Summary This volume corresponds to the acts of a conference that closes the international interdisciplinary research project Badiyah, directed by Corinne Castel and Jan-Waalke Meyer (Directors of the Tell Al-Rawda and Tell Chuera archaeological missions). Both sites illustrate the importance of the 3rd millennium BCE 'circular cities' discovered in today's Syria. These pre-planned cities were fortified and organized following a concentric and radial urban pattern. They represent a particular form of the endogenous process of urbanization that appeared in this region when the first cities and territorial states emerged. The main results obtained from these two sites are compared to other Syrian 'circular cities' of the Early Bronze Age. Twenty-nine contributions enable us to reassess the process of urbanization in the Near East and to question the Southern Mesopotamian model as the unique cradle of urban civilization. TABLE OF CONTENTS TABLE OF CONTENTS PREFACE AVANT-PROPOS Introduction Syrian Circular Cities of the Third Millennium BC: A Syrian Urban Model - CORINNE CASTEL Spatial and Temporal Distribution of Circular Cities in Early Bronze Age Syria: A Reappraisal - PHILIPPE QUENET The Birth of the Circular Cities - JAN-WAALKE MEYER SECTION I - THEMATIC TOPICS Origins of the Model The Origin and Early Development of Tell Chu?ra and Neighbouring Settlements - RALPH HEMPELMANN Retracing Settlements, Pots, and People: Frankfurt University's Southeast Anatolia Project (SOAP) - CHRISTIAN FALB & MUSTAFA KIBARO?LU Circular Cities: Fortifications and Official Areas The Fortification of Circular Cities: The Examples of Tell Chu?ra and Tell Al-Rawda - TOBIAS?B.?H. HELMS & PHILIPPE QUENET Creating the Urban Landscape. The Emergence of Monumentality in Third Millennium Chu?ra - OLESIA KROMBERG The Early Bronze Age Palace at Chu?ra and the Decline of the Settlement - ALEXANDER TAMM Circular Cities: Material Culture A Comparison of Early Bronze Age Ceramic Assemblages from Circular Cities in Inner Syria and the Western Jezirah: Some Preliminary Considerations - TAOS BABOUR & GEORGES MOUAMAR Djemdet Nasr or Early Bronze Age?III? Dating the Find Locations of Tell Chu?ra Seal Impressions - ANNE-BIRTE BINDER Peri-Urban Constructions and Environmental Studies The Circular Cities of Northern Syria in their Environmental Context - STEFAN LORENZ SMITH & TONY JAMES WILKINSON? Soils and Land Use Potential Around Tell Chu?ra in the Third Millennium BC - HEINRICH THIEMEYER Central Places in the Wadi ?amar Survey Area. Aspects of Urban Planning in the Regions of the Badiyah Project in the Third Millennium BC - VERONIKA KUDLEK Stratégies de subsistance et économie végétale dans les villes circulaires de la Shamiyah au Bronze ancien. Tell Al-Rawda et Tell Sh'airat dans les marges arides de Syrie - LINDA HERVEUX Potentiels agro-pastoraux et aménagements agricoles périurbains de la microrégion d'Al-Rawda - OLIVIER BARGE & MARIE-LAURE CHAMBRADE Animal Economy at the End of the Third Millennium bc in the Syrian Badiyah: A Comparative Study of Tell Chu?ra and Tell Al-Rawda - EMMANUELLE VILA A Cataclysm in the Steppe? Environmental History of Al-Rawda, an Ephemeral City in the Syrian Arid Margins at the End of the Third Millennium - JACQUES EìLIE BROCHIER Society and Textual Sources The Ebla Palace G Texts and the Circular Cities of Third Millennium Eastern Syria: Some Remarks - MARIA GIOVANNA BIGA The Ebla Palace G Texts and the Circular Cities of Third Millennium Southern Syria: Some Remarks - AMALIA CATAGNOTI Square Temples and Circular Cities: Sites of Attraction, 'Traditions of Identity' and Third Millennium Urbanisation in Northern Syria - ANNE PORTER SECTION II - REGIONAL TOPICS Anatolia The Spatial Organisation, Development and Sociology of Radial Pattern Settlements in Early Bronze Age Anatolia - BÉRENGÈRE PERELLO Jezirah Mari, une ville circulaire ordinaire? - PASCAL BUTTERLIN Notes sur l'architecture et l'urbanisme du Royaume de Nagar (3): similarités entre Tell Brak et Tell Beydar à l'époque Early Jezirah IIIb - MARC LEBEAU Tell Khazna I - A Concentric Planned Settlement in The Khabur Steppe - AMIROV SHAMARDAN N. Tell Tcholema Foqani: A New Circular City 'Kranzhügel' in the Region of Upper Jezirah - CHEIKHMOUS ALI A Season's Work at Khirbet Malhat, North-Eastern Syria - PHILIPPE QUENET & AHMAD SULTAN Bishri La contribution du Jebel Bishri à la thématique des villes circulaires du troisième millénaire av. J.-C. - AHMAD SULTAN A Planned new Major City on the Margins of the Syrian Steppe: Early Bronze Age Tell Sh?a?rat - GEORGES MOUAMAR Southern Mesopotamia Town-Planning in Third Millennium Mesopotamia: A View from the Alluvial Plain - RÉGIS VALLET INDEX OF SITES