ABSTRACT
There is little doubt that the Sumerians of southern Mesopotamia were in contactwith the people who inhabited the areas of western Syria and the middle Euphrates River Valley during much of the third millennium BC. This contact, which involved cultural and economic exchanges, is documented in Syria by extant textual records as well as archaeological remains which bear the unmistakable imprint of Sumerian civilisation. It would be erroneous, however, to attribute all important cultural developments in Syria to its Sumerian neighbours. The evidence indicates that the regions of western Syria and the middle Euphrates River Valley underwent important transformations in social-cultural complexity and advances towards urbanism in ways that uniquely diverged from other parts of the Near East, including southern Mesopotamia. This chapter describes what is known about western Syria and the middle Euphrates River Valley during the third millennium BC, emphasising the regions’ unique geographical features, and highlighting the local ideological, social and political traditions that seem to account for much of the areas’ distinctive cultural character and developments during this time period.
