Shir, a Neolithic Village near Hama

Shir is a Late Neolithic village of 4 ha on a terrace 30 m above the Sarut, a tributary of the Orontes, 12 km northwest of Hama. Radiocarbon dates put its occupation between 7000 and 6200 or 6100 BC. Then it was abandoned. Nobody settled there for good again. That is why the plan of one of the early farming villages of the middle Orontes could be opened over wide areas.

Where it is

The site is on the terrace above the Sarut, near the modern village of Shir. The village belongs to Mahardah District and lies more than a kilometre from the excavation area. No signposted road to the site is on record. Ask in the village.

How long it takes

Half an hour. Excavation ended in 2010, and there is no recent record of how visible the opened areas still are. Expect a short walk on the terrace and a view over the stream valley, not standing walls.

What the excavation found

The site was found in 2005 during a survey of the middle Orontes basin. From 2006 to 2010 the Damascus branch of the German Archaeological Institute (DAI) excavated it together with Syria’s Directorate-General of Antiquities and Museums. With no later layers on top, large areas could be opened: 400 m² in the south, 1000 m² in the centre and 700 m² in the northeast.

The southern area has six building phases dated between 7000 and 6450 BC. Foundations are of local limestone, and the upper walls of mudbrick or rammed earth. Finds include a bone flute, an Amuq-type arrowhead, a dark-faced burnished vessel and an infant burial. The village emptied at the end of the 7th millennium BC, perhaps because of a change in climate.

Do not miss

The storage complex in the northeast area. Two buildings hold 16 rooms between them; they probably had two storeys, and the rooms were entered from above by stairs. The complex points to shared storage in a Neolithic village, and it is the first place on the terrace to look at to understand how the village was laid out.