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Child Labor Fueled The Ancient Pottery Industry, According To The Recent Analysis Of 4,500-Year-Old Pottery Vessels Made In Syria

ancient ruins syria
trofotodesign - stock.adobe.com - illustrative purposes only

Archaeologists have analyzed 450 pottery vessels made in Tel Hama, a town located on the edge of the Ebla Kingdom, one of the most important Syrian kingdoms of the Early Bronze Age about 4,500 years ago.

The archaeological team included researchers from Tel Aviv University and the National Museum in Copenhagen, Denmark.

They found that two-thirds of the pottery vessels were made by children as young as seven and eight years old, indicating that child labor helped sustain the ancient pottery industry. The researchers also uncovered evidence of the children’s own creations outside of industrial work.

“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. Akiva Sanders, the lead researcher and a Dan David Fellow at the Entin Faculty of Humanities at Tel Aviv University.

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

According to Dr. Sanders, the children toiled in workshops starting at the age of seven. They were taught to create uniform cups, which were used in the kingdom daily and at royal feasts.

Because a person’s fingerprints do not change throughout their life, the size of their palm can be estimated by measuring the prints.

The age and gender of the person can then be deduced from palm size. That is the process the researchers underwent when they analyzed the prints on the pottery.

The pottery from Tel Hama was excavated in the 1930s. Since then, the vessels have been kept in the National Museum in Denmark. After examining the fingerprints on the pottery, it appeared that most of them were made by children. The rest were produced by older men.

ancient ruins syria
trofotodesign – stock.adobe.com – illustrative purposes only

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