4,500-year-old fingerprints on pottery hint at child labor in ancient Syria

Fingerprint analysis of pottery from 4,500 years ago, produced in the ancient Syrian town of Tel Hama, has revealed that children as young as seven and eight were employed to make vessels. A team of archaeologists from Tel Aviv University and the National Museum in Copenhagen came upon this conclusion after conducting a detailed research, titled ‘Ordinary Lives in Extraordinary Times: A New Perspective on the Earliest Urban Societies in Bronze Age Syria’.

The archaeologists further noted that two-thirds of the children who made the vessels were aged around seven. According to them, the period between 2,400 to 2000 BCE shows evidence of practice of child labor, where minors were trained to make cups as uniformly as possible. One of the reasons for this, believe the researchers, could be that drinking cups were high in demand, owing to grand fiestas. The cups needed quick replacement when broken.

Child labor and ancient urbanization

Dr. Akiva Sanders, the lead researcher said , “I think one of the most important things this research emphasizes about ancient children is that it breaks down our division between innocent children who play no economic role and devote their time to learning, playing and exploring and children who are working in awful conditions in factories.”

The researchers further noted that this set of pottery was preserved by the National Museum of Denmark and excavated in the 1930s. Sanders explained that the Early Bronze Age saw the rise of city-kingdoms in the Levant and Mesopotamia. Researchers began exploring how urbanization and centralized government functions influenced industries, like pottery-making, during this period.

Furthermore, Sanders shared that the fingerprint analysis indicated that half the potters were under the age of 18, with boys and girls in equal proportions. “This statistic changes with the formation of the Kingdom of Ebla when we see that potters were starting to produce more goblets for banquets. 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,” as per Sanders.

Reflecting industrial labor patterns

Further research states that the town of Tel Hama was a major center for the production of ceramics. The potters were young to begin with, the demographic started changing after the establishment of the Kingdom of Ebla.

As per the researchers, this situation bore a resemblance with patterns seen during the Industrial Revolution where child workers were often trained to perform specific repetitive movements to ensure consistency in production.

“These children taught each other to make miniature figurines and vessels, without the involvement of the adults. 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” said Sanders.

Pottery is one of the oldest human crafts, dating back thousands of years. It played a vital role in ancient civilizations, used for everything from storing food and water to ceremonial purposes. Pottery styles and techniques varied across cultures, often reflecting local resources and societal needs.