Surface surveys in the northern Troad and the identification of Çiğlitepe as ancient Arisbe

2017 ◽  
Vol 67 ◽  
pp. 129-144 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nurettin Arslan

AbstractThe region known as the Troad in western Anatolia is famed not only as the setting of Homer's Iliad but also for the Hellespont strait (modern Çanakkale Boğazı) linking the Sea of Marmara to the Aegean. In addition to large cities such as Sigeum, Abydus and Lampsacus, ancient writers also mention smaller cities located on the Hellespont. In this article, the location of the ancient city of Arisbe, presumed to have existed between Abydus and Lampsacus, is examined in the light of new archaeological data. Between 2002 and 2010, the author conducted surveys in the northern Troad. These surveys revealed an ancient settlement with archaeological material belonging to the Late Bronze Age, late Geometric, Archaic, Classical and Hellenistic periods. The location of this settlement, the archaeological data and information from ancient literary sources all indicate that this site should be identified as Arisbe.

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 43-59
Author(s):  
Vivian Staikou

The prehistoric record of Lefkas and the smaller neighboring islands is fairly extensive. The oldest archaeological material dates back to the Middle Palaeolithic period. The Neolithic period is also attested by archaeological finds in five caves. Even though Early (EH) and Middle Helladic (MH) periods have been known since the 1920s due to Dőrpfeld’s excavations, the archaeological data from the Late Bronze Age are scarce. A small Mycenaean tholos tomb has been excavated at Agios Nikitas, while several LH tumuli have been unearthed at the neighboring Meganissi Island.


Radiocarbon ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-19
Author(s):  
Federico Manuelli ◽  
Cristiano Vignola ◽  
Fabio Marzaioli ◽  
Isabella Passariello ◽  
Filippo Terrasi

ABSTRACT The Iron Age chronology at Arslantepe is the result of the interpretation of Luwian hieroglyphic inscriptions and archaeological data coming from the site and its surrounding region. A new round of investigations of the Iron Age levels has been conducted at the site over the last 10 years. Preliminary results allowed the combination of the archaeological sequence with the historical events that extended from the collapse of the Late Bronze Age empires to the formation and development of the new Iron Age kingdoms. The integration into this picture of a new set of radiocarbon (14C) dates is aimed at establishing a more solid local chronology. High precision 14C dating by accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) and its correlation with archaeobotanical analysis and stratigraphic data are presented here with the purpose of improving our knowledge of the site’s history and to build a reliable absolute chronology of the Iron Age. The results show that the earliest level of the sequence dates to ca. the mid-13th century BC, implying that the site started developing a new set of relationships with the Levant already before the breakdown of the Hittite empire, entailing important historical implications for the Syro-Anatolian region at the end of the 2nd millennium BC.


Geosciences ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (9) ◽  
pp. 313 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexandra Golyeva ◽  
Olga Khokhlova ◽  
Marina Lebedeva ◽  
Nickolay Shcherbakov ◽  
Iia Shuteleva

In some cases, the human impact on ancient landscapes has been so profound that local soils still remain significantly affected even after hundreds and thousands of years after ending impact. We studied the Late Bronze Age Muradymovo settlement located in the Urals, Russia, aiming to estimate the consequences of the ancient people’s activity on the environment. Despite the present humid climate, the modern soils inside the cultural layer of the study site contain more than 27% of gypsum at a depth of just 10 cm from the surface, and a microrelief of the study site is typical of a gypsum desert. The nearby background Chernozems are gypsum-free to a depth of 2 m. According to the archaeological data, the ancient people belonged to the ‘Srubno-Alakul’ archaeological culture (1750–1350 years B.C. cal (calibrated years before Christ)) and had a tradition of building their houses from gypsum rocks. At the present time, this area is still unsuitable for human settlement. The properties of modern soils inside the cultural layer of the study site are directly affected by the Late Bronze Age human activities. It has been identified on soil morphology, micromorphology, and chemical properties of soils developed inside the cultural layer of the settlement.


2014 ◽  
Vol 57 (2) ◽  
pp. 127-137
Author(s):  
JOHN BENNET

Abstract Inaugurated in January 1954, the ‘Minoan Linear B Seminar’ explored the information emerging from Ventris' decipherment of Linear B in 1952. The new academic discipline of ‘Mycenaean Studies’ rapidly moved on from questions influenced by the field's ‘pre-history’ dating back a further 60 years to Evans' first publication on Aegean scripts. Intense philological and epigraphical research in the 1950s and 1960s laid the foundations for comparative study of the Mycenaean palatial societies, while a greater appreciation of archaeological data and contexts moved interpretation on in the 1980s and 1990s. Building on this tradition, Mycenaean studies currently needs more documents to sustain a ‘critical mass’ of researchers and, ideally, a new Ventris to unlock the Aegean scripts that remain undeciphered.


1998 ◽  
Vol 48 ◽  
pp. 1-32 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. D. Hawkins

The historical geography of Anatolia in the period sourced by the Boǧazköy texts (Middle-Late Bronze Age) has proved an on-going problem since they first became available, and nowhere was this more acutely felt than in southern and western Anatolia, generally acknowledged as the site of the Arzawa lands, also probably the Lukka lands. A major advance has been registered since the mid-1980s, with the publication and interpretation of the Hieroglyphic inscription of Tudhaliya IV from Yalburt, and the Cuneiform treaty on the Bronze Tablet of the same king. These two documents have established that the later territory of Rough Cilicia constituted the Late Bronze Age kingdom of Tarhuntassa with its western border at Perge in Pamphylia, and that the Lukka lands did indeed occupy all of (or more than) classical Lycia in the south-west. These recognitions, by establishing the geography of the south and south-west, correspondingly reduced the areas of uncertainty in the west.In 1997 I was fortunately able to establish the reading of the Hieroglyphic inscription attached to the long-known Karabel relief, which lies inland from Izmir in a pass across the Tmolos range between Ephesos and Sardis. This can be shown to give the name of Tarkasnawa, King of Mira, and those of his father and grandfather, also kings of Mira but with names of uncertain reading. This is the same king known from his silver seal (referred to as ‘Tarkondemos' from an early and incorrect identification), and impressions of other seals of his have more recently been found at Boǧazköy. Clearly he was an important historical figure.


Author(s):  
Pere P. Ripollès

The Ethnic and Cultural Composition of Iberia was not uniform before the Romans arrived; literary sources and archaeological research provide evidence of different influences over several Late Bronze Age strata. An account of the groups there previously is an essential first step before assessing the impact of Roman intervention, so that we can determine the extent to which the arrival and dominion of the Romans modified existing traditions. Before the coming of the Romans, the foreign peoples who principally influenced native Iberians were Phoenicians and Greeks (Map 6.1). The Greek colonies at Emporion and Rhode in north-east Iberia played an important role in the trade of commodities and the spread of ideas along the Mediterranean coast. In the south, the Phoenicians had settled early on, and created the great centralized settlements in this area, which includes part of what is now Portugal, and several villages commercially attached to the coast. The south and Mediterranean coast included the most Hellenized native towns, villages, and peoples; the Late Bronze Age populations evolved towards a culture that is generally speaking labelled as Iberian, and owed many features to their contacts with Greeks and Phoenicians. However, important variations in settlement patterns, religion, artistic traditions, and social organization can be recognized. Some of the most important settlements developed urban models. The inhabitants spoke a pre-Indo- European language and had their own writing. The eastern part of the inner Iberian Peninsula was inhabited by Celtiberians, throughout a wide territory that extended over the lands located south of the river Ebro and on the eastern part of both Mesetas. They had been developing a form of urban organization since the fourth century BC, and their material culture shows some indirect Greek influences from contacts with coastal Iberians. Their language belongs to the Indo-European family. The central and western parts of Iberia were inhabited by peoples with few Mediterranean influences, and with a strong presence of their own Late Bronze Age traditions. There are no signs of urban development, as seen in the Greek, and later Roman, worlds, until the Late Republican period.


2020 ◽  
pp. 62-91
Author(s):  
Max D. Price

The elite-run institutions (temples and palaces) of Bronze Age societies sought to maximize the production of storable, taxable, and tradable agricultural commodities—especially grain and wool. This brought the secondary products revolution to full fruition and solidified the transformation of cattle, sheep, and goats into animals that embodied wealth. Later this privilege extended to equids for their role in warfare. While institutional forms of wealth excluded pigs, urbanism offered a new and ideal ecological niche for pig husbandry. Pigs became especially important among the urban lower classes, perhaps as a type of “informal economy.” Yet in regions without large cities or extant traditions of eating pork, pig husbandry failed to thrive. The Levant, in particular, saw the gradual erosion of pig husbandry in favor of wealth-bearing livestock husbandry. At the same time, pigs’ ritual roles began to shift. Whereas once the sacrifice of swine was thought to ensure fertility, communication with the dead, and the absolution of sin, by the Late Bronze Age pigs connoted impurity.


2019 ◽  
Vol 134 (3) ◽  
pp. 1455-1503 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gojko Barjamovic ◽  
Thomas Chaney ◽  
Kerem Coşar ◽  
Ali Hortaçsu

AbstractWe analyze a large data set of commercial records produced by Assyrian merchants in the nineteenth century BCE. Using the information from these records, we estimate a structural gravity model of long-distance trade in the Bronze Age. We use our structural gravity model to locate lost ancient cities. In many cases, our estimates confirm the conjectures of historians who follow different methodologies. In some instances, our estimates confirm one conjecture against others. We also structurally estimate ancient city sizes and offer evidence in support of the hypothesis that large cities tend to emerge at the intersections of natural transport routes, as dictated by topography. Finally, we document persistent patterns in the distribution of city sizes across four millennia, find a distance elasticity of trade in the Bronze Age close to modern estimates, and show suggestive evidence that the distribution of ancient city sizes, inferred from trade data, is well approximated by Zipf’s law.


Antichthon ◽  
1979 ◽  
Vol 13 ◽  
pp. 1-11 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. R. Bryce

In a number of Near Eastern texts dating to the period of the Hittite New Kingdom, the term Lukka appears as a geographical and/or ethnic designation for one of the Late Bronze Age population groups of western Anatolia. Unfortunately we have no documents which deal primarily or specifically with the Lukka people; what we know of them rests essentially on incidental references in Hittite treaties, letters, prayers and historical records, along with several references in non-Hittite sources. Yet although the evidence is meagre, it still provides a relatively clear picture of the general character of the Lukka people and the role they played in the political and military affairs of Hittite Anatolia.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document