And 5,500 years later....

In the ruins of an ancient city in northeastern Syria, archaeologists have uncovered what they say is substantial evidence of a fierce battle fought there in about 3500 B.C.


University of Chicago
Archaeologists found 120 clay balls at Tell Hamoukar that were meant to be fired from slings, as well as 1,200 smaller "bullets."
The archaeologists, who announced the find yesterday, described it as the oldest known excavated site of large-scale organized warfare. It was a clash of northern and southern cultures in ancient Mesopotamia, the land where urban civilization began, in a region that includes Iraq and parts of Syria.

The discovery was reported by Clemens Reichel of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, who was co-director of the Syrian-American excavations at the site, known as Tell Hamoukar. The ruins are in the upper fringes of the Tigris and Euphrates Valleys, near the Iraq border and within sight of the Taurus Mountains of southern Turkey.

"The whole area of our most recent excavation was a war zone," Dr. Reichel said in the announcement, made jointly by the University of Chicago and the Department of Antiquities in Syria