Archaeologists have discovered that children in the Kingdom of Ebla, while mass-producing pottery, also made their own creative figurines. Archaeologists from Tel Aviv University and the National Museum in Copenhagen analyzed 450 pieces of pottery unearthed from Tel Hama, an outlying town of the Ebla Kingdom - one of the most influential kingdoms in early Bronze Age Syria - which dates back to around 4,500 years ago. Their research found that about two-thirds of these vessels were made by children, some as young as seven or eight years old.
In addition to demonstrating that children's labor supported the kingdom's productive needs, researchers also discovered pottery made independently by children outside the formal industrial framework. These personal creations shed light on the expressions of children even in early urban societies.
The study, led by Dr. Akiva Saunders, a Dan David Fellow at Tel Aviv University's Entin School of Humanities, was published in the journal Past Childhoods.
Dr Saunders "Our research gives us a rare insight into the lives of children living in the region of the Kingdom of Ebla, one of the oldest kingdoms in the world. We found that during its heyday, around 2400 to 2000 BC, cities associated with the kingdom began to rely on child labor for the industrial production of pottery. Children worked in workshops from the age of seven and were specifically trained to make the cups as uniformly as possible - which were used in daily life in the kingdom and at royal banquets."
It is well known that a person’s fingerprints do not change throughout their lifetime. Therefore, by measuring the density of the fingerprint edge, you can roughly infer the size of the palm, and based on the size of the palm, you can infer the age and gender of the person.
The pottery from Telehama, on the southern border of the Kingdom of Ebla, was excavated in the 1930s and has been preserved in the National Museum of Denmark ever since. Analysis of the pottery fingerprints revealed that most of the pottery was made by children. In the city of Hama, two-thirds of pottery is made by children and another third by older people.
Dr Saunders said: "Some of the world's first city kingdoms emerged in the Levant and Mesopotamia during the Early Bronze Age. We hope to use fingerprints on pottery to understand how processes such as urbanization and centralization of government functions affected the demographics of the ceramic industry. In the town of Hama, the ancient center of ceramic production, we initially saw potters aged between 12 and 13 years old, with half of the potters aged under 18, with an equal proportion of boys and girls. As the Kingdom of Ebla was established, this statistic The writing changed and we see potters starting to make more goblets for banquets. As more goblets were used at banquets, more goblets needed to be made. Not only did the kingdom begin to rely more and more on child labor, but they also trained children to make cups that were as similar as possible. This was also a phenomenon we saw in the Industrial Revolution in Europe and America: it was very easy to control children and teach them specific movements to create standardized crafts."
But there was one bright spot in the children's lives: making their own figurines and miniature vessels.
Dr Saunders said: "These children taught each other how to make miniature figurines and vessels without the involvement of adults. It is safe to say that these figurines and vessels were made by children, possibly including those who were skilled in cup-making workshops. In these figurines, children seem to express their creativity and imagination."
Compiled from /ScitechDaily