page_title: Tell Sabi Abyad
section_title: Tell Sabi Abyad I
hierarchical_section_title: Tell Sabi Abyad / Tell Sabi Abyad I
caption_attribution_description: English: Fertile crescent Neolithic B circa 7500 BC
context_page_description: Tell Sabi Abyad is an archaeological site in the Balikh River valley in northern Syria. The site consists of four prehistoric mounds that are numbered Tell Sabi Abyad I to IV. Extensive excavations showed that these sites were inhabited already around 7500 to 5500 BC, although not always at the same time; the settlement shifted back and forth between these four sites.
  The earliest pottery of Syria was discovered here; it dates at ca. 6900-6800 BC, and consists of mineral-tempered, and sometimes painted wares.
context_section_description: Tell Sabi Abyad I, the biggest of the sites, was first occupied between 5200 and 5100 BC during the Neolithic. It showed a later phase of occupation, termed "transitional" by Akkermans, between 5200 and 5100 BC, which was followed by an early Halaf period between 5100 and 5000 BC. Architecture of the 6th-millennium settlement featured multi-room rectangular buildings with round structures called tholoi that were suggested to have been used for storage.
  Later remains of a massive structure called the "Fortress" were dated to the Middle Assyrian period (Late Bronze Age) between 1550 and 1250 BC. Domestic buildings were also found, suggesting that the settlement was an Assyrian border town where a garrison was stationed. The Fortress structure contained eight rooms with 2.5-metre-wide (8.2 ft) walls constructed of mud bricks and featured a staircase that led to a second floor.
caption: Area of the fertile crescent, circa 7500 BC, with main sites. Tell Sabi Abyad is one of the important sites of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic period.  The area of Mesopotamia proper was not yet settled by humans.
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