Most of the vessels from the ancient Syrian city were made by children, the youngest of whom were 7–8 years old.
Most of the Early Bronze Age vessels found during excavations at the ancient Syrian city of Tel Hama were made by children. The researchers came to this conclusion by studying fingerprints on ceramic vessels. As is known, these prints do not change with age, but by their density at the edges one can determine the size of the palm, and from this one can determine age and gender.
In the Early Bronze Age – about 4.5 thousand years ago – the city was part of the kingdom of Ebla, one of the largest in the region at that time. The imprinted vessels examined by archaeologists come from excavations in the 1930s (they have since been kept in the National Museum of Denmark). The sample included vessels that date back to both the time before the formation of the kingdom of Ebla and the time of its heyday (2.4–2 thousand years BC). Half of the earliest vessels were made by potters under the age of 18, the youngest of them were 12–13, girls and boys – approximately equally. With the formation of the kingdom, the proportion of children increased to two thirds, and the youngest potters were 7–8 years old. The remaining third belonged to adult men. It is interesting that the sample contains vessels on which fingerprints of both adults and children have been preserved. These are probably traces of training.
Archaeologists note that in the layers from the times of the kingdom, a significant proportion of the vessels are cups that were often broken. The need for their mass production may be associated with greater use of child labor. But it is possible that standardization also led to this – the potters sought to make the bowls as similar to each other as possible. It was easier to teach children this, and they were also easier to control. Something similar, according to researchers, happened during the Industrial Revolution in Europe and America.
The pottery shows that there were brighter moments in the lives of small Bronze Age potters, with finds including miniature vessels and tiny figurines. Most likely, children made them without the participation of adults and thus gave free rein to their imagination. But another explanation is also possible – miniature products were a way to involve children in the process, their initial stage in learning to work with clay.
Based on materials Tel Aviv University And
Childhood in the Past.
Source: www.nkj.ru
