ABSTRACT
The dramatic urban development affecting Syria during the mid- and late EBA and the following transition from the EBA to the MBA, with the striking evidence of stress or even disintegration of complex urban societies which accompanied it, have been the subject of considerable debate in recent times (Mazzoni 1991; Weiss and Courty 1993; Weiss et al. 1993; Wilkinson 1994, 1997; Akkermans and Schwartz 2003, 282–287; Cooper 2006a; Schwartz and Nichols 2006). The archaeological record clearly documents the impressive appearance of urban life and its associated institutions in mid-third millennium bc Syria and the subsequent widespread phenomenon of urban crisis and collapse during the last centuries of the millennium, which affected the various regions of Syria to differing extents and in diverse ways. Between c. 2200 and 2000 BC this development is evidenced by the desertion of nearly all settled sites in the Khabur region — where only Brak and Mozan survived — and the destruction, reduction or abandonment of urban centres in the Middle Euphrates and Western Syria. 1 However, the causes of urban crisis at the end of the third millennium as well as of the real nature and extent of this phenomenon throughout Syria, and the exploration of the factors that made the rejuvenation of complex societies and urban life at the beginning of the second millennium possible, are still matters of intense discussion (Cooper 2006a, 275–276; Schwartz and Nichols 2006; Nichols and Weber 2006).
