in phase S and R contexts, but we have a large collection of copper pins from phase P which all have prototypes or close parallels in the early EB IV of northern Syria or of the middle Euphrates area: they will be published with relevant references in the next issue of BAAL25. We have also tried to demonstrate that a similar phenomenon occurs at Byblos26, where a number of pottery types can be compared to diagnostics of Arqa phase P, and where most metal artefact types of the late IIIrd and early IInd millennium can also be traced to northern Syrian EB IV prototypes. Similar conclusions were reached by M. Saghieh on the basis of more limited pottery comparisons and of an analysis of the architecture of late IIIrd millennium Byblos27.

But probably the most explicit argument in favor of a decisive shift to relations with the north during phase P can be derived from the evolution of the lithic assemblages. It is now certain, after the seasons of 2005 and 2008, that lithics from phase S and R are few, of poor or low technical quality, and of local

of cylinder-seal impressions at Arqa. Possible contacts with the north are limited to the occurrence of pattern-combed jars on the coast as far north as Ras Shamra; but nothing from Arqa is readily comparable to the diagnostic types of Hama K or Amuq H22, suggesting a mainly «southern» orientation of the EBA culture of the Akkar before the middle of the IIIrd millennium.

Phase P

The pottery assemblage of phase P has already been extensively published23,and, although many new shape variants from the seasons of 2001 to 2005 have been added, it is useless to review it in detail here. Its main characteristics are the initial stage of the «new» pottery tradition as mentioned above, and a set of morphological types with a markedly local character. With the exception of single-handled cups and four-spouted lamps, no shapes are directly derived from phase R. Pattern-combing is replaced by horizontal combing exclusively, and red burnished slip, rare in Phase R, is completely absent from phase P. In spite of the local character of the assemblage, suggesting a strong cultural autarcy, some limited comparisons may now be drawn with Hama J and Amuq I and J24, and in addition to a few, probably local imitations of «Hama beakers» and other «caliciform» shapes, some actual imports from central Syria (Fig. 7) are

Fig. 7- Syrian imports from early phase P.

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were widely distributed in other areas of the Near East, are completely absent from the artefactual assemblages of phases S and R, is a strong indication that relations with the north and inland Syria were very limited during these early phases of the EBA, and were established only by the end of phase R or the very beginning of phase P. As far as we presently know, the situation at Fad’ous and Saida for periods roughly corresponding to Arqa phases S and R is the same. But whether other cananean blades found in uncontrolled contexts, and especially at Byblos, also conform to the same or to regionallyor chronologically specific patterns must remainan open question.

materials and manufacture. By contrast, as early as the earlier level (16D) and in all succeeding levels of phase P, large cananean blades (Fig. 8), made of imported flint and corresponding to the specific technology of débitage cananéen stricto sensu as recently redefined by E. Coqueugniot28 and J. Chabot, are extremely abundant, in addition to few and mostly ad hoc tools made from local material. Microtrace analysis by ESM has shown that they are all sickle blades and their occurrence in very large numbers obviously corresponds to the new economic situation of the region and the thriving cereal-based agriculture which develops, as outlined above, from the middle of the IIIrd millennium on.

That such products, which were manufactured in specialized workshops in the upper Euphrates area since the end of the IVth millennium and which

Fig. 8- Cananean blades from phase P.

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by M. Saghieh and ourself, to show that the end of the Egyptian connexion did not basically affect the urban development and prosperity of the site.

Among a conjunction of factors which occured at about the middle of the IIIrd millennium, the new agricultural economy in the Akkar plain , a wider availability of metal and especially the search for metal supplies in the case of Byblos, which became a major metallurgical center of the coast only in the late IIIrd millennium30, the dyamics of the «second urbanization» and the quick rise in social, political and economic complexity in inner Syria, may be considered as possible stimuli behind the shift in the patterns of the «foreign relations» of the EBA cultures of Lebanon, a topic which, for the most part, still has to be properly documented and investigated.

Conclusions

Although very few exotic or imported artefacts other than lithics from Arqa could be mentioned in the above discussion, it is obvious that the comparison of the long sequence of well stratified and dated assemblages of this site with other similarly documented contexts is liable in a near future to shed more light on the complex patterns of interregional relations during the EBA. Such contexts are unfortunately few and wide areas of Lebanon, such as the Biqā, are still almost terra incognita. Our main and tentative conclusions must therefore be restricted to the coastal area of Lebanon.

A cultural koinè reaching from southern Lebanon as far north as the Akkar plain and certainly centered on the major site of Byblos is now well attested during the first half of the IIrd millennium; its material culture had strong «southern» affinities but also specific and original features such as its architecture and building techniques. Byblos had a prominent but very probably unique status linked to its direct relations with Egypt and an early developed political and urban organization29; but however important in terms of the bulk and prestige value of the goods traded between Byblos and Egypt, these relations, in the present state of knowledge, do not seem to have reached far beyond the local élites and had little or no visible impact in other regions. By the middle of the millennium or shortly afterwards, the northern part of the Lebanese coast, very probably including the Byblos area, opened new relations with the north and inland Syria; what happened in southern Lebanon then is still unclear. But it is remarkable to notice that the breakdown of this early EBA cultural koinè in Lebanon occured well before the collapse of the EB III culture of Palestine around 2300BC or the interruption of the relations between Byblos and Egypt at the end of the VIth dynasty.

During the second half of the IIIrd millennium, it is probable that the coastal area of Lebanon was fragmented into more autarcic cultural entities, as evidenced from the strongly local character of Arqa phase P pottery, or the fact that the main phases of EBA settlement come to an end, at Fad’ous by the beginning and at Saida at the close of Arqa phase R. The case of Byblos remains problematic, but a set of converging arguments have been put forward, mainly

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in Lebanon and hopefully more may come out before the end of the 2009 season…

23- Thalmann 2006a: 116-131 and pl. 54-79.

24- Thalmann 2006a: 130-131.

25- Gernez forthcoming: pl. 11-13.

26- Thalmann 2008.

27- Saghieh 1983: 93, 110, 131 ff.

28- Coqueugniot 2006, with all relevant references.

29- Thalmann 1999.

30- Thalmann 2008: 72-76.

Notes

1- From north to south: Arqa, Fad’ous, Byblos, Beirut, Saida, Tyre, to which sites in the Biqa known from occasional finds (tombs) and surveys only may be added.

2- Thalmann 2006a; 2006b.

3- Genz & Sader 2007; Doumet-Serhal 2006a, 2006b.

4- For the the numbering system of levels and corresponding cultural phases: Thalmann 2006a: 11-16.

5- Thalmann 2006b, figs 7-9, 18.

6- Genz & Sader 2007: figs 2, 5, 6.

7- Doumet-Serhal 2006b: fig. 9.

8- Makaroun 2002: pl. 14.02.; Thalmann 2006b: 865-871.

9- Thalmann 2006a: 85, 230-231. All 14C dates from BA levels at Arqa are currently being re-processed in collaboration with V.I.A.S. (Vienna). Absolute dates given here should be considered as fair approximations only.

10- Thalmann 2006a: 19-28; 2006b.

11- For the methods of grain storage at Arqa: Thalmann 2006b: 860-865; 2007.

12- Thalmann 2006a: 209-218.

13- Thalmann 2007.

14- Thalmann 2006a: 230.

15- Doumet-Serhal 2006: fig. 6, 8 and pl. 14.

16- Saghieh 1983, pl.XXXIX, XL.

17- Thalmann 2006a, pl. 47: 4, 30 and pl. 48: 15-19.

18- Thalmann 2006a: 219.

19- A new program on pottery making techniques will be initiated during the season of 2009, in collaboration with Valentine Roux (CNRS-MAE, Nanterre).

20- Cups G5 and G6: Thalmann 2006a: pl. 56, 57.

21- Genz & Sader 2007: 11 , pl. 1.

22- As recently confirmed by T. Harrison (personal communication). We may however provisionally mention here the recent discovery (2009) of two sherds of RBBW or so-called «Khirbet Kerak» ware of the best quality from early level 18. They are the first examples of this ware ever found

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