The Kura–Araxes culture: Khirbet Kerak (“the ruins of the castle”) or Beth Yerah (“House of the Moon (god)”)

The Kura–Araxes culture, or the early trans-Caucasian culture, was a civilization that existed from 3400 BC until about 2000 BC, which has traditionally been regarded as the date of its end, but it may have disappeared as early as 2600 or 2700 BC. The earliest evidence for this culture is found on the Ararat plain.

The Kura–Araxes culture then spread to Georgia by 3000 BC (but never reaching Colchis), and during the next millennium it proceeded westward to the Erzurum plain, southwest to Cilicia, and to the southeast into an area below the Urmia basin and Lake Van, and finally down to the borders of present day Syria. Altogether, the early Trans-Caucasian culture, at its greatest spread, enveloped a vast area approximately 1,000 km by 500 km.

The name of the culture is derived from the Kura and Araxes river valleys. Its territory corresponds to parts of modern Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Chechnya, Dagestan, Ingushetia and North Ossetia.

The Kura–Araxes culture gave rise to the later Khirbet Kerak ware culture found in Syria and Canaan after the fall of the Akkadian Empire. It is a form of Early Bronze Age pottery first discovered at the tell (archaeological mound) Khirbet Kerak (Arabic: Khirbet al-Karak, “the ruins of the castle”) or Beth Yerah “House of the Moon (god)”) located on the southern shore of the Sea of Galilee in modern day Israel, but it is also found in other parts of the Levant (including Jericho, Beth Shan, Tell Judeideh, and Ugarit).

This ceramic family consists of a variety of bowls, kraters, jars and stands beautifully burnished in red and black, as well as of unburnished cooking ware and portable hearths, all made in a style and technique clearly alien to the local traditions. This ware has been linked to groups of Early Transcaucasian migrants who emerged in the Kura-Araxes region and spread to south-eastern Anatolia and the Levant during the third millennium BCE, producing distinctive pottery known in Turkey and Syria as Karaz Ware or Red-Black Burnished Ware.

The Khirbet Kerak tell spans an area of over 50 acres and contains remains dating from the Early Bronze Age (c. 3000 BC – 2000 BC) and from the Persian period (c. 450 BC) through to the early Islamic period (c. 1000 AD). Though it is not mentioned in the Hebrew Bible or other Bronze or Iron Age sources, the name Beth Yerah preserves part of the Canaanite toponym of Ablm (Heb. Abel), “the city/fort (qrt) of his-majesty Yarih” (also Ablm-bt-Yrh) which is mentioned in the 14th century BCE Epic of Aqht and is thought to be a reference to the Early Bronze Age structure extant at Khirbet Kerak.

Early Bronze Age (3300/3500-2200 BCE) – The 2009 discovery at the tell of a stone palette with Egyptian motifs, including an ankh, points to trade/political relations with the First dynasty of Egypt, at approximately 3000 BCE.

Excavators have identified four levels of occupation from the Early Bronze Age (EB). Architectural development shows the procession from (sometimes oval) pit dwellings (I) to mud-brick (II), to basalt foundations with mud-brick (III), and then on to basalt structures (IV), over approximately 1000 years. The basalt houses belong to the same phase as the Khirbet al-Kerak pottery, dated to the Early Bronze Age III.

From the earliest phases, the settlement was protected from the south and west by a city wall (the north and east facing the Sea of Galilee). The wall consisted of three connecting parallel walls, forming a massive wall, 25 feet (7.6 m) thick, built of mud-bricks.

The gate was on the south and was built of basalt. Evidence of an urban, orthogonal layout was found, dating to the EB II, supporting the claim that the city was one of the regional urban centers of the period.

Aleppo has scarcely been touched by archaeologists, since the modern city occupies its ancient site. The site has been occupied from around 5000 BC, as excavations in Tallet Alsauda show. Aleppo had cultic importance to the Hittites for being the center of worship of the Storm-God.

Aleppo appears in historical records as an important city much earlier than Damascus. The first record of Aleppo comes from the third millennium BC, when Aleppo was the capital of an independent kingdom closely related to Ebla, known as Armi to Ebla and Armani to the Akkadians. Giovanni Pettinato describes Armi as Ebla’s alter ego. Naram-Sin of Akkad destroyed both Ebla and Armani in the 23rd century BC.