Umm el-Marra

45 kilometres east of Aleppo, in the middle of the Jabbul plain, a mound of 25 hectares rises some ten metres above the flat around it. The country here is dry steppe today; in the third millennium BC it was not. In that period Umm el-Marra was a town of three to five thousand people, standing where two trade routes crossed, north-west of Ebla. What the city was called then is not known.

Getting there

Three quarters of an hour from Aleppo on the road towards Raqqa; the mound lies north of the road, on the flat of Lake Jabbul. You need a vehicle, as no public transport comes out here. The last stretch is a field track and is impassable after rain.

How long it takes

An hour. The top of the mound is broad and level; walking the circuit of the wall and going up to the edge of the acropolis fills that time.

What to see

The plan of the city still reads in the topography, and that is what this mound really shows you. A wall circuit about 400 metres across, the gaps of three gates, and a defensive ditch outside it; within, at the highest point, a quadrilateral acropolis with rounded corners, about a hundred metres wide. No wall stands — the material was mud brick, and the mud brick has gone back into the plain. But the ring of the wall and the gate openings are things you feel through your legs as you walk: the ground lifts here and drops there.

What not to miss

The real story of this mound came out in 2000. The excavators found an intact, unlooted tomb dating to about 2300 BC: five adults and three babies lay inside, some of them ornamented from head to foot in gold and silver. Tombs of that age that have survived undisturbed in the Near East can be counted on one hand. The finds are not on the site; the tomb lies on the acropolis, and a guide will point out the spot.

What remains

The town grew a second time around 1820 BC and became a regional centre subject to the kingdom of Yamhad, which was ruled from Aleppo; the mudbrick wall belongs to that period. It was destroyed in the 14th century BC and stood empty two centuries later. Excavation began in 1978 with a Belgian team, passed after 1994 to an American and Dutch team, and stopped in 2010. The site today is unfenced and unguarded, surrounded by cropped fields. Ask in Aleppo about the state of the road before you go.