4500-Year-Old Fingerprints Reveal Children Created Pottery Vessels In Ebla Kingdom

 Conny Waters - AncientPages.com - Archaeologists from Tel Aviv University and the National Museum in Copenhagen, meticulously analyzed 450 pottery vessels crafted in Tel Hama.

Goblets (top) and miniature vessels (bottom) from Hama Period J. Photo: Stephen Lumsden, courtesy National Museum of Denmark.

The town situated at the periphery of the Ebla Kingdom was one of Syria's most significant kingdoms during the Early Bronze Age, approximately 4,500 years ago.

Research has revealed that two-thirds of the pottery vessels were crafted by children as young as seven or eight. This discovery not only highlights the role of children in fulfilling the kingdom's needs but also uncovers evidence of their independent creations beyond industrial demands.

These findings illustrate how childhood creativity thrived even within early urban societies, underscoring the enduring spark and potential of youthful imagination.

The research was led by Dr. Akiva Sanders, a Dan David Fellow at the Entin Faculty of Humanities, Tel Aviv University.

"Our research allows us a rare glimpse into the lives of children who lived in the area of the Ebla Kingdom, one of the oldest kingdoms in the world," said Dr. Sanders.

Dr. Akiva Sanders. Image credit: Tel Aviv University

"We discovered that at its peak, roughly from 2400 to 2000 BCE, the cities associated with the kingdom began to rely on child labor for the industrial production of pottery.

The children worked in workshops starting at the age of seven and were specially trained to create cups as uniformly as possible - which were used in the kingdom in everyday life and at royal banquets."

As is well known, a person's fingerprints do not change throughout their life. For this reason, the size of the palm can be roughly deduced from measuring the density of the margins of the fingerprint - and from the size of the palm, the age and sex of the person can estimated. The pottery from Tel Hama, on the southern border of the Kingdom of Ebla, was excavated in the 1930s, and since then has been kept in the National Museum in Denmark.

Pottery vessel made in Tel Hama. IMage credit: Tel Aviv University

From the analysis of the fingerprints of the pottery it appears that most of them were made by children. In the city of Hama city two thirds of the pottery was made by children - the other third was created by older men.

"At the beginning of the Early Bronze Age, some of the world’s first city-kingdoms arose in the Levant and Mesopotamia," says Dr. Sanders.

"We wanted to use the fingerprints on the pottery to understand how processes such as urbanization and the centralization government functions affected the demographics of the ceramic industry.

In the historic town of Hama, renowned for its ancient ceramic production, young potters begin their craft as early as 12 or 13 years old. Remarkably, half of these artisans are under 18, with an equal number of boys and girls honing their skills. However, this demographic shifts significantly with the emergence of the Kingdom of Ebla.

During this period, potters increasingly focused on creating goblets for banquets—a clear indication that the demand for specialized ceramics was rising. This evolution not only highlights a change in production but also underscores the growing importance and sophistication of pottery in societal rituals and gatherings.

And since more and more alcohol-fueled feasts were held, the cups were frequently broken - and therefore more cups needed to be made. Not only did the Kingdom begin to rely more and more on child labor, but the children were trained to make the cups as similar to each other as possible.

This is a phenomenon we also see in the industrial revolution in Europe and America: it is very easy to control children and teach them specific movements to create standardization in handicrafts, according to Dr. Sanders.

"However, there was one bright spot in the children's lives: making tiny figurines and miniature vessels for themselves. "

These children taught each other to make miniature figurines and vessels, without the involvement of the adults," added Dr. Sanders.

“It is safe to say that they were created by children - and probably including those skilled children from the cup-making workshops. It seems that in these figurines the children expressed their creativity and their imagination."

The findings were published in the journal Childhood in the Past.

Source - Tel-Aviv University

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Written by Conny Waters - AncientPages.com Staff Writer