[Tell Mardikh.] Ancient site in northern Syria, some 58 km south-west of Aleppo. It is set in an agricultural region between the last eastern branches of the Jabal al-Zawiya and the swampy lowlands of the Matkh and was occupied from c. 3000 bc to c. 1600 bc with intermittent later settlement until the Byzantine period. Since 1964 excavations by the University of Rome’s Italian Archaeological Mission to Syria have been directed by Paolo Matthiae. Most of the finds, including many of the items mentioned below, are in the Archaeological Museum of Idlib; smaller collections are held in the National Museums of Damascus and Aleppo. The earliest evidence for settlement consists of locally produced stamp seals in a naturalistic style, bearing pastoral scenes that include animal and human figures, shepherds and heroic animal-tamers. They may be dated to the late Chalcolithic or Early Bronze I (c. 3000 bc). Scattered structures from throughout the first half of the 3rd millennium ...