argia.eus
INPRIMATU
The oldest tribute to the dead in war
  • During the 1980s and 1990s, archaeologists carried out excavations at the Txuri Monument, Syria, the oldest monument in honor of the dead in the war ever found.
Nagore Irazustabarrena Uranga @irazustabarrena 2021eko ekainaren 17a
(argazkia: Euphrates Salvage Project)
(argazkia: Euphrates Salvage Project)

Artificial 22-meter hill located at the Tell Banat site, at the Txuri Monument, in Northern Syria, built 4,300 years ago. The material collected then has now been investigated and has come to the conclusion that it could be the oldest monument in tribute to the dead in the war that has been found.

In addition, it can be the first practical example of a special type of building described in several Mesopotamian texts, which consisted in forming structures by ordering bodies or bones of the dead in a certain way. However, the monument is not visitable, since it has been submerged since the Tishrin dam was built in 1999 on the Euphrates river.