{"id":1124,"date":"2008-01-24T02:55:00","date_gmt":"2008-01-24T02:55:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost:8888\/wp-a_lawler\/?p=1124"},"modified":"2021-10-29T11:53:59","modified_gmt":"2021-10-29T15:53:59","slug":"great-ancient-city-unearthed-in-syria","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.andrewlawler.com\/content\/great-ancient-city-unearthed-in-syria\/","title":{"rendered":"Great Ancient City Unearthed in Syria"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h4>Top 100 Stories of 2008 #66:<\/h4>\n<p>While the corpses of their enemies still lay on the battlefield, the victors celebrated by slaughtering cattle and holding a gigantic feast. Then they dumped the war dead into a pit, heaved in the animal bones from their repast, and tossed their plates on top of the pile.<\/p>\n<p>Now\u2014nearly six millennia later\u2014the unearthing of these remnants in what is now northeastern Syria is a spectacular archaeological find, one of several important discoveries made recently at Tell Brak, a 130-foot-high mound jutting above the northern fringe of the Mesopotamian plain.<\/p>\n<p>Archaeologists from the University of Cambridge, the University of Edinburgh, and Harvard University say Brak was one of the earliest and largest cities in the region\u2014and therefore the world. That assertion is shaking up Near Eastern archaeology, since scholars long assumed that the first substantial cities arose in southern Mesopotamia in today\u2019s Iraq<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/discovermagazine.com\/2007\/mar\/return-of-the-bactrian-gold\/?searchterm=andrew%20lawler\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Courtesy of Discover website<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; Top 100 Stories of 2008 #66: While the corpses  [&#8230;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1124","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-discover-magazine"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Great Ancient City Unearthed in Syria &#8226; Andrew Lawler<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"&nbsp; Top 100 Stories of 2008 #66: While the corpses of their enemies still lay on the battlefield, the victors celebrated by slaughtering cattle and\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.discovermagazine.com\/planet-earth\/66-great-ancient-city-unearthed-in-syria\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Great Ancient City Unearthed in Syria &#8226; Andrew Lawler\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"&nbsp; Top 100 Stories of 2008 #66: While the corpses of their enemies still lay on the battlefield, the victors celebrated by slaughtering cattle and\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.discovermagazine.com\/planet-earth\/66-great-ancient-city-unearthed-in-syria\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Andrew Lawler\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AndrewLawlerAuthor\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:author\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AndrewLawlerAuthor\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-01-24T02:55:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2021-10-29T15:53:59+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"AndrewLawler\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"AndrewLawler\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.discovermagazine.com\\\/planet-earth\\\/66-great-ancient-city-unearthed-in-syria#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.andrewlawler.com\\\/great-ancient-city-unearthed-in-syria\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"AndrewLawler\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.andrewlawler.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/cbc9a5140b6f2e4922d45f0726e70022\"},\"headline\":\"Great Ancient City Unearthed in Syria\",\"datePublished\":\"2008-01-24T02:55:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2021-10-29T15:53:59+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.andrewlawler.com\\\/great-ancient-city-unearthed-in-syria\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":160,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.andrewlawler.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/cbc9a5140b6f2e4922d45f0726e70022\"},\"articleSection\":[\"Discover Magazine\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.andrewlawler.com\\\/great-ancient-city-unearthed-in-syria\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.discovermagazine.com\\\/planet-earth\\\/66-great-ancient-city-unearthed-in-syria\",\"name\":\"Great Ancient City Unearthed in Syria &#8226; 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