The 2010 excavations


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     2010 had originally been planned as primarily a study season – but Gulfsands support made it possible to extend our aim to a regular excavation. And the results were impressive.

     It had been our hypothesis that beneath the monumental Temple Terrace of 2600 B.C. there layed a much earlier one, about which we had only isolated pieces of evidence. During the 2010 season we were able to prove that, indeed, there was an equally massive Temple Terrace of about 3500 B.C. immediately below the surface of its third millennium counterpart.

     It will take several more seasons to clear this early antecedent, and to clarify its structure. But what is already certain is that Urkesh was a major city at a time when the first cities in the world first made their appearance.

     Even more important, if possible, is that Urkesh reflects an urban model different from that of the Sumerians who, so far, were the only ones who could be credited with the "invention" of the urban way of life. Urkesh represents the Hurrian model. This extremely important fact, so exquisitely Syrian in its nature, will be at he center of our future investigations.