Peter M.M.G. Akkermans

Leiden University | LEI · Faculty of Archaeology

Tell Sabi Abyad in Syria has yielded a long and continuous sequence of a seventh-millennium BCE settlement, exposed over large areas in excavations that took place between 1986 and 2010. Each settlement layer contains a number of single-generational houses of different shapes and sizes. This paper will delve into a new type of dwellings found at Te...

Sixty bitumen samples from Tell Sabi Abyad, dating between 7200 and 1150 BCE, were submitted for GC-MS analyses of steranes and terpanes and stable carbon isotopic analyses of chromatographic fractions. The numerous and diverse samples include lumps of bitumen, bitumen applied to repair pots, bitumen used as paint, and beige plates containing b...

Sixty bitumen samples from Tell Sabi Abyad, dating between 7200 and 1150 BCE, were submitted for GC-MS analyses of steranes and terpanes and stable carbon isotopic analyses of chromatographic fractions. The numerous and diverse samples include lumps of bitumen, bitumen applied to repair pots, bitumen used as paint, and beige plates containing bitum...

Papers on Archaeology of the Leiden Museum of Antiquities (PALMA) is a series of monographs by the National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden (Netherlands).

Spatial continuity of the house is often seen as crucial in providing temporal depth for the Neolithic societies of southwest Asia. While an emphasis on the creation of such continuities is evinced at densely agglomerated sites, other sites are characterised by dispersal and frequent relocation of habitation. Çatalhöyük (Turkey) and Tell Sabi Abyad...

In: Peter M. M. G. Akkermans (ed.) 2020. Landscapes of Survival - The Archaeology and Epigraphy of Jordan’s North-Eastern Desert and Beyond. Leiden: Sidestone Press, pp. 185-216.

The ‘Black Desert’ begins just south of Damascus and comprises some 40,000 km2 of dark and desolate basalt fields, which stretch from southern Syria across north-eastern Jordan, and reach the sand sea of the Nefud in Saudi Arabia. The rough and highly arid terrain is often difficult to access and travel through. Despite these uninviting conditions,...

In: Tijdschrift voor Mediterrane Archaeologie 64: 1-7. Tell Sabi Abyad is a key archeological site in Northern Syria, extensively excavated from 1986 to 2010. The excavations give evidence for a continuous settlement in the Neolithic period, from about 7200 to 5500 BC. Significantly, substantial change in the nature of settlement and the associate...

In: Archaeology in Jordan 2 (2020), 43-45

IN: Drawing the Threads Together - Studies on Archaeology in Honour of Karin Bartl. Edited by Alexander Ahrens, Dörte Rokitta-Krumnow, Franziska Bloch and Claudia Bührig. Münster: Zaphon, pp. 209-225.

This chapter deals with prehistoric Western Asia, ca. 9500–4000 BC, when this region was the focus of a series of far-reaching socioeconomic developments that were to change the world. Early in this period a gradual shift occurred from a mobile hunter-gatherer way of life to sustained settlement in villages that were increasingly dependent upon far...

In: Phoenix 66 (1), 6-21

Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies 50, 1-17. Burial cairns dot the basaltic uplands of north-eastern Jordan, yet these graves have never been investigated systematically. This situation is now changing. Current excavations in the Jebel Qurma region, close to the borders of Jordan and Saudi Arabia, have focused on the numerous cairns as...

Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies 50, 1-17. Burial cairns dot the basaltic uplands of north-eastern Jordan, yet these graves have never been investigated systematically. This situation is now changing. Current excavations in the Jebel Qurma region, close to the borders of Jordan and Saudi Arabia, have focused on the numerous cairns as...

The arid and desolate, basalt-strewn uplands of northeastern Jordan have been perceived as the natural home of pastoralist communities, which lie on the very fringes of the early urban polities of the eastern Mediterranean. However, current fieldwork in the area has revealed the presence of many and diverse sites from the late prehistoric to the ea...

The Late Neolithic period in Upper Mesopotamia is generally associated with a surge in human settlement, in terms of their number, geographic distribution, and organizational complexity. In archaeological discussion, the "advanced farming village" is often seen as the logical "end product" of the agricultural transformations that began in the Early...

In: Aktuel Arkeoloji Dergisi 69 (2019), 8-10

In 2005 and in 2010, extensive soundings were undertaken at the small and low, one-hectare mound of Tell Sabi Abyad III, which revealed a series of settlements dated to the very beginning of the seventh millennium, ca. 7000-6700 BC. Significantly, the local occupations coincide with the introduction of pottery at the site (and in the North-Syrian r...

Throughout the basaltic uplands of northeastern Jordan, there are countless large and small mounds of stone (cairns), which are the burial places of people who roamed the desert many hundreds or thousands of years ago. These numerous graves have never been systematically investigated, and little is known about their construction, date, and variabil...

The site of Khirbat al-ʿUmari is located to the southeast of Azraq. It is an Early Islamic settlement which first received mention by N. Glueck in the 1940s. Its favourable natural environment, its geographic location, as well as the site’s structure hint at a possible function as a caravan stop during the Umayyad Period.

Late Neolithic settlements dating to around 7000 cal. BC are widespread in Upper Mesopotamia, however, the site of Tell Sabi Abyad is unique in the scale and quality of excavation, revealing an extensive architecture, huge numbers of domesticated animal bones, stone tools and potsherds. A previous study reported lipid residues in nearly 300 potsher...

The assemblage of Late Bronze Age burials from Tell Sabi Abyad provides us with a unique window into the burial customs of the burgeoning Middle Assyrian Empire in the former lands of Hanigalbat. Our understanding of the settlement is aided by the fact that the site has been more or less completely excavated, and because we have rich in situ contex...

Recent fieldwork in the Jebel Qurma region, in the basalt wasteland east of Azraq, revealed a large number of prehistoric sites, dating from the 7th to the late 4th millennia cal BC. While some sites were little more than lithic scatters over a few dozen square metres, others were of impressive size, up to 8 hectares in extent and characterized by...

IN: P.M.M.G. Akkermans, M.L. Brüning, H.O. Huigens & O.P. Nieuwenhuyse (eds.), Excavations at Late Neolithic Tell Sabi Abyad, Syria – The 1994-1999 Field Seasons. Turnhout: Brepols, 113-123.

Artikel in: Waar de geschiedenis begon. Nederlandse onderzoekers in de ban van spijkerschrift, hiërogliefen en aardewerk. Uitgave naar aanleiding van het 75-jarig bestaan van het Nederlands Instituut voor het Nabije Oosten, 1939-2014. Onder redactie van O.E. Kaper en J.G. Dercksen. ISBN: 978-90-6258-248-8

Late Neolithic graves excavated at Tell Sabi Abyad, Syria, have been dated by radiocarbon. This series of 46 human bone dates represents a sequence of cemeteries that is analyzed by Bayesian methodology. The dates show continuous use of the northeastern slope of the mound as a burial ground throughout the Initial Pottery Neolithic to the Halaf peri...

"This article considers the nature and scale of Late Neolithic communities in northern Syria, primarily on the basis of the excavations at Tell Sabi Abyad. Settlement in the 7th millennium cal. bce mainly occurred in the form of groupings of small and short-lived, spatially segregated occupations less than 1 ha in extent. The habitations frequently...

This article presents the remains of a T-shaped burnt building found in trench V6 in Operation II at Late Neolithic Tell Sabi Abyad, Syria. The burnt building closely resembles the so-called Burnt Village excavated earlier at Tell Sabi Abyad in Operation I, level 6, but is slightly older: 6050-6020 BC. Many objects were discovered in the ruins of...

At Tell Sabi Abyad, Syria, radiocarbon dating previously provided a robust chronology for the 7th-early 6th millennium BC, the Late Neolithic. The continuous inhabitation spans the 8.2 ka climate event. This chronology has been used here in a study of stable isotope (13C and 15N) data of animal bones. This is the first isotope study undertaken on m...

At Tell Sabi Abyad, Syria, we obtained a robust chronology for the 7th to early 6th millennium BC, the Late Neolithic. The chronology was obtained using a large set of radiocarbon dates, analyzed by Bayesian statistics. Cultural changes observed at ∼ 6200 BC are coeval with the 8.2 ka climate event. The inhabitation remained continuous. © 2011 by t...

The site of Tell Sabi Abyad in Syria offers a superb stratified sequence passing from the aceramic (pre-pottery) to pottery-using Neolithic around 7000 BC. Surprisingly the first pottery arrives fully developed with mineral tempering, burnishing and stripey decoration in painted slip. The expected, more experimental-looking, plant-tempered coarse w...

The domestication of cattle, sheep and goats had already taken place in the Near East by the eighth millennium BC. Although there would have been considerable economic and nutritional gains from using these animals for their milk and other products from living animals—that is, traction and wool—the first clear evidence for these appears much later,...

The domestication of cattle, sheep and goats had already taken place in the Near East by the eighth millennium BC. Although there would have been considerable economic and nutritional gains from using these animals for their milk and other products from living animals-that is, traction and wool-the first clear evidence for these appears much later,...

The domestication of cattle, sheep and goats had already taken place in the Near East by the eighth millennium bc1, 2, 3. Although there would have been considerable economic and nutritional gains from using these animals for their milk and other products from living animals—that is, traction and wool—the first clear evidence for these appears much...

The 2001-2003 excavations at Tell Sabi Abyad in northern Syria have provided important new information on the nature and development of the Pottery Neolithic settlement at the site in the seventh and sixth millennia B.C. The fieldwork has produced a long sequence of small and continually shifting occupations, in the order of 0.5-1.0 ha, each with r...

Mortuary customs in Syria in the seventh and sixth millennia BC were highly varied. This paper discusses the several dozen child and adult burials found during excavations at Tell Sabi Abyad, c. 6400-5900 BC. The burial evidence principally consists of primary inhumations in different forms, although there were also indications of secondary mortuar...

Recent excavations at Tell Sabi Abyad in northern Syria yielded a number of stone stamp seals and clay sealings from well-stratified Neolithic contexts, dating c. 6300-6000 BC. This report presents the new finds and relates them to the prehistoric seals and many hundreds of sealings previously found at the site.

Les fouilles récentes sur le site néolithique récent de Tell Sabi Abyad, Syrie du nord, ont révélé des centaines de scellements en argile. Nous argumentons que ces scellements ont facilité à Sabi Abyad le stockage communal par une population nomade très étendue de toute sorte de produits et de créances. Aussi considérons nous que les scellements so...

Available as full text (2 volumes) for download on ResearchGate (see above)

The site of Tell Sabi Abyad in the upper Balikh valley of northern Syria is the focal point of a regionally oriented research project investigating the socioeconomic organization of later Neolithic society in the region. Recent excavations at Tell Sabi Abyad have brought to light a well-preserved settlement dating from the late sixth millennium B....

The site of Tell Sabi Abyad in the upper Balikh valley of northern Syria is one of the focal points of excavation of a regionally oriented research project, aimed at clarifying the chronology, settlement organization, and ecology of later Neolithic society in the region. So far the emphasis of fieldwork has been on the Halaf period, i.e., the later...

Quinze nouvelles datations C14 ont ete obtenues sur les sites neolithiques recents de Damishliyya et Sabi Abyad, situes dans la haute vallee du Balikh (Syrie du nord). Ces determinations aideront a etablir une chronologie absolue plus precise pour le Neolithique recent, notamment concernant l'introduction des premieres ceramiques et l'apparition de...

A series of plaster samples from sites in the Balikh Valley and the Khabour have been analyzed for composition determination. The samples were collected from various architectural features (walls, pits, floors, etc.) representative of different periods. X-ray diffraction analysis shows that all samples from neolithic contexts mainly consist of gyps...

This article discusses in short the evidence for Neolithic occupation in the Balikh valley of northern Syria. Recent excavations and surveys in the region have yielded a wealth of new data, allowing a more detailed insight into cultural developments in this little known part of Syria.

Res. d'A. Le site halafien ancien de Sabi Abyad, situe dans la haute vallee du Balikh (Syrie du nord), couvre environ 4 hectares et represente l'un des plus grands etablissements Halafiens de la region. Des fouilles recentes ont revele une succession de couches halafiennes anciennes, superposees immediatement sur des couches neolithiques recentes....