A town like Uruk

摘要

The first urban settlements in the Middle East were thought to have been built by the Sumerian civilisation of southern Mesopotamia more than 5000 years ago. Now, it seems, another civilisation was enjoying city life around the same time, according to finds in north-eastern Syria. Clemens Reichel, an archaeologist at the University of Chicago's Oriental Institute, says there are signs of urban activity at a site in Syria called Tell Hamoukar between 4000 and 3700 BC. This means the settlement was built around the same time as some of the original Sumerian city-states such as Uruk, in what is now southern Iraq.