• Largest Chalcolithic site
• 5 km N.E. of Dead Sea
• Houses & equipment
• Had the earliest dates & olives
• Flint
• Pottery
• Wall paintings
• Figurines

• Artificial underground dwellings
• Chambers in groups, 5-7 rooms
• Had fireplaces,basins& bell shaped silos
• Lasted 3 phases
• Then rectangular surface stuctures appear

• One of the largest Cemetary sites
• Had a mortuary center
• 4 building phases
• distinction between small houses &larger buildings
• copper working furnace
• interconnected subterannean tunnels & rooms
• terrace with 2 open air semi-circular altars
• open air 'rectilinear' architecture
• 70% destroyed by fire
• abandoned

• Cave 1 unusual residence
• 2 meter thik occupation level
• 429 vessels wrapped in straw & buried in cave

• Temple
• Stone enclosure wall w/ two entances
• courtyard with 3 meter circular structure
• main building is a 'broadhouse',20 meters long
• has a rounded niche opposite door
• found in 1956
• smaller building has plastered floors

• basalt pillar figures
• rectangular buildings w/ shared walls
• small courtyards & roadways
• northern expression of Gassulian Culture??
• distictive pottery

• cannot be attributed to a single factor
• relates to a number of variables which worked together
• climactic factors
• socio-political organization
• commercialization
• warfare

• 3300-2300 BCE
• had 3 phases
• Egyptian & Mesopotamian impacts

• 3300-3050 BCE
• sites are modest & un-fortified
• locations shifted from Chalcolithic
• great variety of house structures & temples

• oval
• round
• curvilinear

• Only Temples

• traditions vary regionally
• 'Holemouth' jar continues as main cooking pot
• Platters appear
• Pithoi contiue
• Appearance of 'Ledge-handled jars
• Appearance of 'Teapots'
• Funerary vessles, small bowls, amphoriskoi, bottles, cups with high-loop handles

• Copper axes & tanged daggers
• Canaanean Sickle Blade
• Cylinder Seals & impressions
• Serekh of Narmer
• Cylinder seals were crafted with the 'Lost Wax Method'.

• Multiple burials most common in caves
• Lots of grave goods, pottery, jewelry, stone vessels
• Had Shaft tombs & Mudbrick Circular tombs

• Agriculture
• New crops, grapes & figs
• Sheep & goat herding

• Un-walled sites became walled & more compact

• EB-2 3050-2700 BCE
• EB-3 2700-2300 BCE
• Intensive urbanization
• Definite settlement patterns
• Clear city planning

• located in Negev Desert
• built on Eocene Limestone
• Had city walls & towers
• Had a marketplace, palace & reservior
• Sacred place with small twin temples & large twin temples
• No cemetary found
• Abandoned ~2650
• Remained unoccupied

• Located in Central Shephelah
• site covers 40 acres
• Wall A in EB-2,4 meters high & 5-6 meters thick
• wall has towers & buttresses
• stone glacis added
• Wall B, built 20-30 meters in front of wall A
• Cyclopean Stones 2 1/2 meters long & 3-3.6 meters thick
• Wall B, 7 meters in height
• Now 40 meters thick
• Monumental platforms added in EB-3

Tel-Yarmuth Domestic Housing

Area G

• Insula of small houses
• 1-2 small rooms w/ courtyard along a street
• Main room 8x5 x 2meters
• Domestic installations include pithoi, mortars & a jar, sunk to its neck

Tel-Yarmuth White Building

Area C

• Small temple?
• EB-3 addition to city
• Broad room pillar structure
• Walls & floors covered in plaster
• Opens at south to a courtyard with 2 adjacent rooms
• One room has a raised stone platform
• Was built over twice in EB-3B

Tel-Yarmuth Palace B

Area G

• Largest EB-3 complex in the Levant
• Covers 6000 meters
• Has a 2 meter thick wall with square inner buttresses
• Monumental entrance with hypostle hall
• Had side benches & a second story
• Entered into main courtyard or a built up ares\a of more than 40 rooms & corridors
• Had inner store rooms filled with 2-3 rows of pithoi, totalling over 100.
• Possible redistribution center?

Tel-Yarmuth Trade & Industry

Area H

• Installations of grinders, mortars, paved areas & stone vats.
• Specializations included
• Olive oil production
• Animal breeding, shhep, goats, cattle.
• Artifacts point to trade with the Southern Levant & Egypt

• Spouted basins with ledge handles used in oil production
• Pithoi
• Jugs & juglets
• 'Twin Jugs' possibly used in oil production
• Carinated (ridged) platters w/ red burnished slip
• Unique large platter with 4 legs from Plalce B
• Terra cotta figurines, animal & human

• Abandoned at the end of EB-3
• Urban Culture disappears ~2300 BCE
• Many possible factors include:
• It got to big to withstand ecocomic/social/political crises
• Drought
• A lost war
• dissapearance of an exchange network
• Possible combinaton of all of these factors

• 40 hectares
• on a major trade route Via Maris
• major trading center for over 6000 yrs.
• has a Chalcolithic temple
• courtyard paved in Egyptian heiroglyphs
• Round altar
• dwlling place of diety?
• Linked Egypt, Syria, Anatolia & Mesopotamia
• World Heratige Site
• Called Armgeddon in the New Testament

• EB 2-3
• 8 meter thick wall
• 20 hectares
• Khirbet Kerak ware pottery
• possibly on major trade route
• Had a ruler or maybe a king? Not sure.
• HUGE grainery
• held ~ 1500 tons of grain
• abandoned at the end of EB-3

• very shiney 'metallic' look
• not sure where it comes from
• Found in large amounts @ Ugarit
• typical in EB-3 ONLY

• Occupied from EB-1-4
• Inhabitants agro-pastoralists, possibly nomadic or semi nomadic
• Vast cemetary containing thousands of shaft tombs
• Large rectangular above ground communal burials (charnel houses)
• They grew emmer wheat, einkorn & flax
• May have been orchards, olives, figs & grapes
• Abandoned in EB-4

Early Bronze Ebla

(Tel-Mardikh)

• settled ~2800 BC (Syria)
• Unfortified
• Settlement on slope of acropolis
• Structures & courtyards made of mudbrick
• Palace G burned by Naram-Sin
• Pottery Cental Syrian in character
• North on trade route to Mesoptamia
• Major product was wool
• Cereal agriculture, olive production & wine
• Sculpture has strong Mesoptamian influence.

Early Bronze Ugarit

(Syria)

• Major trading center for the Late Neolithic
• Fortified with substantial architecture
• Copper industry
• Pottery reflects a costal tradition
• Affluence of the site reflects political stability with Mesopotamia & Egypt
• Timber trade
• Khirbet Kerak ware
• architectural decline by 2200 BCE

Rogem el Hiri

(Stone Heap of the Wildcat)

• Stone circle 1/2 kilomtere long
• Made of black basaltic rock
• Central cairn & burial post-date constuction by about 1500 yrs.
• No solid date for this. Chalcolithic?
• Located in the Golan Heights
• Possible burial site for important people, a calander, a site for worship, astronomical observation or simply a placemark?

• Decline of urban culture at end of EB-3 post 2300 BCE
• decline not simultaneous
• took place over 100 + years
• No single reason for decline
• Possible variables include climate change, agricultural exhaustion,disruption of trade & decline of Old Kingdom Egypt.
• Arrival of new nomadic populations?
• Numerous shaft tombs
• Some settlements were constructed.

• The Ruin of Alexanderthe Great
• Contructed on a hill on the north bank of Wadi Walla
• Crossing point along the Kings Highway
• 8 acre site occupied in EB-2
• continues as a small settlement in EB-4
• This is the ONLY example of EB-4 fortifications
• EB-4 was the last time it was occupied
• Surrounded by 3 cemetaries, mostly shaft tombs

Khirbet Iskander

Area C

• has gate w/ a passageway, lined with stone benches
• public courtyard w/storage jars in 1 area
• walls built overtop of EB-2 & 3 walls

Khirbet Iskander

Area B

• housing of both Longrooms & broadrooms
• has tabuns (ovens) & silos

• Area B, public complex
• possible redistribution center?
• has an attatched bench lined room
• stone lined basin
• decorative bowl found with animal hoof
• Working hypothesis, public complex, evidence for elite living & ruling
• cultic area
• redistribution center
• surpluses of food, liquids & oils used for trade

• 5 shaft tombs found
• found by accident due to roadwork
• found grain storge silos
• a 4 spouted lamp (only in EB-4)
• found a daggar

• excavated by James Pritchard
• had 63 wine cellars
• 2 water systems
• is believed to be the biblical Gibeon
• had primary & secondary burial sites
• pottery included 4 spouted lamps, 'teapots' & pithoi
• lamp niche was found in the tombs, for light.

• burial camber made ofmegalithic stone
• means:table of stone in Breton
• 2 types of construction
• structure always covered with tumulus (series of small stones)
• Found as early as Chalcolithic
• EB-4 wasd the hey-day.
• Always looted, because they're easy to spot!
• Yabis
• Umeiri

• 4 spouted lamp
• storage jars w/ small handles @ neck (smallmouth)
• ledge handled storage vessles (widemouth)
• spindle whorl (terra cotta?)
• copper needle

• found in a 2 chambered shaft tomb near "Ain Samiya
• repousse tecnique
• the only art object from this period
• possible mesoptamian creation myth
• manufactured in Northern Syria
• definite Mesoptamian influence
• silver comes from the Northern Caucus Mountains
• was broken when buried

• second major urban period
• MB-2A 2000-1800 BCE
• MB-2B/C1800-1550 BCE
• based on Egyption Chronology (Middle Kingdoms & Second Intermediate Periods)
• revolution in all aspects of material culture
• settlement pattern, urbanism
• architecture
• pottery & metallurgy
• burial customs

• Dan
• Hazor
• Megiddo
• Ugarit
• Gezer
• Aphek
• These had been abandoned but were now re-settled
• New sites such as Shecham,Tell Poleg
• Continuity w EB-4, Iskander, Hyaat, Ebla
• much settlemnt along coastal plain, very little in Negev.

• no more 'teapots' or Syrian goblets
• appearance of carinated bowl,chalice &tri-pod based kraters
• appearance of monochrome & bi-chrome decoration
• combing & incisions on neck of vessels disappears 
• red slip burnished ware is common
• most forms turned on 'fast wheel'
• EB-4 had 4 spouted vessels
• MB-2 had 1 spouted platters