Scholarly Publications - Archaeology

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The Routledge handbook of the Byzantine city: from Justinian to Mehmet ii (ca. 500 – ca. 1500)
(Routledge, 2024-01-01) Bakirtzis, Nikolas; Zavagno, Luca
The Byzantine world contained many important cities throughout its empire. Although it was not ‘urban’ in the sense of the word today, its cities played a far more fundamental role than those of its European neighbors. This book, through a collection of twenty-four chapters, discusses aspects of, and different approaches to, Byzantine urbanism from the early to late Byzantine periods. It provides both a chronological and thematic perspective to the study of Byzantine cities, bringing together literary, documentary, and archival sources with archaeological results, material culture, art, and architecture, resulting in a rich synthesis of the variety of regional and sub-regional transformations of Byzantine urban landscapes. Organized into four sections, this book covers: Theory and Historiography, Geography and Economy, Architecture and the Built Environment, and Daily Life and Material Culture. It includes more specialized accounts that address the centripetal role of Constantinople and its broader influence across the empire. Such new perspectives help to challenge the historiographical balance between ‘margins and metropolis, ’ and also to include geographical areas often regarded as peripheral, like the coastal urban centers of the Byzantine Mediterranean as well as cities on islands, such as Crete, Cyprus, and Sicily which have more recently yielded well-excavated and stratigraphically sound urban sites. The Routledge Handbook of the Byzantine City provides both an overview and detailed study of the Byzantine city to specialist scholars, students, and enthusiasts alike and, therefore, will appeal to all those interested in Byzantine urbanism and society, as well as those studying medieval society in general. © 2024 selection and editorial matter, Nikolas Bakirtzis and Luca Zavagno; individual chapters, the contributors.
Open Access
Ancient cities: the archaeology of urban life in the ancient Near East and Egypt, Greece, and Rome
(Routledge, 2024-01-01) Gates, Charles; Goldman, Andrew
The third edition of Ancient Cities surveys the cities of the Ancient Near East, Egypt, and the Greek, Etruscan, and Roman worlds from the perspectives of archaeology and architectural history, bringing to life the physical world of ancient city dwellers by concentrating on archaeological evidence. Urban form is the focus: the physical appearance and overall plans of cities, their architecture and natural topography, and the cultural and historical contexts in which they flourished. Attention is also paid to non-urban features such as religious sanctuaries and burial grounds, places and institutions that were a familiar part of the city dweller’s experience. Objects or artifacts that furnished everyday life are discussed, such as writing systems, pottery, sculpture, wall paintings, mosaics, and coins. Ancient Cities is unusual in presenting this wide range of Old World cultures in such comprehensive detail, giving equal weight to the Preclassical and Classical periods, and in showing the links between these ancient cultures. In this new edition, in which Andrew Goldman has joined Charles Gates in updating the volume, readers and lecturers will be delighted to see a major revision of the chapters on Greek cities in South Italy and Sicily, the Etruscans, the development of the capital city, Rome, during the Republic as well as the Empire, and the end of the ancient city. This new edition includes several new and updated user-friendly features, such as: Here is the list from the provided text in Markdown format: - Clear and accessible language, assuming no previous background knowledge - Lavishly illustrated, with almost 350 line drawings, maps, and photographs, including new contributions from Neslihan Yılmaz Tekman adding to her already acclaimed illustrations - Suggestions for further reading for each chapter - A companion website with images, study guides, and an interactive timeline. With its comprehensive presentation of ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern cities, its rich collection of illustrations, and its companion website, Ancient Cities remains an essential textbook for university and high school students across a wide range of archaeology, ancient history, and ancient Near Eastern, Biblical, and Classical Studies courses.
Open Access
Magnetic gradiometry survey at the urban centre of Türkmen-Karahöyük (Turkey)
(2024-09-01) Creamer, Petra M.; Alperstein, Jonathan; Massa, Michele; Osborne, James; Casana, Jesse
The understanding of urban centres in the ancient Near East, one of the main regions for investigating the development of cities, has been transformed in recent years through investigations using archaeological geophysical prospection tools. This paper presents results of our recent magnetic gradiometry survey at the large urban site of Türkmen-Karahöyük (Konya Plain, Turkey) conducted using a SENSYS Magneto MXPDA cart-based system. Results of the survey have successfully identified and characterized numerous areas of ancient settlement, industrial activity and burials across the massive site, offering new insights into the history of occupation at Türkmen-Karahöyük. Our findings are thereby helping to shape future investigations at the site and, more broadly, demonstrate the opportunities and challenges presented by cart-based geophysical survey instruments for archaeological investigations of mounded urban sites with extensive lower towns.
Open Access
Mass-hunting in South-west Asia at the dawn of sedentism: new evidence from Şanlıurfa, south-east Türkiye
(Cambridge University Press, 2024-09-30) Şahin, Fatma; Massa, Michele
Collation of satellite imagery and new fieldwork in Şanlıurfa (south-east Türkiye) has revealed large numbers of stone-walled desert kites, some of which may date to the Pre-Pottery Neolithic (c. 9500–7000 BC). The authors briefly explore the potential role of these structures in the processes of early sedentism and monumentality.
Open Access
Going local: an agency-based approach to collapse, resistance, and resilience in Hittite Anatolia
(Walter de Gruyter GmbH, 2024-05-24) Gerçek, Nebahat İlgi
Crisis and collapse have long been prominent themes in Hittite studies (much more so than the related topics of resistance and resilience) and most of the extant body of scholarship on these themes have concentrated on the disintegration of the Hittite Empire around 1200 BCE. Though the events, conditions and processes that culminated in the disintegration of the Hittite Empire elude historical reconstruction, recent studies have unanimously rejected monocausal explanations of collapse in favor of the view that it was brought about by a combination of factors - internal, external, acute or chronic. In Hittite scholarship, the study of collapse and its aftermath have typically operated within a markedly state-centered and progressivist framework, focusing primarily on figuring out "what went wrong." Meanwhile, especially in text-based studies, the agency and resilience of local, small(er)-scale, peripheral, and non-state individuals and communities, as well as their role in the construction, maintenance, and collapse of the Hittite empire, remain largely overlooked. The aim of the present paper is to shift the focus and scale of analysis away from the state, and to draw out from the textual record, the long-term agency, resistance, and resilience of local, small-scale, and often non-state individuals, communities, or socio-political institutions, which have typically been left out of text-based modern narratives. This paper will reassess the prominent view of the Hittite king (and state) as the absolute political, military, judicial, and religious authority, and argue that certain local and non-state communities and socio-political institutions exercised diverse kinds of agency, were remarkably resilient in the long term, and survived the final collapse of the Hittite state. In order to situate the inquiry in its broader scholarly and intellectual context, it will begin with an overview of where things stand in the study of the Hittite collapse. The next step will be to identify individual or collective local actors in the textual record. It will lastly focus on the interactions of diverse local agents with the Hittite state.
Open Access
From Hellenistic neighbourhood to bath-gymnasium and beyond: The archaeology east of the Upper Agora of Sagalassos
(Nederlands Instituut voor het Nabije Oosten, Netherlands Institute for the Near East, 2023) Beaujean, Bas; Claeys, Johan; Daems, D.; Doperé, F.; Talloen, Peter; Poblome, J.
Thirty years of excavations and research have turned the Upper Agora area of Sagalassos into one of the best-studied public spaces and political civic centers of Roman poleis in Asia Minor. The area to its east was the last remaining piece of the puzzle to be studied. Between 2015-2021, a series of large-scale excavations obtained a wealth of archaeological evidence, ranging from a Hellenistic neighbourhood to the main gymnasium of the Roman polis, and its rearrangement in Late Antiquity. As a result, these excavations provided information about a wide range of aspects of life in Hellenistic, Roman Imperial, and Early Byzantine Pisidia. This paper presents the relevant evidence and discusses its possible interpretations, so that it can be used to contribute to larger debates and themes within Classical and Anatolian Archaeology.
Open Access
Against the strain - a diachronic perspective on prehistoric European and Near Eastern protective/symbolic archery equipment
(Walter de Gruyter GmbH, 2024-02-22) Zimmermann, Thomas
This contribution reviews selected bone and stone plaques with double or multiple opposite perforations from Pre-Pottery Neolithic Near Eastern contexts in the light of them having possibly served as symbolic or protective archery equipment. The presence of perforated plaques from Later Neolithic Europe is a well-attested phenomenon in funeral contexts and is commonly labelled as bracers or wrist-guards. With their actual practical purpose of efficiently preventing the forearm from the slashing of a bowstring being probably of subordinate importance, there seems to be a consensus that they were, if not protective, then symbolic adornments in connection with hunting as being not only a profane, food-acquiring routine but simultaneously a ritually loaded, status-enhancing endeavor. The same is assumed for specific "plaques" from much earlier post-Pleistocene contexts in Upper Mesopotamia, which might have served an identical purpose in the frame of cultural synchronisms.
Open Access
Understanding the long-term development of an irrigation network using a sinuosity-based automatic classification of waterways
(Sage Publications Ltd., 2024-10-17) Boon, Maddy; Motta, Davide; Massa, Michele; Wainwright, John; Lawrence, Dan; Ayala, Gianna
This study investigates the use of planform sinuosity as a metric to produce an automatic classification of waterways in the pre-modern and present-day irrigation networks in the Konya Plain in south-central Türkiye. Results show that such automatic classification may replace a time-consuming manual classification or provide a preliminary classification for subsequent manual refinement, depending on the number of classification categories used, the distribution of sinuosity across the network, and the degree of human modification. They also show that sinuosity thresholds for classification are area- and time-specific. Sinuosity is then used to quantify and interpret network changes in planform alignment and expansion and to identify long-term trends and areas of landscape modification. Results reveal a general pattern of decreasing sinuosity over time in the Konya Plain, indicating a continual human intervention, with areas where the present-day network was built upon the old Ottoman system. The methods presented in this investigation may be applicable to other studies of irrigation-network evolution and impact on landscape and can be used in conjunction with archeological and historical analysis.
Open Access
Kızıldağ, Karadağ, and sacred peak sites in Central Anatolia during the late Bronze and Iron Ages
(Archaeological Institute of America (Boston), 2024-01) Massa, Michele; Osborne, J.
Mountain peaks and rocky outcrops have long been recognized to have been crucial components of the religious beliefs of people in Anatolia during the Late Bronze and Iron Ages. Archaeologically, however, sanctuaries that are associated with these features are much less understood. This article considers what is known about Anatolian peak sites textually and archaeologically for the second and first millennia BCE. While Late Bronze Age textual accounts of rituals and built features on peaks are abundant, archaeological data is comparatively scarce. The converse is true during the Iron Age, from which there are several archaeologically attested kinds of monuments associated with rocky outcrop sand peaks, including stelae and step monuments, but a limited textual record. Assessing the evidence for continuity and innovation in peak-site usage across the two periods sheds new light on the Bronze to Iron Age transition, contributing additional nuance to what is increasingly recognized to have been a highly variable and localized phenomenon. In particular, the Iron Age peak sanctuaries of Kızıldağ and Karadağ and the associated settlement of Türkmen-Karahöyük serve as a useful case study for the ways in which Late Bronze Age precedents were consciously adapted into new forms in the Iron Age.
Open Access
The identity of Ionia
(Cambridge University Press, 2024-01-12) Talloen, Peter
Open Access
More water at Moatra: archaeology, geomorphology and toponymy in the territory of Sagalassos
(Akdeniz Universitesi * Akdeniz Dillerini ve Kulturlerini Arastirma Merkezi,Akdeniz University, Research Centre for Mediterranean Languages and Cultures, 2024-11-13) Talloen, Peter; Schürr, Diether; Vandam, Ralf
While evidence of ancient place names is a crucial element for our understanding of the historical landscape, many of those toponyms, other than those of major urban centres, have often disappeared in the course of history. The traditional localization of one such ancient toponym, Moatra in the territory of Sagalassos, at the present-day village of Bereket in the central district of Burdur Province (SW Türkiye) has recently been questioned. Allegedly, the vicinity of the modern village presents insufficient remains to support an identification of an ancient settlement there during the Roman Imperial period and this caused scholars to look for its location elsewhere in the area. This article presents an overview of the archaeological evidence from the Bereket intramontane basin and combines it with other strands of evidence to contest this new localization and explain why Moatra could not have been situated anywhere else but at Bereket. These arguments are based on the combination of the results of past and ongoing archaeological, geomorphological and paleo-environmental research, as well as toponymic study. These data help to shed light on the long occupation of the area and clarify the somewhat exceptional nature of the settlement of Moatra within the territory of Sagalassos, providing an outstanding example of how different disciplines can contribute to our understanding of the ancient settlement landscape and the human-environment relationship in the Late Holocene.
Open Access
Aegean and aegeanising geometric pottery at Kinet Höyük: new patterns of Greek pottery production, exchange and consumption in the Mediterranean
(Cambridge University Press, 2023-05-29) Gimatzidis, S.; Gates, Marie-Henriette; Lehmann, G.
This paper examines the Aegean and Aegeanising ceramic wares of Geometric type that were recovered in excavations at the Cilician seaport of Kinet HöyÜk. Its Geometric pottery assemblage, published here for the first time, is among the largest found so far in the eastern Mediterranean and provides the starting point for a new reconstruction of Greek pottery consumption patterns in the eastern Mediterranean. With this aim, we first present the formal and archaeometric characteristics of the Kinet repertoire, the nature of its archaeological contexts, and how it compares with Geometric ceramic assemblages elsewhere. The second part of our paper assesses this popular Aegean ceramic type's modes of production in order to define the conditions that sponsored the many dimensions of its distribution, exchange and consumption.
Open Access
Citizenship in Hittite Anatolia
(Taylor&Francis, 2023-01) Gerçek, İlgi
Embargo
Toward an understanding of the exchange in ancient scented oils through organic residue analysis of Bronze Age Near Eastern ceramic bottles by GC-MS
(John Wiley & Sons, 2023-08-01) Tarhan, İ.; Massa, Michele; Türkteki, M.; Türkteki, S.
This paper presents a gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) organic residue analysis (ORA) of samples extracted from five Early Bronze Age ceramic bottles excavated at the archaeological site of Küllüoba in Anatolia (modern Turkey), and the first attempt at directly analysing the content of this category of products. Our results show that various types of liquid have been contained in different bottles and identify the presence of dicarboxylic and oleic acids with a large amount of palmitic acid in most samples, suggesting that they may have mostly contained a plant-based oil. The presence of diterpenoids further shows the addition of ingredients such as conifer resin and other plant-derived products. Overall, the analytical results presented here indicate the exchange of scented oils in Anatolia already during the late third millennium BCE. The different organic residue profiles contained in different samples also suggest a range of different recipes for these products.
Open Access
Officials and administration in the hittite world
(The University of Chicago Press, 2023-10-01) Gerçek, İlgi N.
Open Access
The last man takes LSD: Foucault and the end of revolution
(John Wiley and Sons, Ltd, 2022-08-01) Bryson, Dennis
Open Access
British pattern 1907 bayonets marked to the royal air force: an archaeo-historical investigation
(Routledge, 2022-11-14) Bennett, Julian; Ballard, J.M.
A known total of 83 World War One period Pattern 1907 bayonets for the ‘Rifle, Short, Magazine, Lee-Enfield, Mark III’ have pommel markings indicating issue to the Royal Air Force, formed on 1st April 1918. They bear alpha-numeric serial markings best interpreted as stock-taking marks, suggesting a maximum total of 70,000 were allocated for use by that air force. The written sources indicate that from at least 1922 to 1937, bayonets and the rifles to go with them were a regular part of an aircraftman’s equipment. Neither these nor a search of unpublished documents in the National Archives and the British Library provide a possible explanation why these weapons would be issued to the Royal Air Force, suggesting an archaeo-historical approach was more appropriate. This article sets out our results and conclusions on the subject.
Open Access
Laura Nasrallah, Annemarie Luijendijk and Charalambos Bakırtzıs (eds), from roman to early Christian Cyprus
(Published by Cambridge University Press, 2022-01-28) Gülsevinç, F.; Zavagno, Luca
Open Access
Ways of being: Hittite Empire and its borderlands in late bronze age Anatolia and Northern Syria
(Suomen Itamainen Seura,Finnish Oriental Society (Societas Orientalis Fennica), 2021-12-30) Durusu-Tanrıöver, Muge
In this paper, I take identity as a characteristic of empire in its periphery, denoting the totality of: 1) the imperial strategies an empire pursues in different regions, 2) the index of empire in each region, and 3) local responses to imperialism. My case study is the Hittite Empire, which dominated parts of what is now modern Turkey and northern Syria between the seventeenth and twelfth centuries BCE, and its borderlands. To investigate the identities of the Hittite imperial system, I explore the totality of the second millennium BCE in two regions. First, I explore imperial dynamics and responses in the Ilgın Plain in inner southwestern Turkey through a study of the material collected by the Yalburt Yaylası Archaeological Landscape Research Project since 2010. Second, I explore the identity of the Hittite Empire in the city of Emar in northern Syria by a thorough study of the textual and archaeological material unearthed by the Emar Expedition. In both cases, I argue that the manifestations of the Hittite Empire were mainly conditioned by the pre-Hittite trajectories of these regions. The strategies that the administration chose to use in different borderlands sought to identify what was important locally, with the Hittite Empire integrating itself into networks that were already established as manifestations of power, instead of replacing them with new ones.
Open Access
Priesterkönigs-schmiedemeister? Zur (un)sichtbarkeit von metallhandwerkern im grabritus der anatolischen frühbronzezeit
(Slovak Academy of Sciences, Archaeological Institute, 2021) Zimmermann, Thomas
This article discusses the visibility of founders or metal craftsmen in the graves of Early Bronze Age Anatolia (ca. 3000–1950 BC). The examination of relevant burials from the 3rd millennium BC cemeteries in Central and Western Turkey did not produce any assemblages containing diagnostic items like crucibles, cushion stones or other casting equipment, which is noteworthy given the abundance of metalworking features from domestic Early Bronze Age contexts. ‘Showcase’ inventories from Troia or Alaca Höyük, although said to contain metallurgical items, in fact do not support this peculiar type of burial group, which at present seems not to occur in Anatolia.