An AMS Radiocarbon Chronology for the Late Umm an-Nar-Type Tomb at Tell Abraq

During the seasons of 1993 and 1997/8 at Tell Abraq a circular tomb of Umm an-Nar-type was excavated just 10 m. to the west of the massive fortification tower which dominated the site at the end of the IIIrd millennium B.C. The material from the 10mb was sufficiently characteristic to suggest that it must have been in use near the very end of the Umm an-Nar period. In order to obtain confirmation for this view we applied to the Australian Institute of Nuclear Science and Engineering (AINSE) for a grant to undertake accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) dating of carbon samples from the tomb. The application was successful and we were able to submit five samples. Table 1 shows the results of the AMS measurements. The table gives not only the raw 'date', i.e. the uncalibrated radiocarbon date before present. but more importantly the calibrated date as obtained by using the calibration program CALIB 3.0.3 c developed at the Quaternary Research Center, University of Washington (Seattle), by Minze Stuiver and Paula J. Reimer. Thus, the latest date ranges of the five dates are probably closer to the actual time of interment, than the earliest ones which simply offer us a 'terminus post quem' for the chronology of the tomb deposit.