Proceedings of the 10th International Congress on the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East (ICAANE) 25–29 April 2016, Vienna. Volume 1 9783447109963, 3447109963

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Proceedings of the 10th International Congress on the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East Volume 1

© 2018, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

Proceedings of the 10th International Congress on the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East 25–29 April 2016, Vienna Edited by Barbara Horejs, Christoph Schwall, Vera Müller, Marta Luciani, Markus Ritter, Mattia Guidetti, Roderick B. Salisbury, Felix Höflmayer and Teresa Bürge

2018

Harrassowitz Verlag · Wiesbaden

© 2018, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

Proceedings of the 10th International Congress on the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East Volume 1 Transformation & Migration Barbara Horejs and Christoph Schwall Archaeology of Religion & Ritual Edited by Vera Müller Images in Context: Agency, Audiences & Perception Edited by Marta Luciani Islamic Archaeology Edited by Markus Ritter and Mattia Guidetti

2018

Harrassowitz Verlag · Wiesbaden

© 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

Bibliografische Information der Deutschen Nationalbibliothek Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek verzeichnet diese Publikation in der Deutschen Nationalbibliografie; detaillierte bibliografische Daten sind im Internet über http://dnb.dnb.de abrufbar. Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available in the internet at http://dnb.dnb.de.

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© 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

Contents

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Contents B. Horejs Foreword to the 10th ICAANE Proceedings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Vienna Statement: Statement about the Threat to Cultural Heritage in the Near East and North Africa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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K. O. Sotiriou New Insights into the Illicit Antiquities Trade in the Eastern Mediterranean . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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TRANSFORMATION & MIGRATION (edited by B. Horejs and Ch. Schwall) K. Nagaya – S. Fujii Revival of Lithic Technology in Badia: New Insights from the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B Outpost of Wadi Abu Tulayha, Southern Jordan . . . 33 A. Mączyńska Is There a Place for Prehistoric Egypt in Near Eastern Archaeology? Some Remarks on Early Relations between Egypt and its Neighbours . . . . . 45 Ch. Schwall – B. Horejs Permanent or Seasonal? Evidence of Settlements in Late Chalcolithic Western Anatolia . . . . . . . . .

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S. Di Paolo Central Zagros . Cultural Contacts between Mesopotamia and Iran in the Old Babylonian Period . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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A. Alizadeh The Emergence of Political Buffer Zones on the Eve of Early States in Southwestern Iran . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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M. D’Andrea The EB–MB Transition in the Southern Levant: Contacts, Connectivity and Transformations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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J. M. Martín García – M. Artzy Cultural Transformations Shaping the End of the Late Bronze Age in the Levant . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Contents

M. Montesanto Evidence of Transformation: The Early Iron Age Aegeanizing Pottery Assemblage at Alalakh . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107 J. Bessenay-Prolonge – R. Vallet From Bronze Age to Iron Age in the Northeast Iran: The Case of Tureng Tepe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119 T. Koizumi – H. Ojima – H. Yoshida – A. Yoshida A Pyrotechnological Study of Ubaid and Late Chalcolithic Pottery: Estimated Firing Temperatures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131 Sh. Shabo Late Bronze Age Pottery from Qatna and ist Surrounding Region: Typological and Petrographical Approaches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145 A. Passerini – E. Rova – E. Boaretto Revising the Absolute Chronology of the 4th and 3rd Millennia BCE in the Southern Caucasus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161 ARCHAEOLOGY OF RELIGION & RITUAL (edited by V. Müller) S. Asadi Tashvigh – R. Abbasnejad Seresti Neolithic, Gender Identity and Reproduction: An Analysis of Evidence from Ali Kosh Tepe, Deh Luran, Iran . . . . . . . . . 175 D. Ben-Shlomo A New Type of Ritual Bath in Judea? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185 F. Blakolmer – I. Hein A ‘Special Procession’ in Minoan Crete as a Ritual of Rulership? A View from Egypt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195 T. Bürge Late Bronze Age Offering Pits from Hala Sultan Tekke, Cyprus: Diachronic Perspectives of Activities, Ceremonies and Rituals in a Suburban Area . . . . 209 A. Colazilli Weeping Figurines: Function and Symbolism of some Rare Mourning Records Found Inside Ancient Egyptian Tombs . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221 N. A. Dubova – S. P. Grushin – R. M. Sataev – A. V. Fribus Evidence of Funeral Rituals from the Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex in Turkmenistan: The Case of Gonur Depe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235 © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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F. Heil The Roles of Ritual Practice in Prehistoric Cyprus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247 S. Kerner Dolmens in the Ritual Landscape of Muraygat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259 T. V. Kornienko The Expression of Gender through Symbolic and Human Imagery in Early Neolithic Northern Mesopotamia . . . . . . . . . . . . 273 D. Ławecka Libation for the Gods in Early Bronze Age Mesopotamia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 289 G. Minunno The Archaeology of Religion: Tell Afis during the Iron Age II–III . . . . . . . 301 A. Pieńkowska Mesopotamian Incense Burners from the Third and Second Millennia BC: An Archaeological Approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 315 H. Sağlamtimur – M. G. M. Massimino Wealth Sacrifice and Legitimacy: The Case of the Early Bronze Age Başur Höyük Cemetery (South-eastern Turkey) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 329 B. Schneider The Ekur of Nippur in the Late and Post-Assyrian Periods . . . . . . . . . . . . . 343 A. Zur – A. Hausleiter Funerary Landscapes in 2nd Millennium BCE Tayma, Northwest Arabia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 355 IMAGES IN CONTEXT: AGENCY, AUDIENCES & PERCEPTION (edited by M. Luciani) B. Bellucci Emar and its Monsters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 371 D. Ben-Shlomo Tell Jemmeh: Assessment of a Border Site According to its Figurative Assemblage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 383 S. Crooks The Construction of Value in Chalcolithic Cyprus: The Picrolite Cruciform Figurines and Pendants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 397 © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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A. Devillers Images of Domestication: Context and Interpretation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 411 R. Dolce Between Myth and Kingship: The Epic of Early Syrian Ebla in the Narrative of Images . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 423 V. Dubcová Approaching a Deity: Near Eastern Presentation Scenes and the Aegean . . . 437 E. Götting Arcane Art: Some Thoughts on the Perception of the Magico-Religious Imagery of Lamaštu-Amulets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 455 C. Hart The Role of the Rosette Motif and Non-Verbal Communication as Embodied Elements of Warfare and Violence: Ancient Cyprus – a Unique Case? . . . . . 467 O. Kaelin Comparing Images: The Relief Programme in the Palace of Ashurnasirpal II and the Egyptian Mortuary Temple of Ramesses III . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 479 A. Poggio Exerting Patronage at Home and Beyond: Art and Power in Asia Minor in the Sixth and Fourth Centuries BC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 497 M. Ricetti The Contribution of Old Assyrian Cylinder Seals to the Elaboration of a Local Style in Anatolia at the Beginning of the 2nd Millennium BCE . . . . . 509 E. Roßberger Refiguring the Body: From Terracotta Figurines to Plaques in Early Second Millennium Mesopotamia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 523 A. Van de Ven Persepolis – Fantastic Site, and don’t Forget the Tent City . . . . . . . . . . . . . 539 M. Vetters – J. Weilhartner Conceptions of Gender and Body Images in the Aegean World and East Mediterranean Societies in the Late Bronze Age . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 551 E. Wagner-Durand Visualizing and Evoking the Emotion Fear in and through Neo-Assyrian Orthostat Reliefs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 563 © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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ISLAMIC ARCHAEOLOGY (edited by M. Ritter and M. Guidetti) I. Arce Qasṭal al-Balqāʾ Revisited (I) – The Qaṣr During the Umayyad Period: Plan, Vaulting and Phasing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 579 A. Gorzalczany – A. Salamon Archaeological Evidence of a Powerful Earthquake in Ramla, Israel, during the Early Islamic Period . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 601 M. Gussone Resafa – Ruṣāfat Hishām, Syria: New Insights Regarding the Caliphal Residence of Hisham b . ʿAbd al-Malik and Ghassanid Sedentarization . . . . 615 J. Kamalizad The Rural Alanjān Region of Isfahān in the Islamic Periods: A Preparatory Overview for Landscape Archaeology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 629 M. Müller-Wiener – U. Siegel The Pre-Islamic and Early Islamic City of al-Ḥīra: First Results of the Archaeological Survey 2015 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 639 B. St. Laurent – I. Awwad Capitalizing Jerusalem and Beyond: A Preliminary Note on Muʿāwiya’s Urban and Imperial Vision 635–680 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 653 F. Tülek The Toprakkale Castle at the Arab-Byzantine Frontier: Textual Sources and Notes on Archaeology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 667 B. J. Walker Settlement Abandonment and Site Formation Processes: Case Studies from Late Islamic Syria . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 681 MISCELLANEOUS P. Puppo Hispanic Mercenaries’s Graves in the Italic World during the Roman Late Republican Period between Ethnicity and Integration . . . . . . 695

© 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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© 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

The 10th ICAANE was realized with the support of

© 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

© 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

Preface

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Foreword to the 10th ICAANE Proceedings The 10th anniversary of the International Congress on the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East was held from 25th to 29th of April 2016 in Vienna, hosted and organized by the Institute for Oriental and European Archaeology (OREA) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences . More than 800 participants from 38 different countries found their way to Vienna to celebrate the 10th anniversary of ICAANE with a wide range of 8 scientific sections, 28 workshops and round tables, a huge poster exhibition and a special section about ‘Cultural Heritage under Threat’ . The topics in focus of this ICAANE covered traditional, as well as new fields, in relation to state-of-the-art approaches and methodologies . The general themes of transformation and migration, cultural landscapes, religion and rituals, environmental shifts, contextualized images, as well as economies and societies, are currently promising fields in archaeology and these proceedings give new insights into former Near Eastern societies . These general questions are obviously challenging topics in present times, too, a fact that is leading us archaeologists into a dialectic discourse of past and present social phenomena . This additional impact within our scientific community and beyond is underlining the ongoing fascination and power of Near Eastern archaeology . The first volume includes papers of the sections ‘Transformation and Migration‘, ‘Archaeology of Religion and Ritual’,‘Images in Context’ as well as ‘Islamic Archaeology’ . The second volume is dedicated to the sections ‘Prehistoric and Historical Landscapes and Settlement Patterns’, ‘Economy and Society’, and is completed by ‘Excavation Reports and Summaries’ . A number of presented posters are integrated in the theme relevant chapters too . I would like to express my sincere thanks to the editors of these sections, namely Teresa Bürge, Mattia Guidetti, Felix Höflmayer, Marta Luciani, Vera Müller, Markus Ritter, Roderick Salisbury and Christoph Schwall . Altogether 28 workshops focussing on special research questions and themes demonstrated the ongoing dynamic and new inputs in Near Eastern archaeology . The engaged discussions of internationally high-ranked experts with young scholars was essential for the success and open atmosphere of the 10th ICAANE in Vienna . I would like to express my sincere thanks to the workshop organisers, who are also acting as editors for the separate workshop volumes, published as internationally peer-reviewed books in the OREA series of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, of which some are already in print, accepted or in preparation at the moment . The conference was delighted to have two keynotes given by Mehmet Özdoğan and Timothy Harrison; both pointed to the current political conflicts and related massive destruction of cultural heritage from different perspectives . In facing the current conflicts and continuing damage of cultural monuments in regions of the Near East, we are confronted with situations going far beyond the usual scientific challenges . Although we have to observe highly frustrating ongoing destructions and can hardly influence the general political situation, the archaeological © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Barbara Horejs

community is responsible for supporting, re-evaluating and advancing ongoing essential strategies in digital preservation of the cultural heritage and other current activities in that field . Therefore, we decided to organize a Special Section within the 10th ICAANE about Cultural Heritage under Threat, where well-known experts and political authorities discussed the current challenges and future perspectives in a very fruitful and open atmosphere . This special section was organized with the great support of Harald Stranzl, the Austrian Ambassador at UNESCO for the Austrian Ministry of Europe, Integration and Foreign Affairs . The discussions and contributions were accomplished by signing the ‘Vienna Statement’ (s . below) by a total of 34 authorities for antiquities in Near Eastern countries, European institutions and stakeholders . My sincere thanks are expressed to Karin Bartl and her engagement in organizing this special section . The 10th ICAANE aside its impact on international archaeology, can additionally be seen as a powerful boost for the archaeological endeavours in Austria and for our local scientific community, not at least visible in the fruitful cooperation of several archaeological institutions acting committedly in our Local Organising Committee: the Historical-Cultural Faculty and the Faculty of Philological and Cultural Studies (University of Vienna), the Egyptian and Near Eastern Collection of the Kunsthistorische Museum, the Austrian Archaeological Institute, members of the Austrian Academy of Sciences as well as the Institute for Oriental and European Archaeology . My sincere thanks go to Manfred Bietak, Vera Müller, Hermann Hunger, Bert Fragner, Regina Hölzl, Claudia Theune-Vogt, Michael Doneus, Markus Ritter, Christiana Köhler, Marta Luciani, Sabine Ladstätter, Karin Kopetzky and Angela Schwab for their engagement in the local committee and making this conference real . I extend sincere thanks for financial support to several Austrian and international institutions, which are The Austrian Federal Ministry of Europe, Integration and Foreign Affairs, the University of Vienna, the City of Vienna, the Vienna Science and Technology Fund (WWTF), the Institute for Aegean Prehistory (INSTAP), the Austrian Orient Society/Hammer Purgstall Society and the Austrian Academy of Sciences . The OREA institute took over the honourable duty hosting this conference with lots of effort and energy, all our institutes’ members, students and scientists were involved in some parts and the OREA team together was making this conference running . Particular thanks and recognition also go to Angela Schwab, Ulrike Schuh and Christine de Vree . Finally, I thank the ICAANE Scientific Committee and the Harrassowitz Publishing House .

Prof . Dr . Barbara Horejs Director of the Institute for Oriental and European Archaeology Austrian Academy of Sciences © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

Vienna Statement

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Vienna Statement: Statement about the Threat to Cultural Heritage in the Near East and North Africa 10th International Conference on the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East (ICAANE) Vienna, April 27, 2016

On April 27, 2016 the special section ‘Cultural Heritage under Threat: Challenges and Solutions’ took place as part of the 10th ICAANE in Vienna . The Vienna Organising Committee and Scientific Board of the 10th ICAANE and participants in this event affirm the following: 1 .

The Near East and North Africa are among the richest cultural landscapes in the world, with remains from almost all periods of human history . Their importance is underlined by numerous inscriptions in the UNESCO World Heritage list .

2 .

The cultural property of these regions is in great danger . Destruction due to conflict and warfare, looting and illegal excavation, combined with the illicit trade in antiquities, has already led to the partial or complete loss of important historic monuments and objects .

3 .

The continuing and significant loss of cultural heritage through accidental or deliberate action poses a grave threat to the cultural identity and economic potential of these regions . Furthermore, the destruction of cultural archives constitutes an irreplaceable loss to humanity as a whole .

4 .

The situation requires intense international cooperation at all levels . Regional authorities, in particular antiquities bodies, scientific institutions, UNESCO, police, and border control, must cooperate over the long term . Such cooperation has been promoted by numerous international meetings, and these must continue to occur regularly .

5 .

Representatives and staff of the regional and local authorities, in particular antiquities bodies, in the affected regions should be supported in preserving the cultural property in their care by both national and international institutions, organizations, and committees (for example, through guest residencies for training and courses) .

6 .

At a scientific level, dialogue with national authorities (such as departments of antiquities) must be initiated or continued with respect to the exchange or transfer of research data on archaeological sites and historical monuments generated in the affected countries by international research institutions . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Vienna Statement

7 .

Campaigns to raise awareness in printed, broadcast and social media are the basis for increasing public awareness of the problem of endangered cultural property . The extensive efforts made in recent years must continue at an international level . 8 . Criminal investigations into the illegal trade in antiquities must be facilitated, and supported by professional expertise . 9 . There is a clear need for international, UNESCO-supported conferences where expert analysts, in collaboration with national authorities, can develop proposals for consolidation, mitigation and preservation projects as a response to damage to and destruction of cultural property . 10 . Advanced training abroad in the areas of consolidation, preservation, and reconstruction should be facilitated for young scholars from the affected regions in the following disciplines: archaeology, architecture, heritage conservation, and tourism management . 11 . Study-abroad opportunities for students of archaeology, architecture, heritage conservation, and tourism management should also be made possible and facilitated .

Official presentation of the Vienna Statement on April 27 2016, Austrian Academy of Sciences © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

New Insights into the Illicit Antiquities Trade in the Eastern Mediterranean

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New Insights into the Illicit Antiquities Trade in the Eastern Mediterranean Konstantinos-Orfeas Sotiriou 1 Abstract The Eastern Mediterranean is a place with rich cultural heritage including well-known and also unknown archaeological sites scattered everywhere . Archaeological crime is threatening all the archaeological sites, museums and private collections . Looting of ancient sites and shipwrecks, stealing from private collections, museums and churches and finally large scale destruction are the worst enemies of our cultural heritage . The practice of stealing cultural objects has been known since the rise of the first societies (Cooper 2011: 46; Calvani 2008: 28; Mackenzie 2005: 250), but the scale of this destruction in our time is something that must be of concern . Agricultural activities, natural disasters, wars and of course looters threaten the world’s cultural heritage (Brodie and Renfrew 2005: 343–344; Renfrew and Bahn 2001: 566–567) . In recent years, the world has experienced extreme and brutal acts from ISIS/DAESH in Syria and Iraq . A series of murders, such as of Khaled al-Asaad, kidnappings and demolitions of archaeological and religious sites like Palmyra and Nineveh revealed the great danger our societies are facing from such groups (Danti 2015: 132–136; Bauer 2015: 1) . The situation showed that the antiquities smuggling phenomenon has more consequences than it seemed in the past . Besides the loss of important scientific information about past societies, our society is facing a series of parallel effects that are not only limited to the cultural level (Renfrew and Bahn 2001: 567; Calvani 2008: 32; Bailey 1993: 5; Campbell 2013: 114–115; Brodie and Renfrew 2005: 349; Brodie et al. 2000: 8–11; Herscher 1987: 213; Gill 2012: 37) . There are also important consequences connected with the social life of a country . Profits coming from antiquities smuggling actions could easily be used for bribes of government officials, further engagement with looting and crime that eventually would undermine the social web of a country (Brodie et al. 2000: 11–17; Brodie and Contreras 2012: 9) .

1. The research The latest conflicts in the Middle East, Syria and Iraq, combined with the great financial crisis in Greece raised the need to further investigate the phenomenon of illicit trade of antiquities in Eastern Mediterranean countries . With a special permit taken from the Greek Police Headquarters, we were granted, for the first time, full access to the files of the Department of Smuggling of Antiquities (permit number 2565/15/528492) with the purpose of analysing all the data within the framework of a research program of the University of Athens . We examined 363 cases; out of the total, 246 are arrests and confiscations and the remaining 117 are reliable denunciations . These cases gave us a great opportunity to examine some crucial aspects

1

Police Sergeant/Researcher, Department Against Antiquities Smuggling, Hellenic Police, Athens office . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Konstantinos-Orfeas Sotiriou

of this devastating phenomenon . All the evidence was spread throughout the period 1999–2009 . For the data analysis Access 2010 was used . For our research we considered the following laws: Greek Law about antiquities (Greek Law 3028/2002; Greek Law 3658/2008), Greek Law about guns (Greek Law 3944/2011) and explosives (Greek Law 2168/1993), Greek Law about drugs (Greek Law 4139/2013) and finally Greek Law about sensitive data information (Greek Law 2472/1997) . 2. Objective The primary aim of this research is to elucidate the antiquities smuggling phenomenon as much as possible . There are still many crucial aspects of this devastating phenomenon that are almost unknown . Hence one of the first objectives of this research is to estimate the national financial damage caused by looting in Greece . For this purpose we searched the files for official estimations from the National Museum of Athens of the value of confiscated antiquities . The second aim is to determine the type of antiquities preferred by the involved persons in this illicit trade . Would they be small in size or large? Would they be objects from a specific cultural period of Greece, or would it be objects of a specific material, e .g . gold? The third important objective of this research is to determine the social profile of the involved persons . It is not easy to face an enemy without knowing their face . The fourth and last objective, but probably the most important, is to reveal any connections between antiquities smuggling and organized crime, terrorism and other illegal activities (Rodriguez 2008: 92; Calvani 2008: 33–34; Brodie et al. 2000: 16) . 3. Hypotheses We considered some previous research and publications about antiquities smuggling and made some research hypotheses . Many international organizations like UNESCO and individual researchers have spoken about large financial profits around this particular illicit trade . The amounts vary considerably starting from $150 million, going to $2 .2 billion, $3 billion or the enormous amount of $7 .8 billion (Campbell 2013: 114; Brodie et al. 2000: 24; Calvani 2008: 30–32) . Due to all these different amounts our first hypothesis was that the aggregate national financial damage caused by looting actions would be large . Trying to elucidate if the smugglers have specific preferences in types (Reichel 2008: 58–64; Stone 2008: 68–72; Brodie 2003: 16; al-Hamdani 2008: 227) and sizes of antiquities, we assumed that the types of antiquities would be small in size because it would be easy for such objects to be moved and hidden . The social profile of those persons involved in antiquities smuggling cases seemed to be a troubling aspect for the research . Some researchers argued that usually people from depressed economies and the poor are involved (Brodie et al. 2000: 13; © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Russell 2008: 29; Stone 2008: 65; Mackenzie 2005: 249) . Others argued that wealthy people from the upper classes are behind this phenomenon (Hamilakis 2009: 40–41; Brodie et al. 2000: 17) . Problems related to data collection (Campbell 2013: 120; Fisman and Wei 2009: 82; Calvani 2008: 29) seemed to be a fundamental barrier for such research . Our purpose is to examine, for the first time, the data coming directly from real arrests . We started with a research hypothesis that the social profile of the involved persons would be of a low social status, for example, workers and farmers, or other people from the lower layers of the society’s fabric . Finally, the most interesting part of this research and one of the main inspiration levers is trying to see any connections between antiquities smuggling and organized crime . Since many scholars have connected antiquities smuggling with organized networks, we assumed that there must be a connection between antiquities smuggling and organized crime, terrorism and other illegal activities . 4. Results 4 .1 National financial damage An assiduous study of the files referring to antiquities smuggling cases gave some important results documenting the national financial damage Greece has had from this phenomenon . Every time there is an arrest for antiquities smuggling there is also a confiscation of artefacts . Those artefacts became objects of an official financial estimation from a team from the National Museum of Athens . The team, consisting of archaeologists, consults international price rates and antiquities auctions in order to estimate the price of each one of the confiscated artefacts . Unfortunately, because of missing and incomplete files, we managed to find only 169 cases – 69% of the total 246 arrest cases – in which they had officially estimated the price . Since it is completely subjective to declare the amount as overpriced or undervalued we will state the absolute amount of the national financial damage estimation, which in these cases reached the aggregate sum of € 6,477,463 . 4 .2 Types of objects We created 13 categories of objects based on their type: 1st category: coins of every period of antiquity . 2nd category: stone objects such as Neolithic tools and vessels and Bronze Age tools and vessels . 3rd category: clay vessels, such as a pyxis, rhyton, oenochoe, cantharus, commercial vessels etc . (Scheibler 2010: 11–20) . th 4 category: metallic objects such as jewellery made of gold or silver or bronze, knives, spears, also idols etc . 5th category: other objects made of glass, faience, ivory etc . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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6th category: clay idols both human and animals . 7th category: religious images made of wood . Greece has many orthodox churches in isolated places, which is making them an easy target for looters (Σακελλιάδης 2008: 37; Herscher 1987: 223) . th 8 category: architectural parts . This category contains big and bulky broken architectural parts . 9th category: ancient statues and parts of them . 10th category: clay objects, different from vessels and idols . 11th category: tombstones or grave steles . 12th category: frescos mostly from Byzantine and Post Byzantine churches . 13th category: books . Also we created two categories based on size . The big item category includes architectural parts, stone tombstones, statues and frescos, and the small item category includes the rest . The confiscations revealed a total of 14,004 objects, including the following amounts: 8004 coins, 2204 stone objects, 1395 clay vessels, 628 metallic objects, 536 objects of other material, 416 clay idols, 367 religious images, 364 architectural parts, 36 statues and parts of them, 25 clay objects, 21 grave steles, 4 frescos and finally 4 books (Fig . 1) . 97% of the total artefacts were small in size and only 3% of the confiscated items were big in size (Fig . 2) . Even if we exclude coins from our small size category, again the vast numbers of confiscated objects are small in size: 93% small and only 7% big in size (Fig . 3) . 4 .3 Social profile One of the most important and basic aims of this research was to investigate the social profile of the involved persons in antiquities smuggling cases . This aspect could be the greatest tool in the hands of authorities fighting looting . For these 246 arrests/ cases that we investigated, 402 individuals were arrested . It is a sufficient number to examine their social profile . For this purpose, we created ten categories based on occupational proximity . Hence we had the following categories: 1 . Businessmen: in this category we have incorporated occupations that generally were attributed as: merchant, jeweller, ship owner, businessman generally, etc . 2 . Freelancers . This category had a great variety of occupations such as: driver, hairdresser, baker, car engineer, electrician, butcher, plumber, economist, carpenter, barista, pastry cooker, writer, sound technician, etc . 3 . Private sector employees: private employees in general, bank employee, security guard, etc . 4 . Public sector employees: public sector employees in general, doctor, policeman, university professor, customs clearer, teacher, municipality employee, priest, etc . 5 . Agricultural activities: farmer, cheese maker, small land owner, cattleman, small animal industry owner, etc . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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6 . Archaeology and fine arts: archaeologist, gallery owner, lithographer, musician, sculptor, conservator, etc . 7 . Construction sector . In this category we incorporated people working in the construction industry such as civil engineer, worker, construction company employee, excavation machine driver, gaffer, smith, real estate employee and builder . 8 . Maritime activities such as sailor and fisherman . 9 . We also had a sample of individuals with unknown occupation . 10 .Other . This final category was made to include occupations that could not be included in the previews categories such as: unemployed, house activities, students and retired pension holders . The results are given below: Businessmen: 82 individuals, 20 .39% Construction sector: 50 individuals, 12 .43% Unknown: 49 individuals, 12 .18% Freelancers: 44 individuals, 10 .94% Other occupations: 43 individuals, 10 .69% Archaeology and fine arts: 33 individuals, 8 .20% Agricultural sector: 31 individuals, 7 .71% Public sector employees: 31 individuals, 7 .71% Private sector employees: 30 individuals, 7 .46% Maritime occupations: 11 individuals, 2 .73% (Fig . 4) 4 .4 Common crime, organized crime, terrorism, further illegal actions At the beginning of the research one of the main aims was to investigate a connection between antiquities smuggling, common crime, organized crime and terrorism . The following results were extracted by examining the cases: 43% of the confiscations revealed only antiquities and nothing else, 57% of the remaining cases had a further connection with crime, out of which 30% of the cases had all the details to be characterized as organized crime, and the remaining (27%) were not cases characterized as organized crime, but through the confiscations the police found other illegal objects such as drugs, guns and fake papers . Finally, we did not manage to find a connection with terrorism (Fig . 6) . Through the confiscated contexts, police managed to seize other illegal objects . We examined the cases based on the confiscated context and the results were that 67% of the cases had only antiquities (those cases characterized as organized crime that had only antiquities were also included), 26% of the cases revealed a context of antiquities and guns, 3 .65% of the cases revealed antiquities and drugs and only 3 .35% of the cases had antiquities and fake papers in their context (Fig . 7) . The vast majority of confiscated objects were guns and this detail forced us to make further research about what kinds of guns were found . For this purpose we made seven categories based on a law about guns (Greek Law 2168/1993 about guns) . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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1st category: military weapons, such as pistols, revolvers, Kalashnikovs, etc . 2nd category: hunting weapons, such double barrelled shot guns, shotguns . 3rd category: knives . 4th category: plastic explosives and parts of explosive devices, such as wicks, detonators . 5th category: bullets for all kinds of guns . 6th category: other kinds of weapons-objects, such as buttons, bulletproof vests . 7th category: spray . The majority of the confiscated guns were military guns forming 23% . 22% were bullets (a tremendous number we must add), 17% were explosives and parts of explosive devices, 16% were illegal hunting guns (with no licenses), 15% were other objects, 6% were illegal knives and finally only 1% was a spray . The three first categories, military guns, bullets, and especially explosives, must concern all the authorities fighting antiquities smuggling and must set an alarm about the smuggling phenomenon (Fig . 8) . 4 .5 Further examination of the organized crime cases The involvement of organized crime in antiquities smuggling cases forced us to examine further those cases that had been characterized as organized crime . Our aim was to examine the social profile of the involved person, what kinds of guns organized crime had and finally the amount of national financial damage caused by those gangs . Concerning the social profile of the involved person in cases characterized as organized crime we used the same occupation categories as above . The results were almost the same . Again the 1st category was the businessmen category with 17%, followed by freelancers 15%, agricultural sector 14%, construction sector 12%, other occupation 10%, unknown occupation 9%, private and public sectors with 8% each, archaeology and fine arts 5% and finally marine business 2% (Fig . 9) . Our second aim was to examine what kinds of other illegal objects, besides antiquities, organized crime had . We used the same categories such as guns, drugs and fake papers . We isolated the 30% of the cases characterized as organized crime and examined them as a unique category . 68% of the cases characterized as organized crime had only antiquities, 28% of cases characterized as organized crime had antiquities and guns, 3% were cases characterized as organized crime and had antiquities and fake papers and only 1% of cases characterized as organized crime had antiquities and drugs (Fig . 10) . The last detail that we wished to examine in organized crime cases was the amount of the financial damage caused by these gangs . We found 37 cases that had been characterized as organized crime and had also official estimations . The amount of the financial damage caused by organized crime gangs was € 4,007,783 .7, when the total financial damage in 169 cases was € 6,477,463 . That means 61 .87% of the total financial damage was caused by organized crime . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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5. Conclusions This research fulfilled some of its hypotheses, though some others eluded us . What seems almost certain is that smugglers look for small sized artefacts . Internet sales with hundreds of numismatic sites offer an ideal platform for such transactions . The tremendous number of 14,004 confiscated antiquities objects could sufficiently support the operation of some interesting antiquities collections or small antiquities museums . The types of objects that usually are under threat are small in size (Brodie 2003: 16) . The enormous diversity of objects dating from the Neolithic period to the Byzantine period including coins, grave stones, clay idols, stone vessels, clay vessels, architectural parts, religious images, statues, votive reliefs, jewels and many more shows that smugglers will not hesitate to steal everything . Museums, archaeological sites, private collections, all of them are under threat . The sum of the national financial damage is an amount that with a rough estimation could be ten times larger if the antiquities were sold in international auctions besides the black market . Still, € 6,477,463 is enough money going into the hands of smugglers/criminals to further finance their illegal activities . The social profile of the involved persons is something that has to be a concern for all authorities dealing with antiquities smuggling . Research showed that businessmen is the first category both in general smuggling cases and cases characterized as organized crime . These people, in most of the cases, have a high educational level and businesses through which they could easily launder money from such actions . But the most fearful fact is that ordinary people are also involved in antiquities smuggling such as women with house activities, students, policemen, university professor, kindergarten teacher, baker, drivers, painters, hairdressers, archaeologists, conservators and a multitude of other occupations . This fact is making it difficult for the authorities to fight looting . How is it possible for the informants and the police networks to be informed about a hairdresser or a student who have looted antiquities and are trying to sell the objects in the black market? As the facts showed, at least for Greece, there is no connection between antiquities smuggling and terrorism . However, there is a strong connection with organized crime and further illegal activities and crimes . More than half of the cases (57%) showed a strong connection with crime . 30% of them were cases characterized as organized crime, but besides this, and as the confiscated contexts showed, many other illegal objects were found . Military guns such as Kalashnikovs, revolvers, pistols, a tremendous number of bullets and explosives were found in the hands of smugglers . This fact must set an alarm for all the participants fighting antiquities smuggling because the situation requires intense international cooperation at all levels . Antiquities smuggling is a devastating and destructive phenomenon . This phenomenon is a menace for our societies and authorities should fight it principally with the best weapon a society has and that is education . As the research continues, soon more results on a much bigger scale will reveal trends and information giving an even more accurate view about this shameless phenomenon . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Bibliography Al-Hamdani, A . 2008 Protecting and Recording Our Archaeological Heritage in Southern Iraq . Near Eastern Archaeology 71/4, 221–230 . Bailey, D . 1993 Looting Bulgaria . Archaeology 43/2, 5 . Bauer, A . 2015 The destruction of heritage in Syria and Iraq and its implications . International Journal of Cultural Property 22, 1–6 . Brodie, N . 2003 Spoils of War . Archaeology 56/4, 16–19 . Brodie, N . and Contreras, A . D . 2012 The Economics of the Looted Archaeological Site of Bab edh-Dhra: A View from Google Earth . In: P . K . Lazrus and A . W . Barker (eds .), All the King’s Horses: Essays on the Impact of Looting and the Illicit Trade on our Knowledge of the Past . Washington, 9–25 . Brodie, N ., Doole, J . and Watson, P . 2000 Stealing History: The Illicit Trade in Cultural Material . Cambridge . Brodie, N . and Renfrew, C . 2005 Looting and the World’s Archaeological Heritage: The Inadequate Response . Annual Review of Anthropology 34, 343–361 . Campbell, P . 2013 The illicit antiquities trade as a transnational criminal network: Characterizing and anticipating trafficking in cultural heritage . International Journal of Cultural Property 20, 113–153 . Calvani, S . 2008 Frequency and figures of organized crime in art and antiquities . In: S . Manacorda (ed .), Organized Crime in Art and Antiquities. International Conference on Organized Crime and Antiquities, Courmayeur, Mont Blanc Italy, 12–14 December 2008. Milan, 29–39 . Cooper, R . S . 2011 Clues to the Past . Central States Archaeological Journal 58/1, 46–47 . Danti, M . 2015 Ground-Based Observations of Cultural Heritage Incidents in Syria and Iraq . Near Eastern Archaeology 78/3, 132–141 . Fisman, R . and Wei, S .-J . 2009 The Smuggling of Art, and the Art of Smuggling: Uncovering the Illicit Trade in Cultural Property and Antiquities . American Economic Journal: Applied Economics 1/3, 82–96 . Gill, D . W . J . 2012 The Material and Intellectual Consequences of Acquiring the Sarpedon Krater . In: P . K . Lazrus and A . W . Barker (eds .), All the King’s Horses: Essays on the Impact of Looting and the Illicit Trade on our Knowledge of the Past . Washington, 25–42 . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Greek Law 2168/1993 Νόμος υπ’αριθ . 2168 (ΦΕΚ A 147/03–09–1993) . Ρύθμιση θεμάτων που αφορούν όπλα, πυρομαχικά, εκρηκτικές ύλες, εκρηκτικούς μηχανισμούς και άλλες διατάξεις . 2472/1997 Νόμος υπ’αριθ . 2472 (ΦΕΚ A 50/10–04–1997) . Προστασία του ατόμου από την επεξεργασία δεδομένων προσωπικού χαρακτήρα . 3028/2002 Νόμος υπ’αριθ . 3028 (ΦΕΚ A 153/28–06–2002) . Για την προστασία των Αρχαιοτήτων και εν γένει της Πολιτιστικής Κληρονομιάς . 3658/2008 Νόμος υπ’αριθ . 3658 (ΦΕΚ A 70/20– 04–2008) . Μέτρα για την προστασία των πολιτιστικών αγαθών και άλλες διατάξεις . 3944/2011 Τροποποίηση του Νόμου 2168/1993 4139/2013 Νόμος υπ’αριθ . 4139 (ΦΕΚ A 74/20–03–2013) . Νόμος περί εξαρτησιογόνων ουσιών και άλλες διατάξεις . Hamilakis, Y . 2009 The ‘War on Terror’ and the Military-Archaeology Complex: Iraq, Ethics, and Neo-Colonialism . Archaeologies 5/1, 39–65 . Herscher, E . 1987 The Antiquities Market: News and Commentary on the Illicit Traffic in Antiquities . Journal of Field Archaeology 14/2, 213–223 . Mackenzie, M . R . S . 2005 Dig a Bit Deeper: Law, Regulation and the Illicit Antiquities Market . The British Journal of Criminology 45, 249–268 . Reichel, C . 2008 Cataloguing the Losses: The Oriental Institutes’ Iraq Museum Database Project . In: G . Emberling and K . Hanson (eds .), Catastrophe! The looting and destruction of Iraq’s past. Oriental Institute Museum Publication 28 . Chicago, 51–63 . Renfrew, C . and Bahn, P . 2001 Αρχαιολογία: Θεωρίες, Μεθοδολογία και Πρακτικές Εφαρμογές . Μετάφραση Ιουλία ΚαραλήΓιαννακοπούλου . Αθήνα . Rodriguez, J . 2008 Early Looting and Destruction of Australian Shipwreck Sites: Legislations, Education and an Amnesty for Long Term Preservation . In: P . K . Lazrus and A . W . Barker (eds .), All the King’s Horses: Essays on the Impact of Looting and the Illicit Trade on our Knowledge of the Past . Washington, 72/3, 9292 . Russell, M . J . 2008 Efforts to protect archaeological sites and monuments in Iraq, 2003–2004 . In: G . Emberling and K . Hanson (eds .), Catastrophe! The Looting and Destruction of Iraq’s Past. Oriental Institute Museum Publication 28 . Chicago, 29–43 . Σακελλιάδης, Β . 2008 Κλοπές αντικειμένων λατρείας και άλλων έργων τέχνης από ιερούς ναούς και ιερές μονές’’ . In: Η Προστασία των Πολιτιστικών Αγαθών από την Παράνομη Διακίνησή τους και η Διεκδίκησή τους, Πρακτικά Διημερίδας 24–25 Σεπτεμβρίου, 33–39 . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Scheibler, I . 2010 Ελληνική Κεραμική: Παραγωγή, Εμπόριο και Χρήση των Αρχαίων Ελληνικών Αγγείων . Μετάφραση Ελένη Μανακίδου . Αθήνα . Stone, E . 2008 Archaeological site looting . The destruction of cultural heritage in southern Iraq . In: G . Emberling and K . Hanson (eds .), Catastrophe! The Looting and Destruction of Iraq’s Past. Oriental Institute Museum Publication 28 . Chicago, 65–80 .

Fig . 1 Total numbers of the confiscated objects based on their categories

Fig . 2 Percentages of artefacts based on their size

Fig . 3 Percentages of confiscated items based on their size without coins

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New Insights into the Illicit Antiquities Trade in the Eastern Mediterranean

Fig . 4 Occupations of the individuals arrested in cases of antiquities smuggling

Fig . 5 Percentages of cases that had been characterized as organized crime, cases that had only antiquities and cases that had a further connection with crime but not characterized as organized crime © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Fig . 6 Cases based on their confiscated context

Fig . 7 Types of confiscated guns

Fig . 8 Social profile of the involved person in cases characterized as organized crime © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

New Insights into the Illicit Antiquities Trade in the Eastern Mediterranean

Fig . 9 Research based on confiscation in cases characterized as organized crime

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© 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

TRANSFORMATION & MIGRATION edited by B. Horejs and Ch. Schwall

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Revival of Lithic Technology in Badia: New Insights from the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B Outpost of Wadi Abu Tulayha, Southern Jordan Kazuyoshi Nagaya 1 – Sumio Fujii 1 Abstract Wadi Abu Tulayha is a small-scale Neolithic settlement in the northwestern part of the Jafr Basin, southern Jordan . This site persisted for a few centuries, spanning the end of the Middle Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (PPNB) to the beginning of the Late PPNB, and was used as a hunting and agro-pastoral outpost serving several contemporary farming communities to the west . This paper focuses on the diachronic transition of lithic production technology at the type-site of the Jafr PPNB, discussing archaeological implications in light of subsequent pastoral nomadisation . In particular, significance is placed on the revival of lithic technology and transitions in subsistence strategy at this outpost during the PPNB period . The population group present at the site for the first half of its existence made great use of poorly elaborated naviform cores, whereas inhabitants during later stages mass-produced standard naviform cores . Faunal and floral analysis suggests that while the inhabitants of the former period hunted small animals and relied on plants as resources, the latter focused on larger animals and placed less emphasis on plant foods . What does this difference indicate? This paper attempts a socio-cultural interpretation of this unexpected phenomenon that took place around the start of the late stage of the occupational history of this remote outpost .

1. Introduction 1 .1 Site setting In a global geographical context, the Neolithic Near East is generally divided into two regions, the Fertile Crescent and a surrounding region referred to as Badia (Fig . 1) . These two regions were markedly different in terms of natural environments and subsistence economies during the PPN period . While the Fertile Crescent continued to support settled agricultural societies that evolved into mega-scale settlements, populations in Badia shifted towards more nomadic life styles during the later half of the Neolithic period, a process referred to as pastoral nomadisation . In our research area in southern Jordan, situated on the southwestern edge of the Fertile Crescent, transitions in the life style of the population can be observed along a west-east transect . In this context, the PPNB outpost of Wadi Abu Tulayha, located just outside the Fertile Crescent, can be regarded as a settlement point for communities from the west (Fujii 2006a; Fujii 2006b; Fujii 2007a; Fujii 2007b; Fujii 2007c; Fujii 2008; Fujii 2009), including people coming from sites at Beidha (Kirkbride 1966; Kirkbride 1967; Hecker 1982), Basta (Nissen et al . 1987; Nissen

1

Kanazawa University Japan, Faculty of Letters, Institute of Human and Social Sciences . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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et al . 1991) and Shkarat Msaied (Jensen et al . 2005) intending to develop Badia . Thus, Wadi Abu Tulayha is an important site for elucidating the process of pastoral nomadisation . 1 .2 The structural sequence of Wadi Abu Tulayha The major structural remains of the PPNB site at Wadi Abu Tulayha include a semi-subterranean settlement, barrages and cisterns (Fig . 2) . Of these, the stone masonry structures that comprise the semi-subterranean settlement seem to have been developed towards the southeast, forming a linear shape . The temporal sequence of these structures has been confirmed via radiocarbon dates, 2 typological features and relationships between the wall connections . In this study, the settlement sequence is divided into four phases (Fig . 3) . Phase one is the oldest at the site, dated to the end of the Middle PPNB . During this phase, structures are characterised by a cluster of small circular units, two to three meters in diameter, while settlement phase two is represented by a large circular, or semi-rectangular, core unit associated with smaller circular units dated to the beginning of the Late PPNB . Phase three is regarded as the settlement peak in terms of building technology; by this time, structures comprise a large rectangular core unit measuring over five meters in length, associated with small satellites, while phase four is the final settlement stage, thought to mark the initiation of nomadic adaptations in the Late PPNB period . During this phase, masonry structures were downscaled to comprise just a pair of small units . 1 .3 Study aim The aim of the study is to analyse transitions in lithic technology at the Wadi Abu Tulayha site during the PPNB period . This research builds on a large series of lithic studies that have been carried out within the Fertile Crescent and which are understood to show that blade industry shifted to flake industry during the PN period, as hunters developed into farmers (e .g . Nishiaki 2000) . The results of this study show that the transition in lithic technology at the Wadi Abu Tulayha site as a result of nomadic adaptation presents the opposite phenomenon as revival or re-development of lithic technology . To conclude, this study focuses on summarising the general composition and frequencies of chipped stone artefacts at the Wadi Abu Tulayha site and discusses transitions in lithic technology based on the settlement sequence .

2

Although radiocarbon dates do not encompass all four phases, charcoal samples were obtained from phases one and four . Results show that phase one can be dated to about 8400 calBC based on structure M, and 7700 calBC based on unit 29 . Phase four can be dated to about 7500 calBC based on structure K . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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2. The chipped stone artefacts at Wadi Abu Tulayha 2 .1 General composition The lithic artefacts discussed in this paper comprise 1004 cores and 892 tools, obtained from a series of excavations carried out by Kanazawa University over seven seasons between 2005 and 2009 (Fig . 4) . Of these artefacts, almost all of the lithics were made from flints obtained from outcrops in the vicinity, while just a few tools are made of light pinkish calcite, also available in the Jafr Basin . 2.1.1 Cores The cores collected from this site can mainly be classified into four types based on their flaking direction; single platform, multiple platform, opposed platform and change of orientation . In addition, two other pieces remain unidentified as they are semi-chipped and exhausted . Considering the frequencies of each type (Tab . 1), the opposed platform including a naviform core is the most common, comprising 45 .7% of the sample . The single platform core type is the next most frequent . In total, blade cores account for over 60% of the sample (Tab . 2) and the predominance of opposed platform cores and the high blade ratio within the Wadi Abu Tulayha site sample are characteristic of the PPNB period . 2.1.2 Tools The major classes of tools collected from the Wadi Abu Tulayha site include arrowheads, denticulates, borers and scrapers (Tab . 3) . This predominance of hunting tools may reflect the fact that this site was used as a seasonal camp . Although it has been suggested that heavy-duty denticulates were used for butchering animals, further investigations are required to confirm this hypothesis . It is also worth noting that the variety of tools collected from the Wadi Abu Tulayha site is quite diverse, in spite of the fact that the site was used only seasonally . Recorded tools include examples of the principal Neolithic classes: sickle/serrated blades, borers, burins and scrapers . Indeed, compared to lithic data recorded at neighbouring sites, it is of note that the general tool composition recorded at Wadi Abu Tulayha is very similar to that of the Beidha site located to the west (Mortensen 1970) . 2 .2 Transitions in naviform cores A naviform core is one of the diagnostic tools from the PPNB period that was used primarily for detaching arrowhead blanks (Abbès 2003) . The flaking process of the naviform method starts with the preparation of bifacial preforms followed by primary percussion for detaching the crested blade before initiation of the blading tool blank . This method has the advantage for hunters that it is highly portable and leads to large numbers of blanks . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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The naviform cores collected from Wadi Abu Tulayha exhibit a gradual increase towards phase four around 35% to 45% (Tab . 4) . On the basis of the data collected so far, it is clear that naviform core production volume did not decrease over the time the settlement was downscaled . In other words, the hunting of wild animals was still required, indeed increasing, even at the beginning of the transition to nomadic adaptations . Naviform cores are classified into six types according to the manner in which they were flaked (Nishiaki 2000) . Thus, type one is a bifacial preform, and type two is a core that remains after primary percussion, also sometimes referred to as a semichipped . Type three cores are more elaborate examples, onto which careful bifacial preparation has been carried out so that a two-faced edge remains behind the flaking surface . Type four cores are examples from later flaking stages that have no crested edges on their rear faces as a result of periodic reworking . The final category of naviform core is type five, the most roughly prepared . These cores have no bifacial edge on their rearward surfaces, just a flat back or natural cortex surface . This fifth type can thus be regarded as the most low-tech naviform core incorporating no bifacial preparation, while type six cores are exhausted examples, small in size . The analysis presented in this paper focuses on naviform core types three and five as these examples are thought to exhibit different stages in the preparation process as well as variable technological features . The other naviform core types listed above were excluded because they exhibit less technological information due to their very early stage of flaking or late stage of core exhaustion . Nevertheless, it is interesting that major changes can be observed in naviform cores between phases three and four (Tab . 4) . More elaborate cores, type three, appear to be dominant during settlement phase four at Wadi Abu Tulayha, a trend that becomes more apparent when the number of excavated pieces is calculated per square meter (n/sq . m .) . Results of this analysis show that the number of naviform cores in settlement phase four is 0 .46/sq .m ., a fourfold increase from the previous phase, while the more poorly-made type five cores decrease in number . This transition suggests that blading technology for arrowhead blanks improved during this settlement phase . In addition, given that this transition corresponds to the time that the settlement was downscaled, this technological change may imply that increased mobility in hunting tools was required for a larger range hunting strategy perhaps as a result of the attenuation of wild animal habitat areas . 3. Correlation with faunal and floral remains Through the lithic analysis presented in this study, it is clear that a revival phenomenon of the elaborate naviform method is manifest . This technological change is unexpected given likely correlation with nomadic adaptations, or considering the situation of agricultural settlements to the west, where shifts to an ad hoc flake-industry are seen in the Late PPNB . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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To develop a reasonable interpretation for this phenomenon in the context of a subsistence strategy, transitions in faunal and floral remains must also be taken into account . 3 The tentative results of this analysis indicate that exploitation of wild animals changed drastically over the course of settlement at Wadi Abu Tulayha . Results show that the number of identified specimens (NISP) per sq . m . of faunal remains increased about four-fold during phase four (Tab . 5; Hongo et al . 2013) . Indeed, towards the end of this phase, not only numbers, but also targets for hunting shifted from small animals like hares towards larger ones like gazelles . Domesticated animals such as sheep and goats also increased to a certain degree, all of which indicates that hunting of large wild animals took place intensively even during the process of pastoral nomadisation . At the same time, the exploitation of plants exhibits an opposite trend with a dramatic decrease during phase four (Fig . 5; Nasu et al . 2010) . This, however, could represent a negative correlation with respect to increasing abundances of naviform cores and faunal remains . 4. Concluding remarks In contrast to the consensus view regarding the lithic transition during the PPNB period, the phenomenon observed in this study is that the naviform blading method was re-developed over time at the Wadi Abu Tulayha . One tentative conclusion could be to interpret this result as evidence for a change in subsistence strategy at the Wadi Abu Tulayha site during the Late PPNB period as part of the process of pastoral nomadisation, a transition that is also reflected in settlement scale and the consumption of wild and domesticated food (Fig . 6) . However, one result of particular significance relates to drastic changes in lithic technology, settlement scale and food consumption that appear to have occurred simultaneously during phase four . These results suggest that it is likely that a decrease in available plant resources due to aridification during the Late PPNB led to increased dependence on wide-range hunting activities for the acquisition of wild animal resources . In concert, an increased requirement for mobility in hunting tools caused a revival of the elaborate naviform method . Nevertheless, there are several other possibilities that could explain the results reported in this study, including specialisations in flint-knapping and hunting as well as the reuse of naviform cores collected from the masonry structures of previous settlement phases . Examination of these explanations will necessitate further inves-

3

As animal bone analysis is currently ongoing, the numbers in phases two and three are calculated together (Table 5) . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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tigations of artefacts to reveal the nature of lithic technology as well as the detailed processes of pastoral nomadisation . Acknowledgements This work was supported by JPS KAKEN Grant No . JP25220402 . Bibliography Abbès, F . 2003 Les outillages néolithiques en Syrie du Nord: Méthode de débitage et gestion laminaire durant le PPNB . British Archaeological Reports International Series 1150, Oxford . Fujii, S . 2006a Wadi Abu Tulayha: a preliminary report of the 2005 spring and summer excavation seasons of the Jafr Basin Prehistoric Project, Phase 2 . Annual of the Department of Antiquities of Jordan 50, 9–32 . 2006b A PPNB agro-pastoral outpost at Wadi Abu Tulayha, al-Jafr Basin . Neo-Lithics: The Newsletter of Southwest Asian Neolithic Research 2, 4–14 . 2007a Wadi Abu Tulayha: a preliminary report of the 2006 summer field season of the Jafr Basin Prehistoric Project, Phase 2 . Annual of the Department of Antiquities of Jordan 51, 403–427 . 2007b PPNB barrage systems at Wadi Abu Tulayha and Wadi al-Ruweishid ash-Sharqi: a preliminary report of the 2006 spring season of the Jafr Basin Prehistoric Project, Phase 2 . Annual of the Department of Antiquities of Jordan 51, 403–427 . 2007c Wadi Abu Tulayha and Wadi Ruweishid ash-Sharqi: an investigation of PPNB barrage systems in the Jafr Basin . Neo-Lithics: The Newsletter of Southwest Asian Neolithic Research 2, 6–16 . 2008

Wadi Abu Tulayha: a preliminary report of the 2007 summer field season of the Jafr Basin Prehistoric Project, Phase 2 . Annual of the Department of Antiquities of Jordan 52, 445–478 .

2009

Wadi Abu Tulayha: a preliminary report on the summer 2008 final field season of the Jafr Basin Prehistoric Project, Phase 2 . Annual of the Department of Antiquities of Jordan 53, 173–210 .

Hecker, H . M . 1982 Domestication Revisited: Its Implications for Faunal Analysis . Journal of Field Archaeology 9, 217–236 . Hongo, H ., Omar, L ., Nasu, H ., Krönneck, P . and Fujii, S . 2013 Faunal Remains from Wadi Abu Tulayha: A PPNB Outpost in the Steppe-Desert of Southern Jordan . In: B . Cupere, V . Linseele and S . Hamilton-Dye (eds .), Archaeozoology of the Near East X . Proceedings of the Tenth International Symposium on the Archaeozoology of South-Western Asia and Adjacent Areas . Ancient Near Eastern Studies 44, Leuven, 1–25 . Jensen, C . H ., Hermansen, B . D ., Peterson, M . B ., Kinzel, M ., Hald, M . M ., Bangsgaard, P ., Lynnerup, N . and Thuesen, I . 2005 Preliminary Report on the Excavations at Shakarat al-Musayd, 1999–2004 . Annual of the Department of Antiquities of Jordan 49, 115–134 . Kirkbride, D . 1966 Five seasons at the Pre-Pottery Neolithic Village of Beidha in Jordan: A summary . Palestine Exploration Quarterly 98/1, 8–72 . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Beidha 1967: An interim report . Palestine Exploration Quarterly 100/2, 90–96 .

Mortensen, P . 1970 A Preliminary Study of the Chipped Stone Industry from Beidha: An Early Neolithic Village in Southern Jordan . Acta Archeologica 41, 1–54 . Nasu, H ., Tanno, K ., Hongo, H . and Fujii, S . 2010 Archaeobotanical study of PPNB outpost, Wadi Abu Tulayha, Southern Jordan with special reference to the beginning of nomadism in the southern edge of the fertile crescent . 15th Symposium of the International Working Group for Palaeoethnobotany (IWGP). Wilhelmshaven (Oral session) . Nishiaki, Y . 2000 Lithic Technology of Neolithic Syria . British Archaeological Reports International Series 840, Oxford . Nissen, H ., Muheisen, M ., Gebel, H ., Becker, C ., Neef, R ., Pachur, H ., Qadi, N . and Schultz, M . 1987 Report on the First Two Seasons of Excavation at Basta 1986–1987 . Annual of the Department of Antiquities of Jordan 31, 79–119 . Nissen, H ., Muheisen, M ., Gebel, H ., Becker, C ., Hermansen, B ., Karasneh, W ., Qadi, N ., Schultz, M . and Scherer, A . 1991 Report on the Excavation at Basta, 1988 . Annual of the Department of Antiquities of Jordan 35, 13–40 .

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Type Semi-chipped Single platform Multiple platform Opposed platform Change of orientation Remnant Total

N 30 354 59 499 151 0 1093

% 2.7 32.4 5.4 45.7 13.8 0.0 100.0

Class Arrowhead Denticulate Sickle Borer Scraper Burin Notch Spearhead Knife Pik Ax Rod Retouched pieces Total

Table 1 Compositions of cores Blade core Flake core Total

N 637 367 1004

% 63.4 36.6 100.0

Naviform cores Other cores Total Type 1 Type 2 Type 3 Type 4 Type 5 Type 6 Total

Phase 1 (188 sq. m.) N % N/sq.m. 43 34.1 0.229 83 65.9 0.441 126 100.0 0.670 1 2.3 1 2.3 14 32.6 9 20.9 15 34.9 3 7.0 43 100.0

0.005 0.005 0.074 0.048 0.080 0.016 0.229

% 23.9 27.1 2.9 17.3 11.9 4.9 4.6 0.8 0.8 0.7 0.3 0.6 4.4 100.1

Table 3 Compositions of tools

Table 2 Blade/flake ratios Phase (Area)

N 213 242 26 154 106 44 41 7 7 6 3 5 39 892

Phase 2 (181 sq. m.) N % N/sq.m. 53 37.6 0.293 88 62.4 0.486 141 100.0 0.779 1 1.9 1 1.9 12 22.6 14 26.4 24 45.3 1 1.9 53 100.0

0.006 0.006 0.066 0.077 0.133 0.006 0.293

Phase 3 (86 sq. m.) N % N/sq.m. 65 40.4 0.756 96 59.6 1.116 161 100.0 1.872 3 4.6 1 1.5 10 15.4 15 23.1 33 50.8 3 4.6 65 100.0

0.035 0.012 0.116 0.174 0.384 0.035 0.756

Phase 4 (28 sq. m.) N % N/sq.m. 27 45.8 0.964 32 54.2 1.143 59 100.0 2.107 3 0 13 5 6 0 27

11.1 0.0 48.1 18.5 22.2 0.0 99.9

0.107 0.000 0.464 0.179 0.214 0.000 0.964

Table 4 Transitions in naviform core ratio and types

gazelle sheep goat sheep/goat med.bovid cattle cervid fox hare medium carnivore small carnivore rodents bird reptile & amphibia shell Total NISP

Phase 1 (939/188 sq.m.)

Phase 2 and 3 (751/210 sq.m.)

Phase 4 (567/ 28 sq.m.)

MPPNB NISP N/sq.m. 181 0.963 0 0.000 2 0.011 7 0.037 113 0.601 0 0.000 1 0.005 31 0.165 351 1.867 1 0.005 4 0.021 117 0.622 95 0.505 35 0.186 1 0.005 939 4.995

LPPNB (earlier) NISP N/sq.m. 215 1.024 0 0.000 0 0.000 2 0.010 69 0.329 1 0.005 0 0.000 47 0.224 287 1.367 1 0.005 1 0.005 50 0.238 52 0.248 25 0.119 1 0.005 751 3.576

LPPNB (later) NISP N/sq.m. 286 10.214 8 0.286 5 0.179 3 0.107 37 1.321 2 0.071 0 0.000 35 1.250 99 3.536 0 0.000 3 0.107 29 1.036 16 0.571 44 1.571 0 0.000 567 20.250

Table 5 Transitions in animal exploitation at the Wadi Abu Tulayha site (based on Hongo et al. 2013) © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Fig . 1 Meteorological map of the southern Levant

Fig . 2 Plan of the structural remains at the Wadi Abu Tulayha site © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Fig . 3 Settlement sequence at the Wadi Abu Tulayha site

Fig . 4 Chipped stone artifacts from the Wadi Abu Tulayha site (1: multiple platform core, 2: single platform core, 3: opposed platform core, 4–10: naviform core, 11–16: arrowhead, 17, 18: burin, 19, 20: borer, 21–24: serrated blade, 25, 26: denticulate, 27: scraper, 28: spearhead, 29: bifacial knife, 30: bifacial axe) © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Fig . 5 Transitions in plant exploitation at Wadi Abu Tulayha (based on Nasu et al. 2010)

Fig . 6 Transitions in subsistence strategy at the PPNB Wadi Abu Tulayha site

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Is There a Place for Prehistoric Egypt in Near Eastern Archaeology? Some Remarks on Early Relations between Egypt and its Neighbours Agnieszka Mączyńska 1 Abstract Research on the development of the great ancient Egyptian civilization tends to concentrate on the Nile Delta and the Nile Valley, as well as on adjacent areas in today’s Egypt and Sudan . Almost all research on the history and archaeology of ancient Egypt is apparently isolated, and relations with other countries are discussed only in connection with trade, wars, invasions, etc . Meanwhile in prehistory, Egypt in general, and its northern part in particular, had strong cultural links with the Near East . The roots of Egyptian civilisation were shaped in the period of early relations with the Levantine region . Moreover, the introduction of domesticated plants and animals from the Near East was not the first ‘connection’ between Egypt and the Near East . It seems likely that the relations among prehistoric Near Eastern and Lower Egyptian societies were more intensive than once assumed . However, the time between the 6th and the 4th millennium BC is still one of the least understood periods in the history of Egyptian civilization, thus translating into a poor state of research on the relations of Egypt with the neighbouring regions . The present situation is affected by the quantity and quality of available data, by scholars paying little attention to the roots of ancient Egyptian civilization and finally by treating Egypt as a periphery in comprehensive discussions of Near Eastern prehistory . This paper is an attempt at presenting prehistoric Egypt in a wider context of the Near East and early relations within it . Moreover, it also touches upon the problem of the Saharan heritage of ancient Egyptians, as both the Near Eastern and the African components of ancient Egyptian civilisation make its character unique and not easily fitting into any framework .

1. Introduction Although Egypt is considered as a Near Eastern country, it is treated as a periphery in comprehensive discussions of Near Eastern prehistory . A number of reasons for the isolation of Egyptian prehistory exist, including its social and cultural trajectory of development, which is separate and distinct from that of areas further east, as well as the strong position of Egyptology as an independent field focusing on the history and culture of ancient Egyptian civilization . As a result of this isolation, Egypt is rarely present in literature on Near Eastern prehistory . The time before the 4th millennium BC is still one of the least understood periods in the history of Egyptian civilization, thus translating into a poor state of research on Egypt’s relations with its neighbouring regions . Studies on Egyptian-Near Eastern relations have focused mostly on ma-

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terials dated to the 4th millennium BC, when important social, cultural and political changes occurred in the Nile Valley and the delta . In this paper I will discuss evidence showing that in prehistoric times Egypt in general, and its northern part in particular, had strong cultural links with the Near East . Despite the differences in cultural development, it belonged to the Near Eastern cultural zone . Available evidence on the early Egyptian-Near Eastern connections is rather scarce and it does not attract researchers’ attention . But, even with such data of insufficient quantity and quality at our disposal, we must be aware that the roots of Egyptian civilisation were shaped in the period of early relationships with the Near East . Until the end of the 4th millennium BC the development of Egyptian civilisation had been closely associated with and influenced by the cultural situation in the Near East . It is only the emergence of the Egyptian state that changed its position within the Near East, as it became a unified entity ruled by a pharaoh and developed independently . Another reason for the exclusion of Egypt from prehistoric Near Eastern studies is the special position of Egyptology and the place occupied in it by research on the prehistoric period . Although Egyptology involves the systematic study of the history and culture of ancient Egypt from the earliest times to the Arab conquest, the interests of Egyptologists are rarely directed to the Predynastic period . The enormous wealth of the Pharaonic civilisation and the early translation of hieroglyphs have overshadowed the archaeology of daily life, which is particularly true with respect to the times ‘before pharaohs’ . Moreover, the oldest archaeological evidence was often explained from the perspective of later textual sources . A rise in interest in the Predynastic period was observed after World War II . New sites and new methods have enriched our knowledge of the origins of ancient Egypt and have also changed researchers’ approaches to the archaeological data from prehistoric contexts . However, for many years the problem of the Egyptian-Near Eastern relationships has been neglected and emerged mostly in the context of the introduction of early domesticated plants and animals in Egypt and in the context of Levantine imports found among Egyptian materials dated to the 4th and 3rd millennium BC . This paper is an attempt at presenting prehistoric Egypt in a wider context of the Near East and the early relations within it . The main goal is to draw researchers’ attention to strong cultural links between both regions . Scholars working in the Near Eastern context, including those working on northeastern African materials have often missed the fact that Egyptian civilization emerged from the foundations of a society partially exposed to Near Eastern influences . Although I begin my paper by presenting the prehistoric relationships between Egypt and the Near East, they are not my only research area . Egypt has a special geographical and cultural position – it is part of the Near East and also the African continent . As I am aware of the importance of the African heritage of ancient Egypt, I also chose to consider its African background . In my concluding remarks I present Egypt as a crossroads where influences from different directions affected its cultural development . Its special position © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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within the Near East and Africa is an important factor contributing to the unique character of Egyptian civilization . 2. Egypt in the Near East The Sinai Peninsula does not seem to have been a geographical barrier for the movement of people, ideas and goods between Egypt and other Near Eastern areas . Recent research has confirmed the existence of a land route for hominin dispersal out of Africa via the Sinai to the Levant during the late Middle and Late Pleistocene (Breeze et al. 2016) . Palaeohydrological and palaeoclimatic data from those periods shows that the Sinai was accessible both from the east and the west . Moreover, periods of increased moisture made an arid barrier on the Sinai shorter and facilitated movement across its northern part during the Middle and Late Pleistocene and also later during the Holocene . The early connection between northeastern Africa and the Levant at the time of the Upper Pleistocene dispersals of hominins out of Africa was recently suggested also by M . Goder-Goldberger, N . Gubenko and E . Hovers (2016) on the basis of the presence of Nubian Levallois cores in eastern Africa, the Nile Valley and the central Negev, which were interpreted in the context of the spread of Nubian technology through demic diffusion with modification . The importance of the ‘trans-Sinai corridor’ as a route for the movement of people, information and goods between Africa and southwest Asia has been emphasised by O . Bar-Yosef (1987; 2013) . According to Bar-Yosef, the techno-typological similarity between flint assemblages from Nazlet Khater 4 located in the Nile Valley and from a few sites on the Sinai (Gebel Lagama, Gebel Maghara, Qadesh Barnea and Wadi Feiran) could be observed . Bar-Yosef also indicated convergence in flint technology for the Mushabian industry known from the Sinai and some finds from the Helwan area . Although he proposed African origins for the Mushabians, who in his opinion moved to the Sinai from the Nile Delta, there is still no archaeological evidence from Egypt to confirm this hypothesis . In the context of early relations between northeastern Africa and the Near East, the presence of side notched and tanged projectile points dated to the 7th millennium BC in Egypt should be mentioned . Although they are named after the site of Helwan, today a suburb of Cairo, they rarely occur in northeastern Africa . However, such points are cultural and chronological markers of the Pre-pottery Neolithic in the Levant (Shirai 2010: 317–325) . In his explanation of the presence of the Helwan points in Egypt, O . Bar-Yosef (2013) suggests Levantine presence in the delta after the PPNB collapse and the dispersal of people from the Levant . However, in the opinion of N . Shirai (2010), the similarity of the Helwan points known from both regions cannot be explained only in the context of the Levantine intrusion, but rather as a result of the exchange of technical knowledge, stylistic information or even symbolic beliefs . Recent surveys by French researchers have revealed the occurrence of the projectile points in the Eastern Desert . The Helwan points were registered in Wadi © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Araba, which could have served as a corridor for contacts between PPNB groups from the Sinai and the Nile Valley in the 7th millennium BC (Tristant 2012) . In the research on the early Egyptian-Near Eastern relations, the presence in Egypt and the Levant of other projectile points – the Ounan points made on bladlets – should also be investigated . In North Africa, the Ounan points have been registered on Epipalaeolithic sites dated between 8000 calBC and 6500 calBC . However, in the Negev and the Sinai they are known in the earlier context – in the Harifian industry dated to 10,000 calBC . According to N . Shirai (2010: 325–326), their variants registered also in PPN and even PN contexts indicate a long tradition of their production and use . Also unifacially/bifacially retouched small projectile points known from the Dakhleh Oasis and the Kharga Oasis from the late 7th and early 6th millennium BC context could be ‘reminiscent of the Levantine Pottery Neolithic small projectile points’ . It is not easy to explain the relations between the points registered in Egypt and those from the Levant . As the Helwan and Ounan points are not uniform, they occur in a few regions in Egypt, and additionally in some cases they come from vaguely dated contexts and a time gap exists between some African points and Levantine points, the interpretation of their origin is not clear . N . Shirai (2010: 326) suggests that their appearance, production and use in northeastern Africa were affected by indirect and slightly delayed influences from the southern Levant, the Sinai and the Negev . The evidence for the links between Egypt and the Near East in the 7th millennium BC is also known from two other sites: Sodmein cave and the Tree Shelter, located in the Eastern Desert . On both sites, bones and dung of domestic ovicaprines were recovered, indicating that they probably served as temporary shelters, used repeatedly for a short period . As ovicaprines are not an endemic species and their wild ancestors never lived in Africa, their introduction into Egypt from the southern Levant through the Eastern Desert is suggested as one possible explanation (Linseele et al . 2010; Linseele et al . 2014) . The introduction of domesticated plants and animals into northern Egypt from the Near East continues to be the best known link between both regions . In the second part of the 6th millennium BC, grains of domesticated plants and bones of domesticated animals appeared in Lower Egypt . Over the next 1000 years the new subsistence strategies spread along the Nile valley and the channels of the delta . Unfortunately, it is unclear how the concepts of farming and herding appeared in Lower Egypt in the 6th millennium BC . According to F . Hassan (1984), farming was introduced to Lower Egypt by migrants from the east . However, the appearance of the two subsistence strategies was not linked to mass migrations from southwest Asia . The research by N . Shirai (2010; 2013b) on the beginnings of the Neolithic also shows some other aspects of this process . In his opinion, the emergence of a new subsistence strategy is a ‘result of humans’ effort to adapt foreign domesticates to the local environment (Shirai 2013a: 215) . While he does not disprove human migration from the Levant to Egypt, he suggests that new © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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technological knowledge was passed to Egyptians at a very early stage of contacts . Groups from the northern part of Egypt embraced the innovations and adapted them to their local environment . Although we face many unanswered questions concerning the introduction of the new subsistence strategies into northeastern Africa, the Near Eastern farmingherding way of life established a foundation for further development of the society living in the Nile Valley and the delta, eventually leading to the emergence of the Egyptian state . Unfortunately, archaeological evidence from the earliest known farming sites in Egypt does not confirm the presence of the Levantines (Mączyńska 2013; Mączyńska 2017) . However, since the beginning of research on the early farming societies in Lower Egypt, the attention of scholars has been directed to southwest Asia . G . Caton-Thompson and E . Gardner (1934: 87–88) were aware of the links between the shores of Lake Quarun and the Levant as some items – shell beads and raw materials originated probably from the Sinai and the Red Sea . Additionally, some technological similarities between these two regions in terms of flint and stone tool production of the Fayumian have also been pointed out (e .g . Midant-Reynes 1992: 102; Shirai 2010) . Similarities between the assemblages of Lower Egyptian Neolithic and Levantine Late Neolithic units are still often highlighted in publications on Neolithic materials from Lower Egypt (i .e . Eiwanger 1984: 61–62; Debono and Mortensen 1990: 82) . It is only the evidence dated to the 4th millennium BC that shows very close and intense relationships between Egypt and one of the Near Eastern regions – the Levant . The number of Levantine imports dated to this period registered along the Nile Valley and the delta increased significantly . Their appearance is interpreted both in the context of trade and in the context of Levantine presence in Egypt (i .e . Braun and van den Brink 2008: 644–650; Mączyńska 2013; Mączyńska 2014) . But, even in the light of all this data the organization of exchange in the first part of the 4th millennium BC is unclear . The number of existing interpretations is limited, as most researchers are interested in relations in later periods . It seems that at the beginning, southern Levantines probably were in charge of organising this exchange and the Predynastic Egyptian societies took part in the exchange rather than organised it . Some changes in the character of those relations can be observed in the second part of the 4th millennium BC . An available evidence indicates that at that time the local societies not only took part in, but probably also organised the exchange of goods and ideas in an active way . Moreover, they benefited from these contacts, adopted new techniques and raw materials, i .e . mudbrick architecture, use of copper (Mączyńska 2013; Mączyńska 2014; Mączyńska 2015) . These changes are closely connected to the social, political and economic development of Egyptian society . The emergence of Egypt as a unified state ruled by a pharaoh changed the position of Egypt in the Near East . The issue of the Egyptian presence in (or even the Egyptian colonization of) the Levant often appears in archaeological interpretations (i .e . Braun 2002: 181–183; Dębowska-Ludwin et al . 2012) . The relationships © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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of Egypt with other independent states of the Near East could be characterised by a variety of interactions and their nature changed over time and depended on many internal and external factors (see Hikade 2012) . 3. Egypt in the African continent Egypt enjoys a special geographical and cultural position . It is part of the Near East and also the African continent, however, for many years ancient Egyptian civilization has been treated as non-African . The last few years have brought interesting discussions of the African roots of ancient Egypt (e .g . Wengrow 2003; Gatto 2011) . An analysis of available evidence from the delta, the Nile Valley and the deserts sheds some light on the two important components of the prehistoric societies: Levantine and African . However, in the archaeology of northeastern Africa, this region is very often divided into two ‘worlds’ split by the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ICZ), namely the northern part of Egypt following the Near Eastern model and the deserts with African roots . As a result, research in both worlds is separated and rarely cross-referenced . The pastoral way of life is often mentioned as a distinctive feature of the people who settled in the Egyptian Sahara during the Early and Middle Holocene . The discoveries of domesticated cattle remains on Early Holocene sites in the Nabta Playa – Bir Kiseiba area clearly showed that northeastern Africa does not fit into the framework of subsistence model with farming and herding adopted from the Near East (e .g . Wendorf and Schild 1984; Wendorf and Schild 2001; Wendorf and Schild 2003) . The emergence of domesticated cattle indicated a change in people’s way of life – a shift from hunting-gathering to mobile herding . Moreover, at the same time the mobile groups started to use pottery, which also emerged independently from Near Eastern influences . Unlike in the Near East, agriculture was not practiced during the Early and Middle Holocene in most of northeastern Africa . Although there exists evidence confirming intensive use of wild plants as food for people and livestock, the domestication stage was not attained in this period . In the 7th millennium BC, sheep and goat introduced from southwest Asia appeared in the deserts, next to domesticated African cattle . Domesticated livestock consisting of cattle, sheep and goats became an essential component of the economy of the societies occupying the ‘green Sahara’ . The interruption in the occupation of the Egyptian Sahara is dated to approximately 5300 BC, when regular monsoon rains ceased to reach this area because of the southward movement of the ICZ . Climatic changes forced people to move to an environment more favourable for human occupation . According to R . Kuper and S . Kröplin (2006: 806) this ‘exodus’ from the deserts coincides with the emergence of the first farmers and herders along the Nile . Available data shows that the pastoral societies from the Sahara probably moved in a few directions, such as © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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the Sudanese plain and the Nile Valley . Although in the Sudanese Sahara the rise of specialized cattle pastoralism could be observed, in the Egyptian Nile Valley the Near Eastern model with farming and animal herding/breeding became dominant . However, it seems that the pastoral heritage of the Predynastic societies did not disappear . R . Kuper and S . Kröplin (2006: 806) point to an African livestock enclosure and a mobile way of life of the Badarians . According to D . Wengrow (2003: 121–135) the pastoral background of the Predynastic Egyptians is well visible, especially in their beliefs, including funerary practices . M . C . Gatto (2011: 21–29) indicates strong ties between the Nubian Neolithic, the Tasian, Badarian and the Neolithic of Khartoum . The problem of the desert heritage of Egyptian civilization was also studied by C . Hope (2002: 39–61) and A . Warfe (2003: 194–195) in the context of the Dakleh Oasis, which could have offered refuge during the process of the desiccation of the Sahara . According to C . Hope (2002: 56–58) certain similarities between the Dakhleh pottery and the pottery from Upper and Lower Egypt are a result of such contacts . Moreover, A . Warfe (2003) assumes an existence of ‘the desert package’ – a combination of traits, which could be selected and adopted by the first farmers from the Nile Valley and the delta . A few African elements have been registered at Lower Egyptian prehistoric sites so far . B . Midant-Reynes (2003: 76–77) pointed to the eastern Saharan origin of the lithic industry and small objects made of ostrich egg shells of the Fayumian . J . Eiwanger (1988) and Y . Tristant (2012: 147) also underline the presence of influences from the Western Desert in phase 2 of Merimde . Although currently available data is very limited, it shows that the Saharan heritage spread widely along the Nile . 4. Egypt as a crossroads – conclusions The development of Egyptian society through all of prehistory until the emergence of the Egyptian state does not seem to follow a single trajectory . Regional variability and climate changes in Egypt influenced people’s behaviours and diversified human cultures . At first sight, during the Holocene the ICZ divided northeastern Africa into two areas: Lower Egypt following the Near Eastern model and the deserts with African pastoralism . Recent research has shown that the situation in Egypt was more complicated than previously assumed . On the one hand, Egypt is undoubtedly a part of the Near East . Geographical proximity between Egypt and other Near Eastern regions and a lack of insurmountable barriers on the Sinai Peninsula triggered an early opening of these connections . Ever since the movement “out of Africa” via the Sinai, people from Egypt, the Sinai and other parts of the Near East used this land route . The movement of people and ideas in the Palaeolithic and the Epipalaeolithic influenced the development of the societies in Egypt and the Sinai . Moreover, recent research © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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clearly shows that the links were not only confined to the northern part of Egypt . The introduction of ovicaprines into the Eastern Desert around the 7th millennium BC from the southern Levant and their spread throughout the Sahara should also be mentioned in this context . After the abandonment of the Egyptian Sahara, occupation flourished in the Nile Valley . The Nilotic societies started to develop, which eventually led to the emergence of the Egyptian state . The introduction of domesticated plants and animals into Egypt from the Near East was important for this development . The Near Eastern model spread along the Nile, and farming and herding/breeding became the main subsistence strategies for those settled in the delta and the Nile Valley . However, the African desert heritage did not disappear and was present in both symbolic and material culture . This paper focuses on the place of Egypt in Near Eastern prehistory . As I have discussed, the relations between both regions influenced the development of the societies from Egypt since the time of the hominin dispersal out of Africa . However, I am aware of the poor representation of those relations in the archaeological record . The scarcities of evidence from Egypt and limited studies on this subject have overshadowed Egyptian prehistory in Near Eastern prehistoric archaeology . The last few years of research on the origins of Egyptian civilization have attracted Egyptologists’ attention to Egypt ‘before pharaoh’ . It is high time to restore Egyptian prehistory to the Near East . A wider research context could be helpful in understanding the cultural situation of both regions in prehistory . Situated between the Near East and Africa, prehistoric Egypt seems to be an area of unique character in cultural terms . On the one hand, it does not fit into any wellestablished framework of Near Eastern or African prehistory . On the other hand, it should not be divided into two zones – the Near Eastern and African, as they had never been isolated . The Near Eastern and African background of Egyptian prehistoric societies makes them unique and special . Acknowledgements This paper was prepared as part of ‘The development of the Early Neolithic Societies in Lower Egypt in the 5th Millennium BC and Their Interactions with the Southern Levant’ project financed by the National Science Centre (No . 2014/13/B/ HS3/04874) . Bibliography Bar-Yosef, O . 1987 Pleistocene connection between Africa and Southwest Asia: an archaeological perspective . The African Archaeological Review 5, 29–38 . 2013

Nile Valley-Levant interactions: An eclectic view . In: N . Shirai (ed .), Neolithisation of Northeastern Africa . Berlin, 237–247 . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Braun, E . 2002 Egypt’s First Sojourn in Canaan . In: E . C . M . van den Brink and T . E . Levy (eds .), Egypt and the Levant. Interrelations from the 4th through the Early 3rd Millennium B.C.E. London – New York, 173–189 . Braun, E . and van den Brink, E . C . M . 2008 Appraising South Levantine-Egyptian interaction: recent discoveries from Israel and Egypt . In: B . Midant-Reynes and Y . Tristant (eds .), J . Rowland and S . Hendrickx (ass .), Egypt at its origins 2. Proceedings of the International Conference “Origin of the State, Predynastic and Early Dynastic Egypt”, Toulouse (France), 5th–8th September 2005. Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta 172, Leuven, 643–688 . Breeze, P . S ., Groucutt, H . S ., Drake, N . A ., White, T . S ., Jennings, R . P . and Petraglia, M . D . 2016 Paleohydrological corridors for hominin dispersals in the Middle East ~250–70,000 years ago . Quaternary Science Reviews 144, 155–185 . Caton-Thompson, G . and Gardner, E . W . 1934 The Desert Fayum. London . Debono, F . and Mortensen, B . 1990 El Omari . A Neolithic Settlement and Other Sites in the Vicinity of Wadi Hof, Helwan . Mainz . Dębowska-Ludwin, J ., Rosińska-Balik, K ., Czarnowicz, M . and Ochał-Czarnowicz, A . 2012 Trade or conquest? The nature of Egyptian-South Levantine relations in Early Bronze I from the perspective of Tell el-Farkha, Egypt and Tel Erani, Israel . Recherches Archaeologique Nouvelle Serie 4, 113–122 . Eiwanger, J . 1984 Merimde-Benisalâme I. Die Funde der Urschicht . Mainz . 1988

Merimde-Benisalâme II. Die Funde der mittleren Merimdekultur. Mainz .

Gatto, M . C . 2011 The Nubian Pastoral Culture as Link between Egypt and Africa: A View from the Archaeological Record . In: K . Exell (ed .), Egypt in its African Context. Proceedings of the conference held at The Manchester Museum, University of Manchester, 2nd–4th October 2009 . British Archaeological Reports International Series 2204, Oxford, 21–29 . Garcea, E . A . A . 2004 An Alternative Way towards Food Production: The Perspective from the Libyan Sahara . Journal of World Prehistory 18/2, 107–154 . Goder-Goldberger, M ., Gubenko, N . and Hovers, E . 2016 “Diffusion with modifications”: Nubian assemblages in the central Negev highlands of Israel and their implications for Middle Paleolithic inter-regional interactions . Quaternary International 408, 121–139 . Hassan, F . A . 1984 Towards a model of agricultural development in predynastic Egypt . In: L . Krzyżaniak and M . Kobusiewicz (eds .), Origin and Early Development of Food-Producing Cultures in north-eastern Africa . Poznań, 222–230 . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Hikade, T . 2012 Egypt and the Near East . In: D . T . Potts (ed .), A companion to the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East. Oxford, 833–850 . Hope, C . A . 2002 Early and Mid-Holocene ceramics from the Dakhleh Oasis: Tradition and Influences . In: R . F . Friedman (ed .), Egypt and Nubia. Gifts of the Desert . London, 39–61 . Kuper, R . and Kröplin, S . 2006 Climate-Controlled Holocene Occupation in the Sahara: Motor of Africa’s Evolution . Science 313, 803–807 . Linseele, V ., Marinova, E ., Van Neer, W . and Vermeersch, P . M . 2010 Sites with Holocene dung deposits in the Eastern Desert of Egypt . Visited by herders? Quaternary Research 74, 818–828 . Linseele, V ., Van Neer, W ., Thys, S ., Phillipps, R ., Cappers, R ., Wendrich, W . and Holdaway, S . 2014 New Archaeozoological Data from the Fayum ‘Neolithic’ with a Critical Assessment of the Evidence for Early Stock Keeping in Egypt . Public Library of Science ONE 9/10 (e108517) . (last access 17 .1 .2018) . Mączyńska, A . 2013 Lower Egyptian Communities and Their Interactions with Southern Levant in the 4th Millennium BC. Studies of African Archaeology 12, Poznań . 2014

Some remarks on the visitors in the Nile Delta in the 4th millennium BC . In: A . Mączyńska (ed .), The Nile Delta as a centre of cultural interactions between Upper Egypt and the Southern Levant in the 4th millennium BC . Studies in African Archaeology 13, Poznań, 181–216 .

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The Nile Delta as a center of cultural interactions between Upper Egypt and South Levant in the 4th millennium BC . Studies in Ancient Art and Civilisation 18, 25–45 .

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The pottery of the Neolithic Lower Egyptian Societies: a single region wide tradition or multiple local traditions? In: B . Midant-Reynes and Y . Tristant (eds .), Egypt at its Origins 5, Proceedings of the International Conference “Origin of the State. Predynastic and Early Dynastic Egypt”, Cairo 13th–18th April 2014 . Leuven , 657–688 .

Midant-Reynes, B . 1992 Préhistoire de l’Egypte. Des Premiers Hommes aux Premiers Pharaons . Paris . 2003

Aux Origines de L’Egypte. Fayard .

Tristant, Y . 2012 How to Fill the Gaps? New Perspectives on Exchange between Egypt and the Near East during the Early Neolithic Period . In: P . Tallet and E . Mahfouz (eds .), The Red Sea in Pharaonic Times. Recent Discoveries along the Red Sea Coast. Proceeding of the Colloquium held in Cairo/Ayn Soukhna 11th–12th January 2009 . Cairo, 145–157 . Shirai, N . 2010 The Archaeology of the First farmer-herders in Egypt. New insights into the Fayum Epipalaeolithic and Neolithic. Leiden .

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2013a Was Neolithisation a struggle for existence and the survival of the fittest, or merely the survival of the luckiest? A case study of socioeconomic and cultural changes in Egypt in the EarlyMiddle Holocene . In: N . Shirai (ed .), Neolithisation of Northeastern Africa . Berlin, 213–235 . 2013b What makes the Neolithic in northeastern Africa? A new debate over an old issue for eliminating neighbourly ignorance . In: N . Shirai (ed .), Neolithisation of Northeastern Africa . Berlin, 1–3 . Warfe, A . 2003 Cultural Origins of the Egyptian Neolithic and Predynastic: An Evaluation of the evidence from the Dakhleh oasis (South Central Egypt) . African Archaeological Review 20/4, 175–202 . Wendorf, F . and Schild, R . 1984 Conclusion . In: F . Wendorf, R . Schild and A . E . Close (eds .), Cattle-keepers of the Eastern Sahara: the Neolithic of Bir Kiseiba . Dallas, 404–428 . 2001

Conclusion . In: F . Wendorf and R . Schild (eds .), Holocene settlement of the Egyptian Sahara. Volume 1. The Archaeology of Nabta Playa. New York, 648–675 .

2003

Food economy and settlement system during the Neolithic in the Egyptian Sahara . In: L . Krzyżaniak, K . Kroeper and M . Kobusiewicz (eds .), Cultural Markers in the Late Prehistory of Northeastern Africa and Recent Research . Poznań, 145–161 .

Wengrow, D . 2003 Landscape of Knowledge, Idioms of Power: The African Foundation of Ancient Egyptian Civilization Reconsidered . In: D . O’Connor and A . Reid (eds .), Ancient Egypt in Africa . London, 121–135 .

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Fig . 1 Map showing sites mentioned in the text

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Permanent or Seasonal? Evidence of Settlements in Late Chalcolithic Western Anatolia Christoph Schwall 1 – Barbara Horejs 1 Abstract Until recently, the Late Chalcolithic period has been one of the least researched periods in Western Anatolia . However, in the last few years the number of newly investigated sites has been increasing in this region . One of the major recent research debates is the question of whether settlements with differentiated societies and thus a more complex structure can be attested to some degree in Western Anatolia or not . New evidence regarding this topic is provided by the excavations at Çukuriçi Höyük, a tell settlement close to the central Western Anatolian coastline . During the excavations, settlements of the last centuries of the 4th millennium BC were recorded . These field investigations yielded different structures that can certainly be associated with a permanent settlement . In addition to a monumental ditch, several remains of dwellings consisting of stone socles with a wattle-and-daub superstructure were found at Çukuriçi Höyük . Moreover, installations such as drying platforms and storage facilities unearthed within the settlement contradict the assumption of a seasonal use settlement . Comparable evidence from other contemporaneous settlements in Western Anatolia and on the East Aegean Islands supports the existence of permanent settlements . Additionally, evidence of different specialized craft activities (i .e . metallurgy and textile production) indicates a type of organization of the settlement’s inhabitants . Hints from other Late Chalcolithic sites in Western Anatolia draw a picture of the roots of dynamic processes that led finally to the emergence of Early Bronze Age 1 settlements . Regarding this point, the increasing degree of connectivity since the Middle and Late Chalcolithic periods seems to be a crucial factor for this development .

1. Western Anatolia and the question of permanent Late Chalcolithic settlements As mentioned by various authors, researching the Middle (ca . 5500–4250 BC) and especially the Late Chalcolithic period (ca . 4250–3000 BC) in Western Anatolia (cf . Schoop 2005) has been problematic due to the lack of sites in this region . As shown on the maps published by U .-D . Schoop (2005: pl . 1; 2011a: 158, fig . 7 .3; 161, fig . 7 .4) and B . Düring (2011a: 201, fig . 6 .1; 2011b: 798, fig . 36 .1), in particular the central Western Anatolian region has been insufficiently investigated . In both studies the region of the East Aegean islands, apart from Chios and Samos, is mainly excluded . However, a view of the neighbouring regions is essential for the understanding of regional and supra-regional contacts and cultural influences . Düring has argued that ‘ephemeral settlements’ have to be assumed in Western Anatolia, especially considering the lack of features characterizing ‘complex villag-

1

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es’ like ‘public buildings’ and ‘defensive structures’ (Düring 2011b: 803) . Therefore, these settlements have to be seen as seasonally occupied and have to be connected to a mobile way of life (Düring 2011a: 254) . Nevertheless, from today’s point of view, data for these nebulous periods has been increasing in the last years (cf . Horejs and Schwall 2015; Schwall in press) . A new survey on excavated sites revealed that at present, 69 Middle and/or Late Chalcolithic sites attested by trial or extensive excavations have been published so far in Western Anatolia, on the East Aegean islands, on the Dodecanese and in Turkish Thrace (Fig . 1) . Several new sites were located especially during the past two decades in the central Western Anatolian costal region . Assessing these new data in detail, the results contradict Düring’s proposed mobile way of life and suggest that permanent settlements with a spatial inner organization and specialized craft activities were already detectable in Late Chalcolithic Western Anatolia at least as an additional ‘living concept’ . For this interpretation, the recently conducted excavations at the settlement of Çukuriçi Höyük provide important information that should be discussed in detail . 2. Evidence from Late Chalcolithic Çukuriçi Höyük The tell settlement Çukuriçi Höyük is located at the central Western Anatolian coastline in the southern vicinity of the ancient city of Ephesos . Based on the reconstruction of the prehistoric coastline, Çukuriçi Höyük can be defined as a coastal site (Fig . 2; cf . Stock 2015; Stock et al . 2015) . Large parts of the tell settlement were dug away in the course of agricultural use of the area (cf . Evren and İçten 1998: 112–113; 126, fig . 3; Evren 1999: 22–23, figs . 1–2; Horejs 2008: 92; Horejs et al . 2011: 37) . Based on palaeogeographic studies, a former settlement size of 200 to 100 meters can be assumed (cf . Stock et al . 2015; Stock 2015) . In total, the mound consists of 8 .5 meters of settlement layers, which date from the 7th to the beginning of the 3rd millennium BC (Horejs 2016: 143–144; Horejs 2017: 17, fig . 1 .5) . The Late Chalcolithic period at Çukuriçi Höyük is represented by the settlement phases ÇuHö VII to Vb . Sub-phase ÇuHö Va belongs to the beginning of the Early Bronze Age . This is clearly shown by 31 short-lived radiocarbon dates, which range between 3350 and 2950 calBC and therefore attest to a continuous occupation of the site from the final centuries of the Late Chalcolithic and the very beginning of the Early Bronze Age 1 period in Western Anatolia (cf . Schwall in press: chapter IV .1 .4 .) . The Late Chalcolithic settlement remains were attested in the northern (N1–4 and N7) and middle (M1) trenches . In trench M1, the occupation layers were partially covered by the north-south aligned settlement structures of the extended Early Bronze Age 1 settlement phase ÇuHö IV (Fig . 3) . The oldest Late Chalcolithic settlement (ÇuHö VII) was surrounded by a huge ditch measuring 6 m in width and 2 .5m in depth . Focusing on this large construction © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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in particular, it is rather unlikely that the ditch, with a presumed function as a defensive structure, was built for a seasonal purpose . Furthermore, indications of a permanent settlement are also recognizable in the architecture, which has been excavated in detail in both sub-phases (b and a) of the younger settlements ÇuHö VI and V in trench M1 (cf . Fig . 4) . The architecture is represented by solid stone socle walls with wattle-and-daub superstructures . Besides linear wall sections (ÇuHö VIb, Z-AA/58–59), in sub-phase ÇuHö VIa a presumably rectangular (RH 1) building measuring at least 8 .1 m in length and 3 .4 m in width was unearthed . Close to this building, a ‘stone row structure’ (SR 3) consisting of single rows of stones was excavated . These types of constructions with flat stone slabs situated upon the stone rows are much better preserved in sub-phase ÇuHö Vb (SR 1 and 2) . Charred remains found in the context of these installations indicate that a wooden platform was placed upon the stones . A function of these stone row platforms for drying fruit is attested by numerous burned figs and grape seeds in between the rows and in the surroundings of the structures . Due to the distance between the ground and the platform, the fruit were protected against moisture and, moreover, the circulation of air aids the drying process . In the direct vicinity of these structures, food preparation took place as shown by evidence of stone tools like mortars, pounders and grinding stones . These platforms can be seen in the context of organized storage facilities represented by circular buildings measuring 4 .0m and 3 .1m in inner diameter unearthed in both sub-phases of settlement ÇuHö V (RB 1 and 2; cf . Fig . 4) . Inside and outside these buildings, sherds of large vessels, presumably storage vessels, and again a high amount of carbonized figs, grape seeds and other botanical remains were found, which allow an interpretation of these circular structures as storage buildings . The roof construction of the circular buildings at Çukuriçi Höyük, whether conical or flat, is unclear and must remain an open question . Interestingly, in sub-phase ÇuHö Va an area with a circular building (RB 2) as well as a platform (SR 4) was surrounded by a massive wall and indicates an area with a distinct function within the settlement . Despite the lack of such a wall in the earlier sub-phase ÇuHö Vb, a comparable function of the area can be assumed in this sub-phase as well . Therefore, also the remains of the Late Chalcolithic settlement ÇuHö Vb suggest that already at the end of the 4th millennium BC a possible communal area within the settlement was used for drying and storing food and therefore indicates surplus production as well as a kind of spatial organization of the entire settlement structure . 3. Evidence from Late Chalcolithic Western Anatolia and the East Aegean islands In general, indications for storage facilities and storing of food can be traced already in the Middle Chalcolithic period and increased especially during the Late Chalcolithic period in Western Anatolia and the East Aegean . It is beyond the scope of © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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this paper and not possible to present an extended discussion of the evidence of the Middle and Late Chalcolithic period in detail (for this see Schwall in press: chapter VI .2 .) . In this contribution we want to focus on remains contemporaneous with Çukuriçi Höyük and to assess this evidence . Parallels for small-scale circular buildings with a similar interpretation are known from the neighbouring site Bakla Tepe, as well as from the sites Poliochni and Myrina on the East Aegean island of Lemnos (cf . Horejs and Schwall 2015: 463; Schwall in press: chapter IV .2 .3 .) . Besides these buildings, comparable platforms with ‘stone row structures’ have also been detected inside and outside of houses at Bakla Tepe (Erkanal and Özkan 1999: 130–134, 196, figs . 35–36; Şahoğlu and Tuncel 2014: 68–70, figs . 4–5) . Further evidence was recently excavated at Liman Tepe (Erkanal et al . 2016: 331–332, 339, fig . 8; Erkanal et al . 2017: 135, 147, fig . 2) and is, moreover, known from the central Anatolian site Çamlıbel Tarlası 2 (Schoop 2010: 192–194, figs . 49, 51; Schoop 2015: 51–52) . In all cases a function of these structures related to storage facilities and the protection of the stored items against the humidity of the ground is assumed by several authors (cf . Kouka 2002: 40, Ann . 225; Şahoğlu and Tuncel 2014: 68; Schoop 2010: 192; Schoop 2015: 51) . As already pointed out regarding the architectural patterns of Western Anatolia and on the East Aegean islands, different types of domestic architecture can be defined: rectangular buildings, elliptic/apsidal buildings, circular buildings and stone row structures (Horejs and Schwall 2015: 464, fig . 7; Schwall in press: chapter IV .2 .), which are all attested at Late Chalcolithic Çukuriçi Höyük (a curvilinear structure was excavated in trench N1; cf . Horejs 2008: 97) . Regarding the distribution of these architectural types, it is apparent that rectangular buildings are common in Western Anatolia and on the East Aegean Islands . In contrast, elliptic and circular buildings show an affinity to the maritime region, represented by sites in the coastal region and the East Aegean . Except for the parallels from Çamlıbel Tarlası, also the domestic platforms seem to follow this pattern . 3 This clearly shows that the increasing evidence of architectural types, which are related to the storage of food, are attested in this region and emphasizes finally the presence of intentional surplus production within the Late Chalcolithic settlements .

2 3

It is important to note that besides a seasonal occupation of the site in the course of metal production, stationary settlement episodes are assumed (Schoop 2011b: 65) . At first glance the distance between the Central and Western Anatolian sites with such constructions seems to be astonishing, but also apsidal buildings were detected at Çadır Höyük not that far away from Çamlıbel Tarlası dating around the middle of the 4th millennium BC (Şerifoğlu et al . 2014: 85–86, 95, fig . 2; Steadman et al . 2015: 89–92, figs . 2–3) . The existence of ‘alien’ appearing architectural forms could probably be explained by cultural influence of the Western Anatolian coastal region . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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4. Increasing connectivity as key for the establishment of permanent settlements? Due to the growing data provided by several excavations during the last years, there are more indications – besides architectural patterns and intentional surplus production of food – contradicting Düring’s generally proposed assumption of a mobile way of life and leading to the conclusion that more complex and stable communities, which were part of an extended interaction sphere, must be expected for Western Anatolia in the 4th millennium BC . In general, especially the costal zones seem to be a crucial factor for the development of communication and exchange networks . Already during the 5th millennium BC, supra-regional trans-Aegean connections are attested by a technological aspect in the use of mats for the production of ceramics (cf . Horejs and Schwall in press; Schwall in press: chapter V .2 .2 .) . Interestingly, the distribution of mat-impressed pottery shows that nearly all sites have a direct or indirect connection to the Aegean . This shows impressively the high degree of connectivity of this maritime region, which has the function as a distributer of goods and knowledge . Therefore, already during the Middle Chalcolithic period the emergence of a far-reaching communication and exchange network is clearly detectable . Additionally, within the Aegean and Western Anatolian region evidence of specialized craft activities, in particular metallurgy and textile production, are increasing since the 5th millennium BC with an intensification recognizable especially during the 4th millennium BC (cf . Mehofer 2014: 468–471, fig . 4; Alram-Stern 2014: 316–318, fig . 8; Schoop 2014: 429–434, figs . 1–3) . Beside specialized crafts, the procurement of Melian obsidian (Schwall in press: chapter VI .1 .1 .) as well as the distribution of Kiliya type figurines (Schwall and Horejs 2017: 58–59, fig . 3 .6; Schwall in press: chapter IV .5 .4 .) show that the Middle and Late Chalcolithic settlements in Western Anatolia were part of a broader communication and exchange network . The ‘Chalcolithic interaction sphere’, which emerged during this time, had built an essential basis for the further development in the following 3rd millennium BC and precursors the later cultural koine of the northern and eastern Aegean Islands defined by O . Kouka (2002: 295–302) and the Eastern Mediterranean interaction sphere according to L . Rahmstorf (2006: 81–82, fig . 18) of the Early Bronze Age 2 period . Thus, especially the new evidence from Çukuriçi Höyük and other settlements in the central western Anatolian costal region suggest that a differentiated settlement structure is already detectable during the Late Chalcolithic Period . This is shown by several types of evidence: permanent settlements with solid architecture (in case of Çukuriçi Höyük additionally a ditch) and a spatial inner organization, intentional surplus production and storing of food, specialized crafts as well as stable communication and exchange systems (Horejs 2014: 33–35, fig . 12; Schwall in press: chapter VI .) . In our opinion this process led to the formation of communities with regional power at the beginning of the Early Bronze Age . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Acknowledgements The excavations and research conducted at Çukuriçi Höyük were funded by the European Research Council (ERC project no . 263339) and the Austrian Science Fund (FWF projects no . Y 528-G02 and no . P 25825) . We would like to thank the research group of the Çukuriçi Höyük project as well as the Austrian Archaeological Institute (Excavation Ephesos) for their infrastructural support during our research at Çukuriçi Höyük . Bibliography Alram-Stern, E . 2014 Times of Change: Greece and the Aegean during the 4th Millennium BC . In: B . Horejs and M . Mehofer (eds .), Western Anatolia Before Troy. Proto-Urbanisation in the 4th Millennium BC? Proceedings of the International Symposium held at the Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, Vienna, Austria, 21th–24th November 2012 . Oriental and European Archaeology 1 . Vienna, 305–327 . Düring, B . S . 2011a The Prehistory of Asia Minor. From Complex Hunter-Gatherers to Early Urban Societies . Cambridge . 2011b Millennia in the middle? Reconsidering the Chalcolithic of Asia Minor . In: S . R . Steadman and G . McMahon (eds .), The Oxford Handbook of Ancient Anatolia . Oxford, 796–812 . Erkanal, H . and Özkan, T . 1999 Bakla Tepe Kazıları – Excavations at Bakla Tepe . In: H . Erkanal and T . Özkan (eds .), Tahtalı Barajı Kurtarma Kazısı Projesi – Tahtalı Dam Salvage Excavations Project . Izmir, 12–42, 108–138 . Erkanal, H ., Aykurt, A ., Büyükulusoy, K ., Tuğcu, İ ., Tuncel, R . and Şahoğlu, V . 2016 Liman Tepe 2014 Yılı Kara ve Sualtı Kazıları . Kazı Sonuçları Toplantısı 37/1 (2015), 323–340 . 2017

Liman Tepe 2015 Yılı Kara ve Sualtı Kazıları . Kazı Sonuçları Toplantısı 38/3 (2016), 133–150 .

Evren, A . 1999 Efes Çukuriçi Höyüğü 1996 Yılı Kazısı . Arkeoloji ve Sanat 92, 22–32 . Evren, A . and İçten, C . 1998 Efes Çukuriçi ve Arvalya (Gül hanım) Höyükleri . Müze Kurtarama Kazıları Semineri 7 (1997), 111–125 . Horejs, B . 2008 Erster Grabungsbericht zu den Kampagnen 2006–2007 am Ҫukuriçi Höyük . Jahreshefte des Österreichischen Archäologischen Institutes in Wien 77, 91–106 . 2014

Proto-Urbanisation without Urban Centres? A Model of Transformation for the Izmir Region in the 4th Millennium BC . In: B . Horejs and M . Mehofer (eds .), Western Anatolia Before Troy. Proto-Urbanisation in the 4th Millennium BC? Proceedings of the International Symposium held at the Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, Vienna, Austria, 21th–24th November 2012 . Oriental and European Archaeology 1 . Vienna, 15–41 . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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2016

Aspects of Connectivity on the Centre of the Anatolian Aegean Coast in the 7 Millennium BC . In: B . P . C . Molley (ed .), Of Odysseys and Oddities. Scales and Modes of Interaction between Prehistoric Aegean Societies and their Neighbours . Oxford .

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The Çukuriçi Höyük Research Project . In: B . Horejs, Ҫukuriçi Höyük 1. Anatolia and the Aegean from the 7th to the 3rd Millennium BC . Oriental and European Archaeology 5 . Vienna, 11–26 .

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Horejs, B . and Schwall, Ch . 2015 New light on a nebulous period – Western Anatolia in the 4th millennium BC . Architecture and settlement structures as cultural patterns? In: S . Hansen, P . Raczky, A . Anders and A . Reingruber (eds .), Neolithic and Copper Age between the Carpathians and the Aegean Sea. Chronologies and Technologies from the 6th to the 4th Millennium BCE . Archäologie in Eurasien 31, Bonn, 457–474 . in press Interaction as a stimulus? Çukuriçi Höyük and the transition from the Late Chalcolithic period to the Early Bronze Age in Western Anatolia . In: S . Dietz, F . Mavridis, Ž . Tankosić and T . Takaoğlu (eds .), Communities in Transition: The Circum-Aegean Area during the 5th and 4th Millennia BC. Athens . Horejs, B ., Galik, A ., Thanheiser, U . and Wiesinger, S . 2011 Aktivitäten und Subsistenz in den Siedlungen des Ҫukuriçi Höyük . Der Forschungsstand nach den Ausgrabungen 2006–2009 . Praehistorische Zeitschrift 86, 31–66 . Kouka, O . 2002 Siedlungsorganisation in der Nord- und Ostägäis während der Frühbronzezeit (3. Jt. v. Chr.) . Internationale Archäologie 58, Rahden/Westfalen . Mehofer, M . 2014 Metallurgy during the Chalcolithic and the Beginning of the Early Bronze Age in Western Anatolia . In: B . Horejs and M . Mehofer (eds .), Western Anatolia Before Troy. Proto-Urbanisation in the 4th Millennium BC? Proceedings of the International Symposium held at the Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, Vienna, Austria, 21th–24th November 2012 . Oriental and European Archaeology 1 . Vienna, 463–490 . Rahmstorf, L . 2006 Zur Ausbreitung vorderasiatischer Innovationen in die frühbronzezeitliche Ägäis . Praehistorische Zeitschrift 81/2, 49–96 . Şahoğlu, V . and Tuncel, R . 2014 New Insights into the Late Chalcolithic of Coastal Western Anatolia: A View from Bakla Tepe, Izmir . In: B . Horejs and M . Mehofer (eds .), Western Anatolia Before Troy. Proto-Urbanisation in the 4th Millennium BC? Proceedings of the International Symposium held at the Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, Vienna, Austria, 21th–24th November 2012 . Oriental and European Archaeology 1 . Vienna, 65–82 . Schoop, U .-D . 2005 Das anatolische Chalkolithikum. Eine chronologische Untersuchung zur vorbronzezeitlichen Kultursequenz im nördlichen Zentralanatolien und den angrenzenden Gebieten . Urgeschichtliche Studien 1, Großschönau . 2010

Ausgrabungen in Çamlıbel Tarlası 2009 . In: A . Schachner, Die Ausgrabungen in BoğazköyḪattuša 2009 . Archäologischer Anzeiger 2010/1, 191–201 .

2011a The Chalcolithic on the plateau . In: S . R . Steadman and G . McMahon (eds .), The Oxford Handbook of Ancient Anatolia . Oxford, 150–173 . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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2011b Çamlıbel Tarlası, ein metallverarbeitender Fundplatz des vierten Jahrtausends v . Chr . im nördlichen Zentralanatolien . In: Ü . Yalçın (ed .), Anatolian Metal V . Montanhistorische Zeitschrift der ANSCHNITT Beiheft 24 = Veröffentlichungen aus dem Deutschen Bergbau-Museum Bochum 180, Bochum, 123–144 . 2014

Weaving Society in Late Chalcolithic Anatolia: Textile Production and Social Strategies in the 4th Millennium BC . In: B . Horejs and M . Mehofer (eds .), Western Anatolia Before Troy. Proto-Urbanisation in the 4th Millennium BC? Proceedings of the International Symposium held at the Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, Vienna, Austria, 21th–24th November 2012 . Oriental and European Archaeology 1 . Vienna, 421–446 .

2015

Çamlıbel Tarlası . Late Chalcolithic settlement and economy in the Budaközü valley (northcentral Anatolia) . In: S . R . Steadman and G . McMahon (eds .), The Archaeology of Anatolia. Recent Discoveries (2011–2014) Volume I . Cambridge, 46–68 .

Schwall, Ch . in press Çukuriçi Höyük 2. Das 5. und 4. Jahrtausend v. Chr. in Westanatolien und der Ostägäis . Oriental and European Archaeology . Vienna . Schwall, Ch . and Horejs, B . 2017 Western Anatolian Impact on Aegean Figurines and Religion? In: B . Horejs, Ҫukuriçi Höyük 1. Anatolia and the Aegean from the 7th to the 3rd Millennium BC . Oriental and European Archaeology 5 . Vienna, 53–77 . Şerifoğlu, T . E ., McMahon, G . and Steadman, S . R . 2014 Orta Anadolu Platosu’ndaki Çadır Höyük’te 2013 Sezonu . Kazı Sonuçları Toplantısı 36/3 (2014), 85–98 . Steadman, S . R ., McMahon, G ., Ross, J . C ., Cassis, M ., Şerifoğlu, T . E ., Arbuckle, B . S ., Adcock, S . E ., Alpaslan Roodenberg, S ., von Bayer, M . and Lauricella, A . J . 2015 The 2013 and 2014 Excavation Seasons at Çadır Höyük on the Anatolian North Central Plateau . Anatolica 41, 87–123 . Stock, F . 2015 Ephesus and the Ephesia – Palaeogeographical and Geoarchaeological Research about a Famous City in Western Anatolia . PhD theses, University of Cologne, Cologne, Online (last accessed 04 .01 .2017) . Stock, F ., Ehlers, L ., Horejs, B ., Knipping, M ., Ladstätter, S ., Seren, S . and Brückner, H . 2015 Neolithic settlement sites in Western Turkey – palaeogeographic studies at Çukuriçi Höyük and Arvalya Höyük . Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 4, 565–577 .

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Fig . 1 Sites of the 5th and/or 4th millennium BC in Western Anatolia, on the East Aegean Islands, on the Dodecanese and in Turkish Thrace (Map: M . Börner, Ch . Schwall/both ERC Prehistoric Anatolia)

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Fig . 2 The reconstructed prehistoric landscape of the Küçuk Menderes delta with the prehistoric sites Çukuriçi Höyük and Arvalya Höyük (Map: M . Börner/ERC Prehistoric Anatolia)

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Fig . 3 Plan of the architectural remains of the Late Chalcolithic settlement phases ÇuHö VII–V (Plan: M . Börner/ERC Prehistoric Anatolia)

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Fig . 4 Plan of the excavated remains of settlement phases ÇuHö VI–V in trench M1 (Plan: M . Börner/ERC Prehistoric Anatolia)

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Central Zagros. Cultural Contacts between Mesopotamia and Iran in the Old Babylonian Period Silvana Di Paolo 1 Abstract At least from the beginning of the 3rd millennium BC, southern Mesopotamia (especially the Diyala region) and Luristan shared common aspects of material culture, like the adoption of specialized pottery and glyptics . In particular, between the central highlands of Pusht-i Kuh and the Zagros foothills, the adoption of Old Babylonian cylinder seals poses some questions about the use and meaning of these artefacts . Considering the historical and archaeological evidence, this paper considers the role the imagery might have had within a different social framework .

The Zagros mountains are the present political border between Iraq and Iran . In the past, they were the natural barrier between the Mesopotamian lowlands and the Iranian highlands . This extensive series of mountain ranges, stretching from the Azerbaijan Province southward to Luristan and then to Fars, ends at the Strait of Hormuz to the southeast . Temperature and precipitation vary extremely along the Zagros . Blocking the moisture coming from the Mediterranean on their western flanks, they assure a warm climate in northwestern and western Iran, including the region of Kermanshah (central Zagros) where the average annual rainfall is between 300 and 600mm (Stöcklin 1968; Ghorbani 1997) . In ancient times, these environmental conditions have allowed nomadic pastoralism as well as settlements of agriculturalists on the foothills . Even if there is no gap along this mountain range, which sometimes reaches 300km, some direct communication routes between the Mesopotamian lowlands and Iranian highlands crossed the Zagros in the northern and central parts . In regards to watercourses, due to the orderly folding of the Zagros, they generally carve their valleys parallel to the axis of the mountains, while in some cases, rivers like the Zab and Sirvan cut the mountains sharply . Thus, different passages permitted direct contact between these two regions . From the north to the central Zagros they are: 1) on the northwestern part of the Iranian plateau (modern Azerbaijan) lies the Haji Omaran-Keleshin pass that led through the Zagros mountains into ancient Assyria; 2) the route leading from the Raniya Plain through Qala Dizah (north of Sulaimaniyah) to Sardasht (in Iranian Kurdistan) and from here to Mahabad in the Urmia Plain (this is a main route even now);

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Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Istituto di Studi sul Mediterraneo Antico (CNR-ISMA) . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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3) in the central area of the Zagros, the Khorasan Road leads along the Diyala river, the eastern tributary of the Tigris, to present-day Hamadan . In addition, the entire central area of the Zagros in the western part of Iran is dominated by many northwest-southeast trending mountain ranges; the small valleys existing between these natural barriers are connected by mountain passes . Many alternative ways are available through these inner minor ranges, while the outer obstacles are hard to circumvent, except in some places (see above) . This wide area has long been treated as a marginal space, while in recent decades new investigations have revealed a more active role of local communities . The evidence for contacts with Mesopotamian city-states and kingdoms are many and, at least, dated to the 3rd millennium BC, even if principally based on textual sources (Ahmed 2012) . Rock carvings (often very badly preserved) sharing war iconographies with Mesopotamian artwork are located along the western and eastern edges of the central Zagros within an area between Sar i-Pol-i Zohab in Iran (southeast)2 and Bitwata in northwest Iraq (Börker-Klähn 1982: nos . 30–32, 34; Hrouda 1976) . Here, local rulers apparently copied the pose and iconography of Naram-Sin on his Victory Stele . The ‘triumph scheme’ adopted by the Akkadian king had also became very popular in other media (until the beginning of the 2nd millennium BC), also suggesting the possibility that the image had circulated through smaller and more easily transported artefacts (Di Paolo 2016: 29–36) . In the last decades, new evidence has aided the understanding of the conception and meaning of these war memorials dating between the end of the 3rd and the first half of the 2nd millennium BC . In particular, cuneiform texts from Tell Shemshara have permitted the reconstruction of the geo-political scene, filling the gap in the history of this wide area at the beginning of the 2nd millennium BC . One such example is the rockrelief now preserved in the Israel Museum of Jerusalem and depicting Iddin-Sin, king of Simurrum (a kingdom in the Transtigris area) and contemporary of Išbi-Erra of Isin (2019–1987 BC) . 3 Some of these rock inscriptions and reliefs marked, perhaps, the extent of the military conquests of the kings of Simurrum (Frayne 1990: 708, 712–713) . New archaeological research has placed its centre in the Shahrizor plain, between the Lower Zab and Diyala, with the northern extremity of the area under its control around Bitwata and the southern extremity at Sar i-Pol-i Zohab (Altaweel et al . 2012), but many hypotheses have been made about its location .4 Therefore, the true meaning and value of these monuments have yet to be fully understood . Archaeological and textual data in the central Zagros area also seem to support the hypothesis of small-scale ‘migration’ processes, including highly specialised people

2 3 4

For a map of the Sar i-Pol-i Zohab pass and location of the rock carvings, see Hrouda 1976, pl . 9b . For synchronisms of the rulers of Simurrum (Iddin-Sin and his son Zabazuna), Ur, Isin and Ešnunna, see Ahmed 2012: 245 . They have been collected by Ahmed 2012: 297–302 . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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(scribes, for instance, but also craftspeople), taking into account that at least by the end of the 3rd millennium BC these lands were actively controlled by Mesopotamian kings who were interested in securing access to the Iranian highlands, their raw materials and arable lands . The discovery of an early 18th century BC small cuneiform archive at Chogha Gavaneh in the Eslamabad-e Gharb area is evidence of direct Mesopotamian control, at least temporarily, of these mountain lands . Here, Mesopotamians linked to the towns of eastern Diyala (probably to the powerful Eshnunna), created textile workshops, staffed principally by women (Abdi and Beckman 2007: 39–88) . Among the mountain lands named in the cuneiform texts of the 3rd and 2nd millennia BC, there is Namar (Namri in Neo-Assyrian occurrences) . Known since the Early Dynastic period (in the geographical lists), and later in an Old Akkadian text from the excavations at Tell Suleimeh in the Hamrin basin, it has been located on the Great Khorasan Road in Iraqi territory, as suggested by Karlheinz Kessler (Kessler 1998–2001: 92) . The geographical association with Elam in a letter from Tell Shemshara sent by Pišenden, king of Turukkeans to, perhaps, an unknown king of Simurrum, could be evidence for the location of Namar/Namri in western Iran (Abdi and Beckman 2007: 80–85) . Unfortunately, data concerning ancient settlements in this wide region are rare in comparison with tombs . The presence of nomadic or semi-nomadic communities invited speculation on the situation in the Bronze Age, although on this point, scholars disagree . Louis Vanden Berghe suggested that nomadism prevailed across much of Luristan (Hole 2007: 76) . Instead, Daniel T . Potts argued that settlements, now probably covered by sediments, were located on the slopes of mountains and close to watercourses or springs, where physical conditions were favourable for their development (Potts 2013: 212) . The archaeological evidence is very variable over this region; here, the exploration is unfortunately still inadequate . Bronze Age cemeteries lying in the central Zagros are characterised by tombs that give indications of a rich culture combining local and foreign features . In particular, the evidence seems to show, over time, the adoption of some foreign cultural traits within completely local contexts . Specific processes (acculturation, assimilation, etc .) can take multiple forms and directions depending on the changing social contexts of different cultural groups in contact . A specific aspect of these contacts is represented by the presence of Old Babylonian seals in northwestern Pusht-i Kuh, the region that has the closest ties with Mesopotamia, while such seals have not been recovered in either Pish-e Kuh (further north) or the Adnanan region, further south . Although cylinder seals dating to the Middle Bronze Age (corresponding to Phase IV according to Belgian scholars) are uncommon in the Pusht-e Kuh area, they do occur in different contexts: for example, in Early Bronze tombs reopened for new internments in the first half of the 2nd millennium BC (Haerinck and Overlaet 2004: 128), but also in the Iron Age at Surkh Dum-e Luri (eight Old Babylonian and one late Old Assyrian cylinder seal) . In the latter case, because a Middle Bronze occupation was ascertained based on the chronology of some tombs, it seems evident that this group of cylinder seals may be interpreted as ‘heirlooms’, probably deposited in a sacred © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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building for religious purposes, without the intention of use (van Loon 1989: 215–18) . It is possible, in fact, that the materials combined with their attractive qualities (colour, shine etc .) made these objects special articles that were preserved by later generations . Another possible explanation is that the possession of valuable and ‘foreign’ ancient objects ensured, in some way, the control of the future and the maintenance of an identity . One of them, discovered at Surkh Dum-e Luri, is mentioned here: a hematite cylinder characterised by a presentation scene and two lines of writing (van Loon 1989: pl . 133 .20) . The function and meaning of these seals in Mesopotamia were strictly linked to the concept of authority and based on the correlation between scene, seal ownership and inscription . At Surkh Dum-e Luri the inscription includes the owner’s name (a theophoric personal name) and the statement ‘servant of’ followed by another personal name . This association between presentation scenes and seal inscriptions mentioning ‘officials’ are common in the Old Babylonian period . Three cylinder seals from the same site show the ‘King of the Mace’ facing the goddess Lamma; the inscription names a divine couple (Ninkarrak and Pabilsag) . This arrangement is a common feature in the Old Babylonian period, including inscriptions naming divine couples (Shamash and his consort Aia, etc .) (van Loon 1989: pl . 133 .21–23) . From the Early Dynastic period onwards, the northwestern part of the Pusht-i Kuh (Bani Surmah, Kalleh Nisar C, etc .) had contacts with the Hamrin/Diyala area, as is demonstrated by pottery, shells and other materials, including cylinder seals . Although this evidence does not always give a homogeneous picture, nevertheless, a re-examination of foreign materials in this region (typology, chronology and association with local assemblages) could focus on wider perspectives: how cultural contacts unfolded over time, if they followed a unidirectional path or not . By assembling archaeological and textual evidence, the aim is to investigate the forms of contact between two different civilisations and eventually phenomena of ‘external pressure’ (from an economic and political point of view, for instance) as well as interaction . Responses may include the intensification of some cultural practices, but also the development of new ‘institutional’ forms to resist these pressures . This is always a multidimensional process . The investigation of how different kinds of ‘power’ affected these processes is made difficult, in this specific case, by the lack of settlements . Thus, the possibility to investigate the impact (from both quantitative and qualitative points of view) of actions is rather limited . Nevertheless, this process has an important meaning, including the selection of foreign cultural traits and their integration in a different context or the activation of cultural practices under special circumstances . Bibliography Abdi, K . and Beckman, G . 2007 An Early Second-Millennium Cuneiform Archive from Chogha Gavaneh, Western Iran . Journal of Cuneiform Studies 59, 39–88 . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Ahmed, K . 2012 The Beginnings of Ancient Kurdistan (c. 2500–1500 BC). A Historical and Cultural Synthesis . PhD Thesis, Leiden University, Leiden . Altaweel, M . R ., Marsh, A ., Mühl, S ., Nieuwenhuyse, O ., Radner, K ., Rasheed, K . and Saber, A . S . 2012 New Investigations in the Environment, History, and Archaeology of the Iraqi Hilly Flanks: Shahrizor Survey Project 2009–2011 . Iraq 74, 1–35 . Börker-Klähn, J . 1982 Altvorderasiatische Bildstelen und vergleichbare Felsreliefs . Baghdader Forschungen 4, Mainz am Rhein . Di Paolo, S . 2016 Visualising War in the Old Babylonian Period: Drama and Canon . In: L . Battini (ed .), Making Pictures of War. Realia et Imaginaria in the Iconology of the Ancient Near East . Ancient Near Eastern Archaeology 1, Oxford, 29–36 . Frayne, D . R . 1990 Old Babylonian Period (2003–1595 BC). The Royal Inscriptions of Mesopotamia 4, Toronto . Ghorbani, M . 1997 The Economic Geology of Iran: Mineral Deposits and Natural Resources . New York . Haerinck, E . and Overlaet, B . 2004 The Chronology of the Pusht-i Kuh, Luristan: Results of the Belgian Archaeological Expedition in Iran . In: K . Folsach, H . Thrane and I . Thuesen (eds .), From Handaxe to Khan. Essays Presented to Peder Mortensen on the Occasion of His 70th Birthday . Aarhus, 119–135 . Hole, F . 2007 Cycles of Settlement in the Khorramabad Valley in Luristan, Iran . In: E . C . Stone (ed .), Settlement and Society. Essays dedicated to Robert McCormick Adams . Los Angeles, 63–82 . Hrouda, B . 1976 Sarpol-I Zohab. Die Felsreliefs I–IV . Iranische Denkmäler 7, II: Iranische Felsreliefs C, Berlin . Kessler, K . 1998–2001 Namar/Namri . In: D .-O . Edzard (ed .), Reallexikon der Assyriologie und vorderasiatischen Archäologie 9, 92 . van Loon, M . 1989 Bronze Age Cylinder Seals . In: E . F . Schmidt, M . N . van Loon and H . H . Curvers (eds .), The Holmes Expeditions to Luristan . Oriental Institute Publications 108, Chicago, 211–227 . Potts, D . T . 2013 Luristan and the Central Zagros in the Bronze Age . In: D . T . Potts (ed .), The Oxford Handbook of Ancient Iran . Oxford . Stöcklin, J . 1968 Structural History and Tectonics of Iran: a Review . American Association Petroleum Geologists Bulletin 52, 1229–1258 . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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The Emergence of Political Buffer Zones on the Eve of Early States in Southwestern Iran Abbas Alizadeh 1 Abstract Beginning in the late 6th and early 5th millennia BC, the Ubaid culture penetrated into northwest Mesopotamia, while the Susiana culture advanced into the Zagros Mountains and highland Fars . As a result, large tracts of land in the marginal plains surrounding Susiana, which previously were almost completely unoccupied, were now settled . This pattern changed in the early 3rd millennium with the initial consolidation of political power in the region . Susiana became a theatre of confrontation between the forces of the Early Dynastic states and those in lowland Susiana and the highlands . Susiana was finally subdued by the Akkadian and Ur III dynasties, resulting in the abandonment of both the Ram Hormuz and Nourabad-Mamasani plains for about 1000 years, until the last ruler of the Ur III dynasty was defeated by the Shimashki forces .The third buffer zone, the Deh Luran plain, had a different evolution . While the plain was never completely abandoned, judging by the archaeological evidence, it was not part of the proto-Elamite sphere of interaction and does not seem to have returned to the Susiana-based states until the 2nd millennium BC .

While changes in settlement systems in the millennia prior to the rise of early states may be attributed to a number of demographic, environmental and climatic factors, such changes in the era of regional states must include political factors as well . The following is a brief analysis of the political factors that affected settlement systems in southwestern Iran, particularly in regions considered in this paper as peripheral and geographical buffer zones between competing states (Fig . 1) . The sphere of cultural interaction between southern Mesopotamia and lowland Susiana, southwestern Iran, came to an end in the 5th millennium BC . Ubaid material culture penetrated into north and northwest Mesopotamia, while the contemporary Susiana culture extended into the Zagros Mountains and highland Fars . As a result of the latter cultural expansion, large tracts of land in the marginal plains of Ram Hormuz (Alizadeh et al. 2013; Alizadeh et al. 2014; Wright and Carter 2003), Behbahan and Nourabad-Mamasani (Potts et al. 2009), which previously were either completely or sparsely unoccupied, were fully settled . The settlement systems in these peripheral regions underwent a drastic change with the rise of early states in Iran and Mesopotamia . Lowland Susiana became a theatre of confrontation between the forces of the nascent Early Dynastic states and those based in lowland Susiana and the surrounding highland valleys . Susiana

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was finally subdued by the powerful Akkadian and Ur III dynasties, resulting in the desettlement2 of the Ram Hormuz, Behbahan and Nourabad-Mamasani plains for about 1000 years, until the last ruler of the Ur III dynasty was defeated by the highland Shimashki forces and was taken as a hostage to Anshan . The fourth buffer zone in the region, the Deh Luran plain (Neely and Wright 1994), had a different evolution . While Deh Luran was never completely desettled, it was not part of the proto-Elamite sphere of interaction and does not seem to have returned to the Susiana-based states until the 2nd millennium BC . This crucial phase of ancient Near Eastern political development cannot be understood in and of itself without including the two millennia that bookend this phase . The processes of early state formation in both Mesopotamia and southwestern Iran seem to have run their course by the end of the 4th millennium BC . These early sociopolitical developments appear to have had a profound impact on the plain of Deh Luran in the 4th millennium BC . Prior to this time, Deh Luran was squarely in the Susiana sphere of interaction and in lock-step with Susiana cultural developments . The prelude to the major changes in the Deh Luran plain began around 4700 BC, when the size of the settled population steadily dropped . In the early 4th millennium, only the two small sites of Sargarab and Chakali show evidence of occupation (Wright et al. 1975: 131–136, fig . 6) . The proximity of these sites to the mountains and the fact that the flat portion of the plain became devoid of settlement may suggest the beginning of insecurity in the region . During the first half of the 4th millennium, the settlement system changed again . Sargarab and Chakali were abandoned, and Farukhabad on the open plain began to grow, with five small villages scattered across the plain (Neely and Wright 1994: 173) . This change in the settlement system may indicate a period of relative stability in the region between 3500 and 3000 BC . Still, Musyan, the largest and most strategic settlement on the plain, remained unoccupied . The only excavated major settlement dating to the 4th millennium is Farukhabad, where the evidence for the ubiquitous administrative technology of Late Susa II is extremely meagre and even the ceramics, though almost identical with the contemporary forms from Susa and Uruk, are limited in forms and decoration (Wright 1981) . The outcome of these 4th millennium socio-political processes in the two regions was drastically different; in southern Mesopotamian major population centres grew and consolidated their hinterlands, while Susiana became ‘desettled’ in the sense that while many settlements were abandoned, people did not leave the region permanently, but pursued a mobile agro-pastoralist way of life in the proto-Elamite period

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I am using this neologism to make a major distinction between seasonal movements of a region’s population and its abandonment because of war, epidemic diseases or natural calamities . The proto-Elamite period in Susiana is the best example of desettlement (see Alden 1987; Alizadeh 2010; Alizadeh et al. 2013; Alizadeh et al. 2014), where the core of the polity was characterized by a very sparse settlement system . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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(Alden 1987; Alizadeh 2010; Alizadeh et al. 2013; Alizadeh et al. 2014) . Beginning around 2700 BC, Susiana seems to have been controlled by Mesopotamian forces for the next 700 years (Carter and Stolper 1984: 10–16) . Following the Sumerian hegemony in Susiana, the settled population increased rapidly (Carter and Stolper 1984: 135) . Even though the material culture and written records in post proto-Elamite Susiana were primarily Sumerian and Akkadian, the regional organization of the society was clearly non-Sumerian with only one very large urban centre and a very small rural population scattered across the plain (cf . Schacht 1987) . Whatever the situation may have been in Susiana, the penetration of Sumerian forces into lowland Susiana had profound impacts on the settlement systems in the buffer zones . The Ram Hormuz (Alizadeh et al. 2013; Alizadeh et al. 2014), Behbahan and Nourabad-Mamasani plains (Potts et al. 2009), southeast of Susiana, seem to have been completely devoid of any settled population from ca . 2800 to 1900 BC, while the Deh Luran plain continued to be occupied throughout the 3rd millennium BC (Neely and Wright 1994: 178–182) . Since all these plains have large tracks of fertile land, there must have been reasons other than poor natural resources for the absence of settled populations during this period, such as major conflicts between Sumer and Elam, which are frequently mentioned in the written records . Frequent hostilities must have rendered settled life in these fertile regions very difficult . To appreciate this situation we need to remember that all three of these rather marginal plains constitute a natural buffer zone between the lowlands and the highlands and provide the easiest access routes to the intermontane valleys leading to central Zagros and Fars where the Elamite forces would retreat . In contrast, the Deh Luran plain continued to be occupied throughout the 3rd millennium BC and the archaeological materials excavated in the region clearly place it in the sphere of Mesopotamian influence (Neely and Wright 1994: 28–30, 178–182) . The absence of settlements in the three southeastern plains lasted until the early nd 2 millennium BC . With the rise of the Sukkalmah, the regional organization of society in both upper Susiana (Schacht 1987) and Ram Hormuz (Alizadeh et al. 2013; Alizadeh et al. 2014), as well as in the other plains, changed . Settlements were established rapidly and continued to be occupied and expand until the turbulent late Neo-Elamite II phase (de Miroschedji 2003: 34–36) . Episodes of organized violence between the lowland and highland forces must have created the need for some volatile buffer zones, which, in my opinion, at various phases of history included Deh Luran, the Ram Hormuz and the Nourabad-Mamasani region . It is only after the defeat of the Ur III dynasty and the appearance of the powerful Shimashki and Sukkalmah dynasties on the political scene that both the Ram Hormuz and the Nourabad-Mamasani regions were settled again .

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Bibliography Alden, J . 1987 The Susa III Period . In: F . Hole (ed .), Archaeology of Western Iran . Washington D .C ., 157–170 . Alizadeh, A . 2010 The Rise of the Highland Elamite State in Southwestern Iran: “Enclosed” or Enclosing Nomadism? Current Anthropology 51, 3, 353–383, doi: 10 .1086/652437 . Alizadeh, A ., Ahmadzadeh, L . and Omidfar, M . 2013 Reflections on the Long-term Socioeconomic and Political Development in the Ram Hormuz Plan, a Highland-Lowland Buffer Zone . Archäologische Mitteilungen aus Iran und Turan 45, 113–148 . 2014

Ancient Settlement Systems and Cultures in the Ram Hormuz Plain, Southwestern Iran. Oriental Institute Publications 140, Chicago .

Carter, E . and Stolper, M . W . 1984 Elam: Survey of Political History and Archaeology . University of California Publications in Near Eastern Studies 25, Los Angeles . de Miroschedji, P . 2003 Susa and the Highlands: Major Trends in the History of Elamite Civilization . In: N . F . Miller and K . Abdi (eds .), Yeki Bud, Yeki Nabud: Essays on the Archaeology of Iran in Honor of William M. Sumner . Cotsen Institute of Archaeology Monograph 48, Los Angeles,17–38 . Neely, J . A . and Wright, H . T . 1994 Early Settlement and Irrigation on the Deh Luran Plain: Village and Early State Societies in Southwestern Iran. Technical Report 26, Ann Arbor . Potts, D . T ., Roustaei, K ., Petrie, C . A . and Weeks, L . R . 2009 The Mamasani Archaeological Project Stage One . British Archaeological Reports International Series 2044, Oxford . Schacht, R . 1987 Early Historic Cultures . In: F . Hole (ed .), Archaeology of Western Iran . Washington D .C ., 171– 204 . Wright, H . T . (ed .) 1981 An Early Town on the Deh Luran Plain: Excavations at Tepe Farukhabad . Memoirs of the Museum of Anthropology 13, Ann Arbor . Wright, H . T ., and Carter, E . 2003 Archaeological Survey on the Western Ram Hormuz Plain, 1969, In: N . F . Miller and K . Abdi (eds .), Yeki Bud, Yeki Nabud: Essays on the Archaeology of Iran in Honor of William M. Sumner . Cotsen Institute of Archaeology Monograph 48, Los Angeles, 61–82 . Wright, H . T ., Neely, J . A ., Johnson, G . A . and Speth, J . 1975 Early Fourth Millennium Developments in Southwestern Iran . Iran. Journal of the British Institute of Persian Studies 13, 129–147 .

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The Emergence of Political Buffer Zones on the Eve of Early States in Southwestern Iran

Fig . 1 Map of southwestern Iran

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The EB–MB Transition in the Southern Levant: Contacts, Connectivity and Transformations

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The EB–MB Transition in the Southern Levant: Contacts, Connectivity and Transformations Marta D’Andrea 1 Abstract In the past, mass migrations have been regarded as the driving force of cultural transformations and sociopolitical changes in the southern Levant between the Early and Middle Bronze Ages . In later scholarship, interpretation centring on endogenous developments have been largely favoured, along with evidence for the introduction of new elements resulting from the re-elaboration of foreign features . While clues for substantial migrations can be difficult to find in the archaeological evidence from the region dating from Early Bronze IV/early Middle Bronze I, elements in the material culture hint at connectivity and contacts with neighbouring areas and the circulation of new technologies and ideas, but also of people . This paper presents an overview of archaeological evidence for interactions and seeks to analyse the nature and mechanisms of contacts based on the distribution of specific components of material culture in the late Early Bronze IV phase .

1. Introduction In the past, cultural transformations and sociopolitical changes in the southern Levant between the Early and Middle Bronze Ages (EBA and MBA) were attributed to mass migrations (e .g ., Kenyon 1966) . Later, some studies revealed the ancestry of the cultural matrix of the southern Levantine EB IV in the local EBA tradition and focused on endogenous developments (e .g ., Richard 1980) . The appearance of foreign elements derived from Syria in the southern Levant was linked with different forms of contact including influxes of people (e .g . Dever 1971; Prag 2009; Prag 2011), diffusion and exchange (e .g . Dever 1973: 57; Dever 1980: 46, 50–52; Mazzoni 1985: 12–15; Palumbo 1990: 118–120) or emulation and re-elaboration of non-local traits (e .g . Bunimovitz and Greenberg 2004: 23–28; Bunimovitz and Greenberg 2006: 25–29) . This paper reviews the spatial patterning of particular components of EB IV material culture hinting at the circulation of new technologies and ideas, but also of people, in order to analyse the nature and mechanisms of contacts during this period . 2. Elements of inter-regional connectivity in EB IV material culture 2 .1 Reconsidering long-established interpretations of the ‘Syrian Connection’ In the framework of traditional chronologies (placing EB IV at ca . 2300–2000 BC), Bunimovitz and Greenberg1 (2004: 27–28; 2006: 27–29) interpreted the spread of

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goblets in EB IV, which replaced the platter-bowls of the local EB II–III tradition, as a change in convivial practices compared to the previous EB II–III periods . They maintained that the archaeological manifestation of such change was emulation of the Syrian elites, with primary emulation occurring in the northern areas of the southern Levant, located at the periphery of the Syrian urban core, and secondary emulation in the areas to the south (Bunimovitz and Greenberg 2004: 19, 27– 28; Bunimovitz and Greenberg 2006: 27–29) . The hypothesis that during EB IV in the southern Levant, earlier ways of representation of the ‘urbanized’ EB III were rejected in favour of means of expression linked to the north has received scholarly consensus so far . In this paper, I offer a different interpretation based on new records and a recent reassessment of north-south synchronisms resulting from new absolute dates for the southern Levantine EB IV at ca . 2500–1950/1920 BC (e .g . Regev et al. 2012: 559–560; Cohen 2012) . My proposal is that the shift from the predominance of platter-bowls in EB III to the prevalence of goblets in EB IV was not limited to the southern Levant, but was a pan-Levantine trend (Vacca and D’Andrea in press) . EB III in the southern Levant is now dated to ca . 2900/2850–2500 BC (Regev et al . 2012: 559–560), i .e ., largely contemporary with EB III in the northern Levant, ca . 2750/2700–2500 BC (Vacca 2015: 1–2) . Thus, urbanization occurred simultaneously in the two regions during this period . Afterwards, the northern Levant made the leap forward to the formation of early states (EB IVA, ca . 2500–2300 BC), followed by a phase of reorganization and change after the disruption of EB IVA polities during local EB IVB (ca . 2300–2000 BC), yet still an urban phase . By contrast, urbanization collapsed in the southern Levant at the end of EB III, and the region reverted to village life . The shift from EB IV to MB I took place at a different pace at individual sites and areas; therefore, the two cultural horizons might have overlapped at different places (Nigro 2003: 139; D’Andrea 2014b: 152–153, 157, fig . 9) . Consequently, there is a need to re-examine the factors shaping contacts between the two areas throughout different phases . The spread of carinated platter-bowls with inturned rims, with regional and sub-regional stylistic diversity, characterized the EB III period in both the northern and southern Levant . Based on the available data, the trend towards urbanization might have started earlier in the southern Levant in EB II (ca . 3000–2900/2850 BC; Regev et al . 2012: 558–559), than in the north, although not much is known of the northern Levantine EB II so far . However, from what we know to date, we can assume that such southern priority may account for the southern Levantine ‘mark’ of some elements of the material culture widely distributed across the Levant during EB III, such as the carinated platter-bowls (Vacca and D’Andrea in press) . In EB IV, when goblets proliferated across the entire Levant, again with many regional and sub-regional varieties (Welton and Cooper 2014; D’Andrea and Vacca 2015: 47–48, 62, fig . 3), changes in the sociopolitical organization of both regions from 2500 BC might have inverted the directions of influxes – south-north in EB III and north-south in EB IV . The emphasis on drinking during EB IV might point to a © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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change in the means of aggregation within and between groups in response to new sociocultural scenarios, but the reasons why goblets fulfilled this role better than platter-bowls still elude our understanding (Welton and Cooper 2014: 337; Vacca and D’Andrea in press) . T . Wilkinson and colleagues have hypothesized that during the second half of the 3rd millennium BC, the agro-pastoral communities of the southern Levant were peripherally involved in large-scale sheep rearing controlled by the EB IVA Syrian polities, favouring the introduction of Syrian drinking practices into the southern Levant (Wilkinson et al . 2014: 90–92) . However, the lack of textual and archaeological data on patterns of connectivity in the ‘buffer zones’ between the north and the south – the area south of Hama, the Syrian steppe, southern Syria and the Upper Galilee – in this period makes it difficult to prove this reconstruction . Moreover, stable isotope analysis to test human residential mobility and movements of flocks across the Levant during this period have not yet been carried out . 2 The evidence for the earliest EB IV phase in the southern Levant is very scanty (D’Andrea 2014a: 139–140, 183–186, 270–272), but it is probable that inter-regional connectivity resumed when the region had overcome the first phase of crisis, i .e ., in the developed EB IV phase, broadly corresponding with Syrian EB IVB dating to the last quarter of the 3rd millennium BC . In fact, there are hints that in the later part of EB IV, from ca . 2300 BC, a new sociopolitical and socioeconomic balance emerged in the northern Levant, made possible by the collapse of the EB IVA Syrian polities . In this phase, sites like Tell Nebi Mend and Tell Sha’irat gained in importance (Mouamar 2016: 77; Kennedy 2016: 3), southern Syria witnessed the reestablishment of sedentary settlements, and settlements flourished again in the northern valleys of the southern Levant (D’Andrea 2014a: 114–123; D’Andrea 2017), where Hazor was reoccupied by a substantial village (Bechar 2013) . This phase was characterized by the diffusion of Black Wheelmade Ware, traditionally considered as the hallmark of primary emulation of drinking practices of the Syrian elites in the northern valleys of the southern Levant, and, lately, subject of a reappraisal (see below) . It is now clearly appreciable that rather than emulation of northern styles, the southern Levantine Black Wheelmade Ware was a sub-regional segment of a technological milieu encompassing a broad area of the Levant (D’Andrea 2014c: 192–203, 206–212; D’Andrea 2017; cf . also Bechar 2015) . This ware was a locally produced manifestation of the grey, hard-textured wares spreading over the central and lower Orontes Valley, the Syrian steppe, southern Syria, the Beqa‘ and Upper Galilee during the last quarter of the 3rd millennium BC (D’Andrea 2014c: 191–203, 206– 212, in particular see figs . 5, 8; here Fig . 1) . These areas were actively involved in the production of specialized wares – e .g ., the Metallic Ware – already during EB II/

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We have planned isotopic study of skeletal remains from Tell Mardikh/Ebla, Syria . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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III (Greenberg and Porat 1996), a fact that points to continuity in EB IV of structures already existing during the previous periods (see also D’Andrea 2012: 44–45) . 2 .2 Exploring different patterns of north-south connectivity: the ‘Coastal Connection’ The goblets and Black Wheel-made Ware have attracted great attention in the study of the EB IV period in the southern Levant, but different materials may suggest other patterns of interconnectivity . As is well known, the retrieval of askoi at Sefad/ Zefat (Amiran 1971: 57, fig . 5 .II) and ‘Ain Mallaha/‘Enan (Eisenberg 1985: fig . 3 .10–11; here Fig . 2) in the Hula Valley points to connections with the northwest towards Cyprus and the Aegean . The discovery at Tiryns, in the Argolid, of a fragment of a large-sized flask imported from southern Palestine (Oren 2003: fig . 1 .2–3) may confirm the existence of contacts between the Aegean and the southern Levant during the late 3rd millennium BC . Besides these items, other components of southern Levantine material culture that have been overlooked may hint at the existence of a ‘coastal connection’, such as some types of cups (D’Andrea 2014a: vol . I: 256, fig . 6 .14:1–3; vol . II: 191, Type G3 .1, pl . XXVIII .13–16 here Fig . 3 .1–2 and 3 .8–9 for parallels from Byblos) and handled cups and mugs (D’Andrea 2014a: vol . I: 255, fig . 6 .13:1–7; vol . II: 185–188, Types HC1–5, pls . XXV, XXVI .1–8; here Fig . 3 .3–7, Fig . 4), which appeared in the developed phase of EB IV in the coastal areas and the inland zones nearby . Handled cups might be connected with northern Lebanon, where they are a dominant feature of the EB IV repertoire of sites located between Byblos and Tell Arqa (Thalmann 2008: 70–72, fig . 6: here Fig . 3 .10–11, 13–15) . The wishbone handles appearing on southern Levantine vessels (Fig . 3 .3–5, Fig . 4) might be related with Cilicia (Fig . 3 .12) . Both connections should be explored extensively, however, it is evident that vessel types and styles possibly inspired by northern and northwestern prototypes were autonomously re-elaborated in a typically local fashion in the southern Levant . Thus, it seems that in the areas located outside the ‘buffer zones’ between the northern and southern Levant, sociocultural phenomena more complex than “the translation of the Syrian morphemes into local ceramic idioms” hypothesized by Bunimovitz and Greenberg (2004: 28; 2006: 29) were at work . Diversified components deriving from differentiated trajectories of interconnectivity were deliberately selected and adopted by individual sub-regional areas and sites, a phenomenon that D . Bolger defined as differential modes of engagement with foreign cultural elements at a regional and local level in regards to a similar situation in Cyprus (Bolger 2013: 2) . 2 .3 Beyond Goblets and Cups: Changes in the Cooking Ware Repertoire The considerations above also apply well to some new Cooking Ware vessel types that appeared in the southern Levant in the developed or late EB IV phase . I have already considered this evidence in other publications (D’Andrea 2014a: 262, fig . 6 .16; © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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D’Andrea 2014b: 157, fig . 8:4–13), but I call attention to them here as the spatial distribution of these new shapes is concentrated in limited sub-regional areas and this reconnects with the considerations put forward in the above paragraph . Globular cooking pots with a flaring rim, which were attested in the northern valleys of the southern Levant already during EB II/III, in EB IV also spread into south-central Transjordan, the Judean Hills, the Shephelah and the central Negev (D’Andrea 2014a: vol . I: 262, fig . 6 .16: 2–3; vol . II, app . B: 282–284, pl . XCVI .1–5; Types CP1 .1–2; 2014b: 157, fig . 8 .5–6) . The large Cooking Ware bowls with or without ledge handles, which appeared in the northern valleys of the southern Levant (D’Andrea 2014a: vol . I: 262, fig . 6 .16: 4–5; app . B: 198, 201, 203, Types B1 .1, 1 .2C, B1 .4; 2014b: 157, fig . 8 .8–9), can be correlated with similar vessels found in EB IVB in inland western Syria in EB IVB contexts (D’Andrea 2014a: 262, fig . 6 .17; D’Andrea 2014b, fig . 8 .10–13) . Finally, forerunners of the straight-sided cooking pots, which will be typical of the MBA Cooking Ware repertoire, appeared for the first time during a developed phase of EB IV (D’Andrea 2014a: vol . I: 262, fig . 6 .16: 10; vol . II, app . B: 222–223, pl . LII .1–2; Type SCP1 .1; D’Andrea 2014b: 157, fig . 8 .7) . Although only residue analysis might reveal if there were changes in food habits – considered as a conservative set of cultural practices within a community – these vessels suggest that there was more than the emulation of northern drinking practices occurring in the southern Levant during EB IV . 2 .4 Beyond eating and drinking: Changes in mortuary practices Changes in mortuary practices in the EB IV southern Levant discussed in previous works (D’Andrea 2014a: 261; D’Andrea 2014b: 157, fig . 7a, c) bolster the arguments put forward in this paper . The placement of weapons in burials, which had been practiced in the Euphrates River Valley and the northern Levant since the mid3rd millennium BC (Philip 1995; D’Andrea 2013; D’Andrea 2014a: 237–244), is noticeable also in the southern Levant in the developed EB IV phase . At the same time, some stone-built graves are attested in the region (Tubb 2009; D’Andrea 2014a: 261, fig . 3 .15; D’Andrea 2014b, 157, fig . 7c; Kennedy 2015), which was a tradition that spread locally in the MBA . Although some attempts to connect these graves to given populations were made (e .g ., Tubb 2009: 115–116 for the southern Levant and see Cooper 2007, in particular pp . 68–69, for the Middle Euphrates Valley), only isotopic analysis to check human residential mobility and DNA analysis to verify the origin of the deceased buried in these tombs may reveal if they were locals aware of northeastern mortuary practices due to their movements for economic activities (see below) or non-local people living within the southern Levant who kept their own funerary tradition . However, as stone-built graves are alien to the southern Levantine EBA tradition and evidently linked with the northeast, their appearance in the region points to the circulation of either non-local people, or ideas and practices across the southern Levant (D’Andrea 2014a: 263–264; D’Andrea 2014b: 157–158) . This proposal has also been recently reprised by M . Kennedy, who underlined their location along a major north-south connecting route, from the Euphrates Valley, to © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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the Orontes, across the Hauran to the Wadi-az Zarqa and thence overland through the Jordan Valley (Kennedy 2015: 122–123, figs 15, 17) . 3. Routes and mechanisms of interconnectivity The spatial distribution of the elements analysed above points to the existence of two main routes of interconnectivity, leading along the coast to the west, and to the Syrian Desert and the Euphrates Valley to the east, and intersecting at the height of Megiddo (Fig . 6), and later known, respectively, as the Via Maris and the King’s Highway . These routes were likely tracks of inter-regional circulation of people, favouring the spread of ideas and styles to the south . Besides these routes, active intra-regional connectivity played a fundamental role in the widespread diffusion of new techno-stylistic traits and cultural practices across the entire southern Levant . Intra-regional contacts and connections (Fig . 5) are revealed by patterns of pottery exchange among different sites and areas (see, e .g ., Goren 1996; D’Andrea 2012: 40–41; D’Andrea 2014a: 142–152; D’Andrea 2015: 32–33, with bibliography) . Likewise, the spatial distribution of similar sets of weapons at sites belonging to different ceramic zones is a further confirmation of intra-regional connectivity as a means for the spread of ideas and styles (D’Andrea 2013: 138–140, figs . 2–3; D’Andrea 2014a: 239–243, fig . 6 .7–8) . Lately, there has been a revival of migrationist theories; cultural transformations in the Levant are interpreted as the result of movements of political or climatic refugees from Upper Mesopotamia, the Euphrates Valley and inland western Syria (e .g ., Prag 2009, see in particular pp . 81–82; Prag 2011: 65–71; Kennedy 2016: 21–24; Burke 2017: 276–296) . The investigation of these issues would benefit from a greater consideration of factors often overlooked in the study of migrations in the past, such as the analysis of changes in the demographic structures of the communities thought to be, respectively, the origin and destination of such movements, but this would require a quantity and quality of data that is rarely available to archaeologists . Likewise, the impact of climate change should be evaluated case by case . In my opinion, it is highly probable that the responses to political crisis were differentiated locally and resulted from endogenous factors and local responses to changed inter-regional scenarios, leading to different modes of landscape organization and use, when new socioeconomic and sociopolitical possibilities opened up, as well as new patterns of interconnectivity . Pastoralism may have reasonably played an important role in inter-regional and intra-regional connectivity, but also other economic activities may have fuelled long-distance interactions during the late EBA . Metal weapons and ornaments scattered over the entire southern Levant, with typological variants hinting at differentiated sub-regional traditions, suggest that metallurgy played a crucial role in the region during the developed phase of this period (D’Andrea 2014a: 236–247, with bibliography) . The tin-bronze alloy, already used in the northern Levant since the mid-3rd millennium BC, appeared for the first time at several sites in the southern Levant in this phase . Analyses © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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suggested that the bar-shaped ingots from across the southern Levant had a common origin from the Faynan ores in southern Jordan and were made of pure copper, while tin circulated separately and was added at the manufacturing centres of the tin-bronze artefacts (Hauptmann et al . 2015: 20–21) . With respect to this, it is worth noting that EB IV tin-bronze objects have been found in the southern Levant at places in favourable positions along routes of interconnectivity, such as ‘Enan, ‘Enot Shuni and Khirbat Iskandar (Kaufmann 2013: tab . 5 with bibliography) . The spatial distribution of metalwork shows that a restricted array of weapons and pins were distributed over a broad area encompassing the northern and southern Levant, Cyprus, Anatolia and Mesopotamia (D’Andrea and Vacca 2015: 49–50) . The role of metallurgy in driving inter-regional connectivity might be one of the factors lying behind the placement of metal weapons in ‘rank burials’ in the southern Levant in the developed phases of EB IV (see also the remarks by Hausleiter in Hausleiter and Zur 2016: 154–158) . 4. Conclusions Morphometric studies of some EB IV human remains from across the southern Levant (Smith 2014, 242, with earlier bibliography) argue against a substitution of the local population, but do not stand in contrast with the possibility that non-local people crossed the southern Levant or even lived there, thus not implying that large migrations were the reason for cultural change . The difficulty in discriminating between different mechanisms and ways of interaction lying behind the distribution of foreign elements in a given area – e .g ., migration, hybridization, movements of semi-nomads or specialists in given economic activities, trade and exchange, cultural transfer or techno-stylistic influence – is one of the major shortcomings of the archaeological approach to this issue . Only scientific methods will eventually validate or disprove hypotheses concerning movements of people in the southern Levant during the late 3rd and the early 2nd millennia BC . DNA studies on human remains and isotopic analysis on human and animal skeletal remains are highly needed to clarify whether there were moderate infiltrations of foreign people into the southern Levant or simply movements of non-local people across the region, or movements of southern Levantine people across the neighbouring areas during the late EB IV and the early MB I . However, the analysis of some components of the material culture discussed in the paper suggests that during EB IV, the southern Levantines were aware of practices and styles in vogue outside the region, which they adopted – and often re-adapted – differently from region to region and from site to site . Given the nearly total absence of written sources from these regions for the period from ca . 2300 BC to ca . 1900 BC, we do not yet know many aspects in order to reconstruct the mechanisms of contacts and connectivity, such as the socioeconomic organization and sociopolitical relationships . However, it is doubtless EB IV and early MB I were parts of a long process of acculturation and hybridization that paved the way for the elaboration of common sociocultural languages during the following phases of the MBA . This suggests that that the entire Levant was © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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an interconnected world well before the pan-Levantine cultural homogenization of MB II–III and shows compelling avenues of research that still have to be investigated . Bibliography Al-Maqdissi, M . 1989 Essai préliminaire de classification de la poterie de Moumassakhin (campagnes de 1987 and 1988) . Notes de céramologie Syrienne 5, Damascus . Amiran, R . 1971 The Middle Bronze I and the Early Minoan III . Kretika Chronica 23, 52–57 . Bechar, S . 2013 Tel Hazor: A Key Site in the Intermediate Bronze Age . Near Eastern Archaeology 76/2, 73–75 . 2015

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Mazzoni, S . 1985 Elements of the Ceramic Culture of Early Syrian Ebla in Comparison with Syro-Palestinian EB IV . Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 257, 1–18 . Moumar, G . 2016 Tell Sh’airat: une ville circulaire majeure du IIIe millénaire av . J .-C . du territoire de la confédération des Ib’al . Studia Eblaitica 2, 71–101 . Nigro, L . 2003 Tell es-Sultan in the Early Bronze Age IV (2300–2000 BC) . Settlement vs Necropolis – A Stratigraphic Periodization . Contributi e Materiali di Archeologia Orientale IX, 121–158 . Oren, E . D . 2003 Interconnections between the Southern Levant and the Aegean at the End of the Early Bronze Age . Eretz-Israel 27, 10–17 (Hebrew), 282* (English summary) . Palumbo, G . 1990 The Early Bronze Age IV in the Southern Levant. Settlement Patterns, Economy, and Material Culture of a ‘Dark Age’ . Contributi e Materiali di Archeologia Orientale III, Roma . Philip, G . 1995 Warrior Burials in the Ancient Near Eastern Bronze Age: the Evidence from Mesopotamia, Western Iran and Syria-Palestine . In: S . Campbell and A . C . Green (eds .), The Archaeology of Death in the Ancient Near East . Oxbow Monographs 51, Oxford, 140–154 . Prag, K . 2009 The Late Third Millennium in the Levant: a Reappraisal of the North-South Divide . In: P . J . Parr (ed .), The Levant in Transition. Proceedings of a Conference Held at the British Museum on 20–21 April 2004 . The Palestine Exploration Fund Annual 9, Leeds, 80–89 . 2011

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Fig . 1 Grey wares with white painted decoration from the northern Levant and Southern Syria (1–7) and the Black Wheelmade Ware of the southern Levant (8–11) . 1–3 . Moumassakhin (redrawn after Al-Maqdissi 1989: figs 19:114, 123, 37:130); 4 . Khirbet al-Umbashi (Échallier and Braemer 2004: fig . 584:C .157); 5–7 . Tell Nebi Mend (redrawn after Mathias 2000: figs 23 .5:87–88, 90); 8 . Khirbet Qadish (nos . 1, 5, 7, 9–10; redrawn after Tadmor 1978: fig . 8: 70-417); 9 . Rafid (Mansfeld 1970: pl . 38:5); 10–11 . Tell el-Waqqas/Hazor (redrawn after Bechar 2015: fig . 5:6, 9)

Fig . 2 Askoi from ‘Ain Mallaha/‘Enan (Eisenberg 1985: fig . 3:10–11) © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

Fig . 3 Cups with flaring walls (1–2, 8–9) and handled cups and mugs (2–10, 12–14): 1 . Horbat Gilan (redrawn after Dagan and Sadeh 2008: fig . 1 .1); 2 . Assawir (redrawn after Yannai 1996: fig . 7 .12); 3–4 . Tell el-Mutesellim (redrawn after Loud 1948: pls . 9 .13, 16 .13); 5, 7 . Tell es-Sultan/Jericho (redrawn after Kenyon and Holland 1983: figs . 21 .26, 67 .3); 6 . Yazur/Azor (redrawn after Yannai 2007: fig . 4 .19); 8–9, 14 . Byblos, 10–11, 12–13 . Tell Arqa (redrawn after Thalmann 2008: fig . 6 .9, 13, 22 . 25, 28, 31) . Vessel with wishbone handle: 11 . Gözlü-Kule/Tarsus (redrawn after Goldman 1956: fig . 366 .452)

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Fig . 4 Handled cups with wishbone handle . 1–2 Khirbet Khirmil (redrawn after Dever 1975: fig . 5 .18–19); 3 . Jebel Qa’aqir (redrawn after Dever 2014: fig . 2 .93 .9); 4 . Tell ed-Duweir/Lachish (Tuffnel 1958: pl . 66 .403); 5 . Tell Beit Mirsim (redrawn after Dever 2003: fig . 1 .5)

Fig . 5 Patterns of EB IV intra-regional connectivity in the southern Levant © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Fig . 6 Main routes of inter-regional connectivity

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Cultural Transformations Shaping the End of the Late Bronze Age in the Levant José M. Martín García 1 – Michal Artzy 1 Abstract The Carmel coast showed similar transformations to those noted at Ugarit and on the southern coast of Cyprus . The material culture of Tell Abu Hawam, Tel Nami and Tel Akko (Fig . 1) underwent detectable changes in the LB IIB phase, already during the 13th century BCE . Certain forms of ceramics, with changes, continued to be produced on Cyprus albeit, not necessarily in the same production centres . The ceramic variations in the coastal areas of the southern Levant (modern Israel), are traceable in inland sites, connected to the coast by terrestrial routes, such as Tel Megiddo, Tel Beth-Shean and Tell es-Sa’idiyeh (Trans-Jordan) . This period ended with the final destruction of Ugarit, which coincides with that of Tel Nami and is traditionally ascribed to the beginning of the Iron Age at ca . 1180 BCE . We propose that the transitional period between ca . 1230 and 1180 BCE in the Carmel coast and its hinterland should be defined as Coastal LB IIC .

1. Geographical framework The area discussed in this study is the Carmel coast, yet, during the Late Bronze Age (LB) the Carmel coast was a part of a larger cultural region – the Levant . Bell (2005: 16–22) divided the Levant into four zones of interaction . Modifications to Bell’s proposed borders between the four regions will be suggested in this study . Bell’s Zone L1, understood as the ‘Northern Levant’ or ‘Coastal Syria’, centres on the areas in which Ugarit exercised administrative power . Bell positioned the southern border of this region at the modern border between Lebanon and Syria (Bell 2005: 17–18) . We propose that the southern border of this region should be placed somewhere south of Tell Sukas, the southernmost area associated with the Kingdom of Ugarit (Fig . 2) . Bell’s Zone L2 is situated between the modern border of Syria and Lebanon (Nahr Kabir) and south of Tyre (Rosh Hanikra), comparable to the modern border of Lebanon and Israel . However, we feel that Zone L2 should extend from Tell Sukas to some point between Beirut and Sidon, and not as far south as Rosh Hanikra, as proposed by Bell (2005: 19–20) . Bell’s Zone L3 extends from Rosh Hanikra to the southern part of the Carmel coast, including the site of Dor . We feel that this zone should include southern Lebanon, namely Sidon and Tyre alongside the Carmel coast, with Nami and Dor included . The southernmost region, Bell´s Zone L4, extends from the area south of Dor to the vicinity of the Yarkon River to the Gaza strip (Bell 2005: 17–18) .

1

University of Haifa, Leon Recanati Institute for Maritime Studies, Hatter Laboratory . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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We feel that rearranging Bell´s regional division is necessary, especially for the LBII and parts of the Iron Age (IA) . In this period the Carmel coast and southern Lebanon were part of the same zone of interaction, as is demonstrated by the similarities between the LB materials of TAH, Akko and Nami with those of Tyre and Sidon . Cultural and political borders change during different periods (Artzy 2006b) . This said, it is important to evaluate the position of the borders between the regions as frontier areas, with fluctuating geographical sub-zones . 2. State of the field Traditionally, the end of the Late Bronze Age and the beginning of the Iron Age has been placed between 1200 BCE and 1177 BCE, coinciding with the ‘Sea Peoples’ invasion of Egypt (Mazar 1985; Mazar 1990: 296) . However, based on the cultural continuity observed at Lachish and Megiddo, where Egyptian influence lasted at least until the reign of Ramses VI, Ussishkin (1985; 1995) and Finkelstein (2003) have proposed to prolong the Late Bronze Age until ca . 1130 BCE, when the Egyptians finally withdrew from the Levant (Arie 2013: 475–477) . The period, between c . 1176 and 1130 BCE, was renamed by them as LB III (Ussishkin 1985; Ussishkin 1995; Finkelstein 2003; Finkelstein and Piasetzky 2009; Gadot and Yadin 2009: 586–587) . Continuity of the LB traditions into the classical IA was detected at Dor, where its excavators, Gilboa and Sharon, proposed a short LB/IR transitional period, which they position between c . 1190 and 1150 BCE (Gilboa and Sharon 2003; Gilboa and Sharon 2008) . Cultural continuity during the supposed ‘Sea Peoples’ disruption as in Megiddo and Dor, can be seen in most of the sites of Zone L3, such as Tel Akko (Artzy 2006a), Tyre (Bikai 1992), Sarepta (Gilboa 2005) or Beth-Shean (James and McGovern 2003: 247–248; Mazar 2009: 23) . Mazar pointed out, that the continuity of the local traditions in this region lasted until at least 1000 BCE (Mazar 2008) . Continuity and change is a rule of thumb when dealing with ceramic traditions . The carry-overs continue and the changes are most noticeable with the addition of technological or varied networks . It should be pointed out, in this case, that local ceramic traditions, unless there is a catastrophe, continue and changes take place . Within periods of ‘carry-overs’, clearer indicators can be discerned when trade networks change and contacts bring about modification in the ceramic and other cultural assemblages . 3. The LB IIC/III transitional period Finkelstein and Ussishkin’s attribution of the LB III to the Egyptian XX dynasty is based on the stratigraphy of two inland sites, Lachish and Megiddo, where Egyptian influence is noted until, at least, the reign of Ramses VI (Ussishkin 1985; Ussishkin 1995; Finkelstein 1996; Finkelstein 2003; Arie 2013) . However, in the coastal sites © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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the situation was different . In the Carmel coast and surrounding areas, Egyptian influence had weakened already during the LB IIB phase (Artzy 2006a; Artzy 2016; RuizGalvez 2013: 69) . In the coastal sites, the economic and social transformations that defined the Iron Age, principally the augmentation of private trade and the dissolution of the centralized palace economy, can already be observed during our Coastal LB IIC/III; as is demonstrated by the private cargo in the Gelidonya shipwreck (Artzy 2006a) . At the same time, bronze trade increased throughout the Eastern Mediterranean, with the importation of the first Alpine bronzes and the increase in metal recycling, provoking a devaluation of this luxury commodity in the region (Sherratt 2003) . In addition, the repeated failure in the Ugaritic payment of tribute to Hatti suggests an important decline in the economic power of that coastal Syrian metropolis (Artzy 2006a; Artzy 2012; Singer 1999: 698) . Additionally, a similar transformation during this period is noted in Cyprus, where some LB, economically, strong sites such as Maroni and, eventually, Kalavassos-Ayios Dimitrios were abandoned . The weakening of Ugarit in the last c . 40 years of its existence (Artzy 1997; Singer 1999: 705) and the transformations suffered in Cyprus (Knapp 2008: 249–259) directly affected a large number of sites in Zones L2 and L3, which were economically connected to them . On the northern coast of modern Israel, the transformations occurred at the end of the Late Bronze Age and can be observed in the coastal sites of Tel Akko, Tell Abu Hawam (TAH) and Tel Nami . These changes can be observed in the number of imports as well as in their origins (Artzy 2006a; Artzy 2013) . While the changes are most noticeable in the coastal zone, similar transformations occurred in inland sites such as Megiddo, Beth Shean or Tell es-Sa´idiyeh; these sites were connected through the horizontal, east-west trade routes and networks to the coastal zones . The 2001 excavations of the TAH anchorage, where large numbers of imports were unearthed, provide an example for our discussion . The major percentage of these imports arrived from northern areas: Syria, coastal Anatolia, the Aegean and especially Cyprus . The Cypriot imports outnumbered the imports from either Anatolia or the Aegean by at least 10 to 1 if not more (Artzy 2006a; Artzy 2013) . In a recent study of the ceramics, the proportion was seen to be even higher . This included a study carried out on the Cypriot imports from the anchorage and from J . Balensi’s excavations on the tell (Artzy 2016) . In the anchorage, the Mycenaean ceramics were mainly Mycenaean IIIA2–IIIB1 produced in the Berbati area and comparable to those from the tell analysed by means of NAA by Asaro and Perlman at the bequest of Balensi (Asaro and Perlman 1973) . In addition to the Mycenaean pottery, there are a few Minoan sherds (Artzy 2006a), again, similar to those analysed in the 1970’s by Asaro and Perlman (Asaro and Perlman 1973), as well as western Anatolian Grey and Tan wares . The Cypriot imports comprised of the usual White Slip II classic wares, although earlier examples appear as well . There are numerous Base Ring I and II, Monochrome and White Shaved wares (Artzy 2013; Artzy 2016) . In addition, Plain White Wheel Made (PWWM) vessels of Cypriote provenance were found, as well as locally produced examples, which can be distinguished only by © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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fabric . The technology, quality and style of this local version of the Cypriot PWWM were so similar to the Cypriot ones, suggesting the presence of Cypriot potters or locals at the site of TAH who had studied Cypriote ceramic production (Artzy 2006a; Artzy 2016) . Most of the imports originated in the same area of Cyprus, mainly southeastern Cyprus, as noted by the analyses, although it should be mentioned that some of the plain wares originated on the Syro-Lebanese coast as did some of the ballast stones from the anchorage (Artzy 2016) . We propose that Tell Abu Hawam served as an entrepôt connecting a major inland site, probably Hazor, via the Akko Bay and Hannaton as proposed by Artzy (2013) with some of the international economic powers of the moment, most probably Ugarit and some site in southern Cyprus as well as others along the routes . One possible answer is that it was utilized as the anchorage for distribution of the western Jezreel Valley’s agricultural produce with the active involvement of Cypriot and Ugaritic interests? The end of the 14th and especially the 13th century BCE saw the need to supply grain to the north, to areas of Anatolia under Hittite control (Singer 1999: 715–719; Knapp and Manning 2016: 121; Artzy 2016) . At around 1230 BCE, contemporary with the bronze trade augmentation noted by Sherratt (2003), the demise of Maroni and Kalavassos-Ayios Demetrios (South et al . 1989), the economic weakening of Ugarit (Singer 1999: 698), and Kommos (Shaw 1977) on Crete as well as the problems associated with Hazor (Zuckerman 2007), the anchorage of Tell Abu Hawam was abandoned . At the same time the site of Nami, which was not inhabited since the late MB IIB period was reoccupied (Marcus and Artzy 1995; Artzy 2006a) . During this second period, the trade network of the region underwent important transformations, as can be deduced from the typological changes of the imports, as well as in their origin within the island of Cyprus . Although the site of Nami exhibits strong contacts with Ugarit and Cyprus, as in the case of TAH, there are clear signs of differences, changes and yet continuation between the two phases . The ratio of Cypriot imports at TAH was far higher than that at Nami . While at TAH the ceramic imports were Mycenaean IIIA2–IIIB1 and produced in the Berbati area, at Nami they were Mycenaean IIIB2 late and were mainly produced in Cyprus, with some local Levantine exceptions (Artzy 2006a) . In addition there was also a transformation in the origin of imports from within the island of Cyprus . While in TAH most of the material goods originated in southeastern Cyprus, at Nami most of the imports were from eastern Cyprus, probably the Enkomi area, with almost no imports from southern Cyprus . Concerning the pottery typology, some imported forms that were common at TAH, such as White Slip II Classic vessels disappeared from the assemblage at Nami, where only one example was found, located in the earliest LB grave . The size of the majority of the WS bowls at TAH is certainly larger than those of Nami . Kromholz, in his 1978 PhD thesis, already noted changes in the size of the WS bowls temporally (Kromholz 1978: 3) . At TAH, the White Shaved imports tend to be of a uniform shape and ware, which is not true of Nami . While at TAH, there are Red Lustrous Ware sherds, none appear in Nami (Artzy 2006a; Artzy 2013) . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Regarding the third site, Tel Akko, its contacts with the Egyptian world are noted throughout the 2nd millennium BCE by the number of times it is mentioned in Egyptian texts, starting with the Execration Texts, royal texts and the Amarna Letters (Artzy 2015) . Artefacts attributed to Egyptian influence are present in the MB IIA, IIB as well as the LB IIB and IIC phases, including a scarab attributed to the female Pharaoh, Tausret . No architectural remains of the classic LB IIB period have yet been excavated at Tel Akko, although fills and possible graves have been noted and some published (Artzy and Zagorski 2012) . The material from area PH contained both sherds attributed to Mycenaean IIIA2–B1, originating in Berbati as well as those originating in Cyprus, which we name Mycenaean IIIB . Akko’s networks seemed to have been more extensive over the LB II period as noted in the so-called ‘Persian Garden’ cemetery, situated north of the tell (Artzy 2006a) . Among the imports discovered at the ‘Persian Garden’ were some Egyptian and Mycenaean IIIA2 and IIIB1 finds . Neutron Activation Analysis of the Mycenaean ceramics demonstrates that they were of Messenian (Greece) provenance (Gunneweg and Michel 1999), an area associated with the site of Pylos . 4. Conclusions In conclusion , we propose modification to the zoning presented by Bell in her study . We also note that, the important transformations that occurred in the region of the Carmel coast at the end of the LB IIB, suggests that the transition between the Late Bronze Age and the Iron Age was not a sudden change, but a long-term process, which is already detectable at around 1230 BCE . The period between 1230 BCE and 1180 BCE, should be renamed as Coastal LB IIC/LBIII as has been proposed by Artzy, and understood as the prequel to the transitional LB–IA, as noted by Gilboa and Sharon at Tel Dor (Gilboa and Sharon 2003; Gilboa and Sharon 2008) . We prefer to name the period following the LB IIB as LB IIC . LBIII, as proposed by Finkelstein and Ussishkin, was applied to inland sites and lasted for a far longer period than the one we propose for the LB IIC . It relates to the political vicissitudes of the Egyptian world and continues well after the LB IIC period suggested by us . In the Carmel and the Syro-Lebanese coast where a division exists between the LB IIC and Dor’s Transition LB–IA their divisions do not apply .

Bibliography Arie, E . 2013 The Late Bronze III and Iron I Pottery: levels K-6, M-6, M-5, M-4 and H9 . In: I . Finkelstein, D . Ussishkin and E . H . Cline (eds .), Megiddo V, The 2004–2008 Seasons, Volume II . Tel Aviv University, Sonia and Marco Nadler Institute of Archaeology Monograph Series 31, Winona Lake, 475–667 . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Artzy, M . 1997 Nomads of the Sea . In: S . Swiny, R . L . Hohlfelder and L . W . Swiny (eds .), Res Maritimae 1. Atlanta, 1–16 . 2006a The Carmel Coast during the Second Part of the Late Bronze Age: A Center for Eastern Mediterranean Transhipping . Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 343, 45–64 . 2006b The Jatt metal Hoard in Northern Canaanite/Phoenician and Cypriote Context. Cuadernos de arqueología Mediterránea 14, Barcelona . 2012

Continuation and Change in the 13th–10th Centuries BCE Eastern Mediterranean: Bronze-Working Koiné? In: G . Galil, A . Gilboa, A . M . Maier and D . Kahn (eds .), The Ancient Near East in the 12th–10th centuries BCE: Culture and History . Münster, 27–43 .

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The Importance of Anchorages of the Carmel Coast in the Trade Networks during the Late Bronze period . Michmanim 24, 7–24 .

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What is in a Name? “ ‘Akko – Ptolemais – ‘Akka – Acre” . Complutum 26, 295–212 .

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Distributers and Shippers: Cyprus and the Late Bronze II Tell Abu Hawam Anchorage . In: S . Domesticha and A . B . Knapp (eds .), Maritime Transport Containers in the Bronze-Iron Age Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean. Studies in Mediterranean Archaeology and Literature . Uppsala, 97–110 .

Artzy, M . and Zagorski, S . 2012 Cypriot “Mycenaean” IIIB Imports to the Levant . In: M . Gruber, S . Ahituv, G . Lehmann and Z . Talshir (eds .), All the wisdom of the East: Studies in Near Eastern Archaeology and History in honor of Eliezer D. Oren. Fribourg, 1–13 . Asaro, F . and Perlman, I . 1973 Provenance Studies of Mycenaean Pottery Employing Neutron Activation Analysis . In: Acts of the International Archaeological Symposium “The Mycenaeans in the Eastern Mediterranean”, 27th March–2nd April 1972. Nicosia, 213–224 . Bell, C . 2005 The Influence of Economic Factors on Settlement Continuity Across the LBA/Iron Age Transition on the Northern Levantine Littoral. PhD thesis, University College London, London . Bikai, P . M . 1992 The Phoenicians . In: W . A . Ward and M . Sharp Joukowsky (eds .), The Crisis Years: The 12th Century B.C. From Beyond the Danube to the Tigris. Dubuque, 132–141 . Finkelstein, I . 1996 The Stratigraphy and Chronology of Megiddo and Beth-Shan in the 12th–11th Centuries B .C .E . Tel Aviv 23, 170–184 . 2003

City-States to States: Polity Dynamics in the 10th–9th Centuries B .C .E . In: W . G . Dever and S . Gitin (eds .), Symbiosis, Symbolism, and the Power of the Past . Wynona Lake, 75–83 .

Finkelstein, I . and Piasetzky, E . 2009 Radiocarbon-Dated Destruction Layers: A Skeleton for Iron Age Chronology in the Levant . Oxford Journal of Archaeology 28, 255–274 . Gadot, Y and Yadin, E . 2009 Aphek-Antipatris II: The Remains on the Necropolis. Tel Aviv Institute of Archaeology Monograph Series 27, Tel Aviv . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Gilboa, A . 2005 Sea Peoples and Phoenicians along the Southern Phoenician Coast a Reconciliation . An Interpretation of Šikila (SKL) Material Culture . Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 337, 47–78 . Gilboa, A . and Sharon, I . 2003 An Archaeological Contribution to the Early Iron Age Chronological Debate: Alternative Chronologies for Phoenicia and their Effects on the Levant, Cyprus, and Greece . Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 332, 7–80 . 2008

Between the Carmel and the Sea . Tel Dor´s Iron Age Reconsidered . Near Eastern Archaeology 71, 146–170 .

Gunneweg, J . and Michel, H . V . 1999 Does the Different Layout of the Late Bronze Age Tombs at Lachish/Dan and Akko in Northern Canaan Reflect Different Trade Relations? An Instrumental Neutron Activation Study on Mycenaean Pottery . Journal of Archaeological Science 26, 989–995 . James, F . W . and McGovern, P . E . 1993 The Late Bronze Egyptian Garrison at Beth Shan: a Study of Levels VII and VIII. Philadelphia . Knapp, A . B . 2008 Prehistoric and Protohistoric Cyprus. Oxford University Press, New York . Knapp, A . B . and Manning, S . W . 2016 Crisis in Context: the End of the Late Bronze Age in the Eastern Mediterranean . American Journal of Archaeology 120, 99–149 . Kromholz, A . H . 1978 Cypriote White Slip Hemispherical Bowls. PhD thesis . Brandeis University, Department of Classical and Oriental studies, Boston . Marcus, E . and Artzy, M . 1995 A Loom Weight from Tel Nami with a Scarab Seal Impression . Israel Exploration Journal 45, 136–149 . Mazar, A . 1985 The Emergence of the Philistine Material Culture . Israel Exploration Journal 35, 95–107 . 1990

The Archaeology of the Land of the Bible. New York .

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From 1200–850 BCE: Remark Some Selected Archaeological Issues . In: L . L . Grabbe (ed .), Israel in Transition: From Late Bronze II to Iron II a (c. 1250–850 B.C.E. Volume 1. The Archaeology . New York, 86–120 .

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Introduction and Overview . In: N . Panitz-Cohen and A . Mazar (eds .), Excavations at Tel BetShean 1989–1996. Volume III, The 13th–11th Century BCE Strata in Areas N and S. Jerusalem, 1–32 .

Ruiz-Galvez, M . 2013 Con el fenicio en los talones. Los inicios de la Edad del Hierro en la cuenca del Mediterráneo . Barcelona . Shaw, J . W . 1977 Excavations at Kommos (Crete) during 1976 . Hesperia 46, 199–240 . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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South, A . K ., Rusell, P . J . and Keswani, P . S . 1989 Vasilikos valley project 3: Kalavassos Ayios-Dhimitrios II: Ceramics, Objects, Tombs, special studies. Göteborg . Sherratt, S . 2003 The Mediterranean Economy: ‘Globalization’ at the end of the second Millennium BCE . In: W . G . Dever and S . Gitin (eds .), Symbiosis, symbolism, and the power of the past. Wynona Lake, 37–62 . Singer, I . 1999 A political History of Ugarit . In: W . G . E . Watson and N . Wyatt (eds .), Handbook of Ugaritic studies. Leiden, 603–733 . Ushishkin, D . 1985 Levels VII and VI at Tel Lachish and the End of the Late Bronze Age in Canaan . In: J . N . Tub (ed .), Palestine in the Bronze Age: Papers in Honour of Olga Tufnell . London, 213–230 . 1995

The Destruction of Megiddo at the End of the Late Bronze Age and its Historical Significance . Tel Aviv 22, 240–267 .

Zuckerman, S . 2007 Anatomy of a Destruction: Crisis Architecture, Termination Rituals and the Fall of Canaanite Hazor . Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology 20, 3–32 .

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Fig . 1 Sites mentioned in the text

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Fig . 2 Renewed zone division based on Bell’s study

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Evidence of Transformation: The Early Iron Age Aegeanizing Pottery Assemblage at Alalakh Mariacarmela Montesanto 1 Abstract This article presents the canonical locally made Late Helladic IIIC and Aegeanizing pottery found at Alalakh within the context of the full 12th century ceramic assemblage . The discovery of this particular type of pottery could be used to argue that there may have been people at Alalakh who came from the Aegean, but it also could have been the result of local people imitating habits, cooking styles and recipes of the Aegean alongside their native ways . The paper will focus on the changes that occurred in the local ceramic assemblage and specifically on how the assimilation of a foreign style ware affected the local tradition, contributing to the creation of new habits and new identities in a period of struggles and transformations .

1. Introduction Tell Atchana, the ancient city of Alalakh, is located on the Orontes River near the southern edge of the Amuq plain and within the district of Hatay, modern Turkey . It is a long mound of 22 hectares (Yener et al. 2000: 169) . The first settlement on the mound should possibly be dated to the Amuq J period (c . 2200–2000 BC), and the site was continuously occupied from the beginning of the Middle Bronze I (c . 2000– 1800 BC) to the end of the Late Bronze Age IIA period (1400–1300 BC 2; Yener 2005: 101), with only a small area around the temple still in use during the 12th century BC (Yener 2013; Horowitz 2015: 160) . The northwestern end of the mound is designated as Area 1 and contains the palaces, temple, forts, a city gate and other royal buildings excavated by Sir Charles Leonard Woolley (Woolley 1955) . The renewed excavations (2006–2015) have concentrated in Areas 1, 2, 3, and 4 and revealed contexts dating to the Middle Bronze Age I, Late Bronze Age I and II and Iron Age I and II (Horowitz 2015: 154) . The continuous occupation of the site ended at some point in the 14th century BC and recent findings confirmed the 13th century to be characterised by an ephemeral occupation period with few remains . In the course of recent excavations, it has been discovered that fragmentary mid 12th century Late Helladic IIIC (LH IIIC) pottery is present in the topsoil in almost all areas of the mound . Immediately beneath that topsoil in Areas 4, 3, 2 and 1-south lie late 14th and very early 13th century contexts, which is Alalakh’s Period 1 .

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University of Liverpool, Department of Archaeology, Classics and Egyptology . This paper is not meant to make any statement on the absolute chronology of Tell Atchana . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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At the moment, intact Iron Age contexts have been discovered only in two squares, both of them located in Area 1, where there is post-Bronze Age deposition below the topsoil (Fig . 1) . Square 32 .42 is located stratigraphically above Alalakh’s great Period 2 Fortress (Akar 2013; Yener 2013: 20) and square 42 .10 is located immediately south of Woolley’s temple, on the highest part of the mound and contiguous with Woolley’s excavation . 2. The Late Bronze/Iron Age transition The transition from the Late Bronze to the Iron Age in the Near East in the 12th century BC is a crucial juncture for the history of the ancient world . The crisis of the 12th century BC completely reshaped the organisation of the Near Eastern states, together with the material culture, the distribution of settlements and the social and cultural ideology of that time . Unfortunately, very little information is available about the collapse of the Bronze Age political systems . The period following this collapse, the 12th century BC or early Iron Age, is known as a dark age because of the lack of epigraphic sources . Recent analysis of the material culture and especially of the ceramic sequences has brought into question the old reconstructions and has led to progress in the development of more coherent chronologies . Effectively, the new findings suggest that the Late Bronze–Early Iron Age transition need no longer be considered as a gap in our knowledge . Within the material culture there are generally more elements of continuity than of actual break, even though it is undeniable that the beginning of the Iron Age was a period of change . In particular, the transition between the Late Bronze and Early Iron Age in the Amuq Valley has remained elusive to scholars until recently . New excavations and the publication of old materials are shedding light on this period . Particularly, the Amuq Valley Regional Project survey documented the increase in the number of settlements during the Iron Age and showed the continuity of sites that survived the passage from the Late Bronze into the Iron Age (Verstraete and Wilkinson 2000: 192) . Furthermore, the analysis of archaeological materials recovered by the Alalakh Excavations project is providing a new set of data related to this transitional period . 3. The Iron Age levels at Alalakh Square 32 .42/52 lies directly on the ruins of the Period 2 fortress dated to the third quarter of the 14th century BC . The Iron Age remains above the fortress are shallowly situated below the topsoil and poorly preserved . An Iron Age II building has disturbed the 12th century surface to its south, where partly restorable LH IIIC Middle vessels of a domestic assemblage were found, and therefore the layers belonging to the 12th century context here are poorly preserved and mixed into the topsoil due to the downward slope of the mound in this direction . It is a building made with filled casemate spaces and an inner space with an in situ pithos jar and an exterior space . In these contexts, © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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sherds dating from the Early Bronze Age to the Iron II were found re-employed as building materials in the Iron Age II structure . We initially thought to have found Handmade Burnished Ware alongside the Late Helladic IIIC pottery (Yener 2013), but it now seems more likely that these are Early Bronze Age cooking pots . Square 42 .10 was opened in 2012 as close as possible to the temple area first excavated by Woolley (Woolley 1955: 33–90) . The square was opened in order to further understand the nature of the Bronze Age and Iron Age levels at the site . Excavations in 2012 and 2014 have yielded three architectural phases dating to the Iron Age, which is Period 0 in the general sequence, above a fourth phase dating to the late 14th and early 13th century BC . This last phase is the only phase in the square to have closed architectural spaces and room inventories, which likely coexisted with the Level 1 Temple at the time of the Hittite king Mursili II (1321–1295 BC) due to the discovery of a sealing belonging to Prince Tudhalyia, a nephew of Mursili II, and his wife, Princess Asnuhepa (Yener et al. 2014) . The related pottery assemblage is coherent with the date based on the local ceramic seriation, Mycenaean LH IIIA2 and IIIB and Nuzi ware . After the collapse of this building, a long period of abandonment is evident before new settlement appeared over the weathered ruins containing LH IIIC Middle Developed pottery . This pattern is coherent with every area of the site in lacking the bulk of the 13th century and the earlier 12th century BC . The most ancient Iron Age occupation of this area is Phase 3 3 within the square . It consists of two successive outdoor surfaces (a and b) . While during phase 3b the outdoor area’s function is more enigmatic, with scattered pyrotechnical features, the following phase 3a included two large plates in situ and therefore it seems to have belonged to an open area for domestic tasks such as food preparation and consumption . One fragment of an LH IIIC Middle Developed deep bowl in wavy line style found in phase 3b has given us a terminus post quem to this first Iron Age stratum of Alalakh, and it is consistent with the sequence in square 32 .42/52 . In the following phase 2, the occupation of the area becomes even more scattered with an outdoor surface and a few disturbed stone installations . The analysis of the pottery assemblage continues to suggest the activities of food preparation and consumption . 4. The 12th century BC locally made LH IIIC and Aegeanizing pottery The pottery coming from the Iron Age contexts and from the topsoil in other parts of the mound consists of locally made LH IIIC pottery and Aegeanizing pottery found together with local painted pottery and local plain pottery . I distinguish the canonical Aegean LH IIIC pottery from what I consider Aegeanizing pottery, which includes

3

The Local Phase system at Tell Atchana is used to track occupational phases in each square and begins with Local Phase 0 for topsoil . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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hybrids that cannot be considered canonical LH IIIC style pottery and that show Aegean features on local shapes . The first LH IIIC pottery at Alalakh was found and also published by Woolley (Woolley 1955: pl . CXI), however, Woolley’s complete faith in the Sea Peoples narrative caused him to bend the evidence, allowing only that there might have been a squatter phase in the mid 12th century BC . Generally, the local pottery inventory of these 12th century BC contexts shows strong elements of continuity with the local Late Bronze Age II assemblage . 4 .1 The locally made Late Helladic IIIC pottery The most visible change in the 12th century pottery assemblage at Alalakh is the appearance of the locally made LH IIIC pottery . This group of vessels is clearly inspired by Aegean LH IIIC types, and it mostly consists of open shapes along with a few jugs, some cooking pots and dippers, comprising a typical domestic assemblage . 4.1.1 The shallow angular bowl The most common 12 century locally made LH IIIC shape is what in Aegean typology is called the shallow angular bowl (Mountjoy 1986: 153), and it is the local imitation of Furumark Shape (FS) 295 . It corresponds in the Alalakh typology to the rounded bowl and carinated bowl (Horowitz 2015: fig . 7 .6–9–10) . It may have a flared, everted, tapered or a straight rim and it has loop (ribbon) horizontal handles attached just below the rim and sometimes a gentle carination at mid-body . The exact angle of the rim and wall is variable and the handles may be irregular and crudely attached . Up to now at Alalakh, it has been always found unpainted . It is very common in the 12th century and it seems to continue in the 11th century BC . One of the best examples is AT 18202 .4 (Fig . 2 .3) . It has a flared rim and a loop horizontal (ribbon) handle roughly made and attached just underneath the rim . Unlike in Alalakh, the shallow angular bowl is not so commonly found in other sites of the northern Levant and Cilicia (Venturi 2007) . The shape is well documented in the Amuq Valley in sites such as Tell Tayinat (Janeway 2011: fig . 1 .7; 2 .1, 7) and Çatalhöyük (Pucci 2013: fig . 6 .3), but none has been listed in the bowl corpus of the Syro-Hittite expedition (Swift 1958: 66–67) . th

4.1.2 The deep bowl The locally made LH IIIC deep bowl (Mountjoy 1986: 149) corresponds in the Alalakh typology to the rounded bowl (Horowitz 2015: fig . 7 .6–9) . It usually has a flared or everted rim and short, horizontal loop handles attached to the body . It is most commonly found unpainted . This vessel presents a tapered rim, loop vertical handles and a rounded body . Only one example is painted in a LH IIIC Middle Developed wavy line style (AT 19516 .2: Koehl 2017: fig . 18 .1 .7) and a few examples are painted with horizontal bands (AT 11169 .2 fig . 2 .4) . It is found in many sites of the © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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northern Levant and Cilicia during the Iron Age (Venturi 2007) . Besides Alalakh, this shape is represented in the Amuq Valley (Swift 1958: fig . 20, 21) and it is found at Tell Tayinat (Janeway 2011: fig . 3 .1, 3, 5) and in Çatalhöyük (Pucci 2013: fig . 3 .1, 2, 6; 4 .6, 10) . 4.1.3 The one handled conical bowl It is the local imitation of the Aegean shape FS 267 . It has an everted or simple rim, a short vertical loop handle and it is slightly conical at mid-body (Mountjoy 1986: fig . 221) . Usually it is unpainted like AT 11134 .11 (Fig . 2 .2), which has a simple rim and a very slight carination at mid-body . 4.1.4 The rounded/conical kylix During the recent excavations at Alalakh, three kylikes can be identified in the local pottery assemblage . They have a simple rim, rounded body and vertical strap handles . They are local imitations of the Aegean shape FS 274/275 and have no surface treatment preserved . One of the best examples found at Alalakh is AT 11134 .3 (Fig . 2 .7) . 4.1.5 The basin This unique vessel (AT 2045 .7; Koehl 2017: fig . 18 .4 .2; here Fig . 2 .6) is a local imitation of the Aegean shape FS 294 . It has a rounded conical body, low ring base and a wide, roughly made, horizontal loop handle attached below the flat rim . It is shallower than the Aegean examples and does not have a spout, showing a peculiar feature in the locally made LH IIIC assemblage . The vessel is painted with reddish/ brownish horizontal bands on the body’s exterior and possibly also on the interior (the band is now mostly faded) and a wide wavy band across the handle . 4.1.6 The dipper The dipper corresponds to the Aegean shape FS 236 . The best example preserved in the locally made LH IIIC assemblage from Alalakh is AT 14999 .1 (AT 14999 .1; Koehl 2017: fig . 18 .4 .2; here Fig . 2 .8), which preserves the lower end of a high swung loop handle attached to a hemispherical bowl . 4.1.7 The cooking pot Cooking pots can be considered as a marker to detect any change in the way food was cooked (Spataro and Villing 2015: 12–15) . During the Late Bronze Age, the typical cooking pot had a biconical body, flat base and folded over or rolled out rim (Fig . 3 .1); at the end of this period strap handles started to appear, becoming more common towards the end of the Late Bronze Age . They are usually large sized . Cooking pots found in the earliest levels of the Iron Age usually have a rounded and folded over rim, sometimes they have a hole-mouth shape (Fig . 3 .3), and they may or may not have strap handles (Fig . 3 .2) . They are medium sized and evolved from the Late Bronze Age examples . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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4 .2 Aegeanizing pottery As mentioned above, within the 12th century, we can list some unconventional shapes showing a mixture of local Late Bronze Age traditions and Aegean or non-local elements . The vessels showing this particular type of pattern recovered so far are mainly open vessels, particularly bowls with unconventional Aegean-style handles attached . Even if an Aegean origin or inspiration can be assumed for these vessels, they do not fit in the Aegean conventional shape catalogue and therefore they should be considered as hybrids . The presence of these particular types of vessels may be the result of on-going cultural interactions during the last phases of the Bronze Age and the early stages of the Iron Age . Preliminary analysis of the material distinguished at least two types of Aegeanizing pottery so far: a rounded shallow bowl with stub loop horizontal handles (AT 11164 .3; Fig . 2 .1) and a flared hemispherical bowl with vertical loop handles (AT 18217 .1; Fig . 2 .5) . Vessels belonging to the first category have everted and thickened rims . According to preliminary analysis, these vessels could have been inspired by LH IIIC types such as the deep bowl FS 284 or FS 285 (Mountjoy 1986: 148–149) . However, the presence of the stubby loop horizontal handles defines them as noncanonical Aegean shapes . The comparisons can be found at Ras ibn Hani (Bounni et al. 1998: fig . 159 .1–2; 162) . The rounded shallow bowl was present at Alalakh since the Late Bronze Age I period (Horowitz 2015: fig . 7 .6; Woolley 1955: pl . CX), and therefore has a long history in the ceramic production of the site and the shape also seems to have been produced during the Iron Age . The presence of the horizontal loop handle is a clear sign that they were trying to imitate a LH IIIC shape, and the use of a common, well known shape such as the rounded bowl may demonstrate that they were trying to imitate a foreign shape . Hemispherical bowls belonging to the second category of Aegeanizing pottery have a flared rim . They have at least one vertical loop handle attached to the rim and some of them may have had a second handle . The finding of both the locally made LH IIIC pottery and the Aegeanizing pottery helps us to trace the process of evolution of the pottery from the Late Bronze to the Iron Age . From the preliminary analysis of these kinds of pottery, we can assume that in most cases the novelty of the vessels is the presence of the Aegeanlike handles, but otherwise the shape is quite similar to the Bronze Age assemblage . 4 .3 Functional analysis I categorize the vessels belonging to the Iron Age local pottery assemblage at Alalakh into four functional groups that mirror a simplified schema of the different steps of food provision (Skibo 2013) . Besides the three main functions as defined by Skibo (processing, transport and storage), I add a fourth group, a consumption group, which © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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is employed for all activities such as eating, drinking, pouring and serving, which can be considered as part of the same performance of food consumption . Given the fact that the vessels presented in this article may be included in the latter category, I will mainly focus on food consumption . From the preliminary analysis it is not possible to exactly establish a final production of the food processing in between the Bronze Age and Iron Age pottery assemblage . Vessels could have been used for many functions, sometimes different from the one they were made for; however, it is possible to observe a slow development of shapes, but not a change in cooking habits . As for the installations, at the moment no changes have been noticed from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age; fireplaces seem to be absent and tandır like installations were still in use . As for the tableware, the Iron Age assemblage generally consisted of rim plates and shallow, rounded, hemispherical and flared bowls . The latter are found in many sizes and possibly the small sized ones, with a simple and flared rim, could have been used for drinking . This assemblage is not very different from the Late Bronze Age assemblage (Horowitz 2015) except for the new addition of Aegeanizing and locally made LH IIIC and painted wares and possibly a local evolution of the hemispherical bowl . Analysing the two assemblages from the functional point of view, we notice that there is no change in the function, but only in the appearance . Cooking pots were already transitioning to a more hole-mouthed shape during Alalakh’s Period 1 and loop handles started to appear in the 14th century BC . As a matter of fact, the percentage of plates and bowls in the local pottery assemblage seems not to change from the Late Bronze to the Iron Age, and given this evidence we may not even consider a change in the food habits from dry to liquid . The amount of plates and bowls recovered throughout the Iron Age levels at Tell Atchana stay relatively constant, implying continuity in the way food was consumed . By the analysis of the cooking pots we might consider a change in the way food was cooked and in the recipes used, however, there is no evident change in the amount of plates and bowls retrieved in the Iron Age levels of Alalakh . Some of the bowls presented are directly connected to Aegean traditions, but others show continuity or a connection with the Late Bronze Age II . The modification would thus imply a change in the appearance of the tableware, which might mean a change in fashion or an effort to imitate a foreign tradition while not changing culinary habits . This hypothesis seems to be supported by the contemporary appearance of a painted pottery tradition for open vessels . The major part of the bowls is unchanged, except for the introduction of the locally made LH IIIC and Aegeanizing shapes as an alternative, but not as a substitution for the local shapes . Most of the Late Bronze Age bowls are still part of the eating/drinking assemblage, thus demonstrating the absence of changes at least in eating habits . No relevant changes in the functional composition of the eating/drinking/cooking assemblage can be observed . We cannot, at least at Alalakh, argue that a change of habits occurred during the end of the Late Bronze and Iron Age transition . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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5. Conclusions The 12th century pottery assemblage is characterised by the coexistence of both local and foreign elements . Even through there are traces of foreign, especially Aegean, influence, the majority of pottery production during the transition from the Late Bronze to the Early Iron Age is characterised by a strong connection with the previous Late Bronze Age local traditions . The appearance of the locally made LH IIIC and Aegeanizing pottery has often been related to the arrival of new peoples (Knapp and Manning 2016) and this question has been particularly relevant in the study of the 12th century BC in the northern Levant and also in the Amuq Valley (Harrison 2009: 187), but this interpretation cannot be easily reconciled with what was happening during the Late Bronze-Early Iron Age transition at Alalakh . The mound of Alalakh had been abandoned sometime at the end of the 14th century BC or early 13th century BC with only a small area, possibly related to the Temple, that continued to be occupied well into the mid 12th century BC . Alalakh seems to have been reduced to a small settlement, while the world surrounding the settlement was going through a period of crisis and change . Even if a change in the use of spaces can be noticed, the material culture was not affected to the same extent . Some changes are noticeable in the pottery assemblage at Alalakh during the 12th century BC . For instance, we can notice a gradual increase in drinking vessels, as well as the introduction of new shapes of Aegean origin . The increase in the presence of drinking vessels might be linked to the importance of drinking habits and activities, while the introduction of new shapes, of foreign origin, might be linked to a change related with social habits and the vessel’s appearance . Whatever happened at the end of the Bronze Age in the Amuq Valley, it did not prevent people from continuing to produce and use their own style of pottery and continue their traditional culture . The appearance of locally made LH IIIC and Aegeanizing pottery was not necessarily linked with the settlement of new people in the settlement, especially if we consider that the pottery was assimilated into the local pottery assemblage . Additionally, the production of locally made LH IIIC pottery cannot be interpreted as import substitution for the Late Bronze Age Aegean pottery, as the vessel repertoire is radically different from the shapes that were imported from the Aegean in the preceding phases . It rather seems that people were using the pottery, including the LH IIIC and Aegeanizing pottery, as a medium to express differences between people rather than as a medium to express status . It is indeed possible that there were new arrivals somewhere in the region, but the phenomenon of imitation or the use of imported pottery cannot always be linked with the presence of foreign people . Pottery has the capacity to cross borders and to convey special messages as a medium of cultural self-fashion and self-identification (Crielaard 1999: 63) . In such a way, if we assume that at Alalakh the imitation of Aegean pottery shapes was not linked with the presence of foreign people, we may assume that people © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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from Alalakh decided to integrate some foreign features into the local pottery tradition in order to create new habits and a new community identity that may have been linked with the re-shaping and the creation of new polities in the region . Bibliography Akar, M . 2013 The Late Bronze Age Fortresses at Alalakh: Architecture and Identity in Mediterranean Exchange Systems . In: K . A . Yener (ed .), Across the border: Late Bronze-Iron Age relations between Syria and Anatolia: Proceedings of a Symposium held at the Research Center of Anatolian Studies, Koç University, Istanbul. May 31–June 1 2010 . Leuven, 37–60 . Bounni, A ., Lagarce, E . and Lagarce, J . 1998 Ras Ibn Hani I. Le Palais Nord du Bronze Récent. Fouilles 1979–1995, synthèse préliminaire. Bibliothèque Archéologique et Historique 151, Beirut . Crielaard, J . P . 1999 Production, circulation and consumption of early Iron Age Greek pottery (eleventh to seventh centuries BC) . In: J . P . Crielaard, V . Stissi and G . J . van Wijngaarden (eds .), The Complex Past of Pottery. Production, Circulation and Consumption of Mycenaean and Greek Pottery (sixteenth to early fifth centuries BC): Proceedings of the ARCHON International Conference. Amsterdam, 49–81 . Harrison, T . P . 2009 Neo-Hittites in the “Land of Palistin” . Renewed Investigations at Tell Tayinat on the Plain of Antioch . Near Eastern Archaeology 72/4, 174–189 . Horowitz, M . 2015 The Evolution of Plain Ware Ceramics at the Regional Capital of Alalakh . In: C . Glatz (ed .), Plain Pottery Traditions of the Eastern Mediterranean and the Near East . Walnut Creek, 153– 182 . Janeway, B . 2011 Mycenaean bowls at 12th/11th century BC Tell Tayinat (Amuq Valley) . In: V . Karageorghis and O . Kouka (eds .), On Cooking Pots, Drinking Cups, Loomweights and Ethnicity in Bronze Age Cyprus and Neighbouring Regions: an International Archaeological Symposium held in Nicosia, November 6th–7th 2010 . Nicosia, 167–185 . Knapp, A . B . and Manning, S . W . 2016 Crisis in Context: The end of the Late Bronze Age in the Eastern Mediterranean . American Journal of Archaeology 120/1, 99–149 . Koehl, R . 2017 Where there Sea Peoples at Alalakh? In: C . Maner, M . T . Horowitz and A . Gilbert (eds .), Overturning Certainties in Near Eastern Archaeology. A Festschrift in Honor of K. Aslıhan Yener . Leiden, 275–395 . Mountjoy, P . 1986 Mycenaean Decorated Pottery. A Guide to Identification . Studies in Mediterranean Archaeology 73, Göteborg . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Pucci, M . 2013 Chatal Höyük in the Amuq: Material Culture and Architecture during the Passage from the Late Bronze Age to the Early Iron Age . In: K . A . Yener (ed .), Across the border: Late Bronze-Iron Age relations between Syria and Anatolia: Proceedings of a Symposium held at the Research Center of Anatolian Studies, Koç University, Istanbul. May 31–June 1 2010 . Leuven, 89–112 . Skibo, J . M . 2013 Understanding pottery function . New York . Spataro, M . and Villing, A . 2015 Investigating ceramics, cuisine and culture – past, present and future . In: M . Spataro and A . Villing (eds .), Ceramics, Cuisine and Culture: The Archaeology of Science and Kitchen Pottery in the Ancient Mediterranean World . Havertown, 1–25 . Swift, G . F . jr . 1958 The Pottery of the ‘Amuq Phases K to O, and its Historical Relationships. Unpublished PhD thesis . University of Chicago, Chicago . Venturi, F . 2007 L’età delle trasformazioni in Siria (XIII–X sec. a.C.). Nuovi contributi dallo scavo di Tell Afis . Studi e testi orientali 8, Serie Archeologica 1, Bologna . Verstraete, J . and Wilkinson, T . J . 2000 The Amuq Regional Archaeological Survey . In: K . A . Yener, C . Edens, T . P . Harrison, J . Verstraete and T . J . Wilkinson, The Amuq Valley Regional Project, 1995–1998 . American Journal of Archaeology 104, 2, 179–192 . Woolley, L . 1955 Alalakh: an account of the excavations at Tell Atchana in the Hatay, 1937–1949 . Oxford . Yener, K . A . 2013 New Excavations at Alalakh: the 14th–12th Centuries BC . In: K . A . Yener (ed .) Across the border: Late Bronze-Iron Age relations between Syria and Anatolia: Proceedings of a Symposium held at the Research Center of Anatolian Studies, Koç University, Istanbul. May 31–June 1 2010 . Leuven, 11–36 . Yener, K . A . (ed .) 2005 Surveys in the Plain of Antioch and Orontes Delta, Turkey, 1995–2002 . Chicago . Yener, K . A ., Dinçol, B ., and Peker, H . 2014 Princess Tuthalia and Princess Ašnuhepa . Nouvelles Assyriologiques Brèves et Utilitaires 4, 136–138 . Yener, K . A ., Edens, C ., Harrison, T . P ., Verstraete, J . and Wilkinson, T . J . 2000 The Amuq Valley Regional Project, 1995–1998 . American Journal of Archaeology 104/2, 163– 220 .

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Fig . 1 Tell Atchana Excavation Squares

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Fig . 2 Selected pottery from Atchana: 1 (AT 11164 .3 ); 2 (AT 11134 .11 ); 3 (AT 18202 .4); 4 (AT 11169 .2); 5 (AT 18217 .1); 6 (AT 2045 .7); 7 (AT 11134 .3); 8 (AT 14999 .1)

Fig . 3 Selected pottery from Atchana: 1 (AT 18249 .2); 2 (AT 18017 .3); 3 (AT 17717 .1) © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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From Bronze Age to Iron Age in Northeast Iran: The Case of Tureng Tepe Julie Bessenay-Prolonge 1 – Régis Vallet 2 Abstract Located in the province of Golestan, at the crossroads between the Iranian Plateau and the steppes of Central Asia, the site of Tureng Tepe has been occupied for thousands of years from the Neolithic to the modern age . The site was excavated from 1960 to 1979 by a French team led by J . Deshayes (University of Paris 1) . The excavations revealed an important Bronze Age urban centre, dominated by a high terrace . This large urban settlement collapsed at the end of the Middle Bronze Age . After several centuries of abandonment, the site was reoccupied during the Iron Age and a series of fortified buildings were constructed atop the ruins of the Bronze Age terrace . Although the Sassanid and Islamic remains were described in a monograph published in 1987, all the earlier occupation levels remain unpublished . Since 2012, we have relaunched the publication project, and this paper aims to present some preliminary results about the current stratigraphic and architectural studies based on the French excavation’s archives . The issue of migrations at the end of the Bronze Age will also be considered .

Tureng Tepe is one of the best known archaeological sites of northeast Iran . It is located in the Dasht-e Gorgan, close to the Turkmenistan border, more precisely 18km northeast of the city of Gorgan and 15km south of the river Gorgan Rud . The site, covering an area of nearly 35ha, is one of the many pre- and early historic settlement sites or ‘tepes’, which stand out against the surrounding natural lowland . Tureng Tepe consists of a group of artificial mounds about 12–17m high, dominated by the 30m high Main Mound (Fig . 1) . These mounds stand around a central depression – a winter seasonal pond . Although the site was known from the first half of the 19th century (de Bode 1844), the first excavations began in 1931 by Frederick Wulsin, curator at the University of Pennsylvania Museum in Philadelphia (Wulsin 1932; Wulsin 1938) . This work was carried out in June and October 1931 and was confined to a deep sondage of 17m and two tunnels dug in the Main Mound in order to provide information about the massive brick construction revealed by the erosion of the western face of the tepe . Some other excavations were also carried out in the Northern Mound and in the Small Mound, where about 75 burials, containing grave goods (vessels and jewellery) dating to the Bronze Age, were discovered .

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University of Paris 1 – Panthéon-Sorbonne, UMR 7041 ArScAn–VEPMO . CNRS, Maison Archéologie Ethnologie (MAE), UMR 7041 ArScAn–VEPMO . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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1. The French archaeological mission at Tureng Tepe The site was later excavated from 1960 to 1979 by a French team directed by Jean Deshayes . During the first five campaigns, Deshayes focused on the southern part of the site; nine trenches were excavated in the Small Mound and in the Southern Mound in order to obtain an idea of the stratigraphy of the site (Fig . 2) . Research on the High Mound, considered to be ‘the most promising’, only started in 1967 and continued until 1977 . A total of 3150m² divided into 126 squares have been excavated on the High Mound . 3 The chronology established by Deshayes at the end of the 1975 campaign defines nine main periods of occupation, from the Neolithic (Period I) to the modern era (period IX), and is largely based on that of the neighbouring site of Tepe Hissar . Note that only Bronze Age remains (Period III) have been discovered in every excavated area, so it appears that the site reached its maximum expansion during the Bronze Age . After Deshayes’ death in 1979, several of his collaborators decided to form a working group in order to publish the excavations . While the volume dedicated to the Sassanid and Islamic remains was published in 1987 (Boucharlat and Lecomte 1987), the other two volumes originally planned and devoted respectively to the Iron Age settlement and to the Chalcolithic and Bronze Age levels, were never completed . It was not until 2012 that a new publication project for the protohistoric remains of Tureng Tepe was revived (dir . R . Vallet), based on the study of the French mission excavation archives (Bessenay-Prolonge and Vallet 2016) . 4 The first phase of this program was the stratigraphic and architectural study of protohistoric and Achaemenid levels, intended to establish the sequence of occupation of the site . The preliminary results presented here are based on the analysis of raw field data, namely the 43 excavation diaries and the hundreds of plans, sections and photographs related to the Bronze Age and Iron Age settlements (Fig . 3) . 2. From the Bronze Age city… Excavations at Tureng Tepe revealed the existence of an important settlement during the Bronze Age . In particular, a long sequence of successive layers of occupation (dwellings) has been discovered in the deep sondage dug in the Small Mound . Several pottery kilns were also discovered in the Southern Mound, which included at least

3 4

A succinct preliminary report was published after each campaign (Deshayes 1963; Deshayes 1965; Deshayes 1966; Deshayes 1968; Deshayes 1970; Deshayes 1973a; Deshayes 1973b; Deshayes 1974a; Deshayes 1974b; Deshayes 1976a; Deshayes 1976b) . We are very grateful to the Shelby White and Leon Levy Program for Archaeological Publications and the Labex Pasts in Presents (University of Paris Ouest-Nanterre) for the funding of our publication program . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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one craft area dedicated to pottery . French archaeologists also excavated about 150 graves . Despite their efforts, no trace of fortifications was found . The Bronze Age settlements were characterized by the presence of polished grey ceramics known as ‘Burnished Grey Ware’ . These ceramics were made without a potter’s wheel and were fired at high temperatures in a reducing atmosphere; the geometric patterns were created through incisions and burnishing (Fig . 4) . This ware appeared in the second half of the 4th millennium BC throughout the Dasht-e Gorgan region and in the neighbouring region of Damghan further south . Few sites of this Burnished Grey Ware (BGW) culture have been investigated: Shah Tepe, Yarim Tepe and Tepe Hissar . The Middle Bronze Age (Tureng/Hissar IIIB–IIIC) is the apogee of the BGW culture . At Tureng Tepe, the most impressive monument was excavated on the Main Mound; it was a monumental High Terrace made of bricks, which dates to the Middle Bronze Age (Tureng IIIC) . Although the last four campaigns led by Deshayes focused on this High Terrace, only a small part of it was excavated, mainly on the southern slope of the mound . The sides of the structure measure at least 80m long and the whole building is estimated to have been more than 14m high (Fig . 5) . The building was composed of two steps; the first one was about 5m high above the surrounding ground . An associated storage building (razed to the level of its foundations) leaned against the southern façade . In the heavily eroded southwestern part of the terrace, the internal masonry of this two-stepped building has been examined; each step consisted of an outer coffer-work surrounding a series of blocks (casemates) of different sizes . Several materials were used during the construction, but semi-baked bricks predominate, giving a reddish colour to the building . The use of mud bricks was also attested, mainly in the heart of the masonry blocks where they were not exposed to dripping water . There were several sizes of bricks, but the most frequent corresponded to large rectangular bricks 75cm long . Thick layers of mortar containing parallel reeds and some wooden beams were also regularly distributed within the masonry in order to reinforce the stability of the building . Finally, the foundations of the outer coffer-work wall contained large stone blocks . Moreover, some fragments of red to purplish pink clay plaster have been discovered at the foot of the monument, so the façade must have been painted . In the central part of the southern side of the terrace, the floors of the first step made of thick layers of packed clay had been exposed to a length of 20m . It should be noted that the floor was not a horizontal and flat surface, but showed a strongly inclined slope towards the east . It corresponded to a ramp giving access to the second step of the terrace . A small part of the façade of this second step was preserved and excavated . Several layers of mud plaster covered this façade, which was recessed with ‘pilasters’ made of one row of bricks that had initially been interpreted as decorative elements . The presence of opposite partition walls (preserved only in a single course of bricks) indicated that the ramp actually supported a succession of small roofed © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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rooms . These rooms formed a kind of gallery with large windows set in its southern wall and opening onto the city . During the last campaign of excavations in 1977, the southeastern corner of the terrace had been excavated, and repairs, which we can now interpret as a late lateral expansion of the second step, were found . A second storage building abutting the lower façade, above the previous storage building, was certainly contemporary with the second phase of the terrace . Very few objects have been discovered associated with the Bronze Age High Terrace . Nevertheless, a few small stone columns were found on the floor of the second step of the terrace, while two other fragments were discovered in the destruction layer at the foot of its southern façade . It is interesting to note that in Altyn Depe (southern Turkmenistan) a similar stone column was found near a structure interpreted as an altar in a room (Room 7) linked with the monumental terrace of the ‘Cult Center’ (Masson 1988: 68) . Excavations at Tureng Tepe give us evidence for an important city dominated by a huge High Terrace . The available surfaces at the top of this building (4000m²), as well as its late enlargement, raises the question of its function . This terrace probably supported a large architectural complex that may have housed the regional political power . At Tepe Hissar, the other main site of this BGW culture, no comparable monumental building was found, but a lot of tombs containing valuable grave goods, including long-distance trade materials (alabaster, carnelian, lapis, etc .), were excavated in contemporary layers . The precious artefacts found in the ‘Burned Building’ and the presence of a lapis workshop also illustrate the wealth of this settlement . Tureng Tepe and Tepe Hissar also seem to have been part of a vast network of exchanges and influences with the southern regions of Central Asia and those of the southeastern Iranian plateau . 3. …to the Iron Age fortresses The Burnished Grey Ware culture disappeared around 1900/1800 BC with the abandonment of Tureng Tepe, Tepe Hissar and the other sites of the Gorgan plain . This abandonment seems to have lasted for centuries, since it was only around 900 BC, at the end of the Iron Age II, when newcomers settled at the site . After that, Tureng Tepe was continuously occupied until the Islamic period . The pottery found in the Iron II levels belongs to the culture of Archaic Dehistan . It is characterized by a nonwheel-turned red-orange ware – a type very different from Burnished Grey Ware (Cleuziou 1985) . While the whole site was occupied during the Bronze Age, the newcomers of the Iron Age seem to have settled only at the top of the Main Mound . The study of Iron Age architectural remains presents many difficulties; the remains are poorly preserved, destroyed either by the buildings of the later periods or by erosion . Moreover, they have been excavated only in a very small area, on the southern and western slopes of the mound . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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The oldest levels attributed to the Iron Age contained small rectangular rooms built directly on the Bronze Age Terrace . The walls and tiles were made of small grey mud bricks, very different from the large semi-baked bricks of the Bronze Age terrace . It is interesting to mention that all these constructions were placed behind the façade of the second step of the Terrace; the builders took advantage of the topography created by the ruins of the terrace . A later architectural phase corresponding to the remains of a rampart formed by two parallel walls, following the contours of the slope, has been exposed in the eastern part of the southern slope . In addition, some kind of bastion was added to this rampart to the west . The Tureng IVB period, which corresponds to the Iron III phase, is characterized by a change in the ceramic material, which shows some similarities to the Zagros Iron Age III assemblage (Cuyler Young 1965) . The main class of ceramics consists of beige to pale brown pottery with a smoothed or polished surface . According to O . Lecomte, Tureng IVB may correspond to a local evolution, during the Iron III, of the Archaic Dehistan culture (Lecomte 1999) . Again, we are dealing with defensive constructions consisting of two parallel walls that may have encircled the top of the tepe . The VA period of the Tureng Tepe sequence corresponds to the Achaemenid period (or Iron Age IV) . The remains are better preserved than in previous phases . Tureng Tepe is the only site of the Gorgan plain where Achaemenid levels have been excavated so far . The pottery is now wheel-thrown, but the forms show continuity with the previous period . In the architecture, there is the first use of square bricks . Tureng VA is characterized by a wide rampart made of two thick walls, enclosing inner storage rooms, which follow the curve of the mound (Fig . 6) . Its enclosed area would have been about 2120m² and once again, several stages of construction have been recognized . This type of fortified settlement then continues during the later periods: the Parthian, Sassanid and Islamic eras . 4. Migration? Or migrations? There is little archaeological evidence for Late Bronze Age and Iron Age I settlements in the Gorgan plain, but this apparent desertion could also be partially explained by the lack of archaeological excavations carried out in this region . Therefore, around 1900/1700 BC, there was, if not a global desertion of the region, at least the quasi-simultaneous abandonment of all the archaeological sites that have been excavated . At Tureng Tepe, a period of abandonment of nearly a millennium seems to separate the city of the Bronze Age from the Iron Age reoccupation . A major changeover occurred from a complex urban settlement (with residential, craft and monumental areas, and with no trace of fortifications) to a series of fortified buildings perched on a kind of eyrie . Nevertheless, it should be noted that the Iron Age people settled on high ground on the ruins of an ancient power centre . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Several hypotheses have been advanced to try to explain this desertion around 1900/1700 BC . According to Roman Ghirshman, some invaders from the north of Central Asia destroyed the Bronze Age settlements: “Il semble que les habitants furent forcés de fuir devant une invasion qui, sans doute, arrivait du nord” (Ghirshman 1977: 22) . A part of the population from the Gorgan plain and Tepe Hissar would then have migrated westward, passing along the southern Caspian coast and eventually back down to the south . This assumption is mainly based on comparisons between the ceramics of Hissar/Tureng IIIC and some vases from Iron I levels of Khorvin, Marlik and Hasanlu in western Iran . Deshayes also supported this hypothesis . He thought that the abandonment of the Gorgan plain and its surroundings was gradual, and that some sites as Tepe Hissar or Yarim Tepe had been deserted before Tureng Tepe (Deshayes 1969) . Other researchers such as Ali Mousavi think that an environmental change could have been the reason for this phenomenon (Mousavi 2008) . According to him, strong demographic pressure, combined with an overexploitation of the natural resources and a deterioration of the weather conditions, could explain the decline of these major urban settlements . These people would later adopt a semi-nomadic pastoral lifestyle, which would have left very few remains . This assumption could be supported by the fact that the only data concerning the Late Bronze Age comes from funerary sites . Thus, some graves dated around 1500 BC have been discovered in the necropolis of Shahrud, located in the southern foothills of the Elbourz Mountains . 5 These graves contained some vessels that have strong similarities with the BGW ceramics, but also with some Iron Age I shapes from the Misrian plain and from the region of Teheran (Mousavi 2005; Mousavi 2008) . Some others researchers argue for a transfer of population towards the north . Indeed, parallels are drawn between the artefacts of the Archaic Dehistan culture in the plain of Misrian and those from the Bronze Age sites of northeastern Iran . P . Kohl emphasizes the similarities between the Grey Burnished Ware and some grey ceramics found in Iron Age sites from southern Turkmenistan (Kohl 1984) . He also cites chemical analysis carried out on twenty-two metallic objects from different sites of the Archaic Dehistan . The results indicate that their composition is similar to that of objects from northeastern Iran . Consequently, according to P . Kohl, there would have been a major migration to the north around 1900/1700 BC, and these migrants would have founded the settlements of the Archaic Dehistan culture around the 14th–13th centuries BC . Olivier Lecomte and Henri-Paul Francfort agreed with his theory (Francfort and Lecomte 2002) . In their minds, some sites and necropolises of the Sumbar Valley could illustrate this transition between the Bronze Age settlements of the Gorgan plain and the Iron Age ones of the Misrian plain . Indeed, Soviet archaeologists have discovered several sites and necropolises where some pottery

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contemporary with the Namazga VI assemblage could illustrate this transition (Kohl 1984) . This northward migration does not necessarily exclude the existence of other contemporary migrations towards the west . The current studies conducted on the archives of the French Archaeological Mission at Tureng Tepe, of which we have given a brief account, have already changed quite deeply the image that we had of the history of this site . The continuation of this collaborative research program should provide new evidence and help obtain a better understanding of the radical changes that occurred in the region between the Bronze and Iron Ages . Bibliography Bessenay-Prolonge, J . and Vallet, R . 2016 Tribulations archéologiques . Du terrain à la publication des archives de la CNR-ISMA Mission Archéologique Française de Tureng Tépé (Iran) . Nouvelles de l’Archéologie 145, 18–23 . de Bode, C . A . 1844 On a recently opened tumulus in the neighbourhood of Asterabad, forming part of Ancient Hyrcania, and the country of the Parthians . Archaeologia 30, 248–255 . Boucharlat, R . and Lecomte, O . 1987 Fouilles de Tureng Tépé. Les Périodes Sassanides et Islamiques . Paris . Cleuziou, S . 1985 L’Âge du Fer à Tureng Tépé (Iran) et ses relations avec l’Asie Centrale . In: J .-C . Gardin (ed .), L’archéologie de la Bactriane ancienne . Paris, 175–185 . Cuyler Young, T . C . 1965 A comparative chronology for Western Iran, 1500–500 B .C . Iran 3, 53–85 . Deshayes, J . 1963 Rapport préliminaire sur les deux premières campagnes de fouille à Tureng Tépé . Syria 40, 85–99 . 1965

Rapport préliminaire sur les troisième et quatrième campagnes de fouille à Tureng Tépé . Iranica Antiqua 5, 83–92 .

1966

Rapport préliminaire sur la sixième campagne de fouille à Tureng Tépé (1965) . Iranica Antiqua 6, 1–5 .

1968

Tureng Tépé . Survey of excavations . Iran. Journal of the British Institute of Persian Studies 6, 165–166 .

1969

Tureng Tepe et la période Hissar IIIC, in: C . F . A . Schaeffer (ed .), Ugaritica VI, Paris, 139–163 .

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Tureng Tépé . Survey of excavations . Iran. Journal of the British Institute of Persian Studies 8, 207–208 .

1973a Rapport préliminaire sur les septième et huitième campagnes de fouille à Tureng Tépé (1967 et 1969) . Bulletin of the Asia Institute of Pahlavi University 3, 81–97 . 1973b Rapport préliminaire sur la neuvième campagne de fouille à Tureng Tépé . Iran. Journal of the British Institute of Persian Studies 11, 141–152 . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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1974a La dixième campagne de fouille à Torang Tappeh (1973) . In: F . Bagherzadeh (ed .), Proceedings of the IInd Annual Symposium on Archaeological Research in Iran . Teheran, 128–138 . 1974b La XIème campagne de fouille à Tureng Tépé (17 juillet–7 septembre 1975) . Paléorient 2, 491–494 . 1976a Rapport préliminaire sur la onzième campagne de fouille à Torang Tappeh (1975) . In: F . Bagherzadeh (ed .), Proceedings of the IVth Annual Symposium on Archaeological Research in Iran . Téhéran, 298–321 . 1976b Tureng Tépé . Survey of excavations . Iran. Journal of the British Institute of Persian Studies 14, 169–171 . Francfort, H .-P . and Lecomte, O . 2002 Irrigation et société en Asie Centrale des origins à l’époque Achéménide . Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales 57/3, 625–663 . Ghirshman, R . 1977 L’Iran et la migration des Indo-aryens et des Iraniens . Leiden . Kohl, P . 1984 Central Asia Palaeolithic Beginnings to the Iron Age . Paris . Lecomte, O . 1999 Vehrkana and Dehistan: late farming communities of south-west Turkmenistan from the Iron Age to the Islamic period . Parthica 1, 135–170 . Masson, V . M . 1988 Altyn-Depe . University Museum monograph 55, Philadelphia . Mousavi, A . 2005 Comments on the early Iron Age in Iran . Iranica Antiqua 40, 87–99 . 2008

Late Bronze Age in north-eastern Iran: an alternative approach to persisting problems . Iran. Journal of the British Institute of Persian Studies 46, 105–120 .

Wulsin, F . 1932 Excavations at Tureng Tépé near Asterabad. Supplement of the Bulletin of the American Institute for Persian Art and Archaeology 2/1 . New York . 1938

The early cultures of Asterabad (Turang Tepe) . In: A . Pope (ed .), A Survey of Persian Art, from Prehistoric Times to the Present . London, 163–167 .

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Fig . 1 General plan of the site of Tureng Tepe (J . Bessenay-Prolonge, from the archives of the Mission Archéologique Française de Tureng Tépé, M .A .E ., Nanterre)

Fig . 2 Excavations in progress, Small Mound of Tureng Tepe, 1960 (Archives of the Mission Archéologique Française de Tureng Tépé, M .A .E ., Nanterre) © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Fig . 3 Page 16 in the excavation diary of square XVI-12, Main Mound, 1973, by J .-D . Forest (Archives of the Mission Archéologique Française de Tureng Tépé, M .A .E ., Nanterre)

Fig . 4 Some BGW ceramics from the graves of the Small Mound, 1967 (Archives of the Mission Archéologique Française de Tureng Tépé, M .A .E ., Nanterre) © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Fig . 5 Proposed reconstruction of the Bronze Age High Terrace (J . Bessenay-Prolonge, from the archives of the Mission Archéologique Française de Tureng Tépé, M .A .E ., Nanterre)

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Fig . 6 Plan of the Iron IV rampart (J . Bessenay-Prolonge, from the archives of the Mission Archéologique Française de Tureng Tépé, M .A .E ., Nanterre)

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A Pyrotechnological Study of Ubaid and Late Chalcolithic Pottery: Estimated Firing Temperatures Tatsundo Koizumi 1 – Hitoshi Ojima 2 – Hirokazu Yoshida 2 – Ayami Yoshida 2 Abstract This study presents the pyrotechnological analyses of pottery of the Ubaid to Uruk periods in the 5th to 4th millennium BC . The results from XRF (X-ray fluorescence) and XRD (X-ray diffraction) analyses of sun-dried brick and sherd samples from Salat Tepe in the Upper Tigris region, southeastern Turkey, indicate that firing temperatures for pottery during the HUT (Halaf-Ubaid Transitional) to Late Chalcolithic periods may be separated into at least three groups . The first group is coarse plain pottery of the Late Chalcolithic period, which appears to have been fired at a little more than c . 450°C . The second is painted pottery of the Ubaid period, fired at a high temperature ranging between 900 and 1000°C . The third is HUT painted pottery and grey burnished pottery from the earlier stage of the Late Chalcolithic period, the Early Uruk-related period, which seems to have been fired at a temperature higher than the coarse plain pottery, but lower than the Ubaid painted pottery: c . 800 to 900°C .

1. Introduction During the Ubaid to Uruk periods in the 5th to 4th millennia BC, the later part of the Chalcolithic period related to urbanization in Western Asia, it has been found that the pottery firing skills underwent technological development . Particularly, the Ubaid and Late Chalcolithic wares indicate prominent development of pyrotechnology in pottery production . Scientific analyses of these wares can contribute to a fuller comprehension of pottery production during the urbanization periods . In this paper, we report preliminary results from chemical analyses of pottery, clinkers and related samples from Salat Tepe in the Upper Tigris region, southeastern Turkey . Recently, many aspects of pottery production during the Chalcolithic period throughout Western Asia as well as parts of surrounding regions have been studied, including pottery kiln structures (Delcroix and Huot 1972), pottery production in general (Moorey 1994), development of Neolithic and Chalcolithic pottery kilns (Streily 2000) and pottery-making techniques (Simpson 1997a; Simpson 1997b; Koizumi 2016) . There have also been chemical analyses by SEM and XRF on Samarra, Halaf, Ubaid and related material (Tite and Maniatis 1975; Kamilli and Steinberg 1985; Kayani 1997; Nieuwenhuyse et al . 2001), pigment composition of Ubaid Painted Ware (Noll et al . 1975; Oates et al . 1977; Courtois and Velde 1983; Courtois

1 2

The University of Tokyo, Japan, Institute for Advanced Studies on Asia . Industrial Technology Institute of Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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and Velde 1985/86; Kamilli and Steinberg 1985; Simpson 1997a) and pyrotechnological study of Chalcolithic pottery (Koizumi 2016) . Most Ubaid painted ceramics were presumably fired in double-chamber updraught kilns . At the same time, many over-fired sherds and dark olive coloured vessels have been seen, as also found in Samarra fine pottery . The firing temperature seems sometimes to have been so high that the resulting vessel had a greenish to green colour . This characteristic is definitely distinct from Halaf material, but rather similar to material from Samarra . On the basis of the total vitrification of the fired pottery examined in SEM, it was concluded that consistently higher firing temperatures, approximately from 1050 to 1150°C, were employed during the Ubaid period (Tite and Maniatis 1975: 123) . There is another similar estimation that most Ubaid painted pottery would have achieved a temperature range of 1050 to 1200°C, but coarse plain pottery was fired at lower temperatures (Simpson 1997a: 43) . Observation of vitrification microstructures in green ware samples from Tepe Gawra XIX–XIII (Late Ubaid) additionally suggested that these pottery vessels were fired at a temperature of ca . 1050°C, and others from Tepe Gawra XII–IX (Terminal Ubaid) in the range of 1100 to 1150°C (Kayani 1997: 137) . However, there remains a strange aspect of the assumption that the estimated temperature for Ubaid painted pottery given in these previous analyses is more than 1000°C, because an experimentation on re-firings of Ubaid painted sherds in an electric kiln indicated that the samples fired at less than 800°C rarely changed with regard to surface condition, but that others fired at more than 1050°C melted like chocolate (Koizumi 2016: 86) . We have, therefore, been challenged to reconstruct the firing temperature of the painted pottery of the Ubaid period by XRF and XRD analyses, and estimated tentatively that the Ubaid painted pottery seems to have been fired at a high temperature ranging between 900 and 1000°C (Koizumi 2016: 107) . The aim of this study is to make our previous result more reliable in order to contribute to the further comprehension of reconstructing pyrotechnology during the urbanization periods around the Mesopotamian region . 2. Site information Salat Tepe is located on the left bank of the River Salat, a tributary of the upper Tigris in southeast Turkey (Fig . 1) . The site measures ca . 180m in diameter and ca . 24m in height . Since 2000, Tuba Ökse (Kocaeli University, Turkey) and Ahmet Görmüş (Mustafa Kemal University, Turkey) had conducted archaeological excavations here in the Ilısu Barajı-Salat Tepe Kurtarma Kazısı Projesi (Ökse 2004; Ökse and Görmüş 2006) . They excavated several settlements characterised by sun-dried brick architecture of the Middle Bronze to Early Iron Ages in the Summit Trench, and of the Chalcolithic period in the Step Trench on the southern slope . After the 2010 season the first author joined the mission, being in charge of excavating the Step Trench © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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(Fig . 2) . The aim of the excavation campaigns was to establish a tentative chronological sequence from the Early Ubaid to the Late Chalcolithic or the Uruk-related periods (Ökse et al . 2012; Ökse et al . 2013; Koizumi et al . 2016) . In order to pursue the scientific analysis of archaeological remains related to pottery production, we collected six sun-dried bricks, forty-eight sherds and three pieces of clinker; the results of the analysis of the clinker samples will be reported in another paper because of space limitations . All these samples came from various contexts brought to light in the 2010 to 2013 excavations and were taken to Japan for chemical analysis after obtaining permission from the authorities of the Diyarbakır Museum in Turkey . Most of the samples for chemical analysis were collected from floors or related fills found within architectural structures made of sun-dried bricks (Koizumi 2016: 87–92; Koizumi et al . 2016: 148–157) . One sun-dried brick was a piece of Wall 47/D of Room 50/M in Trench F12 (F12-113-A01), which dates to the later part of the Early Ubaid (Fig . 3) . This building might have been used in a residential context as part of an ordinary house . Another sun-dried brick belonged to Wall 112/D between Rooms 107/M and 108/M, which was part of an ordinary house with a relatively irregular plan, in Trench G12 (G12-194-A01), attributable to the earlier part of the Late Ubaid (Fig . 4) . Other sun-dried bricks were pieces of Walls 35/D and 55/D of a building unit in Trench H12 (H12-268-A01; H12-214-2), belonging to the later part of the Late Ubaid (Fig . 5) . This building complex was identified as the ‘Ubaidian Tripartite Plan’ . The other sundried bricks were taken from Wall 36/D of Room 47/M (I12-144-0, Fig . 6) and Wall 52/D of Room 58/M (I12-185-A02, Fig . 7) in Trench I12, dating to the earlier stage of the Late Chalcolithic . Particularly, the latter brick was a component of a building complex made up of Rooms 56/M, 57/M and 58/M in Trench I12, which might have been used as a pottery production workshop (Koizumi et al . 2016: 150) . The potsherds for chemical analysis were mostly uncovered on floors or from related fills as follows (Fig . 8) . Halaf/HUT painted sherds (n=5): I12-206-2, H12184-1, H12-268-1/ H12-184-3, I12-152-28 . Late to Terminal Ubaid sherds (n=20): G12-155-3, G12-156-1, G12-166-1, 2, G12-180-1, H12-184-4, H12-185-39, H12187-22, 25, 26, H12-188-23, 26, 27, H12-202-1, 2, 3, H12-211-1, H12-249-1, I12121-1, I12-149-51 . Earlier stage of Late Chalcolithic sherds (n=16): I12-113-3, 4, I12-117-6, I12-152-3, 14, I12-144-1, 5, 6, I12-173-1, 2, 3, I12-196-11, I12-206-1, I12-225-1, I12-238-1, 2 . Uruk/ Gawra/ other sherds (n=7): G12-155-1, 2/ I12-196-1, I12-241-1/ I12-145-28, I12-149-50, I12-241-2 . 3. Analyses These samples were analysed at the Industrial Technology Institute of Ibaraki Prefecture (Japan) where XRF (X-ray fluorescence), XRD (X-ray diffraction), µXRF (Micro X-ray fluorescence), SEM-EDS (Scanning electron microscope – Energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy) and TG-DTA (Thermogravimetry – Differential thermal analysis) © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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methods were conducted as chemical examination procedures . In this paper we only report the results of the XRF and XRD analyses . In order to compare the chief ingredient elements and chemical compounds present in the sun-dried bricks with those in the pottery fabrics, we performed elemental analysis using XRF and mineral composition identification by means of XRD as described in the following sections . First, we put the sherds in a container made of tungsten carbide after cleaning with water and drying in air, and then pulverized them in a vibration mill . This powder was dried in a dryer at 105°C and heated in a muffle furnace at 1025°C . From the change in sample weight before and after heating, we calculated LOI (loss on ignition) . We manufactured a glass bead from the burnt sample (c . 0 .5g) mixed with lithium borate (c . 5g), and performed an ultimate analysis of FP (fundamental parameter) calculation using an X-ray fluorescence spectrometer of the wavelength dispersion type (Shimazu Corporation: XRF-1700) . Second, mineral composition was measured in an X-ray diffraction device by the powder method . After water-cleaning and air-drying of the sherd samples, we pulverized them in a vibration mill . Then this powder was dried in a dryer at 40°C . For the sun-dried brick, at the same time, after cutting the samples into tiny pieces and air-drying, we wet-sieved them using a mesh 40 and subsequently pulverized them in a vibration mill . We analysed the mineral composition of these samples by the powder method using the X-ray diffraction device (Rigaku: RINT-2200Ultima+) . 4. Results of analyses 4 .1 Main elements present in sun-dried bricks and sherds According to the elemental composition of sun-dried bricks, we compared XRF analysis results (percent by weight) considering LOI (Loss on Ignition) (Tab . 1) . LOI is a test used in inorganic analytical chemistry, particularly in the analysis of minerals . It consists of strongly heating (‘igniting’) a sample of the material at a specified temperature, allowing volatile substances to escape, until its mass ceases to change . Average LOI of the sun-dried bricks LOI is 14 .39% (n=6); such high values resulted from non-firing . Generally, silicon dioxide (SiO2) and aluminum oxide (Al2O3) are chief clay elements, and calcium oxide (CaO) is another higher frequency component . The percentage of silicon dioxide, a main ingredient of the clay used to make six sundried bricks (F12-113-A01, G12-194-A01, H12-214-2, H12-268-A01, I12-144-0, I12-185-2), is 43 .46: 43 .25: 59 .15: 45 .91: 48 .21: 52 .95 (%), and that of aluminum oxide, another principal ingredient, is 10 .76: 11 .23: 12 .81: 13 .40: 12 .39: 11 .87 (%) . The proportions by weight of other higher frequency components are: calcium oxide and magnesium oxide (MgO), respectively 17 .45: 16 .74: 8 .20: 12 .98: 13 .35: 11 .81 (%) and 3 .33: 3 .74: 2 .91: 4 .30: 3 .78: 3 .16 (%) . The weight ratios of aluminum oxide and silicon dioxide of these six sun-dried bricks are 0 .25 (10 .76/43 .46), 0 .26 (11 .23/43 .25), 0 .22 (12 .81/59 .15), 0 .29 (13 .40/45 .91), 0 .26 (12 .39/48 .21) and 0 .22 © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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(11 .87/52 .95) . These sun-dried bricks show approximately a similar composition regarding the chief ingredient elements in the clay, which is similar to previous results showing that the Chalcolithic sherd samples from Salat Tepe could have been produced using raw materials with similar principal components . With regards to the elemental components of sherds, we also compared XRF analysis results (percent by weight) considering LOI (Tab . 2) . The average LOI of studied sherds is 5 .77% (n=37), making a clear contrast to the LOI 14 .39% of the sun-dried bricks . Such low values of the sherds could result from high-temperature firing . Weight ratio calculations of aluminum oxide and silicon dioxide, the chief clay ingredients of the sun-dried brick and sherd samples, yield such similar results as 0 .22–0 .29 (11 .87/52 .95–13 .40/45 .91) in the former and 0 .24–0 .35 (14 .24/59 .50– 19 .37/53 .87) in the latter, where the clay of the sherds might be similar to that of the sun-dried bricks . Concerning also the molar ratio based on the analysis without considering LOI of the main elements present in the clay, we produced a triangle graph showing nearly all the data of the samples (Fig . 9) . It became clear that there is a clustered distribution on a triangular graph of molar ratios of silicon dioxide and aluminum oxide, chief clay elements, and calcium oxide another higher frequency component in the clay of the sun-dried brick and sherd samples . As confirming the results of the previous analysis, therefore, the sherds of the Chalcolithic period from Salat Tepe could have been produced using raw materials with similar principal components, and it is fairly certain that the sun-dried brick clays were almost the same as that of the sherds, which means the pottery might have been made locally . A close-up of the molar ratios, at the moment, indicates that there could be at least two or three groups of six sun-dried brick and twenty-nine sherd samples on the graph (Fig . 10) . Sun-dried bricks of the later part of the Early Ubaid (F12-113-A01) to the early part of the Late Ubaid (G12-194-A01) are distributed near each other as well as only one sherd (I12-173-2) in the earlier stage of Late Chalcolithic (lower dot circle on the graph) . A second group, with the most samples (centre on the graph), consists of other bricks in the later part of the Late Ubaid (H12-268-A01) and the earlier stage of the Late Chalcolithic (I12-144-0, I12-185-2) . This group includes most of the sherd samples composed of the Halaf (I12-206-2), HUT (H12-184-3), Ubaid (G12-155-3, G12-156-1, H12-185-39, H12-187-22, 26, H12-188-23, 27, H12-211-1, I12-121-1), Late Chalcolithic (I12-113-4, I12-117-6) and Uruk pottery (G12-155-1, 2) . The third one (upper circle on the graph) is made up of uncommon sun-dried brick and sherd samples . The sun-dried brick (H12-214-2) was picked from another wall in the same building identified as the ‘Ubaidian Tripartite Plan’ belonging to the later part of the Late Ubaid . The sherd samples are unusual types such as red burnished pottery (I12-113-3), interior swag painting, so-called ‘Gawra Ware’ (I12-241-1), and black burnished pottery (I12-145-28, I12-241-2) . Particularly, the black burnished pottery might have been examples of the early southward impact of the ‘Kura-Araxes’ pottery horizon (Areshian 2006; Rothman 2015: 9190) . The one sample I12-145-28 was found in the fills of Pit 48/Ç in Trench I12, cutting an architectural context in the earlier stage © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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of Late Chalcolithic . This sherd might have been attributed to the late 4th millennium BC in the later part of the Late Chalcolithic, roughly seeming rather earlier than that of typical black burnished pottery, black on the exterior and reddish on the interior, of this cultural horizon (Wilkinson et al . 2012: 21) . Furthermore, the average LOI 12 .18% (n=4) of coarse plain sherds (I12-117-6, I12-144-5, I12-152-3, I12-173-3) in the earlier stage of the Late Chalcolithic period is closely similar to the average LOI 14 .39% (n=6) for sun-dried bricks mentioned above . It is conjectured, therefore, that the coarse plain sherds were fired at a quite low temperature . The presence of plenty of chopped straw in the ‘clay’ used for the coarse plain pottery with blackish colour also points clearly to the conclusion that the sherd was fired in incompletely oxidizing conditions . On the other hand, it is supposed that the Late to Terminal Ubaid painted sherds including plain ones (G12155-3, G12-156-1, G12-166-1, 2, G12-180-1, H12-187-22, 25, 26, H12-188-23, 27, H12-211-1, I12-121-1, I12-185-39) were fired at considerably higher temperatures, because the average of LOI values is the lowest among the sherds studied, 3 .54% (n=13) . Additionally, the LOI 4 .48% of the HUT painted (H12-184-3) and average LOI 5 .56% (n=4) of the grey burnished sherds (I12-113-3, 4, I12-144-1, I12-152-14) suggest that both of these samples may have been fired in the middle range between the lower and higher temperatures mentioned above . 4 .2 Mineral components of sun-dried bricks and sherds Additionally, we identified the mineral composition of the sun-dried brick and sherd samples from XRD peak lists (Fig . 11) . Since most of the results coincide with that of previous analyses (Koizumi 2016: 96–99), we describe the total results of the XRD analysis and add several new observations here . In order to measure the intensity of one or more peaks for each mineral phase quantitatively, we adopted the Reference Intensity Ratios (RIR) method (Chung 1974) . Notations on tables of our study mean quantitative values (percent by weight) as follows: [◎ is main ingredient, more than 30%; ◯ secondary ingredient, more than 15% less than 30%; △ few, more than 5% less than 15%; ▲ very few, more than 1% less than 5%; × unidentified] . Since the accurate measurement of the amounts of clay minerals is difficult, the ratio value △ or ▲ was based on justifiable perception (cf . Hillier 2000: 291) . After comparing the six sun-dried bricks (F12-113-A01, G12-194-A01, H12214-2, H12-268-A01, I12-144-0, I12-185-2) to each other, minerals such as quartz, calcite, feldspar and kaolinite were identified in the clay . It is considered, therefore, that all of the sun-dried bricks were made of calcareous clay (Tab . 3) . Kaolinite as a chief clay constituent, and muscovite and/or illite as mica-based minerals in the sun-dried bricks were also identified in the coarse plain sherds (I12-117-6, I12-1445, I12-152-3, I12-173-3) (Tab . 4) . Similarly to the LOI value of elementary composition discussed above, the mineral composition of the coarse plain pottery in the earlier stage of the Late Chalcolithic also indicates that it appears to have been fired at a low temperature, little more than c . 450°C (Rice 1987: 90) . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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On the other hand, in the Late to Terminal Ubaid painted sherds including plain ones (G12-155-3, G12-156-1, G12-166-1, 2, G12-180-1, H12-185-39, H12-18722, 25, 26, H12-188-23, 27, H12-211-1, I12-121-1) gehlenite and pyroxene were particularly identified (Tab . 5) . Because these are minerals produced at high temperatures, unlike the clay minerals originally present in surface deposits (Kurokawa and Kawamura 1977: 162–164; Rice 1987: 98), the Ubaid pottery made up of most painted and a few plain sherd samples of Salat Tepe can be estimated to have been fired at a relatively high temperature, of more than approximately 900°C . Moreover, in the grey burnished sherds (I12-113-3, 4, I12-144-1, I12-152-14) from the earlier stage of the Late Chalcolithic period, gehlenite, pyroxene and iron oxide, as well as mica-based minerals like muscovite and illite are recognized (Tab . 6) . It is thought, therefore, that the pottery may have been fired at a higher temperature than the coarse plain pottery of the Late Chalcolithic period, and a little lower than the Late Ubaid painted pottery, c . 800 to 900°C . Concerning the HUT painted pottery, we had already analysed one sherd (H12184-3) in the previous analysis and did the other (I12-152-28) in SEM-EDX; the results of which will be discussed in another paper . We explain the former result again as follows: the HUT painted pottery contains not only compounds produced by firing such as gehlenite, pyroxene and iron oxides like magnetite and hematite, but also mica-based minerals such as muscovite, illite and biotite . Therefore, the HUT painted pottery may also have been fired at a relatively low temperature of c . 800 to 900°C . 5. Discussion and brief conclusions Through this pyrotechnological study we have estimated that pottery in the Ubaid to Late Chalcolithic periods may have been fired in at least three different temperature ranges . Most of the results coincide with that of a previous study (Koizumi 2016) . First, based on relative comparison of the LOI values, the firing temperatures of the sherds were estimated . A mean value of LOI 12 .18% (n=4) for coarse plain sherds in the earlier stage of Late Chalcolithic period is close to that of LOI 14 .39% (n=6) for sun-dried bricks . It is presumed, therefore, that the pottery was fired at a considerably lower temperature . In contrast, because another mean value of LOI 3 .54% (n=13) for the Late to Terminal Ubaid painted sherds including plain ones is far lower than that of the coarse plain pottery, the Ubaid pottery would have been fired at rather high temperatures . Moreover, both the LOI 4 .48% of the HUT painted pottery and a mean value of LOI 5 .56% (n=4) for grey burnished pottery from the earlier stage of the Late Chalcolithic period are intermediate between the above two groups, relatively closer to the Late Ubaid painted pottery rather than the coarse plain pottery . Next, comparing clay minerals originally included in soils with others like gehlenite and pyroxene produced by firing allowed an estimate of the approximate temperatures . In the coarse plain sherds, a chief clay constituent like kaolinite and mica-based minerals like muscovite and illite were identified as also present in the © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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sun-dried bricks, and the core of the fabric is dark grey in colour due to incomplete oxidation caused by an inadequate combination of temperature, time and draught (Shepard 1954: 106) . We can, therefore, infer that the coarse plain pottery would have been fired at a temperature of ca . 450°C or a little higher (Rice 1987: 90) . At the same time we observed that gehlenite and pyroxene produced by firing is present in the Ubaid painted sherds and also the plain ones . It is thus estimated that the Ubaid pottery was fired at high temperatures, more than approximately 900°C (Kurokawa and Kawamura 1977: 163–164; Maniatis and Tite 1981: 65; Rice 1987: 98) . As one of the most remarkable results during this study, we have observed that wollastonite is not found in most of the Ubaid sherds – not only painted, but also plain . The existence of wollastonite generally suggests the firing temperature may have been more than 950°C (Rice 1987: 103) . It can be postulated, therefore, that the pottery in the Late to Terminal Ubaid periods at Salat Tepe underwent firing at high temperatures less than 950°C . In the previous analysis we reported that as no mullite is found, it can be considered that all the sample sherds did not reach temperatures in excess of 1000 to 1100°C (Rice 1987: 103–104) . By adding the new observation that there is no wollastonite in the Late to Terminal Ubaid sherds, the firing temperature of the Ubaid pottery has been more accurately estimated at between 900°C and 950°C . Furthermore, not only kaolinite and mica-based minerals like muscovite and illite, but also gehlenite and pyroxene produced by firing were identified in one HUT painted and four grey burnished sherds . It may therefore be estimated that the pottery was fired at a relatively low temperature c . 800 to 900°C, higher than the coarse plain pottery and a little lower than the Late Ubaid painted pottery . Particularly, the result of the grey burnished sherds can persuasively support the previous estimation (Koizumi 2016: 108) . As brief conclusions of this study, therefore, we have discovered that firing temperatures of pottery during the HUT (Halaf-Ubaid Transitional) to Late Chalcolithic periods may be separated into at least three groups, which is consistent with previous results (Koizumi 2016: 107–109) . The analyses of the Salat Tepe samples discussed in this paper have sufficiently confirmed previous assumptions such as the separate firing of fine painted and coarse plain pottery . The relationship between these three groups of pottery firing temperatures and those of pottery kilns or firing facilities of the Ubaid to Late Chalcolithic periods at Salat Tepe are yet to be verified . Acknowledgements The Directorate General for Cultural Heritage and Museums in Turkey and the Diyarbakır Museum are gratefully acknowledged for granting permission for conducting these scientific analyses and publishing the results . Thanks to Dr . Tuba Ökse and Ahmet Görmüş for warmly welcoming the first author to join the ILISU BARAJI-SALAT TEPE KURTARMA KAZISI PROJESİ . Special thanks particularly are due to Takeshi KAMOSHIDA and Wataru KUNO of the Industrial Technology Institute of the Ibaraki Prefecture in Japan for carrying out the analy© 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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ses . This paper is part of a study supported by JSPS KAKENHI, Grant Numbers 22520772/25370891 . Bibliography Areshian, G . E . 2006 Early Bronze Age Settlements in the Ararat Plain and its Vicinity . Archäologische Mitteilungen aus Iran und Turan 37, 71–88 . Courtois, L . and Velde, B . 1983 Microscopic and Microprobe Analysis of Tell el ’Oueili Ceramics (Ubaid Phases: 1 and 4) . Sumer 39, 56–61 . 1985/86 Technical Studies of Ubaid 0–3 Pottery Samples from Tell el ’Oueili . Sumer 44, 126–134 . Chung, F . H . 1974 Quantitative interpretation of X-ray diffraction patterns . I . Matrix-flushing method of quantitative multicomponent analysis . Journal of Applied Crystallography 7, 519–525 . Delcroix, G . and Huot, J .-L . 1972 Les Fours Dits «De Potier» Dans L’Orient Ancien . Syria 49, 35–95 . Hillier, S . 2000 Accurate quantitative analysis of clay and other minerals in sandstones by XRD: comparison of a Rietveld and a reference intensity ratio (RIR) method and the importance of sample preparation . Clay Minerals 35, 291–302 . Kamilli, D . C . and Steinberg, A . 1985 New Approaches to Mineral Analysis of Ancient Ceramic . In: G . jr . Rapp and J . A . Gifford (eds .), Archaeological Geology . New Haven – London, 313–330 . Kayani, P . I . 1997 Formative Pyrotechnology in Northern Mesopotamia . Paléorient 22/2, 13–141 . Koizumi, T . 2016 Pyrotechnological Development from the Halaf-Ubaid to Late Chalcolithic Periods in Upper Mesopotamia: A Preliminary Study on Pottery from Salat Tepe, southeastern Turkey . In: M . Iamoni (ed .), Trajectories of Complexity. Socio-economic Dynamics in Upper Mesopotamia in the Neolithic and Chalcolithic Periods . Studia Chaburensia 6, Wiesbaden, 85–115 . Koizumi, T ., Yoneda, M ., Itoh, S . and Kobayashi, K . 2016 Excavations of the Chalcolithic Occupations at Salat Tepe on the Upper Tigris, Southeastern Anatolia . In: K . Kopanias and J . MacGinnis (eds .), The Archaeology of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq and Adjacent Regions . Oxford, 147–162 . Kurokawa, R . and Kawamura, S . 1977 Study on Lime Porcelain Bodies (1): On the Densification Process of Lime-Quartz-Clay Bodies . Reports of Government Industrial Research Institute, Nagoya 26/5, 157–165 . Maniatis, Y . and Tite, M . S . 1981 Technological Examination of Neolithic-Bronze Age Pottery from Central and Southeast Europe and from the Near East . Journal of Archaeological Science 8, 59–76 . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Moorey, P . R . S . 1994 Ancient Mesopotamian Materials and Industries: The Archaeological Evidence . Oxford . Nieuwenhuyse, O ., Jacobs, L ., Van As, B ., Broekmans, T . and Adriaens, A . M . 2001 Making Samarra Fine Ware-Technological Observations on Ceramics from Tell Baghouz (Syria) . Paléorient 27/1, 147–165 . Noll, W ., Holm, R . and Born, L . 1975 Painting of Ancient Ceramics . Angewandte Chemie International Edition 14/9, 602–613 . Oates, J ., Davidson, T . E ., Kamilli, D . and McKerrell, H . 1977 Seafaring Merchants of Ur? Antiquity 51, 221–234 . Ökse, A . T . 2004 2001 Rescue Excavations at Salat Tepe . In: N . Tuna, J . Greenhalg and J . Velibeyoğlu (eds .), Salvage Project of the Archaeological Heritage of the Ilısu and Carchemish Dam Reservoirs Activities in 2001 . Ankara, 603–640 . Ökse, A . T . and Görmüş, A . 2006 Excavations at Salat Tepe in the Upper Tigris Region: Stratigraphical Sequence and Preliminary Results of the 2005–2006 Seasons . Akkadica 127, 119–149 . Ökse, A . T ., Görmüş, A ., Koizumi, T ., Yaşin Meier, D . and Soyukaya, N . 2012 Ilısu Barajı-Salat Tepe 2010 Kazısı . Kazı Sonuçları Toplantısı 33, 1/2011, 173–187 . 2013

Ilısu Barajı-Salat Tepe 2011 Kazısı . Kazı Sonuçları Toplantısı 34, 1/2012, 365–376 .

Rice, P . M . 1987 Pottery Analysis: A Sourcebook . Chicago – London . Rothman, M . S . 2015 Early Bronze Age migrants and ethnicity in the Middle Eastern mountain zone . Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 112/30, 9190–9195 . Shepard, A . O . 1954 Ceramics for the Archaeologist . Publication 609 . Carnegie Institution of Washington, Washington, D . C . Simpson, St . J . 1997a Prehistoric Ceramics in Mesopotamia . In: I . Freestone and D . Gaimster (eds .), Pottery in the Making: World Ceramic Traditions . London, 38–43 . 1997b Early Urban Ceramic Industries in Mesopotamia . In: I . Freestone and D . Gaimster (eds .) Pottery in the Making: World Ceramic Traditions . London, 50–55 . Streily, H . A . 2000 Early pottery kilns in the Middle East . Paléorient 26/2, 69–81 . Tite, M . S . and Maniatis, Y . 1975 Examination of Ancient Pottery Using the Scanning Electron Microscope . Nature 257, 122– 123 . Wilkinson, K . N ., Gasparian, B ., Pinhasi, R ., Avetisyan, P ., Hovsepyan, R . and Zardaryan, D . 2012 Areni-1 Cave, Armenia: A Chalcolithic–Early Bronze Age settlement and ritual site in the southern Caucasus . Journal of Field Archaeology 37/1, 20–33 .

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Fig . 1 Site location

Fig . 2 General view of Salat Tepe

Fig . 3 Room 50/M in Trench F12

Fig . 4 Irregular plan building in Trench G12

Fig . 5 Tripartite plan building in Trench H12

Fig . 6 Room 47/M in Trench I12

Fig . 7 Rooms 58/M and 63/M in Trench I12

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Fig . 8 Sherd samples

Fig . 9 Molar ratios of SiO2, Al2O3 and CaO in the sun-dried brick and sherd samples

Fig . 10 Close-up of the Molar ratios in the sundried brick and sherd samples

Fig . 11 XRD peak lists of sherd samples © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Table 1 XRF analysis of sun-dried bricks

Table 2a XRF analysis of sherds (1)

Table 2b XRF analysis of sherds (2) © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Table 3 XRD analysis of sun-dried bricks

Table 4 XRD analysis of coarse plain sherds

Table 5 XRD analysis of Ubaid sherds

Table 6 XRD analysis of grey burnished sherds © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Late Bronze Age Pottery from Qatna and its Surrounding Region: Typological and Petrographical Approaches Shadi Shabo 1 Abstract The chronology of the Late Bronze Age (second half of the 2nd millennium BC), a key period characterised by a flourishing development of urban civilisation, is well known in western Syria, especially on the coast at Ugarit . However, the Late Bronze Age chronology in inner Syria and in particular in the middle Orontes valley still needs to be clarified . Recent excavations and archaeological surveys conducted at the site of Qatna and its surroundings have revealed new challenging data inducing a review of the Late Bronze Age chronology . This paper presents preliminary results of my PhD research on new ceramic findings from the Late Bronze Age excavations carried out in different operations by the Syrian team at Qatna from 2005 to 2010 . An innovative approach is suggested that will allow the revision of chronological issues by establishing a new baseline reference for the stratigraphic sequences from Qatna through the examination of ceramic material . This examination based on traditional pottery studies is enhanced by petrographic analyses of ceramic sherds from Qatna and is accompanied by a comparative study of other Late Bronze Age sites in the Orontes valley region .

1. Introduction From 2005 to 2010, archaeological activities led by the Syrian team at the site of Qatna revealed new evidence dating from the Late Bronze Age . Two main excavation areas, T and Q ‘Coupole de Loth’ (Fig . 1) provided important new data on the nature of human occupation at Qatna during this period, especially regarding the characteristics of the architecture and the ceramic production . The main purpose of this paper is to present the preliminary results of the analyses carried out on the ceramic materials discovered in Areas T and Q and on those found during the survey of the Qatna region, by focusing mainly on the study of the pottery dating to the last phase of the Late Bronze Age (LBA II) . It is an attempt to establish a new typology of this phase on the basis of new evidence from the preceding excavation areas, and which is further supported by the results of the petrographic study .

1

Lumière Lyon 2 University, Maison de l’Orient et de la Méditerranée, Archéorient UMR-5133, CNRS . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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2. Archaeological context 2 .1 Area T In Area T, located on Qatna’s upper town 50 m east of the Royal Palace, several occupation levels were identified: a monumental building called the ‘Eastern Palace’ (Morandi Bonacossi et al. 2009: 61–86; Kanhoush 2015: 441–449), dating from the Middle Bronze Age, part of a Late Bronze Age public building, as well as several Iron Age II constructions . With regards to the Late Bronze Age, several archaeological phases were discovered in Area T . The phase that is contemporaneous with the destruction of the Royal Palace of Qatna during the Hittite campaign of Suppiluliuma I, around 1340–1320 BC, was the best preserved (Fig . 3) . Only the western wall of a large room that was preserved at the stone foundation level has been identified from the Late Bronze Age building . This room is called the ‘Salle des jarres 2’ due to the discovery on its floor of many of storage jars and other vessels of various daily use . The ceramic material in this room is similar to that discovered in the Royal Palace . In addition, a large number of collapsed mud-bricks were found during the excavation of the room . These two pieces of evidence indicate that the building was destroyed at the same time as the Qatna Royal Palace . To the south of the ‘Salle des jarres 2’ another smaller room was brought to light and from which only the western wall with two mud-brick courses and the related stone substructure were preserved . On the floor of this room, two storage jars were discovered . 2 .2 Area Q ‘Coupole de Loth’ Area Q is located on a mound known as the ‘Coupole de Loth’ in the southeastern part of the lower town . Excavations in this area revealed, for the first time at Qatna, evidence of domestic architecture dating from the Late Bronze Age I and II consisting of a well-preserved residential area (Shabo 2015: 407–413) with several adjoining houses (Fig . 4) . All these houses were built using the same materials: stone for the foundations and tempered mud for the upper parts of the walls . The floors were mainly made of mud and were associated with a certain number of installations for daily use such as tannurs . The whole residential area is characterised by modest architecture with no signs of luxury items unlike those identified in the public buildings on the acropolis or in the buildings around the Royal Palace (Fig . 2), i .e ., the Northern Palace (Area K) (Morandi Bonacossi 2015: 359–375) and the Southern Public Building (Area C) (Al-Maqdissi 2003: 1487–1515) . Houses 1 and 4 provided in situ LB IIA diagnostic material . House 1 consisted of a courtyard surrounded by nine rooms, whereas house 4 was smaller and included five rooms . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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3. Chronology The cross-comparison between the archaeological data from Areas T and Q and those belonging to the phase of destruction of the Royal Palace, especially those from the ‘Salle des jarres’ (Du Mesnil du Buisson 1935: 95–96), and finally the archaeological and textual data found in the corridor leading to the Royal Hypogeum, allows us to synchronise the ceramic materials from Areas T and Q with the destruction of the Royal Palace during the Hittite campaign of Suppiluliuma I, which was held around 1340–1320 BC . The material that was associated with the thick fire layer marking the destruction of the Royal Palace (Du Mesnil du Buisson 1935: 95 and 96) as well as the imported finds from the Aegean world, allowed Du Mesnil du Buisson to propose a relative dating for the destruction of the Royal Palace (Du Mesnil du Buisson 1935: 34), which was established with more precision by the textual evidence that was discovered in 2002 (Richter 2005: 109–126) . As to the more recently excavated Area T, the thick fire layer that was also discovered in the ‘Salle des jarres 2’ confirms that the building was destroyed at the same time as Qatna’s Royal Palace . 4. Pottery In this paper, a corpus coming from two different ceramic assemblages will be presented . The first one comes from Qatna’s areas T and Q where abundant in situ and typologically variegated ceramic material deriving from diverse archaeological contexts was found . The second ceramic assemblage comes from the survey carried out by the Syrian team in the region of Qatna from 2005 to 2009 (Al-Maqdissi 2011: 43–57) . Concerning the last assemblage, I will focus in particular on the production of the storage jars, and which, according to the results of the typological and petrographic analysis, represent one of the major markers of the Late Bronze Age period in the region . The study of this corpus enabled us to draw a new framework for ceramic production from the Late Bronze Age at Qatna and to highlight the most characteristic traits of the ceramic production of the LB II . The analysis of the material from Areas T and Q enables us to establish the relative synchronisation with the sites of the northern Levant (Tab . 1) and to study it in a wider regional context . Local ceramics from the LBA II phase are in general rarely decorated . The ceramic paste is beige, reddish-beige and grey in colour . The texture of this paste is medium-fine or medium for small to medium-sized vessels and medium to medium-coarse for storage jars . 4 .1 Qatna (Areas T and Q) Only the most diagnostic types of ceramics from LB IIA from the assemblages of areas T and Q will be presented here and their main similarities with other © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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sites from the northern Levant will be discussed . The most attested types in the corpus are plates with a simple rim and a flat or ring base (Fig . 5a .1 and 3) . Plates of this type were found earlier at Qatna in the corridor leading to the Royal Hypogeum (Paoletti 2015: 266, fig . 2 .4–5, 7), at Tell Arqa in phase L and phase K (Thalmann 2006: pl . 106 .15–16), as well as at Tell Nebi-Mend in phases F to C (Bourke 1993: 170, fig . 13 . 4–8) . The second most common type of plates has a swollen rim and ring base (Fig . 5a .2) . These plates appeared at Qatna at the end of LB IB and were produced until the end of LB IIA (Paoletti 2015: 270, fig . 6 .21) . Similar forms were observed at Tell Arqa during an earlier phase of the LB I (phase L), but they were partially polished (Charaf 2004: 236, fig . 4, C4, 93/805 .3) . The third type of plates has a square rim (Fig . 5a .4) and is rarely attested at Qatna with only a few examples found in phase K12 in Area K (Iamoni 2012: 287, pl . 35 .10) . Parallels were noted at the site of Hama in phase G2 (Fugmann 1958: 125, fig . 153 5A 542) . The last type of plates in Areas T and Q has a swollen rim, thick rounded walls and a ring or disk base (Fig . 5a .5) . Similar plates were found mainly at Tell Kamid el-Loz in the palace and temple areas (Penner 2006: pl . 2 .10; pl . 10 .7, 8) . With regards to the second type of open shapes that are largely attested at Qatna, it was possible to distinguish three main types of bowls . The first type is the carinated bowl with an upright rim or an upright slightly in-turning oblique rim and a ring base (Fig . 5b .1–3), which appeared at the beginning of the LB in the Royal Hypogeum (Paoletti 2015: 271, fig . 7 .40, 41) and were produced until the end of the Late Bronze Age . This shape is also recorded at several sites located in the northern Levant with some local typological differences (Monchambert 2004: 72–83), and as a matter of fact Tomb 4 at Yabrud was the only context that delivered identical bowls to those of Qatna (Abu Assaf 1967: pl . II, fig . 7) . The second type attested at Qatna is a hemispherical bowl with a simple pointed rim, a rounded base and thin walls often with a polished surface (Fig . 5b .4–5) . This type was also recorded in level 9a at Tell Afis (Venturi 1998: 147, fig . 7 .14) . The third type is a deep hemispherical bowl featuring a triangular rim with grooves under it (Fig . 5b .6) . Only a few parallels are so far attested in northern Syria, such as at Hama phase G (Fugmann 1958: 120, fig . 143, O487), Tell Acharneh level 5 (Fortin et al. 2014: 192, fig . 22 .4, 5) and in Area Z at Ebla (Colantoni 2010: 673, fig . 4 .9) . Biconical vessels are the third type of containers attested in the assemblages dating from LB IB to the end of LB IIB at Qatna . Two different types of biconical vessels are presented here: undecorated small sized vessels and large vessels, both featuring an out-turned triangular rim with a low carination line at the maximum expansion . These vessels often feature a ring base (Fig . 5c .2) . Several other parallels are also recorded throughout the Levant such as at Ugarit (Courtois 1978: 232–235; Monchambert 2004: 182–184), Tell Kazel in level 6 (Badre and Gubel 1999–2000: 157, fig . 17) as well as in Palestine (Amiran 1969: 147) . It should be noted that one of the biconical vessels found in the ‘Salle des jarres © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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2’ in Area T bears a Red Slip coating (Fig . 5c .1) . Tell Atchana/Alalakh yielded similar examples in level IV (Woolley 1955: pl . CXVII b) . Kraters with an out-turned triangular rim, but which is also slightly elongated at the interior, featuring a ring base and two vertical handles joining the rim to the shoulders (Fig . 6 .1–2), are another LBA II ceramic type found in Area Q . This type is an important chronological marker of Qatna’s LBA IIA period and the only one bearing decoration in this phase . Kraters resulted from the evolution of some MBA production innovations . During the LBA II we noticed a complete transformation in the form of these kraters, which imitated not only the shape, but also the decoration of Mycenaean kraters . The decoration on the kraters from Qatna consists of geometric designs, wavy lines, spirals and plant representations . These decorations confirm the imitation of Mycenaean kraters . In addition, a Mycenaean krater found in room N, the so-called ‘Salle de la Pierre Noire’, of the Royal Palace also bears Aegean decorations with wavy and spiral lines (Du Mesnil Du Buisson 1928: pl . XVIII, Cér . 110) like the fragment of a Mycenaean-style krater found in the corridor of the Royal Hypogeum of Qatna (Paoletti 2015: 267, fig . 3 .11) . The imitation of this Mycenaean production is also attested beyond Qatna, such as Tell Kazel, during the LBA II and became widespread during the end of the LBA and the Iron Age I (Badre et al . 2005: 15–16) . At Qatna, storage jars are considered to be a chronological marker for dating the LBA period . In total, eleven large storage jars slightly different in shape and colour were brought to light in Area T . Four of them bear potters’ marks . These different storage jars were often covered by a thick layer of gypsum extending from the base to the second band of grooves . This layer of gypsum was probably intended to ensure the protection of the stored products from humidity . Three different storage jar forms have been distinguished . The first type comprises jars bearing a potter’s mark with an out-turned square or rounded rim, two horizontal bands of grooves on the upper part of the jar and a slightly rounded base (Fig . 7 .1) . Similar potsherds of storage jars previously discovered at Qatna in Area K (Luciani 2002: 252, fig . 5) as well as in the ‘Sondage 7 du Nord-Est de la Butte de l’Église’ bear the same potter’s mark (Du Mesnil du Buisson 1935: pl . LI, C . 243 and C . 248; Du Mesnil du Buisson 1928: pl . XI .4) . The second type includes jars with an out-turned rounded rim, a grooved band on the upper half of the body and a rounded base (Fig . 7 .2) . The third type consists of short-necked jars with an out-turned square rim with two grooved bands under the neck and a flat base (Fig . 7 .3) . This type may have resulted from the evolution of a formerly known shape dating to between the end of MBA IIB and the beginning of LBA I at Qatna . Similar findings were also discovered in the ‘Salle des jarres’ of the Royal Palace (Pfälzner 2007: 47, fig . 20) and in the ‘Ouvrage des Tirailleurs’ (Du Mesnil du Buisson 1928: pl . XI .1–2) . Two sites in the Middle Orontes valley provided comparable examples to those from Qatna: Tell Acharneh in Level 5 (Fortin et al. 2014: 191, fig . 21 .1–2) and Hama in a storage room belonging to a monumental building from level G3 (Fugmann 1958: 120, fig . 143, SN . R1 and SN . R4) . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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4 .2 The Qatna region From 2005 to 2009, the Syrian expedition in Qatna has conducted a survey program in the area surrounding the site with the aim of identifying the location of new archaeological sites in the region and understanding their cultural and political links with the kingdom of Qatna during the Bronze Age (Al-Maqdissi 2011: 43–57) . It should be noted that Qatna is located at the foot of an alluvial network consisting of three large wadis: Sa’n al-Aswad, Sa’n al-Mishrifeh (Zora) and Sa’n alMydan respectively to the west, north and east of Qatna (Fig . 8), which merge at about 10km before the confluence into the Orontes river . During the survey, a total of 18 LBA sites were identified recording an occupation stretching from the LBA I to the LBA IIA periods . Worth remarking is the fact that these sites are only located on the banks of the Sa’n al-Aswad and of the Sa’n al-Mydan respectively flowing west and east from the wadi where Qatna is located . The collected ceramics of these sites attest a strong morphological similarity with those of Qatna . Only the examples of storage jars will be discussed and analysed here in order to address their manufacturing traits and features and compare them with the storage jars from Qatna . Four sites located north of Qatna have yielded potsherds of storage jars that were identical to those found in Qatna: Tell Hajabeh, Tell Al-Zaafaraneh, Tell Al-Sus and Tell Al-Wawiyat . This latter site has provided a complete storage jar found in an eroded section (Fig . 9) . This jar is similar to those found at Qatna and it is also covered by a layer of gypsum in the same way as the storage jars found in the ‘Salle des jarres 2’ and the Royal Palace . 5. Petrographical analyses of Qatna’s ceramics On the basis of the results of the typological classification, LBA ceramics from Qatna were examined under a binocular microscope to characterise the paste of each type and obtain more precise information related to the manufacture of each pottery type (Fig . 10 .1–3) . The observation of about 650 potsherds from the LB IIA period allowed us to distinguish three different petrographic groups . The third group, which is represented by cooking pots, is not included in this paper (for more information see Shabo in press) . 5 .1 First petrographic group ‘Basalt Group’ (Fig . 10 .1a–2a) This group is predominant in the assemblage of areas T and Q . Two subgroups were distinguished . It should be noted that in these two subgroups minerals are similar and that their size and matrix as well as the porosity of the paste allowed differentiation between them . In general, basalt, quartz, sandstone, olivine, chert, calcite, plagioclase, micritic limestone and oxides are attested in this group . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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5 .2 Second petrographic group ‘Glauconite Group’ (Fig . 10 .3a) This group is characterized by a strong presence of glauconite, micritic limestone, quartz, sandstone, oxide, calcite and foraminifera . As it will be discussed with more details below, these two petrographic groups clearly stand out from each other for their different composition, which was the result of an intentional selection of the clays and related temper that was also mirrored by a very sharp distinction of the morphological and functional repertoires . 6. Discussion and conclusions The comparative analysis of the typological and petrographic characteristics of the LBA ceramics from Qatna points to several conclusions . The typological analysis reveals that Qatna’s LBA pottery was part of a material culture spread throughout the Levant, which was clearly discernible in plates with a simple rim and a flat/ring base . The carinated bowls were well attested before the LBA in southern Syria (Braemer and Al-Maqdissi 2002: 29) as well in the Middle Orontes valley at Hama in level H (Fugmann 1958: 101, fig . 124, 2C909 and 2D429;104, fig . 127, 2D217), but their geographical distribution raises some questions . We noticed for instance, that their extension during the LBA period stretches from the southern Levant (Amiran 1969: 125–129) to the coastal area of the northern Levant, e .g . at Ugarit, passing by Qatna . However, publications do not show the existence of this type of bowl, neither in the sites of the Middle Orontes valley, from the north of Qatna as far as Tell Atchana/ Alalakh, nor in those of the Euphrates valley located further east . Another change that occurred during the LBA IB and that continued until the end of the LBA at Qatna is represented by the almost complete disappearance of locally produced goblets attested since the beginning of LBA I and perpetuating the traditions of the MBA (Mazzoni, 2002: 131) . The hemispherical bowls (Fig . 5b .4–6) identified in the Qatna assemblage replaced these goblets . The only examples of goblets attested in this period at Qatna are the imported goblets in ‘Nuzi Ware’ that were found in the Royal Hypogeum (Dohmann-Pfälzner and Pfälzner 2006: 104 . Abb . 33) and the ‘Yonger Khabur Ware’ goblets (Iamoni 2010: fig . 10 . 348; Luciani 2008: fig . 2 .11–13, 120) . The site of Hama during the LBA constitutes an exception in comparison to the other sites in the Middle Orontes valley . This site has delivered distinct shallow goblets marking the period of the LBA (Fugmann 1958: 120, fig . 143, 2D399; 125, fig . 153, 5A541 and 5A544; 131, fig . 161, 5B111 and 5B198) . Unlike the goblets, the storage jars are still present at Qatna and have been documented from the beginning to the end of the LBA . At Qatna, LBA IB and IIA periods show an influence of imported ceramic traditions, in particular the Mycenaean pottery . The inhabitants of Qatna imitated these © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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ceramics that became one of the markers of the period and that will be abundantly produced in the Levant until the Iron Age . Evidence from petrographic analysis shows a homogenous process of standardisation in the ceramic manufacturing process . By combining the results of typological and petrographical analyses, we noticed that Qatna potters have selected specific clays to produce their vessels . As previously mentioned the two sub-groups of the first petrographic group ‘Basalt Group’ are predominant in the assemblage and are identical . Only the matrix and the porosity of the paste as well as the minerals’ size allow separation of the two sub-groups . The first sub-group was used to produce small vessels such as plates and bowls (Figs . 5–6) and the second one was used to produce medium to large sized vessels such as kraters (Fig . 6 .1–2), biconical vessels (Fig . 5c .1–2) and two types of storage jars (Fig . 7 .2–3) . However, basalt was also used as a temper in the ceramic production attested at Qatna from the Early Bronze Age and from the Iron Age (Maritan et al . 2005: 726–728) . The second petrographic group ‘Glauconite Group’ was only used to produce storage jars bearing potters’ marks (Fig . 7 .1) . Basalt, limestone, sandstone, quartz, olivine, micritic limestone, calcite and chert that are recorded in the ‘Basalt Group’ allow one to suggest that this group was locally produced . By looking at the geological map of the region (geological map of Syria XIII, 1:200,000 . 1963), we can see that all the minerals observed in the paste are consistent with the geology of this region . In addition, the strong presence of basalt in the first group is also justified by the presence of two large basalt plateaux west and north of Qatna . It is still hard to assert if the storage jars of the second petrographic group ‘Glauconite Group’ were locally produced and this requires more research and clay sampling in the vicinity of Qatna . However, only a few examples of the ‘Glauconite Group’ were attested at Qatna in comparison to the large quantity of the ‘Basalt Group’, which is also more diversified in terms of ceramic types . In addition, at Tell Acharneh in the Middle Orontes valley, glauconite is also attested in the group ‘Acharneh Petrofabric 1’ (Cooper and Fortin 2001: 139–141) . A phenomenon that is similarly attested at both Qatna and Tell Acharneh is that the glauconite appears, under plane polarised-light, with a reddish-orange colour . This phenomenon is not common because glauconite usually is a green coloured mineral (Velde 2005: 311–314) and the transformation of its colour may be due to the firing process . Furthermore, all potsherds of storage jars (5 samples) collected during the Qatna survey have the same petrographic composition as that of the ‘Glauconite Group’ that was distinguished at Qatna . Yet, another potsherd of a storage jar, found during the survey in the Middle Orontes valley (Sievertsen 2014: 189, fig . 12), shows a form that is identical to the potsherds of the ‘Glauconite Group’ at Qatna . The importance of this potsherd stands in the fact that it comes from a site located on the other bank of the Orontes (Tell An-Na‘ura), while all the samples from the survey carried out in the surroundings of Qatna were collected from the sites located north of Qatna without crossing the boundary of the Orontes . Even if © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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all the previously mentioned evidence does not allow confirmation of the origins of the ‘Glauconite Group’, it shows anyway that this group circulated in the region . What is more, the potters’ marks attested on Qatna’s storage jars confirm the existence of a regional production focused on this type of jar, which continued to be produced until the LBA IIA . The fact that during the Qatna survey, storage jars from the first petrographic group were not found, does not necessarily indicate that this group of jars did not circulate, as this issue requires more extensive research in order to be confirmed or not . Bibliography Abou Assaf, A . 1967 Der Friedhof von Yabrud . Annales Archéologiques Arabes Syrienne 17, 55–68 . Al-Maqdissi, M . 2003 Recherches archéologiques syriennes à Mishrifeh-Qatna au nord-est de Homs (Émèse) . Comptes Rendus des Séances de l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres 147/4, 1487– 1515 . 2011

Prospections archéologiques dans la région autour de Mishirfeh-Qatna (2005–2009) . Chronique Archéologique en Syrie V, 43–57 (in Arabic) .

Amiran, R . 1969 Ancient Pottery of the Holy Land . Jerusalem . Badre, L . and Gubel, E . 1999–2000 Tell Kazel, Syria: Excavation of AUB Museum, 1993–1998 . Third preliminary report . Berytus 44, 123–203 . Badre, L ., Boileau, M .-C ., Jung, R . and Mommsen, H . 2005 The Provenance of Aegean and Syrian-Type Pottery Found at Tell Kazel (Syria) . Ägypten & Levante 15, 15–47 . Bourke, S . J . 1993 The Transition from the Middle to the Late Bronze Age in Syria . The Evidence from Tell Nebi Mend . Levant 25/1, 155–195 . Braemer, F . and Al-Maqdissi, M . 2002 La céramique du Bronze Moyen en Syrie du Sud . In: M . Al-Maqdissi, V . Matoïan and Ch . Nicolle (eds .), Céramique de l’Âge du Bronze en Syrie I. La Syrie du Sud et la vallée de l’Oronte . Bibliothèque archéologique et historique 161, Beirut, 23–50 . Charaf, H . 2004 An Assessment of the Continuity and Change in the LBI Pottery at Tell Arqa, Lebanon . Egypt and Levant 14, 231–248 . Colantoni, A . 2010 A Preliminary Account on the Late Bronze Age Pottery Production at Tell Mardikh/Ebla . In: P . Matthiae, F . Pinnock, L . Nigro and N . Marchetti (eds .), Proceedings of the 6th International © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Cooper, L . and Fortin, M . 2001 Analyse pétrographique de la céramique de Tell ‘Acharneh, en Syrie (3000–700 av . J .-C .): résultats préliminaires . In: M . Fortin (ed .), Journées d’étude du Groupe de Recherches en Archéométrie du Célat (1997–1999) . Cahiers d’archéologie du Centre de recherche Cultures – Arts – Sociétés 10 and Série archéométrie l, Québec, 137–148 . Courtois, J .‐C . 1978 Corpus céramique de Ras Shamra – Ugarit . Niveaux historiques d´Ugarit . Ugaritica 7, 191–370 . Dohmann-Pfälzner, H . and Pfälzner, P . 2006 Ausgrabungen und Forschungen in Tell Mišrife – Qaṭna 2004 und 2005 . Mitteilungen der Deutschen Orient-Gesellschaft 138, 57–107 . Du Mesnil du Buisson, R . 1928 L’ancienne Qatna ou les ruines d’el-Mishrifé au N-E de Homs (Émèse) . Deuxième campagne de fouilles 1927 . Syria 9, 6–24 . 1935

Le site archéologique de Mishrifé-Qatna . Paris .

Fortin, M ., Cooper, L . and Boileau, M . C . 2014 Rapport Préliminaire et Études Céramologiques sur les Campagnes de Fouilles 2009 et 2010 à Tell Acharneh, Vallée du Ghab, Syrie . Syria 91, 173–220 . Fugmann, E . 1958 Hama: Fouilles et recherches de la Fondation Carlsberg. 1931–1938. L’architecture des périodes pré-hellénistiques II, 1 . Copenhagen . Geological map of Homs region 1963 Geological map of Homs region, 1:200,000 geological map of Syria, Ministry of Industry . Department of Geological and Mineral Research, Moscow . Iamoni, M . 2010 The MB–LB Pottery from the Eastern Palace of Qatna . Tradition and Variation in the Ceramic Horizon of a Mid Second Millennium Syrian Metropolis . In: P . Matthiae, F . Pinnock, L . Nigro and N . Marchetti (eds .), Proceedings of the 6th International Congress of the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East 1. 5 May – 10 May 2009, “Sapienza”, Università di Roma . Wiesbaden, 333–349 . 2012

The MBA II and the LBA Pottery Horizons at Qatna. Innovation and Conservation in the Ceramic Tradition of a Regional Capital and its Implications for the Second Millennium Syrian Chronology . Studi Archeologici su Qatna 2, Udine .

Kanhoush, Y . 2015 Rapport préliminaire des résultats des campagnes des fouilles syriennes 2006–2009 . Le «Palais Est» du Chantier T sur l’acropole de Mishrifeh-Qatna . In: P . Pfälzner and M . Al-Maqdissi (eds .), Qatna and the Networks of Bronze Age Globalism . Qatna Studien Supplementa 2, Wiesbaden, 441–449 . Luciani, M . 2002 News from Syria: the MBA in the East and its end in the West . In: M . Bietak (ed .), The Middle Bronze Age in the Levant. Proceeding of an International Conference on MB IIA Ceramic © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Materiel in Vienna 24 –26 January 2001. Contributions to the Chronology in the Eastern Mediterranean 3 . Vienna, 7–28, 245–260 . th

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The Late MB to Early LBA in Qatna with Special Emphasis on Decorated and Imported Pottery . In: M . Bietak and E . Czerny (eds .), The Bronze Age in the Lebanon . Vienna, 115–126 .

Maritan, L ., Mazzoli, C ., Michielin, V ., Molin, G ., Morandi Bonacossi, D ., Luciani, M . and Molin, G . 2005 The Provenance and Production Technology of Bronze Age and Iron Age Pottery from Tell Mishrifeh/Qatna (Syria) . Archaeometry 47/4, 723–744 . Mazzoni, S . 2002 The Late Bronze Age Pottery production in North-Western Central Syria . In: M . Al-Maqdissi, V . Matoïan and Ch . Nicolle (eds .), Céramique de l’Âge du Bronze en Syrie I. La Syrie du Sud et la vallée de l’Oronte . Bibliothèque archéologique et historique 161, Beirut, 129–142 . Monchambert, J .-Y . 2004 La céramique D’Ougarit, Campagnes de fouilles 1975 et 1976 . Ras Shamra-Ougarit 15, Paris . Morandi Bonacossi, D . 2015 The Lower City Palace at Qatna . In: P . Pfälzner and M . Al-Maqdissi (eds .), Qatna and the Networks of Bronze Age Globalism . Qatna Studien Supplementa 2, Wiesbaden, 359–375 . Morandi Bonacossi, D ., Da Ros, M ., Garna, G ., Iamoni, M . and Merlino, M . 2009 The ‘Eastern Palace’ and the residential architecture of Area T at Mishrifeh/Qatna . Preliminary Report on the 2006–2008 Excavation Campaigns of the Italian Component of the Syro-Italian Archaeological Project . Mesopotamia 44, 61–112 . Paoletti, V . 2015 The Interregional Exchange in Qatna as Seen from the Pottery of the Royal Palace and Royal Grave . In: P . Pfälzner and M . Al-Maqdissi (eds .), Qatna and the Networks of Bronze Age Globalism . Qatna Studien Supplementa 2, Wiesbaden, 265–279 . Pfälzner, P . 2007 Archaeological Investigations in the Royal Palace of Qatna . In: D . Morandi Bonacossi (ed .), Urban and Natural Landscapes of an Ancient Syrian Capital. Settlement and Environment at Tell Mishrifeh/Qatna and in Central-Western Syria. Proceedings of the International Conference held in Udine, 9–11 December 2004 . Studi Archeologici su Qatna 1, Udine, 29–64 . Penner, S . 2006 Kamid el-Loz 19. Die Keramik der Spätbronzezeit. Tempelanlagen T3 bis Tl, Palastanlagen P5 bis P1/2, Königsgrab („Schatzhaus“) und „königliche Werkstatt“ . Saarbrücker Beiträge zur Altertumskunde 63 . Bonn . Richter, Th . 2005 Qatna in the Late Bronze Age: Preliminary Remarks . Studies on the Civilization and Culture of Nuzi and the Hurrians 15, 109–126 . Shabo, Sh . 2015 Le quartier d’habitation dans le chantier de la Coupole de Loth à Qatna . In: P . Pfälzner and M . Al-Maqdissi (eds .), Qatna and the Networks of Bronze Age Globalism . Qatna Studien Supplementa 2, Wiesbaden, 407–413 . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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in press Late Bronze Age II Pottery Tradition from Qatna: The Palace Destruction Phase Evidenced in Areas Q and T . Special Issue of Levant: Ceramics, Society, and Economy in the Northern Levant: an Integrated Archaeometric Perspective . Sievertsen, U . 2014 Late Bronze Age Pottery from the Middle Orontes Survey . In: M . Luciani and A . Hausleiter (eds .), Recent Trends in the Study of Late Bronze Age Ceramics in Syro-Mesopotamia and Neighbouring Regions. Proceedings of the International Workshop in Berlin, 2–5 November 2006. Rahden/Westf ., 181–198 . Thalmann, J .-P . 2006 Tell Arqa. Les niveaux de l’âge du Bronze. Vol. 1 and 2. Beirut . Velde, B . 2005 Green Clay Minerals . In: F . T . Mackenzie (ed .), Diagenesis, and Sedimentary Rocks: Treatise on Geochemistry 7, 2nd edition . Amsterdam, 309–324 . Venturi, F . 1998 The Late Bronze Age II and Early Iron I Levels . In: S . M . Cecchini and S . Mazzoni (eds .), Tell Afis. The 1988–1992 Excavations on the Acropolis . Pisa, 123–162 . Woolley, C . L . 1955 Alalakh. An Account of the Excavations at Tell Atchana in the Hatay, 1937–49 . Oxford .

Table 1 Correlation of the Late Bronze Age occupation phases of the main sites in inner and western Syria © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Fig . 1 Topographical map of Qatna, localisation of different excavation areas (© Syrian-Italian Archaeological Mission)

Fig . 2 Aerial view of Qatna city, view from the north (photo: O . Barge; © Syrian Archaeological Mission-Qatna) © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Fig . 4 Schematic plan, Area Q ‘Coupole de Loth’ (© Sh . Shabo; Syrian Archaeological Mission)

Fig . 3 Plan of the ‘Salle des Jarres 2’, Area T (© Sh . Shabo; Syrian Archaeological Mission)

Fig . 5 a – Plates; b – Bowls; c – Biconical vessels (© Sh . Shabo; Syrian Archaeological Mission) © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Fig . 6 Kraters (© Sh . Shabo; Syrian Archaeological Mission)

Fig . 7 Storage jars (© Sh . Shabo; Syrian Archaeological Mission)

Fig . 8 Map of Qatna’s region with the localisation of LBA sites (© Sh . Shabo; Syrian Archaeological Mission) © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Fig . 9 Storage jars from Qatna’s region (© Sh . Shabo; Syrian Archaeological Mission)

Fig . 10 Binocular microscope images and the thin section photomicrographs of the LBA II ceramics from Qatna (photos: Sh . Shabo; © Syrian Archaeological Mission)

© 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Revising the Absolute Chronology of the 4th and 3rd Millennia BCE in the Southern Caucasus Annapaola Passerini 1 – Elena Rova 2 – Elisabetta Boaretto 3 Abstract The absolute chronology of the 4th and 3rd millennia BCE in the Southern Caucasus constitutes a controversial issue within current archaeological research with special regards to the Kura-Araxes (KA) culture . To date, no secure regional chronological system based on reliable absolute dates could be achieved, due to the poor state of the radiocarbon record in the region and disagreements about relative chronology . A first integrative revision of this absolute chronology from the Late Chalcolithic (LC) to the end of the Early Bronze Age (EBA) was undertaken in this study through the collection of available 14 C dates referring to the KA culture, which were framed between pre-KA and post-KA horizons and assessed using modern 14C analytical tools based on Bayesian principles . Preliminary observations on the data and results reveal the occurrence of sub-regional offsets and a fragmentation of the KA chronological record into local patterns . Considerations about the characterisation of the KA culture are brought forward in the conclusion with reflections upon the complexity of defining material assemblages and chrono-cultural phases in relation to the KA periodisation .

1. Introduction The absolute chronology of the 4th and 3rd millennia BCE in the Southern Caucasus constitutes one of the greatest unsolved questions within the archaeological research of the region . The definition of a clear chronological system represents a crucial necessity in order to unravel the timing and nature of the socio-cultural dynamics occurring in this period in the Southern Caucasian region . Notably, this region participated in a variety of cultural phenomena that forged the character of what has been termed the ‘Northern Frontier of the Ancient Near East’ (Rova and Tonussi 2017) . These include the northern expansion of the Chaff-faced Ware (CFW) horizon and the rise of the north Mesopotamian related Berikldeebi-Leilatepe culture, followed by the emergence and expansion of the Kura-Araxes (KA) culture, whose final stages in the homeland are marked by an interpolation of the later Martqopi and Bedeni Early Kurgan (EK) horizons . Although recent archaeological investigations are progressively contributing towards this particular aspect of the research, especially through the provision of new and more reliable sets of radiocarbon dates, a comprehensive perspective on the ab-

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Weizmann Institute of Science, Max-Planck-Weizmann Center for Integrative Archaeology and Anthropology, D-REAMS Radiocarbon Dating Laboratory, Ca’ Foscari University, Dipartimento di Studi Umanistici . Ca’ Foscari University, Dipartimento di Studi Umanistici . Weizmann Institute of Science, Max-Planck-Weizmann Center for Integrative Archaeology and Anthropology, D-REAMS Radiocarbon Dating Laboratory . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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solute chronology of this period has yet to be reached . This study, which was carried out in the framework of a collaboration between the Georgian-Italian Shida Kartli Archaeological Project (Ca’ Foscari University of Venice and Georgian National Museum of Tbilisi) and the Weizmann Institute of Science (Passerini 2015), aims to revise the absolute chronology for the 4th and 3rd millennia in the Southern Caucasus based on the assessment of available 14C dates in relation to relative chrono-cultural markers . 4 The chronological reassessment has been framed following the different stages, as archaeologically recognised, of the Kura-Araxes culture and the cultural horizons that interacted with its initial and final stages in the core developmental area, which corresponds to the territories of present-day Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan and part of Turkey (Erzurum region) . With regards to the chronological definition of the Kura-Araxes phenomenon, the history of research demonstrates a proliferation of different regional chronologies affected by both relative (i .e . based on artefact typology and comparative stratigraphy) and absolute (i .e . radiocarbon dates) issues . On the one hand, the general fragmentation of archaeological research in the Southern Caucasus that increased following the dissolution of the USSR led to the definition of multiple periodisation systems (see Palumbi 2008: tab . 1 .1), which in turn were derived from substantial differences in the way local cultural and chrono-typological phases were defined . Another issue is posed by the different use of the same terminology in different regions, especially regarding the inconsistent use of terms such as ‘Late Chalcolithic’ (LC) and ‘Early Bronze Age’ (EBA) between the Southern Caucasus and the Near East (Sagona 2014; see also Rova in press) . More specifically, in the Near East the term LC is related to the Uruk phenomenon and tied to defined absolute terms, which have been established on the occasion of the Santa Fe workshop (Rothman 2001), thus bearing a mainly chronological value . However, in the Southern Caucasus the terms LC and EBA have traditionally been used by Soviet and post-Soviet archaeology in reference to their original technological affiliation, relying on the presence of metals as the discriminating chronological criterion (Chernykh 1992; Kavtaradze 1999; Kohl 2007; Kohl 2009) . This also explains why the term ‘Kura-Araxes’ has often been used as a synonym of ‘Early Bronze Age’ (Sagona 2014: 25–26) . The juxtaposition of these two systems results in a series of periodisation offsets, whereby the Near Eastern LC appears to be partially contemporaneous to the Southern Caucasian EBA, and in a general subsidence of very different archaeological complexes under the same label . On the other hand, the scarcity of sites with continuous occupation and the paucity of reliable 14C dates have challenged the definition of well-dated chrono-cultural sequences . With the exception of more recent measurements (see for instance Areshian et al . 2012; Badalyan 2014; Kakhiani et al . 2013; Lyonnet 2014; Marro et al . 2014; Rova 2014; Sagona 2014; Passerini et al . 2016), in most cases 14C dates are geographically and/or temporally isolated – i .e. individual dates speak for a whole

4

An extended version of this study, to be published in a scientific journal, is in preparation . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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site or a whole phase within a site – and, when available, their reliability may be affected either by sampling or by measuring contingencies . Discrepancies in 14C reporting conventions and omissions of significant information also affect the homogeneity of the radiocarbon record – i .e . absence of Lab Code, BP term, context of provenance, details on the nature of the sample (long or short-lived) and description of the associated archaeological assemblage . 2. Materials and methods A reassessment of the absolute chronology in the region was here undertaken through the application of Bayesian analysis, combining both the radiocarbon and relevant archaeological information . This operation encompassed two main operative stages . The first stage was data preparation, with the collection of available 14C dates from the region, their association with archaeologically defined chrono-cultural phases and their selection according to analytical and archaeological reliability criteria . The second stage included data interrogation and interpretation and was completed through the Bayesian modelling of 14C distributions following the known chrono-cultural order of archaeological phases (from pre-KA to EK II) and the evaluation of obtained 14C ranges in the light of the known archaeological scenario and of the research questions . The majority of the available 14C dates from the Southern Caucasus were collected through literature survey, for a total of 240 dates from 42 sites unevenly distributed between regions: 68 from Armenia, 66 from Azerbaijan, 80 from Georgia and 26 from eastern Turkey, the latter represented by the single site of Sos Höyük (see Passerini 2015) . The only exception is represented by the two sites of Natsargora and Aradetis Orgora (Georgia), investigated by the Georgian-Italian Shida Kartli Archaeological Project, for which a first-hand 14C analysis was conducted by the authors . A recent pilot study (Passerini et al . 2016) was undertaken on the KA levels uncovered at Aradetis Orgora (Gagoshidze and Rova 2016; Gagoshidze and Rova in press), where a strictly controlled 14C sampling strategy based on a novel microarchaeological approach (Boaretto 2009) was adopted . Radiocarbon samples were selected only from secure archaeological contexts and, whenever possible, short-lived materials were preferred to long-lived materials . Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) was also applied to 14C samples and associated contexts, in order to assess the status of preservation of the organic material, as well as to characterise the supposedly associated archaeological context, thus corroborating its depositional correlation not only qualitatively, but also by means of quantitative methodology . This led to the attainment of very reliable 14C dates attached to a secure stratigraphy and archaeological assemblages bearing chrono-cultural relevance, which could be directly verified by the authors (Passerini et al . 2016) . Conversely, such a punctual evaluation was not applicable to the remaining 14C record, especially in cases where secondary sources were affected by large omissions, scarcity, or ambiguity of information on the provenance of the samples and on the characteristics of the associated assemblage . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Once collected, 14C dates were grouped into chrono-cultural phases according to their association with archaeological assemblages . In order to define the upper (beginning) and lower (end) chronological limits of the Kura-Araxes phenomenon, its internal phases Kura-Araxes I, II and III (KA I, KA II, KA III), whose definition is discussed below, have been framed between 14C dates associated with earlier and later cultural horizons (Fig . 1) . Earlier (LC) horizons include sites marked by CFW and Mesopotamian related occupations, as well as occupations marked by Sioni Ware . Due to the difficulty in distinguishing proper Sioni contexts, since the relevant pottery is often in admixture with other LC cultural assemblages, for the sake of pragmatic simplicity we chose to refer to 14C dates related to these occupations by using the term pre-Kura-Araxes (pre-KA) . As for 14C dates related to later post-KA horizons, these have been grouped into Early Kurgan I (EK I, Martqopi) and Early Kurgan II (EK II, Bedeni) phases following the association with the homonym archaeological (mainly ceramic) assemblages . The distinction of the internal chrono-cultural phases of the Kura-Araxes culture constitutes an issue on its own due to the regional variability of the KA cultural ‘package’, to the difficulty in identifying clear cut-off points within its developmental sequence, and to the presence of different scholarly traditions and terminologies (Chataigner and Palumbi 2014) . For the purpose of Bayesian analysis, however, a homogenisation of the archaeological record is necessary in order to create categories of 14C dates that are comparable and queryable in relevance to a specific question/ event . Thus, an archaeological marker or group of markers have to be assumed to be representative of an archaeological phase . In this work we followed the proposal by Palumbi (2008), who regards pottery typology as the main diagnostic element of each phase: KA I being generally defined by the presence of Monochrome Ware (MW), KA II by the prevalence of Red-Black Burnished Ware (RBBW) and KA III by the presence of decorated Black Burnished Ware (BBW) . Other archaeological materials also contribute to the definition of this sequence; however, while the latter show extreme regional variation, pottery typologies represent the only element that is overreaching enough to be used as a chronological marker for broader regional changes, as well as the best documented element within archaeological publications . The distribution of 14C dates in relation to chrono-cultural phases was also uneven, thus affecting their quantitative representation . More specifically, 61 dates accounted for the pre-KA phase, among which only 4 were directly related to the Sioni horizon, while the remaining 57 are related to CFW contexts . Concerning the Kura-Araxes culture, 31 dates accounted for the KA I phase, 77 for the KA II and 43 for the KA III, thus KA II is the best represented phase . Finally, the Early Kurgan horizon appears to be the least represented group with 16 dates accounting for EK I (Martqopi) and only 12 for EK II (Bedeni) . Following the first step of collection and chrono-cultural attribution, the entire radiocarbon record was sorted according to reliability criteria, based on both analytical (lab treatment, characteristics of the sample, standard deviation) and archaeological (context of provenance, definition of cultural affiliation) considerations . This selection led to the exclusion of 52 dates prior to the modelling process . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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All selected 14C dates were subsequently combined into a Bayesian model referring to the entire Southern Caucasus – defined by the geographic outlines specified at the beginning of this paper – according to the sequence dictated by the chrono-cultural narrative, which from the pre-KA period develops into the KA I, II and III phases, and ends with the post-KA (EK) horizons . 3. Results and conclusions While still allowing for the definition of start and end ranges for the KA I, II and III phases (at 3380–3350, 3260–3200, 2830–2790, 2540–2490 calBCE respectively 5) some issues emerged in the evaluation of this simulation (Fig . 2), expressed by the (modelled) rejection of some outliers, which by all other means should constitute reliable measurements according to our former selection . One possible explanation of this analytical behaviour was found in the imposition of a sequential scheme to a situation of extended chronological overlaps within a wider region . In particular, instances of overlap were underlined in the estimation for the beginning of the KA I (pre-KA/KA I transition) and the beginning of the KA II (KA I/ KA II transition) phases . Moreover, such overlaps were identified between distinguishable geographic clusters of 14C dates, with two chronological patterns corresponding to the areas respectively located to the north and to the south of the Lesser Caucasus range . Although a third cluster could be distinguished for the Erzurum region, since this is mainly represented by 14C dates from the single site of Sos Höyük, any derived regional interpretation should be cautiously considered . The modelling of such defined geographic clusters (Figs . 3–4) allowed for more refined sequences, which provided fewer instances of overlap and reduced the number of questionable outliers . As a result, more nuanced chronological scenarios appeared within the development of the Kura-Araxes culture in its Caucasian homeland . Modelled results allowed for a preliminary identification of chronological offsets regarding the beginning of the KA I and KA II phases in the identified sub-regions (Tab . 1); the beginning of the KA I phase appears to have occurred c . 100 years earlier in the ‘North’ (at 3610–3550 calBCE), while the beginning of the KA II phase is set ca . 100 years earlier (3230–3120 calBCE) in the ‘South’ . A difference of c . 10–20 years between the two regions (2860–2790 and 2870–2810 calBCE respectively) was also detected for the beginning of the KA III phase, but this is negligible if one considers the scale of the area under study . Before deriving broader chronological interpretations from the discussed models, however, the nature and issues of the archaeological record and of the referenced chrono-cultural categories should be taken into account . Notably, as clarified at the beginning of this paper, 14C dates were attributed to phases KA I, II and III following

5

All ranges are based on the results of Bayesian modelling, calibrated at 1 σ and rounded to the nearest 10 yr, see Passerini 2015 . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Palumbi’s proposal (2008), which, while still considering the totality of the KA archaeological package, regards pottery as the main discriminant element between different phases . Indeed, this responds to the nature of the package as it currently stands, where pottery constitutes the most present – and reported – element in order to track cultural affiliation (and changes) throughout the Southern Caucasus . As a consequence, the results of the modelling process are descriptive of the dynamics of origins and diffusion of specific pottery types as related to the different KA phases according to Palumbi’s synthesis, which does not necessarily reflect the opinion of all specialists . 6 As a consequence, some remarks and suggestions may be brought forward in rethinking the Kura-Araxes chronological outlines . All in all, many of the numerous issues that arose while reassessing the characteristics of its absolute chronology may be summarised in one question: what is the Kura-Araxes culture and how do we define it? If, within the ‘package’, pottery typologies constitute the main and only superregional narrative of the KA phenomenon, only by breaking it down to coherent and identifiable geographic tiles may continuous chronological sequences be refined . If not, the results of this first Bayesian approach still stand as an original contribution that provides specific ranges tied to chronologically traceable elements, where areas of overlap may become the focus of further typological and chronological reconsiderations . The close collaboration between archaeologists and 14C experts, which constitutes the fundamental premise of our research, should rightfully be promoted while undertaking Bayesian-based chronological assessments, by guaranteeing analytical accuracy through the strength of the hard sciences while maintaining vivid attention to the archaeological reality that may, or not, subside under the limitations of statistical tools . To conclude, in the light of current archaeological and radiocarbon data, as well as of recent investigations in the region, the role of regionalism emerges more and more as the main player in the development of the Kura-Araxes cultural-historical communities . Only by conducting methodologically updated archaeological investigations in the Southern Caucasus can these questions be answered through the provision of new and consistent chronological data . The study of Aradetis Orgora was here shared as an example of such a methodological contribution and, hopefully, as a step, among others, towards the definition of a new and reliable absolute chronology . Acknowledgements Research leading to the completion of this article was made possible through a grant by the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs (November 2014–May 2015), which allowed the

6

For an updated synthesis on the question, the reader is referred to the different contributions in Chataigner and Palumbi 2014 . In particular, it should be pointed out that although most researchers still favour a three-fold division (though with quite different definitions and chronological limits of the different phases) for the Kura-Araxes culture, researchers from Armenia (Badalyan 2014) argue that a two-fold division better fits the data from that region . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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first author to spend a 7-month period at the Weizmann Institute of Science in order to complete her MA thesis (Passerini 2015) . The excavation seasons of the Georgian-Italian Shida Kartli Archaeological Project and the analysis of the collected samples were funded by the following institutions: Italian Ministry of Education (PRIN 2009 project), Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ca’ Foscari University and private sponsors . The radiocarbon research for the Georgian-Italian Shida Kartli Archaeological Project was also supported by the Exilarch’s Foundation for the Dangoor Research Accelerator Mass Spectrometer Radiocarbon Laboratory and the Max Plank Society-Weizmann Institute Joint Center for Integrative Archaeology and Anthropology . The authors are grateful to Prof . David Lordkipanidze (General Director, Georgian National Museum) and Dr . Zurab Makharadze (Director of Archaeological Center, GNM) for the permission to undertake archaeological excavations in Georgia, and to Prof . Iulon Gagoshidze, co-director of the Aradetis Orgora excavations, for his constant support for our activities . Bibliography Areshian, G . E ., Gasparyan, B ., Avetisyan, P . S ., Pinhasi, R ., Wilkinson, K ., Smith, A ., Hovsepyan, R . and Zardaryan, D . 2012 The Chalcolithic of the Near East and South-eastern Europe: Discoveries and New Perspectives from the Cave Complex Areni-1, Armenia . Antiquity 86, 115–130 . Badalyan, R . 2014 New Data on the Periodization and Chronology of the Kura-Araxes Culture in Armenia . Paléorient 40/2, 71–92 . Boaretto, E . 2009 Dating Material in Good Archaeological Contexts: The Next Challenge for Radiocarbon . Radiocarbon 51/1, 275–282 . Chataigner, C . and Palumbi, G . (eds .) 2014 The Kura-Araxes Culture from the Caucasus to Iran, Anatolia and the Levant: Between Unity and Diversity . Paléorient 40/2, thematic issue . Chernykh, E . N . 1992 Ancient Metallurgy in the USSR . Cambridge . Gagoshidze, I . and Rova, E . 2016 Two Seasons of Georgian-Italian Excavations at Aradetis Orgora (Georgia) . Rivista di Archeologia 39 (2015), 5–28 . in press New Investigations at Aradetis Orgora, a Multiperiod Centre of the Shida Kartli Region in Georgia . In: A . Batmaz, G . Bedianashvili, A . Michalewicz and A . Robinson (eds .), Context and Connection: Essays on the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East in Honour of Antonio Sagona. Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta, Leuven . Kakhiani, K ., Sagona, A ., Sagona, C ., Kvavadze, E ., Bedianashvili, G ., Messager, E ., Martin, L ., Herrscher, E ., Martkoplishvili, I ., Birkett-Rees, J . and Longford, C . 2013 Archaeological Investigations at Chobareti in Southern Georgia, the Caucasus . Ancient Near Eastern Studies 50, 1–138 . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Kavtaradze, G . 1999 The Importance of Metallurgical Data for the Formation of a Central Transcaucasian Chronology . In: A . Hauptmann, E . Pernicka, T . Rehren and U . Yalçin (eds .), The Beginnings of Metallurgy . Bochum, 67–102 . Kohl, P . 2007 The Making of Bronze Age Eurasia . Cambridge . 2009

Origins, Homelands and Migrations: Situating the Kura-Araxes Early Transcaucasian ‘Culture’ within the History of Bronze Age Eurasia . Tel Aviv 36, 241–265 .

Lyonnet, B . 2014 The Early Bronze Age in Azerbaijan in the Light of Recent Discoveries . Paléorient 40/2, 115–130 . Marro, C ., Bakhshaliyev, V . and Berthon, R . 2014 On the Genesis of the Kura-Araxes Phenomenon: New Evidence from Nakhchivan (Azerbaijan) . Paléorient 40/2, 131–154 . Palumbi, G . 2008 The Red and Black: Social and Cultural Interaction between the Upper Euphrates and the Southern Caucasus Communities in the Fourth and Third Millennium B.C. Studi di Preistoria Orientale 2, Rome . Passerini, A . 2015 Radiocarbon Dates from the 4th and 3rd Millennium in the Southern Caucasus: Defining a Regional Absolute Chronology . Unpublished MA thesis, Università Ca’ Foscari, Venice . Passerini, A ., Regev, L ., Rova, E . and Boaretto, E . 2016 New Radiocarbon Dates for the Kura-Araxes Occupation at Aradetis Orgora, Georgia . Radiocarbon 58/3, 649–677 (doi:10 .1017/RDC .2016 .37) . Rothman, M . 2001 Uruk Mesopotamia and Its Neighbors: Cross-cultural Interactions in the Era of State Formation . Santa Fe . Rova, E . 2014 The Kura-Araxes Culture in the Shida-Kartli Region of Georgia: An Overview . Paléorient 40/2, 45–67 . in press A Unified Terminology for the South-Caucasian “Early Bronze Age”: A Worthy and Achievable Target? In: M . Kashuba and S . Reinhold (eds .), Der Kaukasus im Spannungsfeld zwischen Osteuropa und Vorderem Orient: Dialog der Kulturen, Kultur des Dialoges (im Gedenken an den 140. Geburtstag von Alexander A. Miller). Proceedings of the Humboldt-Kolleg, 5th–8th Oktober 2015, Sankt Petersburg . St . Petersburg . Rova, E . and Tonussi, M . (eds .) 2017 At the Northern Frontier of the Near Eastern Archaeology: Recent Research on Caucasia and Anatolia in the Bronze age. Publications of the Georgian-Italian Shida Kartli Archaeological Project III. Proceedings of the international Humboldt-Kolleg Venice, 9th–12th January 2013 . Subartu 38, Turnhout . Sagona, A . 2014 Rethinking the Kura-Araxes Genesis . Paléorient 40/2, 21–44 . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Fig . 1 Scheme of different chrono-cultural phases considered in this study, with relevant ceramic markers

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Fig . 2 Bayesian model of 14C dates from the entire Southern Caucasus, with areas of overlap between the different phases highlighted © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Fig . 3 Bayesian model of 14C dates from the North cluster

Fig . 4 Bayesian model of 14C dates from the South cluster

Revising the Absolute Chronology of the 4th and 3rd Millennia BCE in the Southern Caucasus

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Table 1 Synoptic table showing the modelled results obtained from the ‘Overall’, ‘North’, and ‘South’ models . Dash lines were applied to the boundaries that are only defined by the earliest or the latest known 14C date

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ARCHAEOLOGY OF RELIGION & RITUAL edited by V. Müller

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Neolithic, Gender Identity and Reproduction: An Analysis of Evidence from Ali Kosh Tepe, Deh Luran, Iran Somayeh Asadi Tashvigh 1 – Rahmat Abbasnejad Seresti 1 Abstract During the 1961–1963 excavation seasons at Ali Kosh Tepe on the Deh Luran plain, southwest of Iran, in levels dating to the Bus Mordeh and Mohammad Ja’far periods (7500–5600 BC), objects identified as representations of male sexual organs were discovered which were the same as examples from early villages of Mesopotamia and Iran . Interpreted as signifying magic, reproduction, fertility rites and voluptuousness, it is suggested here that another explanation can be achieved through analysis of the cultural and ideological evolution of Neolithic people . The present paper proposes that the representation of the human body signifies sexual knowledge, feminine and masculine identity, and knowledge of plant domestication and animal reproduction .

1. Introduction Scholars commonly accept the term ‘Neolithic Revolution’, proposed by V . Gordon Childe, to describe the extent and significance of processes of plant domestication and animal husbandry . In addition, changes within Neolithic peoples’ social lives have been described using terms such as ‘Human Revolution,’ ‘Symbolic Revolution,’ and most recently ‘Sexual Revolution’ (Gauvin 2000) . Traditionally in archeology the representation of male and female bodies through figurines or other objects was interpreted as signifying religious, ritual and conceptual frameworks, and this approach has been augmented through the more recent establishment of sexual and gender-based archeology (Deams 2008; Croucher 2012) . Two points are essential in this regard: firstly, although evidence of human figurines and iconography has been identified from the Paleolithic Period in Europe (McDermott 1996; Angulo et al. 2011), such evidence is absent in Southwest Asia, especially Iran . The earliest human, as well as animal, figurines in Iran date to the Neolithic period . Secondly, many studies of the human figurines focus on female figurines which have been interpreted within a framework that focuses on the evolution of the biological cycle and the process of physical, cognitive, and ritual change (Askarpour 2005; Deams 2008) . At present in Iran, while issues related to sexuality and gender have entered some areas of science and research and have been analysed within the context of cultural

1

Department of Archaeology, University of Mazandaran, Iran . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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and religious foundations, these topics have seen less research focus within Iranian archaeological studies . This is a consequence of the limitations put upon the study of gender and sexuality within Iranian society which has affected sexuality and gender studies within Iranian academic research circles . Furthermore, religious and cultural modesty concerning issues of sex and gender and consequent shyness amongst researchers means that Iranian archaeologists are often afraid to address gender issues . Moreover, we believe that the most important reason for not addressing the issue of gender in Iranian archaeology is the lack of theoretical studies and the slow evolution of archeological science in Iran, as well as the neglect of new approaches in research and the lack of determination in this field . Men’s bodies are represented in the Middle East in the form of stone or clay phalli that have been discovered at the sites of Jarmo, Choghamai, Tepe Gawra, Tell-Sawan and Se Gabi (Deams 2008: 80) . In this paper, however, the data obtained from the site of Ali Kosh on the Deh Luran plain are examined . While this material has previously been recorded in the excavation reports, this is the first time that it will be analysed . 2. An overview of recent archeological perspectives: body, objects and mind The importance of objects has recently been incorporated within the study of the human mind and its thinking processes . According to this perspective, objects provide reasons for humans to gather together and can function as means by which channels of interaction are established . Objects surround the human mind and reflect human beings back to themselves . It can be proposed therefore that the threedimensionality of ancient objects represent prehistoric humans’ inner world (Malafouris 2013) . The study of the mind, and in particular its representation within objects, was initially the province of archeologists interested in the thoughts, beliefs, religion and art of prehistoric societies (Renfrew 1994: 4) . Former interpretations of figurines as evidence of fertility rituals and goddess worship have now been superseded by these new approaches, including queer and feminist theories, which are being used to investigate sexual and other aspects of ancient social identity (Taylor 1996; Dowson 2000; Voss and Schmidt 2000; Voss 2008: 318) . 3. Gender: selection of men’s substantial body Determining what sex is from archaeological data can be challenging . All ancient sexual images and objects are inherently ambiguous and sex-themed objects and artifacts that derive from the Prehistoric period make interpretation more problematic . Due to the generally widespread understanding of the human fertility cycle and plant and animal reproduction, Neolithic figurines that depict women’s bodies and emphasise female sexual organs have been attributed to a ‘Mother Goddess’ © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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associated with fertility (Voss, 2008: 319) . They have also been considered to be direct evidence of religion . However, these figurines have often been studied and interpreted out of context, as though they were independent and self-reliant forms of data . Subsequent interpretations have been proposed ranging from the expression of pleasure, sensual stimulation, control of sexuality, and the manner in which human beings conceive their own bodies and the bodies of others . Figurines have also been proposed to be dolls, children’s toys, training tools, and magical objects (Kenyon 1956; Ucko 1962: 38–46; McDermott 1996: 323; Rice 1981: 411; Bailey 2005) . Moorey notes the dearth of portrayals of men in the ancient cultures of the Near East and suggests that male figurines may have occurred outside the establishments and were rather exclusively confined within the men’s living area (Moorey 2005: 46) . It has also been suggested that since, unlike men, women experience many changes in their sexual life cycle, there has been a greater need to depict female bodies (Dederen 2010) . Reviewing the representation of the human body within the Neolithic period, it is evident that certain segments of the body have been displayed abstractly as a result of the exclusion of other parts of the body (Bailey 2007: 118) . Often only the male reproductive organs are displayed in contrast to whole male bodies . Recent research has interpreted these artifacts as sexual metaphors related to the sphere of a ‘Fertility Goddess’ associated with plants and they have been proposed to be indicative of the transitional period to agriculture (Mithen et al. 2005: 107–109) . In other cases these objects have been interpreted as symbols of reproduction, representative of the male role, suggesting that sexuality may have been venerated (Joyce 2000: 265; Angulo et al. 2011) . 4. Deh Luran: Ali Kosh Tepe exotica The plain of Deh Luran is located in the southwest of Iran, west of Khuzestan Province (Fig . 1) . It is a semi-arid, semi-steppe sedimentary plain, and the western part of the area is surrounded by a mountainous belt . These characteristics made the Deh Luran plain one of the most important ancient environmental regions in the Near East . Archaeological investigation of the plain was initially undertaken by a team from Rice University consisting of Frank Hole, Kent Flannery and James Neely, who studied the area between 1961 and 1963 . The prehistoric sites of Ali Kosh and Chogha Sefid are amongst the earliest settlements identified and explored by this team (Hole et al. 1969; Hole 1977) . Ali Kosh Tepe was formed along with permanent water sources . Its cultural periods include the Bus Mordeh, with phases C2–1 (7500–6750 BC), the Ali Kosh, with phases B2–1 (6750–6000 BC), and the Mohammad Jafar, with phases A2–1 (6000–5600 BC) (Hole et al. 1969) (Fig . 2) . The important indicators of the site of Ali Kosh include evidence of plant and animal domestication and processing, and © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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trans-regional communication (Renfrew 1977) . The Mohammad Jafar period is the final period of this site and is characterised by innovations in architecture, pottery production, goat and sheep domestication, crop cultivation, extra-mural burial, grave gifts, and human figurine manufacture (Hole et al. 1969; Hole 1977; Voigt and Dyson 1992) . In accord with the purpose of this article, the main points regarding the creation of figurines will now be discussed . During the Bus Mordeh and Ali Kosh phases, goat and sheep figures were common . These were formed in a recognisable manner, but did not include details such as eyes, ears and mouths, although the horns of the animals were clearly depicted . The human figures from the Mohammad Jafar period were made of semi-baked clay and were often depicted in a seated pose, some with their arms on their knees (Fig . 3) . These figurines have been termed ‘Mother Goddesses’ and include examples known as T-shaped figurines (Hole et al. 1969: 224, 353) . In addition, objects from the Mohammad Jafar period display male sexual organs and can be divided into two categories . The first category includes bell-shaped hangings; these have been discovered in the burials outside the residential sector where they were usually placed between deceased males’ thighbones and near their pelvises . One example belongs to a middle-aged man and was placed in front of his pubic bone (Fig . 4) . The excavators believe that these hangings covered the men’s pubic area (Hole et al. 1969: 243) . Most burials reported from the Mohammad Jafar period belonged to men and these burials had the most decorations (Hole et al. 1969: 47) . The second category (Fig . 5) includes objects recorded as ‘exotica’ and designated as ‘miscellaneous stone artifacts’ in the excavation reports . One of these is a phallus from the Bus Mordeh period described as an amulet . This type of object has also been found in Jarmu and Gouran (Braidwood et al. 1960: 46; Mortensen, 1964: fig . 12) . Another is a phallus belonging to the Mohammad Jafar period . Such an object has also been found in the Jarmu and Gouran excavations and a similar phallus has been found at Tell-Sawan in Mesopotamia (El-Wailly and Abues-soof 1965: fig . 66) . These stone objects were particularly prevalent during the Neolithic period in male burials (Hole et al. 1969: 203) . According to Frank Hole, although Ali Kosh society continued and changed its cultural aspects under the influence of local traditions, these two categories of objects are evidence of its cultural ties with eastern Mesopotamia (Hole 1977; Voigt and Dyson 1992) . 5. Neolithic period and human identity We know that during the Neolithic period human attention was focused beyond concerns with subsistence and residence . Humans are believed to have become increasingly interested in understanding the meanings and hidden codes in their surroundings . Human metaphysical exploration is believed to be reflected in some of their artifacts . Human interpretation of metaphysical matters was probably quite © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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complicated and complex, therefore such artifacts can have multiple and diverse meanings . They probably represent people’s understanding of the visible boundaries of their own reality . The representation of the human body informs us about the Neolithic conceptualisation of a ‘human being’ (Askarpour 2005; Bailey 2007: 118–124) . It is difficult to understand the meanings of these objects and they have often been interpreted as signifying particular ritual or religious concepts . These interpretations propose that the objects are largely symbolic; symbols can aid communication with the otherworld and function as the medium between the humans and the otherworld (Renfrew and Bahn 2005) . Ian Hodder has proposed that the exchange of information is one of the functions of the symbol; he has suggested that everything is somewhat symbolic; consequently symbolism is everywhere (Hodder 1982) . Neolithic humans took steps to understand spiritual and metaphysical matters, developing gradually . One of the consequences of their efforts in this process was the acquisition of social cognition or identity . A human being’s identity consists of his body and mind which unite to make a ‘self .’ Self-identity is shaped within society through the human body, since the body has characteristics that can produce identity (Thomas 2007) . Since there are no written or oral sources from prehistory, we should consider theories and ask questions in order to reconstruct this period, despite the fact that many questions have so far often gone unanswered (Dederen 2010: 35) . 6. Conclusion The fact that the changes in the Neolithic Period must be associated with the physical evidence from human beings is one of the uncertainties aspects of this period . In the Neolithic, local identity (boundaries of living space), temporal identity (day, month, year and the seasons) and gender identity (masculinity and femininity) were formed . Portraying the female and male organs was an attempt to understand the feminine and masculine identities, including concepts of sexual power, reproductive power and gender segregation . Most likely, human beings achieved a basic understanding of these identities through reflecting on the process of human reproduction, estimating the age and sex of animals, and knowledge of domestication knowledge; and this understanding led to the identification of the other dimensions of appearance and personality differences between men and women in later periods .

Bibliography Angulo, J . C ., Garcia-Diez, M . and Martinez, M . 2011 Phallic Decoration in Paleolithic Art: Genital Scarification, Piercing and Tattoos . The Journal of Urology, 2498–2503 . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Askarpour, V . 2005 Introduction to Figure and Sculpture in Human Societies: Case Study Figurines of Tepe Zaghe, Qazvin Plain, Tehran . MA thesis, University of Tehran [in Persian] . Bailey, D . W . 2005 Prehistoric Figurines: Representation and Corporeality in the Neolithic . London . 2007

The Anti-rhetorical Power of Representational Absence: Incomplete Figurines from the Balkan Neolithic . In: C . Renfrew and I . Morley (eds .), Image and Imagination: a Global Prehistory of Figurative Representation . Cambridge, 111–121 .

Braidwood, R . and Howe, B ., with contributions by Matson, F . R ., Wright Jr ., H . E ., Helbaek, H . and Reed, C . A . 1960 Prehistoric Investigations in Iraqi Kurdestan . Studies in Ancient Oriental Civilization 31 . Chicago . Croucher, K . 2012 Death and Dying in the Neolithic Near East . Oxford . Daems, A . 2008 Evaluating patterns of gender through Mesopotamian and Iranian human figurines: a reassessment of the Neolithic and Chalcolithic industries . In: D . Bolger (ed .), Gender through Time in the Ancient Near East . New York, 77–117 . Dederen, J . M . 2010 Woman’s Power, 1000 A .D .: Figurine Art and Gender Politics in Prehistoric Southern Africa, Nordic Journal of African Studies 19, 23–42 . Dowson, T . A . 2000 Special Issue: Queer Archaeologies . World Archaeology 32, 161–165 . El-Wailly, F . and Abu es-Soof, B . 1965 The Excavations at Tell Es-Sawwn: First Preliminary Report (1964) . Sumer XXI, 17–32 . Gauvin, J . 2000 The Symbolic Foundations of the Neolithic Revolution in the Near East . In: I . Kuijt (ed .), Life in Neolithic Farming Communities: Social Organization, Identity and Differentiation. New York, 235–249 . Hodder, I . 1982 Symbols in Action: Ethno-archaeological Studies of Material Culture . Cambridge . Hole, F . 1977 Studies in the Archeological History of the Deh Luran Plain, the Excavation of Chogh Sefid . Ann Arbor . Hole, F ., Flannery, V . K . and Neely, A . J . 1969 Prehistory and Human Ecology of the Deh Luran Plain . Ann Arbor . Joyce, R . A . 2000 A Precolumbian Gaze: Male Sexuality among the Ancient Maya . In: R . A . Schmidt and B . L . Voss, Archaeologies of Sexuality. London, 263–283 . Kenyon, K . 1956 Jericho and Its Setting in Near Eastern History . Antiquity 30,184–195 . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Malafouris, L . 2013 How Things Shape the Mind . London . McDermott, L . 1996 Self-Representation in Upper Paleolithic Female Figurines . Current Anthropology 37, 227–275 . Mithen, S ., Finlayson, B . and Shaffrey, R . 2005 Sexual Symbolism in the Early Neolithic of the Southern Levant: Pestles and Mortars from WF16 . Documenta Praehistorica XXXII, 102–110 . Moorey, P . R . S . 2005 Ancient Near Eastern Terracottas with a Catalogue of the Collection in the Ashmolean Museum . Oxford . Mortensen, P . 1964 Early Village-farming Occupation . In: J . Meldgaard, P . Mortensen, H . Thrane, Excavation at Tepe Guran Luristan . Acta Archaeologica 34, 110–121 . Renfrew, C . 1977 The late Obsidian of Deh Luran, the Evidence of Chogha Sefid . In: F . Hole, Studies in the Archeological History of the Deh Luran Plain, the Excavation of Chogha Sefid . Ann Arbor, 289–311 . 1994

Toward a Cognitive Archaeology . In: C . Renfrew and E . Zubrow (eds .), The Ancient mind: Elements of Cognitive Archaeology . Cambridge, 3–12 .

Renfrew, C . and Bahn, P . G . 2005 Archaeology: The Key Concepts . London . Rice, P . C . 1981 Prehistoric Venuses: Symbols of Motherhood or Womanhood? Journal of Anthropological Research 37, 402–414 . Taylor, T . 1996 The Prehistory of Sex: Four Million Years of Human Sexual Culture . New York . Thomas, J . 2007 Archaeology’s Humanism and the Materiality of the Body . In: T . Insoll (ed .), The archaeology of Identities; a Reader . London, 220 . Ucko, J . P . 1962 The Interpretation of Prehistoric Anthropomorphic Figurines . The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland 92, 38–54 . Voigt, M . M . and Dyson, R . H . J . 1992 Chronology of Iran, ca . 8000–2000 B .C . In: R . W . Ehrich (ed .), Chronologies of Old World Archaeology . Chicago, 122–178 . Voss, L . B . 2008 Sexuality Studies in Archaeology . The Annual Review of Anthropology 37, 317–336 . Voss, L . B . and Schmidt, R . 2000 Archaeologies of Sexuality . London . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Fig . 1 Ali Kosh Tepe, Deh luran, Iran

Fig . 2 Ali Kosh Tepe section srawings and slans of Bus Mordeh, Ali Kosh and Mohammad Jafar periods (after Hole et al. 1969) © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Fig . 3 Humans and animals figures from Ali Kosh Tepe (after Hole et al. 1969)

Fig . 4 Pendant from Ali Kosh Tepe (Hole et al. 1969)

Fig . 5 Objects as male sexual organ discovered from Bus Mordeh and Mohammad Ja'far Periods (after Hole et al. 1969) © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Somayeh Asadi Tashvigh – Rahmat Abbasnejad Seresti

© 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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A New Type of Ritual Bath in Judea? David Ben-Shlomo

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Abstract Plastered stepped pools found in domestic and other contexts in Judea during the Hellenistic and Roman periods are now usually interpreted as Jewish ritual bath or miqves . In a recent excavation at Tel Hebron (Rumeida) a portion of an urban and industrial quarter dated to the early Roman period was unearthed . The remains include at least two residential houses, and stepped and paved street, a pottery kiln, a series of plastered pools and a system of well-plastered water channels . Within this complex two large stepped pools were also unearthed . According to many parallels and the shape and construction technique these features are likely to be ritual baths (or ‘miqves’) . The construction of the stairs in the installations (with a double partition wall), as well as the dimensions, highly resemble similar contemporary pools from Khirbet Qumran, and are not known elsewhere . Other finds link the two sites as well .

1. Introduction Ronny Reich (2013) has shown that plastered stepped pools found in domestic and other contexts in Judea during the Hellenistic and Roman periods should be by default interpreted as ritual bath or miqves, mentioned so commonly in the Mishnaic literature . The minimal requirements of such installation to be identified as a ritual bath in an archaeological site are as follows: connected to the ground by a structure or rock carving, filled by rain or runoff water flown by gravity into it, plastered to prevent water leakage to the outside and having the minimal capacity between 500–1000 liters . Two large ritual baths were recently discovered at Tel Hebron . The construction of the stairs in these installations – with a double partition wall – as well as their dimensions are unusual, resemble similar contemporary pools from Khirbet Qumran, and are not known elsewhere . 2. Tel Hebron At the site of Tel Hebron (Tell Rumeida), the location of Biblical Hebron, four different excavations were conducted in the past 50 years (see Ofer 1993; Eisenberg and Nagorski 2002; Eisenberg and Ben-Shlomo 2016) . These have unearthed remains of the Early Bronze, Middle Bronze and Iron Age fortification and sections of domestic houses . Yet, the location, size and character of the Hellenistic, Roman and Byzantine period town of Hebron remained unclear . The construction of the nearby monumental structure on top of the cave of the patriarchs, as well as the cultic

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Institute of Archaeology, Ariel University, Israel . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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site at Mamre near Hebron was attributed to Herod the Great . Nevertheless, these locations were probably outside the ancient town . In the recent 2014 excavation a portion of an urban and industrial quarter dated to the early Roman period was unearthed at the south part of the site (Eisenberg and Ben-Shlomo 2016) . The remains include at least two residential houses, a stepped paved street, a pottery kiln, a series of plastered pools and a system of well-plastered water channels . Within this complex two large stepped pools were also unearthed . According to the shape and construction technique these features are likely to be Jewish ritual baths (‘miqves’) . Four occupation phases at the site are dated to the Hasmonean and early Roman periods (Phases 6–3) . The earliest phase included mainly a large assemblage of pottery from the fills under the early Roman levels representing the Hasmonean period . During the early Roman period (Phases 5 and 4) the domestic and industrial quarter, located on the southwestern margins of the town included a wide paved stepped street that connected it to the upper tell (Fig . 1), which was probably the center of the settlement (but was not excavated) . Domestic houses were excavated on both sides . The most well-preserved architectural phase belongs to the early Roman period, ended by a destruction dated to the First Jewish Revolt . One of the houses was better preserved containing four or more rooms . One of the rooms, which had three steps descending down to it, was probably the kitchen . On the floor a group of complete vessels were found, including a set of tableware bowls and cooking pots, several storage jars, a stand, a jug filled with burnt olives and other finds . The room was destroyed by heavy fire . The pottery of this phase is the typical first century CE repertoire in Judaea . Several fragments of chalk stone vessels, typical of Jewish settlements were also found, while imported containers are absent from the ceramic repertoire . Next to this house an industrial area was excavated, well separated from the domestic zone . It included a pottery workshop with an oval kiln and a poorly preserved structure to the north that served as the potter‘s workshop . A series of inter-connected plastered pools in various depths and sizes probably functioned as settling pools for the clay . On the southwestern edges of the excavation area two large winepresses were discovered; and in the rock nearby platforms and small cylindrical pits were carved and the area was used as an olive oil press, with the oil flowing in plastered channels, carved in the rock . The latest occupation phase at Tel Hebron is dated to the late Roman and early Byzantine period . In this phase the two large ritual baths were converted to square water cisterns covered by arched roofs . The settlement was much sparser, and reflected a rural agricultural village or an estate . 3. The large ritual baths The two large ritual baths were excavated in the southwestern edge of the site (Figs . 2–5) . The eastern ritual bath is a 8 × 4 .5m rectangular pool carved in the natural rock, © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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with fourteen wide and well-plastered steps leading to a small floored pool, over 3 .5m deep (Fig . 2) . The lower part had two lobes carved in the rock, thus extending its size in its lower part, probably for more convenient immersing in the water . A filling channel was discovered on the upper part . The stairs are divided by two partition walls into three paths (Fig . 3); these walls show certain modifications and repairs within the period of the installation usage . The sides of the pool were plastered by thick well-preserved layers of plaster . The plaster was laid in three layers: The rock was first covered by a thick dark gray hard plaster with gravel; in certain locations cavities in the rock were straightened by a fill of plaster and pebbles embedded into it (Fig . 4) . On top of this a layer of white plaster was laid, filled with small gravel and ridged pottery sherds lying flat . The topmost layer of plaster was comprised of a thin light color plaster with a dark crust . This layer was re-done in various locations in the pool as regular maintenance of the plaster . It should be noted, however, that the western part of the pool was reused, and re-plastered in the late Roman period, and therefore, the external plaster observed on the walls may represent the later plastering . The steps going down to a smaller pool are not a Hallachic necessity but a practical one . The thick smooth plastering with rounded finishing edges was aimed to protect the people using the ritual bath, going into it naked, often in the dark . The estimated capacity of the miqve if full up to the top of the stairs is at least 85m³ . Even if the water reached only the fourth step from the floor the volume of the water would be around 18–20m³ . This feature was also a major element in the area, since the stepped street in fact leads directly from the center of the site to the stairs of the ritual bath . The western ritual bath, about 15m to the west (Fig . 5), and better preserved, had a more square, open space, 7 × 6m in size and at least 3 m deep, with at least six steps going down; yet, this feature was not yet completely excavated . 2 It was connected by two large rectangular openings, carved in the rock, to a large closed underground space carved in the rock, about 7 × 7m in size . The closed dome-shaped space carved in the rock was at least 2 .8m high (Fig . 6) . Although the miqveh is not yet completely excavated, and the floor not reached, it is likely that the steps reached all the way to the bottom end of the closed space, as occurring in other large ritual baths . The structure was entranced through a wide floor level, from the southeast, covered by a layer of ruble stones that was possibly the foundation of a more elaborate stone pavement . The stairs are divided, as the eastern ritual bath, into three staircases, by two low partition walls (Figs . 5–6) . According to stratigraphical evidence the western miqve was used in the phase postdating the great revolt . The main difference between the two miqves is the large closed spaced with a double passage occurring in the western one . This space created a much larger pool intake, and also enabled the users to bath in a covered area (although darker) .

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This article presents results updated unto 2016 . During 2017 the excavation of the western miqve at Tel Hebron was completed, generally confirming the description given here . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Ritual baths with an attached closed space and a rock-carved double passage, appear in the Hebron area in several cases, as at Bir Ijda and Alon Shevut, and also in the Jerusalem area (e .g ., Amit 1997: 37–45; Peleg and Amit 2004; Adler 2011: 126–129; Reich 2013: 61–66) . Some scholars interpret such spaces as an ôṣār (lit . ‘reservoir’) . Its function was to provide a way to change the used, squalid rainwater in the ritual bath with fresh drawn water in a fashion allowed by rabbinic law (Regev 1996; Reich 2013) . However, recently Adler argued that this theory is based on a modern anachronism and has no basis in either literary Hallachic sources or in the archaeological record (Adler 2014) . The adjacent spaces in these miqves should be thus interpreted as an integral part of the ritual bath and were probably constructed in most cases in order to enlarge the water capacity catchment in a heavy rain event . This seems quite plausible for the Hebron miqves . It is reasonable to assume the stairs continued down into the closed space, or at least to its entrance . The estimated capacity of the western miqve would have been very large . Assuming the floor of the pool was only 0 .5m below current level, if the closed space and the open one were full up to the top of the stairs it would be around 230m³ (only the closed space is about 150m³ in volume at least) . Even if the water would have reached only the middle of the stairs its volume would be over 80m³ . These capacities are somewhat similar to those at Bir Ijda (‘Hamam Sarah’) estimated by Reich at 150m³, 300m³ by Adler and much higher by Amit (Reich 2013: 188) . 4. A new type of ritual bath in southern Judea? The appearance of the large stepped installation, interpreted as ritual bath calls for some consideration, in particular on the background of the similarities now between the finds at Qumran and Hebron . Most ritual baths in Jerusalem and other domestic pools have a capacity of up to 20m³ (the larger pools at Qumran are 40–150m³), while the minimum volume for purity is around 1m³ (Grossberg 1997; Reich 2013) . This would make the ritual baths at Hebron of the largest ones known in the period . In addition a division of the wide stairs into three lanes by two low well-plastered partition walls is unusual . We do know of occurrences of a single partition, creating two lanes into the pool at ritual baths in Jerusalem and the Hebron area (e .g ., Reich 2013: 186) . This was usually interpreted as a way to separate the impure descending to be immersed and the pure ones ascending from the water . Regev has suggested a relation to the higher purity demanded from the priests and claimed that these partition miqves were only in priests houses (Regev 1996) . In any case, three lanes are only possibly known from pools at Qumran (Reich 2013: 164–175) . Thus, so far there are several similarities between the at least partly contemporary site of Qumran and the remains at Tel Hebron . These include: 1 . The large, double partition staircase stepped pools . 2 . The abundance of water channels in the site and intensive use of runoff water . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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3 . The proximity of the large stepped pools to pottery kilns (as well as to winepresses) . 4 . The occurrence of a special type of jar – the ‘archive‘ or scroll jars, often buried in the floor: very rare elsewhere (see, e .g ., Bar-Nathan 2006) . These apparent resemblances may suggest that the new results at Hebron may help to shed some more light on the installations at Qumran . Khirbet Qumran, located on a plateau near the bank of the Dead Sea and the ‘Ein Feshkha spring, was excavated by de Vaux during 1951–1956 (e .g . de Vaux 1973) and by Magen and Peleg during 1993–2004 (Magen and Peleg 2007) . Its location is favorable as it is a good spot to collect runoff rain water, but is rather protected from the violence of the floods; however, otherwise this area is quite remote . During the 1950’s the Dead Sea Scrolls were found in several caves around Qumran and were linked by scholars to the settlement at the site (e .g ., de Vaux) . Yet, a multitude of additional interpretations were suggested during the past 50 years for this special and unique site, and the literature is vast . For example Hirschfeld suggested that the site was founded as a Hasmonean fortress and then served as a large commercial center of an agricultural estate of a member of the Herodian elite during the early Roman period (Hirschfeld 2004) . Magen and Peleg suggested that most of the features of the site, and the large stepped pools and kilns in particular, relate to a large pottery production center (Magen and Peleg 2007) . Qumran yielded a large number of water installations (Fig . 7; see Reich 2013: 164–175; Magen and Peleg 2007), most of them were filled by a channel system, carrying the floods and runoff water in the rare rainy event . The large installations are 3–5m wide and 6–11m long, with capacities up to 150m³; several have many stairs (up to 20), going down to a wide lower pools . The largest pool is Pool 71, which according to the new excavations at Qumran measures 4 .9 × 19 .6m with a depth of up to 5 .3m and a capacity of 310m³ . The phenomenon of two (or more) partition walls and triple staircases appears in Pool Nos . 48, 56 and 71 . Other pools have only one partition wall . The partition walls are always very low (up to 10–15cm high) and are built only on the upper few stairs . In Qumran Pool 48–49 (Reich 2013: no . 7) and Pool 71 (Reich 203: no . 10) have two or more partitions on the stairs . Qumran Pool 48 (Reich 2013: no . 7) is an installation noted to be destructed in an earthquake . Reich and others have interpreted all these stepped pools as ritual baths . As noted, following a renewed excavation at Khirbet Qumran Magen and Peleg has suggested a different function for the large stepped pools at the site and a different interpretation to the site in general (Magen and Peleg 2007) . They see the site as part of the colonization of the Judean Desert during the late Hellenistic period, rather than related to a religious sect . Magen and Peleg linked the large pools to pottery production and the nearby eight pottery kilns . This drew them to in interpret the entire site, during the Hasmonean and early Roman phases, as a pottery production site, marketing pottery to sites as Jericho and Jerusalem . Yet, the large stepped pools at Qumran, as the two example now from Tel Hebron, may have been primarily large © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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(maybe communal) ritual baths that served the community and its potters . Possibly some clay may have been drawn for the local potter‘s workshop from the bottom of the pools after flood events, as a secondary function . The water accumulating in the large pools could have also been used as drinking water throughout the year . So far there is no exact parallel for the division of the stairs into three by two partition walls, but the closest examples are several pools from Qumran . There could be either a regional reasons for these resemblances, as a material culture element of southern Judea . Or possibly, there were more particular ideological and religious links between the populations at Qumran and the second temple community of Tel Hebron (or part of it), but there is no way to prove this at this stage . The reason for the double partition may have been related to division between several degrees of purity or impurity . While the region is known to be populated by Edomites during the Hellenistic period, during the Hashmonean and early Roman periods the area was probably controlled by Judah, and became more Jewish . The ritual and religious function and meaning of the ritual baths as well as other finds as pottery and stone vessels should be therefore linked primarily to its Jewish-related population . Bibliography Adler, Y . 2011 The Archaeology of Purity: Archaeological Evidence for the Observance of Ritual Purity in Erez-Israel from the Hasmonean Period until the End of the Talmudic Era (164 B.C.E.–400 C.E.) . PhD thesis, Bar-Ilan University [in Hebrew] . Adler, Y . 2014 The Myth of the ’ôṣār in Second Temple-Period Ritual Baths: An Anachronistic Interpretation of a Modern-Era Innovation . Journal of Jewish Studies 65/2, 263–283 . Amit, D . 1997 Ritual Baths from the Second Temple Period at the Hebron Hills . MA thesis, Hebrew University, Jerusalem [in Hebrew] . Bar-Nathan, R . 2006 Qumran and the Hasmonean and Herodian Palaces of Jericho: The Implications of the Pottery Finds for the Interpretation of the Settlement of Qumran . In: K . Galor, J .-B . Humbert and J . Zangenberg (eds .), Qumran the Site of the Dead Sea Scrolls: Archaeological Interpretations and Debates . Studies on the Texts of the Desert of Jedah 57 . Leiden, 263–277 . De Vaux, R . 1973 Archaeology and the Dead Sea Scrolls . Oxford . Eisenberg, E . and Nagorski, E . 2002 Tel Hebron . Hadashot Archioklogiot 114, 92 . Eisenberg, E . and Ben-Shlomo, D . 2016 Tel Hevron . Hadashot Arkheologiyot. Excavations and Surveys in Israel 128 . IAA . http://www . hadashot-esi .org .il/Report_Detail_Eng .aspx?id=24926&mag_id=124 (last accessed 13 .9 .2017) © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Grossberg, A . 1997 The Miqvaot in Jerusalem in the Second Temple Period and how they were Ritually Prepared . Cathedra 83, 151–168 [in Hebrew] . Hirschfeld, Y . 2004 Qumran in Context: Reassessing the Archaeological Evidence . Peabody, Mass . Magen, I . and Peleg, Y . 2007 The Qumran excavations 1993–2004 . Preliminary Report . In: Y . Magen, Judea and Samaria Researches and Discoveries. Judea and Samaria Publications 6 . Jerusalem, 353–426 . Ofer, A . 1993 Hebron . In: E . Stern, A . Lewinson-Gilboa, and J . Aviram . (eds .), The New Encyclopedia of Archaeological Excavations in the Holy Land . Jerusalem, 606–609 . Peleg, Y . and Amit, D . 2004 Another Miqveh near Alon Shevut . ‘Atiqot 48, 95–98 . Regev, E . 1996 Ritual Baths of Jewish Groups and Sects in the Second Temple Period . Cathedra 79, 3–21 [in Hebrew] . Reich, R . 2013 Miqwa‘ot (Jewish Ritual Baths) in the Second Temple, Mishnaic and Talmudic Periods . Jerusalem [in Hebrew] .

Fig . 1 Tel Hebron, the main stepped street (early Roman period) © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Fig . 2 The eastern ritual bath at Hebron

Fig . 3 Plan of the eastern ritual bath © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

A New Type of Ritual Bath in Judea?

Fig . 4 Plastering on the wall of the ritual bath

Fig . 5 The western ritual bath © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Fig . 6 Section of the western ritual bath

Fig . 7 The water installations at Khirbet Qumran (after Magen and Peleg 2007: fig . 53) © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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A ‘Special Procession’ in Minoan Crete as a Ritual of Rulership? A View from Egypt Fritz Blakolmer 1 – Irmgard Hein 2 Abstract Based on a distinct group of images on seal impressions it can be proposed that a ‘Special Procession’ constituted a prominent ritual in Neopalatial Crete (1750–1490 BCE) . This procession consists of male and female participants wearing distinct robes and various types of headgear . Some of the participants carry ritual equipment such as a short cloak with long fringes or a staff with a curved handle . Rather than representing a series of stereotypical figures, these scenes exhibit a narrative character with figures in lively poses . Moreover, this procession-like ritual is atypical of Aegean processions because it is performed within an interior room rather than occurring outdoors . Despite an absence of inscriptions or further instructive evidence, we can conclude that these features point to an exclusive ceremony at the highest palatial level of Minoan Crete . We can also approach the function and symbolism of this Minoan ‘Special Procession’ by looking for comparanda from Egypt, where the performance of power in ritual processions, such as the depictions of the royal jubilee, the ‘Sed-Festival,’ have a long tradition . Such motives are considered and compared in order to illustrate and inspire new interpretations of Minoan ritual sequences .

In comparison with ancient Egypt and the Near East, our knowledge of rituals in the Aegean Bronze Age, especially those depicted in the arts of Minoan Crete, are fragmentary and superficial . This is primarily due to the fact that Minoan iconography is not supplemented by any helpful inscriptions . In Aegean art, differentiating between human, mythological, or divine figures is difficult . Even if we were able to read the Minoan Linear A texts written on clay tablets, they would provide hardly any information apart from economic transactions . Our methodological paths in approaching Minoan rituals are therefore a priori highly restricted, and best characterised by Martin P . Nilsson as a picture book without text (Nilsson 1927: 7; Nilsson 1968: 7) . A fruitful approach then, is to draw comparisons with the iconography of other contemporary civilisations in the eastern Mediterranean area, as this can provide some helpful suggestions for our understanding of Minoan ritual iconography . Particularly during the Neopalatial period of Crete (1750–1490 BCE), Minoan images of rituals, deities and authority were stimulated to a large extent, by Near Eastern and Egyptian iconography . We have to bear in mind, however, that in the Aegean the iconographical formulae as well as the iconological meanings of these images can differ markedly from those in the Ancient Near East .

1 2

Department of Classical Archaeology, University of Vienna, Austria . Institute for Egyptology and VIAS, University of Vienna, Austria . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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1. A ‘Special Procession’ in Neopalatial Crete This contribution focuses on a coherent group of Minoan seal images that depict a distinct procession ritual which can be defined as the ‘Special Procession’ (see esp . CMS II6, nos . 9–2; II7, nos . 7, 12–17; Blakolmer 2016; in press a; in press b) . In contrast to conventional processions in Aegean Bronze Age iconography which show a regular linear file of stereotypical women carrying gifts in the great outdoors (Peterson 1981: 29–41, 174–177; Boulotis 1987; Hägg 2001; Wedde 2004; Blakolmer 2007a; 2008), this ‘Special Procession’ presents many peculiarities . It consists of a row of mainly male, but also some female, participants who are transporting ritual objects such as a double axe, a fringed cloak and a long staff on their shoulders (Figs . 1–2) . It is noteworthy that in several of these seal images male participants are depicted in rapid movement (Fig . 5), while women are portrayed in animated poses (Fig . 2) . These figures also interact and communicate with each other (Fig . 2), thus demonstrating the lively character of this procession . Moreover, instead of taking place in the open air, several indications point to the fact that this procession is occurring in the interior room of a ‘palatial’ building (Figs . 1 and 4) . One of the most striking features of this ‘Special Procession’ is the distinct types of dress worn by the participants: none of the female participants are clad in the usual flounced skirt and none of the male figures wears the Minoan breechcloth (for Aegean dress, see in general Sapouna-Sakellaraki 1971; Jones 2015; Shaw and Chapin 2016) . This means that instead of the most common dress of Neopalatial Crete, the participants of both sexes are depicted with various special costumes . Although, hitherto, we have been mainly unable to define social identity, priestly functions or political ranks from the dress of the figures within the iconography of the Aegean Bronze Age, all these exceptional garments have been deliberately chosen from a restricted pool of élite garments . It is evident therefore that several of the dresses worn in the ‘Special Procession’ possessed a distinct meaning . The most distinctive garment worn by many male participants of this procession is the animal hide-skirt with rounded contour 3 (Figs . 1–3, 5) . In other iconographical contexts of Minoan Crete this dress is worn by high-status individuals who occupy a superior position to the men clad in the usual breechcloth (see, e .g ., CMS V Suppl . 2, no . 106) . On a signet-ring from Kato Syme (Fig . 7), for example, the main actor in the centre runs towards a figure wearing the hide-skirt and presenting the ritual motif of a so-called ‘Snake-Frame’ to him (Lebessi et al. 2004; for the ‘Snake-Frame’ see Hägg and Lindau 1984) . Wearers of such hide-skirts feature in

3

CMS II6, no . 9–11; II7, no . 7, 11–15; see further CMS II6, no . 261; II7, no . 18; V suppl . 2, no . 106; VI, no . 286; XI, no . 238; XIII, no . 136 . For this animal hide-skirt, see Nilsson 1968: 154–158; Sapouna-Sakellaraki 1971: 41–42, no . 100, fig . 8; p . 75–79, nos . 175–185, fig . 14; p . 122–123; Long 1974: 36–37; Marinatos 1993: 135–137; Günkel-Maschek 2012: 42–43; Jones 2015: 251–256 . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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leading, coordinating and introducing roles and evidently possessed outstanding symbolic significance . We can most probably attribute to them the role of palatial functionaries of higher rank (Günkel-Maschek 2012: 43; Blakolmer 2016: 37–39) . Of even higher importance is the male figure wearing a short cloak with varying ornamental decoration and long fringes at its lower border (Nilsson 1968: 160–164; Sapouna-Sakellaraki 1971: 50–51, no . 121c, fig . 10, pls . 34, 45b; Marinatos 1993: 137–138; Marinatos 2010: 21–22; Jones 2015: 266–269) . In a seal image probably depicting the key scene of the ‘Special Procession’ (Fig . 1) the wearer of this type of cloak is preceded and introduced by a man dressed in the animal hide-skirt and holding a staff with curved handle over his shoulder (CMS II6, no . 11), while on the so-called ‘Harvester Vase’ from Ayia Triada (Fig . 8) the wearer of a fringed cloak holding a staff of the aforementioned type leads the male procession (Savignoni 1903: 77–131, pls . I–III; Kaiser 1976: 24–25, 149–155; Blakolmer 2007b; Blakolmer 2008: 265–266, pl . LV) . Since this particular cloak is worn over the animal hide-skirt, this leading figure belongs to the group of the wearers of the hide-skirt . His position or function has thus been increased by being clad in this additional insignium, which allows him to appear as a kind of primus inter pares . In other Minoan seal images this type of fringed cloak is represented as being carried by male or female figures together with a ritual double axe (Figs . 3–4) (CMS II3, no . 8; II7, no . 7; V Suppl . 3, no . 394; Pini 2010) or presented to a male figure (Fig . 6) (CMS II6, no . 7; II3, no . 145; II6, no . 7) . The preeminent significance of the wearer of the fringed cloak as the most important participant and leading character of the ‘Special Procession’ is clear from the iconographical contexts . Furthermore, this is additionally supported by the fact that the seal image showing this figure appears on no less than 256 administrative clay objects from Ayia Triada, thus constituting the most frequently attested seal impression known up until now in Minoan Crete (Hallager 1996: II: 27; Krzyszkowska 2005: 170–172, fig . 324; Tsangaraki 2006: 330–331, no . 34; Haysom 2010: 46–47) . Male participants of the ‘Special Procession’ also have unusually short hair and wear beret-like headgears (Figs . 2, 5 and 8) (for this cap, see esp . Rehak 2005: 272; Stefani 2013: 71–72, 116–117) . In other Minoan images such flat beret-like caps are worn by prominent figures interpreted as dignitaries or priests (CMS II3, no . 147) . Occasionally, female and male participants of this procession wear a torque-like necklace which seems to have possessed a more distinct meaning which eludes us (Koehl 1986; Caskey 1986; Gorogianni 2011) . Among the other garments and dress equipment is a cape on the shoulders worn as an over-garment (Lenuzza 2012: 259– 260) . Finally, the distinct hair-styles of the participants of the ‘Special Procession’ are an indication of their advanced age . Overall this ‘Special Procession’ allows us to recognise differentiation, definition and a possible hierarchy amongst the participants of an important Minoan procession ritual . It is atypical for a Minoan ritual in many aspects, in particular in that remarkably few indicators for a common, ordinary religious ceremony can be detected . It is beyond any doubt that these images reflect the preparation, or an essential part, of a © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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highly exclusive ceremony of extraordinary significance attributed to the uppermost level of the palatial élite in LM (Late Minoan) I Crete (Blakolmer 2016) . Since our investigation of this ‘Special Procession’ is restricted to comparative studies of the various unusual iconographical features of this ritual, a view from Egypt may provide further enlightenment . 2. Possible Egyptian comparanda Compared to the situation on Minoan Crete, Egyptian iconography offers a large variety of material including a substantial corpus of representations preserved mainly from funerary contexts, such as mural paintings or reliefs found in numerous tombs . The interpretation of funerary material generally involves biographic or ritual themes, such as provision for the afterlife . While the search for closer parallels is not conclusive, we can trace some comparable elements that aid in the interpretation of the Minoan ‘Special Procession’ (Table 1) . In regard to the hairstyle and headdress of the participants, a typical shoulder-length haircut, as represented on the Minoan seals, is difficult to find in Egypt . A vague suggestion of shoulder-length hair might be seen in representations of Canaanite people (Schiestl 2009: 78–79, 86–89; Abb . 45 and 292, Abb . 228), where it specifies Asiatic ethnicity within Egyptian contexts, instead of a specific status symbol, as might be assumed for the leader of a procession (Fig . 9; compare the head in Munich, MÄS 7171, Schoske 2000: 164) . An example for shoulder-length hair can be found in the tomb of Djehutyhotep II at el-Bersheh (12th Dynasty, Senwosret II – Senwosret III, Newberry 1894: 16–26; Klebs 1922: 60–61; Willems et al . 2005: 179) . The decoration on the east wall of the inner chamber is divided into two large scenes: in the upper registers the famous and unique scene of the transport of a colossal statue is depicted, whereas in the lower register agricultural scenes are represented . 4 The statue belongs to Djehutyhotep II, a nomarch (title r-pa HAtj-a), a powerful local ruler from the Middle Kingdom, who was also responsible for desert expeditions . The colossal statue (Fig . 10) probably measured 6 .8 m high, and depicts shoulder-length hair, but in Egypt official persons usually wore wigs . It is a biographical scene, with the statue destined to be placed in a sort of chapel at the landing quay of Deir el-Bersheh (Willems et al . 2005: 181–183) . Some details of the dress of the officials and accompanying figures in the scenery are also very interesting (Fig . 11a) . In the lower register, in front of the procession, Djehutyhotep is depicted supervising the great counting of the cattle . He sits below a baldachin and wears a type of cape around his shoulders . As a high-ranking individual, he holds a long undetermined staff and a feather fly-whisk (Newberry 1894: 17, pl . XIX) .

4

For a detailed description of the scene see: http://www .meketre .org/repository/theme/786432 (last accessed 13 .9 .2017) . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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In the transport sequence Djehutyhotep is shown as a standing figure with a long skirt and a “light cape around the shoulders, fastened above his waist” (Fig . 11b; Newberry 1894: 17, pl . XIII) . He is following the transport, and his followers consist of a small procession of offering bearers, one of whom carries a long cloth, probably a long robe, with horizontal design (Fig . 11c), described by Newberry as “perhaps the winter garment” . This dress might be the striped garment that is represented in the desert hunt scene (Newberry 1894: pl . VII); a similar example can be seen in Meir (Blackman and Apted 1953: pl . XVIII) . Other persons in the Djehutyhotep scene in the same register in front of this man each hold a long staff and (probably ostrich) feather fly-whisks on a staff of medium length . A close similarity of the flywhisks with the fork on the shoulder of the participants of the ‘Special Procession’ on the Ayia Triada vase is not evident . This scene is brought into the discussion here, however, because it is a representation of non-religious character, which is determined by a leading figure (usually represented at larger scale in Egypt) wearing an unusual dress (the cape); in addition, the carrying of some sort of cloth in the depiction of the followers can be identified . While focusing on the dress, we should also consider the representations of the Heb-Sed festival (‘feast of millions of years’) in Egypt which was performed by the king . It is an ancient ritual and large parts of the ceremonies are unknown, although some elements and details are preserved from relief cycles or statues . 5 The earliest depictions date to the Early Dynastic period, as can be seen in an ivory figurine of a (anonymous) king from Abydos, dated to the 1st Dynasty (B .M . EA 37996) . The king wears a richly designed cloak featuring a rhomboidal design, and with a broad seam-bordure and fringes at the lower seam 6 (Fig . 12; Glanville 1931: 65–66) . Another Early Dynastic figurine, recently discovered at Tell el-Farkha in the Delta, represents a striding man with shoulder length hair, wrapped in a knee-length cloak with horizontal designs (Błaszczyk 2008: 57–61) and is probably an ‘early royal’ man . In the course of the Heb-Sed festivity the king was ritually rejuvenated as a leader in full possession of his physical and mental abilities (Hornung and Staehelin 2006) .7 The cycle therefore includes elements of a ritual foundation of a building, probably a ritual sleep (Lion-bed-sequence), and an enthroning and receiving of homage by dignitaries from different parts of the country, in order to demonstrate the fertility (in the so called Min-sequence) and the physical strength of the pharaoh before he himself visits the nomes of the country . Over large parts of this cycle the king is dressed in a coat, usually considered as a white coat (made of linen), characterised by a short length,

5 6

7

For a list of preserved scenes and elements see Hornung and Staehelin 2006: 13–32 . Cf . Spencer 1998: 223, fig . 185 . Another early example might be the plaque of king Den from Abydos containing a sort of narrative sequence, showing the king sitting on the podium under a pavilion, as well as the king in running attitude . (B .M . London 32650; ebony, 1st Dynasty . Jiménez Serrano 2002: 66–68) . For the stages of the ritual in the Old Kingdom, see Kaiser 1971 . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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reaching to the knees, and some distance between the neck and the coat collar (Gohary 1992: 207 note 58) . This coat was probably not always of white linen, as we can see already from the Early Dynastic figurine; furthermore, bright greenish-blue colour on a Heb-Sed-coat is preserved from a relief of Senwosret III at Dahshur . Here the coat has a striped border including a leopard skin pattern . Following Oppenheim (2002: 143–144 and pl . 163a) one has to assume that the ‘white linen version’ was not always the case (Fig . 13) . During the sportive performance in this ritual, in order to demonstrate his physical strength the king is shown in a running position, wearing a short skirt, as we can see also on the plaque of Den (Jiménez Serrano 2002: 68) and in representations from the Old Kingdom . Naturally, the king is also equipped with some insignia in the course of this ritual . Besides the conventional flagellum, he receives a long stave with a curved end . Following the reconstructed Heb-Sed sequence of Niuserre by Kaiser (1971: 87–105), the presentation and the hand-over of the long staff possibly took place after the homage scene (Fig . 14a), since in the subsequent part of the Min-sequence the king already holds this insignium . This long staff with a curved end then becomes an integrated component in a bundle of objects that he usually holds in his hands while wearing the coat (v . Bissing and Kees 1923: Taf . 4 and 5), except in the running scenes (in the Upuaut sequence), where he demonstrates his abilities as ruler of the entire world (Fig . 14b) . (Cf . for example, the representations from the Third Intermediate Period from Bubastis; Naville 1892: pl . XXVI) . Additionally, in the last two scenes of the cycle, in the so-called ‘Upper Egyptian palanquin procession’ the king receives the Uas-staff with the enigmatic emblem of a canid-shaped animal head (Kaiser 1971: 97, Taf . 5) . Chronologically closer to the Minoan Neopalatial period are examples from the New Kingdom, such as the representation from TT 192, the tomb of Kheruef (Epigraphic Survey 1980: pl . 24) . This representation depicts a rare image of the royal jubilee in a private funerary context . The tomb owner was the master of ceremonies for two Heb-Sed performances of Amenhotep III . We are therefore not looking at the ritual from a royal point of view, but from a private funerary background belonging to the category of biographical scenes (Fig . 15a, b) . The Heb-Sed festival was depicted on the west wall of the portico in the tomb (Epigraphic Survey 1980: pl . 24), and we recognize the figure of the king, Amenhotep III, seated and receiving honours (Epigraphic Survey 1980: pl . 26) (Fig . 15a), leaving the palace (Epigraphic Survey 1980: pl . 42; Fig . 15b), and also standing in the night bark in jubilee attire (Epigraphic Survey 1980: pl . 46) . In all three cases he wears the kneelength Heb-Sed coat and holds the long hooked staff and the flagellum . Viewed from an Egyptian perspective we may conclude that we find some similarities in hairstyle and headdress, garments, insignia and other iconographical elements that are used in festival scenes . The contexts of the representations in Egypt are either more private biographical scenes, such as the Djehutyhotep procession and that from TT 192, Kheruef, or belong to the royal sequences of festivals of proclamatory or © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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religious character such as the Heb-Sed ritual, as can be seen in the Niuserre festival scenes where the king is the central agent in the scenery, which belong to the highest level of representations of the king involved in ritual activity . 3. Conclusion What conclusions can be drawn from these parallels in Egypt in order to gain a better understanding of the ‘Special Procession’ in Minoan Crete? As the comparanda for the fringed cloak, the staff with curved end, and the Egyptian contexts of the running Pharaoh and the Heb-Sed festival suggest, these features were characteristic of the uppermost level of the sphere of Egyptian kingship . As mentioned at the beginning of this paper, the Neopalatial period of Crete was the time when the rulers of Knossos were looking to Egypt and the Near East for models and ideas in order to create new official symbols and customs of rulership, although the majority of the elements of the ‘Special Procession’ clearly stand within Minoan tradition . Several indications can be found which allow an interpretation of the participants of the ‘Special Procession’ as the Minoan ruler and his entourage of noble men and women in distinct ceremonial functions . Consequently, we might assume that the ritual itself possessed a ‘political’ character concurrent with the uppermost level of the palatial society of Minoan Crete . Given the fact that, until now, we have been ignorant in regard to the system of rulership in Neopalatial Crete, any ruling individuals, their names, and even their sex, this ‘Special Procession’ offers us the chance to grasp, for the first time, a real ceremony of rulership, possibly the initiation ritual or an annual ceremony associated with a Minoan political leader . Bibliography v . Bissing, F . W . and Kees, H . (eds .) 1923 Die kleine Festdarstellung. Das Re-Heiligtum des Königs Ne-woser-Re (Rathures): Die Kleine Festdarstellung, Volume 2. Leipzig . Blackman, A . M . and Apted, M . R . 1953 The Rock Tombs of Meir. Part VI. Archaeological Survey of Egypt, 29th Memoir . London . Blakolmer, F . 2007a Minoisch-mykenische ‘Prozessionsfresken’: Überlegungen zu den dargestellten und den nicht dargestellten Gaben . In: E . Alram-Stern and G . Nightingale (eds .), Keimelion. The Formation of Elites and Elitist Lifestyles from Mycenaean Palatial Times to the Homeric Period. Akten des internationalen Kongresses vom 3. bis 5. Februar 2005 in Salzburg . Veröffentlichungen der Mykenischen Kommission 27 . Vienna, 41–57 . 2007b Die „Schnittervase“ von Agia Triada . Zu Narrativität, Mimik und Prototypen in der minoischen Bildkunst . Creta Antica 8, 201–242 . 2008

Processions in Aegean iconography II: who are the participants? In: L . A . Hitchcock, R . Laffineur and J . Crowley (eds .), DAIS. The Aegean Feast, Proceedings of the 12th International Aegean Conference, University of Melbourne, Centre for Classics and Archaeology, 25–29 March 2008. Aegaeum 29 . Liège – Austin, 257–268 . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Captions Fig . 1

Seal image from Ayia Triada (after CMS II6, no . 11)

Fig . 2

Seal image from Ayia Triada (after CMS II6, no . 9)

Fig . 3

Seal image from Kato Zakros (after CMS II7, no . 7)

Fig . 4

Seal image from Akrotiri, Thera (after CMS V Suppl . 3, no . 394)

Fig . 5

Seal image from Kato Zakros (after CMS II7, no . 15)

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Seal-stone from Malia (after CMS II3, no . 145)

Fig . 7

Gold-ring from Kato Syme (after Lebessi et al. 2004: pl . 2)

Fig . 8

‘Harvester vase’ from Ayia Triada, reconstruction (after Blakolmer 2008: pl . LV .12)

Fig . 9

Head of a Canaanite dignitary from area F/I, Tell el-Dabca (courtesy of R . Schiestl)

Fig . 10 El-Bersheh, Tomb Djehutyhotep II, East wall of the inner chamber, upper part 12th Dynasty, Senwosret II–Senwosret III . (after Newberry 1894, courtesy of the Egypt Exploration Society) Fig . 11 El-Bersheh, Details from the tomb of Djehutyhotep, East wall of the inner chamber, 12th Dynasty, Senwosret II–Senwosret III . after Newberry 1894 a – pl . XIX; b – pl . XIII (courtesy of the Egypt Exploration Society); c – Detail from b), after Newberry 1894: pl . XIII, (courtesy of the Egypt Exploration Society) Fig . 12 King in Heb-Sed coat, from Abydos, 1st Dynasty 1, ivory, 8 .8 × 3 .5 × 3 .1cm (BM EA 37996; drawing E . Schuster, after Glanville 1931) Fig . 13 Relief from Dahshur, Heb-Sed coat of Senwosret III, 12th Dynasty (drawing E . Schuster, after Hornung and Staehelin 2006: fig . 4) Fig . 14 Scenes from the Niuserre-Heb-Sed sequence, after v . Bissing and Kees 1923, a – Blatt 4, b – Blatt 13 (drawings: E . Schuster) Fig . 15 TT 192, Kheruef, Amenhotep III in the Heb-Sed coat; after The Epigraphic Survey 1980; a – pl . 24, b – pl . 42 (drawings: E . Schuster) © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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A ‘Special Procession’ in Minoan Crete as a Ritual of Rulership?

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Late Bronze Age Offering Pits from Hala Sultan Tekke, Cyprus: Diachronic Perspectives of Activities, Ceremonies and Rituals in a Suburban Area Teresa Bürge 1 Abstract Area A, situated at the eastern outskirts of the Late Bronze Age city of Hala Sultan Tekke, is characterised by rich tombs and a considerable number of ‘pits’ . Most of the latter are backfilled wells which date roughly from the 13th to the early 12th centuries BC . Three deep pits (Pits B, N and P) dating from the 15th to the 13th centuries BC which differ from the wells in regard to their contents, context and chronology, will be examined in this paper, with one of the wells, Well Q, and its backfill discussed in detail . These features contained high amounts of tableware and other finds such as figurines, worked bones and textile production tools . Pits B and P primarily yielded complete vessels and other objects, but no human skeletons thus excluding an interpretation as tombs . It is suggested therefore that these features were connected to feasting and offering rituals, which explains the deliberate deposition of the objects . This interpretation raises questions about the function, use and meaning of Area A during the 15th–13th centuries BC .

1. Introduction Hala Sultan Tekke (see position in Fig . 1) is located on the southern coast of Cyprus and was one of the largest Cypriot towns of the period around 1200 BC . The site is located close to the modern town of Larnaca on a small bay, which nowadays is partly silted up and separated from the sea . So far, only a small part of the town has been unearthed, but the total area of occupation may have been over 20ha (as suggested by Knapp 2013: 355) and even as large as 50ha (Fischer and Bürge in press a) . Ongoing excavations by the New Swedish Cyprus Expedition since 2010, under the direction of Peter M . Fischer of the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, have revealed a number of new city quarters . Georadar and geomagnetic surveys were also carried out in order to trace the entire extent of the Late Bronze Age town (Fischer 2011: 70–72; Trinks et al. 2013; Trinks and Fischer in Fischer and Bürge 2013: 57–59; Trinks 2015) . Although it is clear from the presence of ceramics and other materials deriving from settlement and burial contexts that there was a settlement at Hala Sultan Tekke by the end of the Middle Cypriot period, i .e . before 1650/1600 BC, no architectural structures can be assigned to this period . The earliest buildings date to the end

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Institute for Oriental and European Archaeology (OREA), Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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of the Late Cypriot IIC period, viz . the end of the 13th century BC . The major part of the excavated structures, however, dates to the first half of the 12th century BC, i .e . the Late Cypriot IIIA period . This indicates that the size of the town increased suddenly and relatively fast in the latter half of the 13th century BC until it reached its peak around 1200 BC . This prosperous period seems therefore to have only lasted for several decades until Hala Sultan Tekke was violently destroyed in the first half of the 12th century BC (Fischer and Bürge 2015; Fischer and Bürge 2016; Fischer and Bürge, in press a) . The Late Cypriot IIC/IIIA town is characterised by a number of city quarters, some of which contain monumental buildings of ashlar masonry (Hult 1981; Åström 1996) . The settlement and especially the wealthy tombs within the settlement, and its surroundings, attest to the prosperity of Hala Sultan Tekke in the Late Bronze Age . The burials contained plenty of gold and silver jewellery with precious stones, imported pottery and other objects (e .g . Bailey 1976; Niklasson 1983) . The evident prosperity of the inhabitants of Hala Sultan Tekke certainly derived from international trade as a result of the town having the best protected harbour on the island (Åström 1986; Devillers et al. 2015) . Other major activities that contributed to the socio-economic development of the town included copper working (Mehofer in Fischer and Bürge 2014) and a purple dye industry (Fischer and Bürge 2016) . 2. The suburban Area A of Hala Sultan Tekke A number of densely-occupied city quarters of Hala Sultan Tekke have been uncovered so far . These date mainly from the later part of the Late Cypriot IIC period to the Late Cypriot IIIA, i .e . from roughly 1200 to 1150 BC (Åström 1996; Fischer 2011; 2012; Fischer and Bürge 2013; Fischer and Bürge 2014; Fischer and Bürge 2015; Fischer and Bürge 2016; Fischer and Bürge, in press a) . Area A of Hala Sultan Tekke (Fig . 2), which is the location of the features discussed here, is situated approximately 400m south-east of the excavated parts of the settlement . Test trenches were dug there in 1971 but revealed no significant results (Åström 1976) . Georadar and geomagnetic surveys carried out in 2014 indicated that the 1 .1ha size area was not built upon and contained more than 80 circular anomalies, i .e . backfilled ‘pits’ (Trinks 2015) . Previous excavations of chamber tombs in Area A (Karageorghis 1976) and other tombs close by (Karageorghis 1984; Samaes and Nys 2010) suggest that there may have been a large cemetery in the area (Fischer and Bürge 2015: 57) . Excavations in Area A by the New Swedish Cyprus expedition (2013–2016) partly confirmed this hypothesis . Amongst the 23 excavated anomalies so far, one was interpreted as a well which was reused as burial for six humans and a canid (Fischer and Satraki 2014; Stolle in Fischer and Bürge 2015: 42–44) . Another anomaly, excavated in 2016, was a rich tomb (Tomb X; Fischer and Bürge 2017; Fischer and Bürge, in press b) . Thirteen pits turned out to be backfilled wells and four contained deposits of pottery vessels, loom weights and other finds – although no human bones © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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whatsoever – and are therefore interpreted as offering pits . Three 2 of these pits (B, P, N) will be described below, in addition to one of the wells (Q) which is particularly interesting because of its backfill . 3. The offering pits The offering pits are so far unique at Hala Sultan Tekke . They are characterised by circular (Pits B and P), oval (Pit N) or figure-eight-shaped (Pit V; see note 2) outlines . The circular pits closely resemble wells (see below) as regards size and layout; however, they have no steps which are characteristic for the wells . Nor are they deep enough to reach groundwater, and this clearly excludes a function of these pits as wells . 3 .1 Pit B This feature has a circular shape with a diameter of around 1m (see preliminary report in Fischer and Bürge 2015: 45–46) and is approximately 3 .2m deep . The first complete objects were located 0 .3m below the surface and included an intact Mycenaean alabastron (Fig . 3), an intact Mycenaean juglet and parts of a baking tray . Below a layer of yellowish-orange soil, consisting of a mixture of ochre and limestone, several other complete objects were found in close proximity: a loom weight of fired clay lying inside a complete White Slip II bowl, another White Slip II bowl, a bowl of Monochrome ware, a cooking pot, a lamp, a baking tray of Coarse ware, a wall bracket and a bone shuttle . The layer of ochre-coloured soil seems to have been used to ‘seal off’ the objects . The next layer of soil contained a Mycenaean juglet, a Mycenaean shallow cup, two Mycenaean stirrup jars, the upper part of a White Painted wheel-made trefoil-mouthed jug, the rim of a Plain White wheel-made jar, two White Slip II late bowls, the lower part of a Bucchero jug, a Base-ring II juglet, two small hand-made, wheel-finished, bowls with a vestigial handles and black slip and a highly burnished surface, and a stone grinder . Between 300 and 400 fragments of scale mail were positioned along the outlines of the shaft (see also Lindqvist 2015) . Faunal remains 3 from Pit B comprise fish and bird bones, a bird eggshell and a large amount of crushed hexaplex . Preserved botanical remains 4 include a capsule

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3 4

Pit V, which was excavated 2016, contained over 60 complete or reconstructable vessels in addition to a large number of sherds . Except for two figurines, all the finds registered so far consist exclusively of tableware (see Fischer and Bürge 2017) . However, this pit will not be discussed in this paper as the study of the material was still in progress at the time of submission . The study of faunal remains by D . Reese and O . Lernau is in progress . The botanical remains were studied by D . Kofel; see also Kofel 2015; Kofel 2016 . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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fragment of Linum usitatissimum and a cereal grain – although these may have ended up in the pit by coincidence judging by this very small amount . The contents of the shaft were found virtually undisturbed which is evident from the largely complete or intact vessels and other objects and the unbroken ochre ‘sealing’ . The material can be dated to the 13th century BC, i .e . the Late Cypriot IIC period . 3 .2 Pit N Pit N is a feature of rectangular, almost oval shape, measuring approximately 1 .6 × 2 .2m and has a depth of 1 .05m (see preliminary report in Fischer and Bürge 2016: 50) . It was clearly distinct from the surrounding virgin soil due to its light reddish-brown, compact fill . It contained a negligible amount of bones and shells (hexaplex and ruditapes), and a relatively small amount of pottery . The pottery fragments are almost exclusively of hand-made Plain, Black/Red Slip, hand-made Coarse, Monochrome, Base-ring I, and White Slip II early wares . Almost complete finds from this feature include a shallow bowl of Red-on-Black ware, two bowls of Base-ring I ware, and a bowl of early White Slip II ware . The function of this feature is not entirely clear . It differs from the other pits by its rectangular/oval shape and its shallowness which definitely excludes a primary use as a well . A (looted) burial is unlikely due to the very small amount of bones . The sherds were mainly scattered within the pit, meaning that they were deliberately broken before or in the process of deposition . The remains from this pit can be dated to the 14th century BC, i .e . the Late Cypriot II(A–)B period based on the presence of early White Slip II . 3 .3 Pit P This feature has a circular shape with a diameter of approximately 1 .2–1 .4m and a depth of 2 .1m (see preliminary report in Fischer and Bürge 2016: 51–52) . The fill inside the feature has a similar reddish-brown colour and compact texture as Pit N . A hand-made cooking pot of Coarse ware, a loom weight and two bone shuttles were found 0 .4m below topsoil . A concentration of complete finds started at 1 .4m below the surface . These finds comprise four shallow bowls of Plain White wheel-made ware, a lamp of Plain ware, a bowl of Monochrome ware, four bowls, two juglets, a jug and a tankard of Basering I ware; the rim of a krater of Bichrome wheel-made ware, a fragment of a Proto-White Slip bowl, a White Slip I bichrome bowl (Fig . 4), and a White Slip I monochrome bowl . A flat, square inlay (?) of ivory, and eight circular, oval or pyramidal loom weights were also found in the fill . Faunal remains from the pit include bones of small mammals, birds and rodents and three ground-down astragali of ovis/capra . Pit P did not contain any human osteological material but numerous complete and even intact finds, most of which are characteristic of the Late Cypriot IB period (15th century BC) . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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4. The wells The high number of wells in Area A and the short distance between each of them is striking . The wells are characterised by a circular layout with a diameter of roughly 1 .5m and a depth of approximately 5–6m . Steps are cut on two sides, approximately 40cm apart . All the wells excavated to date were backfilled in the later part of the Late Bronze Age, i .e . in the 13th–12th centuries BCE, with one exception which contained some sherds from the early Iron Age . The material from the fill of the wells is often regarded as consisting merely of garbage . In fact, a large number of small pottery fragments with few matches may hint at a secondary function of these wells as garbage disposal; however, most of the wells display a large number of complete objects in the fill which may have been deliberately deposited or dropped in the well . It is necessary therefore to investigate whether there is a preference for certain objects, certain vessel parts, or a high number of matching fragments which may hint at a deliberate breaking and deposition of the objects . In addition, the osteological and botanical materials need to be taken into consideration . Specific animals or bones may favour the possibility of interpreting a backfilled well as a garbage area, while others may suggest ritual or other kinds of deposits and this also applies to botanical remains . Only one of the wells, Well Q, will be discussed here, although other wells also contained remarkable finds in the backfill (see e .g . Fischer and Bürge 2015: 47, fig . 27; 48, fig . 28; 49, fig . 30; Fischer and Bürge 2016: 48, fig . 17; 52, fig . 22) which require further study . 4 .1 Well Q Well Q has a diameter of 1 .3–1 .5m and was excavated to a depth of 2 .8m . The backfill consisted of a large amount of pottery intermingled with soil and some bones and shells . Unfortunately, the upper part of the backfill (down to 1 .3m from the surface) was disturbed in a later period which was determined by the presence of articulated leg bones of a young Camelus . Well Q seems to contain no other intrusions, judging by the pottery which can be exclusively dated to the Late Bronze Age . The well contained in total 1900 pottery fragments (Fig . 5) . Of these, 56% belong to the plain wares and includes tableware, such as bowls, kraters, jugs, or juglets, also storage vessels and a high number of undiagnostic fragments which as yet have not be assigned to a specific vessel type . The Mycenaean pottery constitutes 11% of the total amount and is represented by a variety of decorated table wares of which more than two-thirds are closed shapes and almost one-third are open . These are followed by 9% of Coarse wares, which include mainly cooking pots but also some baking trays . Base-ring wares constitute 8% and mainly consist of bowls, jugs and juglets . White Slip II is represented by 8% and almost exclusively comprises hemispherical bowls and occasionally tankards . The remaining 8% includes other locally produced tableware such as White Painted wheel-made, © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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White shaved, Red Lustrous wheel-made and Bucchero, as well as storage or transport vessels such as pithoi and ‘Canaanite’ jars . Other finds include a Basering female figurine, a White Painted figurine of a seated human, two loom weights and a number of worked bones including two ground-down astragali of sheep or goat, a bone beater and six holed shells . A preliminary analysis of the osteological material yielded partly burnt bones of cattle, sheep/goat, hedgehog and birds, as well as shells and sea snails . The preliminary dating of the material covers the time span from the 14th to the end of the 13th or the beginning of the 12th centuries . Further analyses of the pottery from Well Q which will include relative chronological studies and also an exact account of vessel types and shapes, the number of matching fragments and the position of breaks, and of the faunal and botanical remains, will shed further light on the reuse of this well . The extraordinarily high amount of fine tableware and Mycenaean imports in Well Q and the high amount of matches compared to other contexts in the Late Cypriot settlement of Hala Sultan Tekke may hint at a deliberate breaking and deposition of tableware, perhaps as part of feasting rituals (cf . von Rüden 2016 for a similar situation at Late Cypriot IIC/IIIA Palaepaphos-Evreti) . 5. Conclusions Area A at Hala Sultan Tekke displays a number of different functions . On the one hand it was the location of burials and feasting or offering rituals which were possibly connected to these burials, while on the other hand it was a resource for water . There is a continuity of use of this area from the 16th to the 12th centuries BC, thus spanning almost the entire Late Bronze Age and a much longer period of time than that attested by the structures in the settlement . Further excavations and studies will certainly allow a better understanding of the activities carried out in this area . Geophysical prospections and excavations of the surrounding areas will help to situate the area in relation to the settlement . Acknowledgements I would like to thank the director of the Swedish excavations at Hala Sultan Tekke, Peter M . Fischer, for allowing me to study and publish this material . I am also very grateful for his support and comments on this paper . Bibliography Åström, P . 1976 Excavations in 1971: Trench 3 . In: P . Åström, D . M . Bailey and V . Karageorghis (eds .), Hala Sultan Tekke 1: Excavations 1897–1971 . Studies in Mediterranean Archaeology 45 . Göteborg, 112–119 . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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1986

Hala Sultan Tekke – An International Harbour Town of the Late Cypriote Bronze Age . Opuscula Atheniensia 16, 7–17 .

1996

Hala Sultan Tekke – A Late Cypriot Harbour Town . In: P . Åström and E . Herscher (eds .), Late Bronze Age Settlement in Cyprus: Function and Relationship . Studies in Mediterranean Archaeology and Literature 126 . Jonsered, 9–14 .

Bailey, D . M . 1976 The British Museum Excavations at Hala Sultan Tekke in 1897 and 1898: The Material in the British Museum . In: P . Åström, D . M . Bailey and V . Karageorghis (eds .), Hala Sultan Tekke 1: Excavations 1897–1971 . Studies in Mediterranean Archaeology 45:1 . Göteborg, 1–32 . Devillers, B ., Brown, M . and Morhange, C . 2015 Paleo-environmental evolution of the Larnaca Salt Lakes (Cyprus) and the relationship to second millennium BC settlement . Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 1, 73–80 . Fischer, P . M . 2011 The New Swedish Cyprus Expedition 2010: Excavations at Dromolaxia Vizatzia/Hala Sultan Tekke: Preliminary Results . Opuscula. Annual of the Swedish Institutes at Athens and Rome 4, 69–98 . 2012

The New Swedish Cyprus Expedition 2011: Excavations at Hala Sultan Tekke: Preliminary Results . Opuscula. Annual of the Swedish Institutes at Athens and Rome 5, 89–112 .

Fischer, P . M . and Bürge, T . 2013 The New Swedish Cyprus Expedition 2012: Excavations at Hala Sultan Tekke: Preliminary Results . Opuscula. Annual of the Swedish Institutes at Athens and Rome 6, 45–79 . 2014

The New Swedish Cyprus Expedition 2013: Excavations at Hala Sultan Tekke . Preliminary Results . Opuscula. Annual of the Swedish Institutes at Athens and Rome 7, 61–106 .

2015

The New Swedish Cyprus Expedition 2014: Excavations at Hala Sultan Tekke . Preliminary Results . Opuscula. Annual of the Swedish Institutes at Athens and Rome 8, 27–79 .

2016

The New Swedish Cyprus Expedition 2015: Excavations at Hala Sultan Tekke . Preliminary Results . Opuscula. Annual of the Swedish Institutes at Athens and Rome 9, 33–58 .

2017

Tombs and Offering Pits at the Late Bronze Age Metropolis of Hala Sultan Tekke, Cyprus . Bulletin of the American School of Oriental Research 377, 161–218 .

in press a Two Late Cypriot City Quarters at Hala Sultan Tekke: The Swedish Excavations 2010–2017 . Studies in Mediterranean Archaeology . in press b The New Swedish Cyprus Expedition 2016: Excavations at Hala Sultan Tekke (The Söderberg Expedition) . Preliminary results . With contributions by L . Recht, D . Kofel and D . Kaniewski, N . Marriner & C . Morhange . Opuscula. Annual of the Swedish Institutes at Athens and Rome 10 . Fischer, P . M . and Satraki, A . 2014 Appendix 1: ‘Tomb’ A from Hala Sultan Tekke 2013 . Opuscula. Annual of the Swedish Institutes at Athens and Rome 7, 86–88 . Hult, G . 1981 Hala Sultan Tekke 7: Excavations in Area 8 in 1977 . Studies in Mediterranean Archaeology 45:7 . Göteborg . Karageorghis, V . 1976 Two Late Bronze Age Tombs from Hala Sultan Tekke . In: P . Åström, D . M . Bailey and V . Karageorghis (eds .), Hala Sultan Tekke 1: Excavations 1897–1971 . Studies in Mediterranean Archaeology 45:1 . Göteborg, 71–89 . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Teresa Bürge Chronique des fouilles et découvertes archéologiques à Chypre en 1983 . Bulletin de Correspondance Hellénique 108, 893–966 .

Knapp, A . B . 2013 The Archaeology of Cyprus: From Earliest Prehistory through the Bronze Age . Cambridge . Kofel, D . 2015 Appendix 4: Preliminary Archaeobotanical Analysis . Opuscula. Annual of the Swedish Institutes at Athens and Rome 8, 73–76 . 2016

Preliminary Archaeobotanical Analysis . Opuscula. Annual of the Swedish Institutes at Athens and Rome 9, 53–57 .

Lindqvist, A . 2015 Appendix 3: Plaques from Pit B . Opuscula. Annual of the Swedish Institutes at Athens and Rome 8, 71–72 . Niklasson, K . 1983 Tomb 23: A Shaft-Grave of the Late Cypriote III Period . In: P . Åström, E . Åström, A . Hatziantoniou, K . Niklasson and U . Öbrink (eds .), Hala Sultan Tekke 8: Excavations 1971–1979 . Studies in Mediterranean Archaeology 45:8 . Göteborg, 169–213 . Rüden, C . von 2016 Concluding Remarks: Feasting, Craft and Depositional Practice in Late Bronze Age Palaepaphos . In: C . von Rüden, A . Georgiou, A . Jacobs and P . Halstead (eds .), Feasting, Craft and Depositional Practice in Late Bronze Age Palaepaphos. The Well Fillings of Evreti . Bochumer Forschungen zur Ur- und Frühgeschichtlichen Archäologie 8 . Rahden, 419–425 . Samaes, M . and Nys, K . 2010 T .1 MLA 1173, An Extra Urban Tomb of the Late Bronze Age Site near Hala Sultan Tekke . Report of the Department of Antiquities, Cyprus 2010, 199–228 . Trinks, I . 2015 Appendix 1: The Geophysical Survey at Hala Sultan Tekke . An Overview . Opuscula. Annual of the Swedish Institutes at Athens and Rome 8, 56–59 . Trinks, I ., Fischer, P . M ., Löcker, K . and Flöry, S . 2013 Hala Sultan Tekke Revisited – Archaeological Prospection on Cyprus 1980 and 2010/12 . In: W . Neubauer, I . Trinks, R . B . Salisbury and C . Einwögerer (eds .), Archaeological Prospection: Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Archaeological Prospection, Vienna, May 29th – June 2nd 2013 . Vienna, 285–287 .

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Fig . 1 Map of Cyprus with major Late Bronze Age settlements (graphics: T . Bürge)

Fig . 2 Air photograph of Area A during excavations (June 2016; photo: P . M . Fischer and T . Bürge) © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Fig . 3 Mycenaean alabastron from Pit B (photo: P . M . Fischer)

Fig . 4 White Slip I bichrome bowl from Pit P during excavation (photo: P . M . Fischer) © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

Late Bronze Age Offering Pits from Hala Sultan Tekke, Cyprus

Fig . 5 Distribution of wares from Well Q

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Weeping Figurines: Function and Symbolism of some Rare Mourning Records Found Inside Ancient Egyptian Tombs Alessandra Colazilli 1 Abstract Mourning and weeping were an essential part of the ancient Egyptian ritual of rebirth, due to their mythical background . Rare figurines found inside tombs appear to confirm the desire to maintain this practice, in addition to the well-known painted or relief evidence . Recovered examples, dating back to at least the Middle Kingdom and up to the Greco-Roman period, show the typical mourning attitudes suggestive of grief . These objects were probably buried next to the deceased, to guarantee everlasting mourning .

1. Weeping and mourning in ancient Egyptian sacred texts and art: myth and ritual Through the analysis of ancient Egyptian literature and art, it is evident that feelings such as grief and sorrow were an essential component of ancient Egyptian funerary ritual . Weeping and mourning were an inextricable part of the rebirth process, due to their mythological background . This can be confirmed through examination of sacred texts and literature . One of the most interesting examples is the importance of the primeval god’s tears during the creation process of humankind, as related through cosmogonic texts: “I have created the gods from my sweat, and the people from the tears of my eye” (de Buck 1961: CT VII 464–465, spell 1130; see also pBM EA 10188 in Faulkner 1938: 41, 71, lines 29 .3–4) . Additional textual evidence shows that divine tears, together with all body secretions, were part of the life-giving process, and the origin of symbolic elements employed during rebirth ritual . This demonstrates that rebirth can be achieved by passing through pain and sorrow, and underlay the prevailing ancient Egyptian dichotomy of life and death, good and evil (Derchain 1965) . Regenerative power embodied by tears and weeping appears in mythical accounts and Late Period religious texts . These concern Isis’ tears as the source of the Nile flood which, in turn, stimulated the rebirth of nature, corresponding to Osiris’ resurrection: “I flood this land (with tears) today” (Faulkner 1936: 124, line 3 .16) . Unfortunately, this late tradition is not supported by indisputable evidence in the earliest texts, and the unique spell from the Pyramid Texts potentially recalling the

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Department of Sciences of Antiquity, Sapienza Università di Roma, Italy . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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event may have actually referred to another goddess: “in the night of the great flood, which proceeds from the Great” (Sethe 1908: 144, Pyr . 265e, spell 249) . Nevertheless, the belief became popular in the Greco-Roman and Mediaeval sources, contributing to the connection between Isis and the inundation and is not in contradiction with earlier Egyptian religious thought (Derchain 1970) . Among all the divinities, Isis and Nephthys are those that guide the lament for the death of Osiris, which was considered as a moment of extreme danger with the potential to cause chaos . The earliest evidence is found in the Pyramid Texts: “To say by Isis and Nephthys: the ḥȝ .t-bird comes, the kite comes; they are Isis and Nephthys . They are come in search of their brother Osiris; (They are come) in search of their brother . You who are (here), you who are (there), weep for your brother; Isis, weep for your brother; Nephthys, weep for your brother . Isis sits, her hands upon her head; Nephthys has indeed seized the tip of (her) two breasts because of her brother” (Sethe 1910: 219–220, Pyr . 1280–82a, spell 535) . The purpose of achieving a perpetual lament lies exactly in this account which evokes the mourning for the god . This continues to be transmitted through several texts until the Greco-Roman period, remaining unvaried inside the Book of the Dead (ex . Davis 1894: 85, BD Chapter XIX, lines 10–11) . It also becomes the central topic of dedicated ritual texts devoted to the two wailing sisters: the ‘Lamentation of Isis and Nephthys’ (De Horrack 1886), and the Song of Isis and Nephthys (Faulkner 1934; Faulkner 1936), which date to the Ptolemaic period . Although Isis and Nephthys are the prototypical wailing women, all the gods, as well as humankind, are involved in mourning Osiris’ death, “The gods in Buto were filled with compassion, when they came to Osiris, at the voice of weeping of Isis and at the lamentation of Nephthys, at the wailing of these two spirits [for this Great One who comes forth] from the Dwat . The Souls of Buto dance for you; they beat their flesh for you; they hit their arms for you; they dishevel their hair for you; they smite their legs for you” (Sethe 1910: 475–476, Pyr. 1973a–d and 1974a–d, spell 670); “Gods and men, their faces are toward you lamenting you in unison, while I can see I call upon you with tears to the height of heaven” (Lamentation of Isis and Nephthys, 2 .10–2 .12 in de Horrack 1886: 5) . To wail and mourn therefore was perceived as a necessary rite of passage through tears, evocative of the myth, and that all gods and men share the same goal: to weep in order to guarantee a perpetual lament and to achieve a new life . That is the reason why professional mourning men and women were often involved in funerary processions performing their lament, as depicted on walls and objects . The mythological background justifies their presence, role and function . Lamentation was not only an expression of grief and sorrow at the death of a beloved person, but a ritualised way through which human mourners were considered substitutes of Isis and Nephthys, and the deceased a new Osiris searching for rebirth as the god achieved, thanks to his sisters’ weeping . Textual sources convey the manner in which this ritual was performed inside temples: “The entire temple shall be sanctified and there shall be brought in two women pure of body and virgin with the hair of their bodies removed their heads adorned with wigs … drums in their hand and their names inscribed on © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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their arms to wit Isis and Nephthys, and they shall sing from the stanzas of this book in the presence of god” (The Song of Isis and Nephthys, 1 .3–1 .5 in Faulkner 1936: 122) . Artistic evidence in the forms of paintings and reliefs inside tombs depict representations of mourning and weeping people supporting the funerary procession, in order to guide the deceased from his house to his resting place and guarantee him rebirth (see Werbrouck 1938) . In addition to the well-known painted and relief evidence, some rare figurines in the shape of mourners, found inside tombs, seem to confirm the desire to maintain the practice of a perpetual lament as an essential part of the ancient Egyptian ritual of rebirth . Given that, and despite the lack of records, the presence of these small objects can be attested from the end of the Old Kingdom up to Greco-Roman period which suggests that such a custom remained unchanged . 2. Mourning figurines Bearing in mind the meaning of weeping and lamentation in religious texts and art, the interpretation of lamenting figurines employed for funerary purposes will be undertaken . Although a small amount has been recorded up until now, the importance of the figurines’ presence inside Egyptian tombs must be emphasised . The figurines are generally female, although male ones have been also identified . The female figurines are bare breasted, possibly wear a garment, and coloured decoration on the body and face, consisting of black and red ink, is also present . Two types can be observed: the ‘mourning pot’ type, constructed from hollow pottery vases with added heads, breasts and arms, moulded in typical mourning attitudes, providing a cylindrical shape to the figurine; and the ‘human-shaped’ type, which are small figurines moulded in clay or sculpted in wood in the form of a standing, crouching or seated mourner . The dates are uncertain for both categories as a result of incomplete excavation reports or museum catalogues and can be only estimated . Both types were probably buried next to the deceased to guarantee perpetual mourning . 2 .1 The ‘mourning pot’ type The real problem with all these objects is the lack of information because they are almost completely derived from museum acquisitions, from previously private collections, and thus lack clear information about their exact find spot . This is the case for four figurines of baked clay in the shape of mourners originating from Asyut, dating to the 1st Intermediate Period, and now in the Museum of Royal Arts and History in Brussels (E 7119, H . 27cm – E 7119b, H . 26cm – E 7119c, H . 25cm – E 7119d, H . 23cm) but formerly in the von Bissing Collection (Von Bissing 1931: 157, pl . VII, figs . 1–2; Werbrouck 1938: 97, pl . I; Breasted 1948: © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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68, n . 2) . The location and approximate date are the only available information about these very characteristic objects . The lower part of the body consists of a pot, over which the artisan moulded the upper part including arms, breasts and head . All the four figurines are female, with naked breasts, as is traditional, and they each perform mourning gestures . Two of the figures have naked chests, two wear garments, one is pointing her left hand to her temple, another has both hands on the chest, one has both hands on her cheeks under her eyes, while the last one is bent forward . Traces of colour are preserved on all of the examples with red for the skin and black for the hair and eyes . In the 19th century W . M . F . Petrie discovered two examples in a tomb at Denderah dated to the 21st Dynasty . One is now in the Petrie Museum in London (Fig . 1), and is depicted with her hands to her head, while the other is in the Museum of Royal Arts and History in Brussels and has her hands on her cheeks under her eyes (E 3207, H . 26 .5cm) . Both examples have stylised decoration on their bodies to render garments . Their shapes are quite different compared to the previously described figurines, but the technique is the same: a cylindrical hollow, wheel-made jar with moulded arms, heads and faces added afterwards . Dimensions are very close, at about 26 cm high . It is important to note that these two figurines were found together, so they must have been intended to be a pair . The only reference we can find about these two objects is what Petrie himself wrote in his book in 1898: “Two quaint figures of mourners were found in a tomb, one tearing the hair, the other weeping . They are made from jars turned on the wheel, and then pinched into features, and arms added” (Petrie 1898: 27, pl . XXI; Bourriau 1988: 94–95, n . 76) . Further examples that are very close in shape and date have been also found . The Museum of Royal Arts and History in Brussels possess another figurine from Thebes (11th Dynasty) with a bell-shaped body (E . 7038, H . 14 .5cm), previously in the von Bissing Collection (Von Bissing 1931: 157, pl . VII, fig . 3; Breasted 1948: 68, n . 1) . The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston has two mourning pot figurines, both dated to 12th–13th Dynasty (1983 .153, 154, William Stevenson Smith Fund, H . 17 .5 and 20cm) . Unfortunately there is no other information pertaining to their discovery (Kelly 1987: 8–9) . The Egyptian Museum in Turin has two interesting pieces dated to the same period, the 12th–13th Dynasties (Donadoni 1994: 129) . The form of the jars tends to be more ovoid than the previous items and the arms, faces and heads are less accurately rendered . They were found together and intended to be a pair . The mourning gestures performed are generally common, one figurine has her hands on her head (S . 1155, 20 .2 × 12 × 7 .5cm) while the other has her arms crossed on her chest (S . 1156 20 × 8 .8 × 8 .2cm) . Two other figurines in the Museum of Birmingham; a female with an oval-shaped head, applied features on a wide neck, and a round-shouldered body with bent arms, resting on her head (Fig . 2) . The other appears to be male as the moulded breast is lacking . He has a round head with moulded face on a wide neck and narrow shoulders . One arm is broken while the other is bent and rests on his lower face (Fig . 3) . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Finally, four figurines were found in the Bahariya Oasis in 1996, buried with the wealthier mummies in Tomb 54 in a Greco-Roman cemetery known as the Valley of the Golden Mummies (Hawass 2004: 73) . This important find confirms that the tradition of using pottery weeping statuettes still existed as part of the ancient funerary ritual into the Late Period . These are the only examples found in recent times that testify to their presence inside a tomb and, most importantly, near mummies, as previously supposed . 2 .2 The ‘human-shaped’ type As for the mourning-pot type, figurines in the shape of humans are recorded by only a few examples . The Petrie Museum in London has a small pottery figurine of a seated man with his right hand over his head, dating to the 11th Dynasty (Fig . 4) . This is one of the mourning attitudes described in Egyptian texts (Petrie: 1974: pl . III, fig . 3) . A wooden seated figurine of a man with one hand over his head and the other one raised in front of his face, dating to the 12th Dynasty, is in the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge (E .23 .1955, H . 24cm) . Its provenance is unknown as is the case for a large proportion of these objects . A small statuette of a woman in painted clay, probably seated, with one hand over the head and the other one on her cheek, and dated to the 12th Dynasty (Figs . 5, 6), is in the Staatliche Ägyptische Museum Berlin (Fechheimer 1921: 24, tav . 27; Hermann and Schwan 1940: 68, fig . 41; Breasted 1948: 68, n . 3 . tav . 62 [a]; Vandier 1958: 581, pl . LXXXII [3], from Fechheimer; Rolf 1978: n . 183) . An extraordinary example of a mourning woman made of painted pottery in the Louvre Museum is currently the only one dated to the New Kingdom’s 18th Dynasty, in the reign of Amenhotep III (E 27247; H . 24 .30cm; L . 21 .50cm) . For the Greco-Roman period, there is a weeping male figurine made of clay, in the Sanctuary of Santa Maria dell’Oriente, Tagliacozzo (Italy), found in Egypt by P . Giamberardini (Ciampini and Di Paolo 1998) . The figure is depicted naked and in a crouching position, with both hands on his cheeks and a typical Greco-Roman hairstyle (Figs . 7, 8) . 3. Posture and gestures The importance of all these figurines lies both in their presence inside tombs and the typical mourning attitudes they perform suggestive of despair and grief . All gestures are described by Egyptian texts and hieroglyphs, therefore it is possible to consider these figurines as physical substitutes for texts and spells, as well as of human mourners . Therefore, when present, they could be identified as expressions of feelings such as pain, despair and grief which are evoked by bodily posture and gesture . The expressions represented on the figurines’ faces can also help to identify their main role . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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The gesture of arms crossed on the chest is the only one that seems not to correspond with any textual source like the others do, although it is certainly related to mourning practice, and is well-attested in tomb paintings and reliefs . It could possibly evoke a gesture signifying the role of the female breast in sustaining life, regeneration and prosperity . 4. Supposed location, function and symbolism As explained, the exact find spot for these objects is unknown, however, they have almost certainly been found inside tombs . The symbolism behind the mourning gestures performed by these little figurines justifies their placement within tombs in order to protect the deceased, guarantee everlasting mourning in the Afterlife, and to achieve the primary goal of rebirth . Even though we do not have any accurate descriptions of their positions at their moment of discovery, recent findings from the Bahariya Oasis allow us to presume that they were located next to the sarcophagus where they mourned the dead in perpetuity . These figurines assumed the mourners’ role as substitutes for Isis and Nephthys, while the deceased was equated to Osiris . We can supply the missing information by comparing objects close in function and meaning, and which were found in their original position and, fortunately, also recorded, with these figurines . To give just few examples, statuettes found in location at the moment of discovery, a Ka-statue (Middle Kingdom) and Ptah-Sokar-Osiris statuette (22nd Dynasty) have been found beside the sarcophagus, placed as close as possible to deceased in order to protect him (Garstang 1907: figs . 19, 216) . A wooden female statuette of the 2nd Intermediate Period, with an arm raised over her head, which is unfortunately broken, and her dress very similar to that worn by mourning women and in particular Isis and Nephthys, has been also found in situ beside a sarcophagus in a tomb at the Asasif, Thebes (Fischer 1976: pl . XIV, fig . 7) . This example must have been a companion, and can be considered an evolution of the women on the funerary bark after the 12th Dynasty . The women were often paired and could be Isis and Nephthys or their substitutes . Finding them near the sarcophagus does not change their protective role . The same location was probably reserved for the most famous painted wooden statues of Isis and Nephthys dating to the Ptolemaic period where they are represented as mourners (see for example Louvre N 4130 and Brooklyn Museum 11 .681) . 5. How many figurines? While painted or sculpted groups of mourners have no clear rules regarding the number of individuals portrayed, pottery figurines seem to be limited to two (maybe the other two are missing?) or four items when found together . The number two is © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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not surprising, considering Isis and Nephthys as mourning women that protect the corpse of Osiris . In the same way, two pottery figurines found near the deceased must represent the two goddesses, or at least their substitutes, performing the same mourning gestures and weeping in order to guarantee the deceased’s rebirth as the two divine sisters did for their brother . When the number of figurines is increased to four, two other goddesses must be added and in many circumstances Isis and Nephthys can be accompanied by the goddesses Serqet and Neith, as is evident from Tutankhamun’s shrine, with the four statues of the goddesses standing at each side and they can be also found at the four corners of several sarcophagi (Weeks 2001: 148, 162, 172–173, 188) . A representation of the Book of Caverns found inside the tomb of Ramses IX in the Valley of the Kings shows four women, probably the four goddesses, mourning over a corpse and grasping their hair in despair . The accompanying text confirms that they are divinities, even though they are not named (Guilmant 1907: pl . XCI) . The importance of the number four also lies in its symbolism which evokes the four cardinal points as well as connotations of protection and perfection . A Ptolemaic text reporting a ritual involving four small pots representing four divinities linked with the four cardinal points, placed near Osiris bier to protect him against enemies, is another example which underlines the importance of this number (Goyon 1999: 63–73; Goyon 1975: 349–399) . 6. Conclusion Although accurate description of the exact position at the moment of discovery, as well as provenance, dating and function are still lacking, particularly for items acquired by museums in the past, disbursed collections, impossible reconstruction of all passages and, not least, inaccurate archaeological reports, and despite the rarity of these mourning figurines, it is clear that Egyptians buried them next to the deceased in order to guarantee everlasting mourning, ritually reproducing the Osiris myth through perpetual repetition of mourning gestures . As a final suggestion, similar objects interpreted as servants or praying figures, found in other ancient Near Eastern areas as well as the Western Mediterranean (see Ferron and Aubet 1974) should not be neglected . Gestures and attitudes, like the position of arms and hands are similar and certainly derived from ancient Near Eastern cultures . An early example of a figurine in the shape of a jar was found in the Elamite necropolis at Susa (Ferron and Aubet 1974: figs . 16–17) while an Egyptian example was contemporary or slightly later . After this period the same typology was identified in Cyprus in the 8th century BC (Ferron and Aubet 1974: fig . 6) from where the diffusion of this kind of ritual object spread, influencing the Punic Mediterranean from the 7th century BC (Ferron and Aubet 1974: see the typological and chronological plate) . The typologies changed during centuries but the Near Eastern typology, together with the Egyptian one, seems to be the real, original source of inspiration . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Bibliography Bourriau, J . 1988 Pharaohs and mortals. Egyptian art in the Middle Kingdom . Cambridge . Breasted, J . H . 1948 Egyptian Servant Statues . New York . Buck, A . de 1961 The Egyptian Coffin Texts VII . Chicago . Ciampini, E . and Di Paolo, S . 1998 La collezione egizia di Giamberardini in un museo dell’Aquilano . Liber Annuus 48, 495–512 . Davis, C .H .S . 1894 The Egyptian Book of the Dead . New York . De Horrack, J . 1886 Les lamentations de Isis et de Nephthys . Paris . Derchain, P . 1965 Le Papyrus Salt 825 (B.M. 10051): Rituel pour la conservation de la vie en Egypte . Bruxelles . 1970

Les pleurs d’Isis e la crue du Nil . Chronique d’Égypte 45, 282–284 .

Donadoni, S . 1994 L’arte dell’antico Egitto . Torino . Faulkner, R . O . 1934 The Lamentation of Isis and Neftis . In: Melanges Maspero I, 1 . Memoires de l’Institut Francais d’Archeologie Orientale 66 .1 . Cairo, 337–348 and 4 plates . 1936

The Bremner-Rhind papyrus I, A . The Songs of Isis and Nephthys . Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 22 .2, 121–140 .

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The Bremner-Rhind papyrus IV . Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 24, 41–53 .

Fechheimer, H . 1921 Kleinplastik der Ägypter (mit 158 Abb .) . Berlin . Ferron, J . and Aubet, M .E . 1974 Les orants de Carthage. Paris . Fischer, H . G . 1976 Varia . Egyptian Studies I . New York . Garstang, J . 1907 The Burial Customs of Ancient Egypt as illustrated in the Tombs of the Middle Kingdom . London . Goyon, J . C . 1999 Le papyrus d’Imouths fils de Psintoes au Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (Pap. MMA 35.9.21) . New York . 1975

Textes mythologique II . Les révélation du mystère des quatre boule . Bulletin de l’Institut Français d’Archéologie Orientale 75, 349–399 . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Guilmant, M . F . 1907 Le tombeau de Ramses IX. Mémoires publiés par les Membres de l’Institut français d’Archaéologie orientale 15 . Cairo . Hawass, Z . 2004 Valley of the Golden Mummies . Cairo . Hermann, A . and Schwan, W . 1940 Ägyptische Kleinkunst. Berlin . Kelly, W . S . 1987 A table of offerings: 17 years of acquisitions of Egyptian and ancient Near Eastern art by for the Museum of Fine Arts . Boston . Petrie, W . M . F . 1898 Dendereh. London – Boston . 1974

Prehistoric Egypt. Corpus of the Prehistoric Pottery and Palettes Illustrated by the Egyptian Collection in University College, London . Warminster .

Rolf, S . 1978 Meisterwerke altägyptischerKeramik 5000 Jahre Kunst und Kunsthandwerk aus Ton und Fayence . Höhr-Grenzhausen . Sethe, K . 1908 Die altägyptischen Pyramidentexte nach den Papierabdrücken und Photographien des Berliner Museums, Volume 1. Leipzig . 1910

Die altägyptischen Pyramidentexte nach den Papierabdrücken und Photographien des Berliner Museums, Volume 2. Leipzig .

Vandier, J . 1958 Manuel d’archéologie égyptienne III . Paris . Von Bissing, F . W . 1931 Tonfiguren Klagender aus dem Frühen Mittleren Reich. Archiv für Orientforschung VII, 157– 160 . Weeks, K . R . 2001 Treasures of the Valley of the Kings. Tombs and Temples of the Theban West Bank in Luxor . Cairo . Werbrouck, M . 1938 Les plereuses dans l’Egypt ancient . Bruxelles .

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Fig . 1 Mourning figurine from Denderah . 11th Dynasty . Baked Clay . H 26 cm . Petrie Museum, University College London (UC16126, Courtesy of the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology, UCL)

Fig . 2 Anthropomorphic jar, female . Presented by the Trustees of the Wellcome Trust, 1969 . H 33 .9cm; D(Base) 14 .4cm, 1969W2131 (© Birmingham Museums Trust)

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Fig . 3 Anthropomorphic jar, probably male . Presented by the Trustees of the Wellcome Trust, 1969 . H 34 .8cm; D(max) 14 .9cm, 1969W2132 (© Birmingham Museums Trust)

Fig .4 Pottery . H 16cm; Base length 12 .5cm, purchased by W . M . F . L . Petrie in Egypt . Petrie Museum, University College London (UC15150, Courtesy of the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology, UCL)

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Fig . 5 Mourning woman, before restoration (after, J . H . Breasted, Egyptian servant statues, New York 1948)

Fig . 6 Mourning woman . Painted clay . H . 19cm, after restoration . Staatliches Ägyptisches Museum Berlin ÄM 9695 . © Ägyptisches Museum und Papyrussammlung, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin (Photo: Sandra Steiß)

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Fig . 7 Weeping male figurine, H . 16 .2cm; Width . max . 6 .4 cm . Greco-Roman period . Provenance unknown . Inv . 5 . Santuario di Santa Maria dell’Oriente, Tagliacozzo (Italy) (photo: Erica Esposito)

Fig . 8 Weeping male figurine, detail of the face . Greco-Roman period . Provenance unknown . Inv . 5 . Santuario di Santa Maria dell’Oriente, Tagliacozzo (Italy) (photo: Erica Esposito)

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Evidence of Funeral Rituals from the BactriaMargiana Archaeological Complex in Turkmenistan: The Case of Gonur Depe Nadezhda A. Dubova 1 – Sergei P. Grushin 2 – Robert M. Sataev 1 – Alexei V. Fribus 3 Abstract During the Spring 2015 excavation season at the famous Bronze Age site of Gonur Depe in Turkmenistan (2300–1600 BC) a metal detector was used . The maximum depth of the cultural level able to be scanned was only 20cm, thus only the upper layers of the dumps of previously ground and walls could be analysed . The metal detector indicated a high level of metal present in the unrestored wall of the ritual double hearth in the ‘royal’ tomb 3235 . The clearing of this space revealed a silver funnel-strainer, a typical vessel for the preparation of Soma-Haoma (see: Sarianidi 1993; Sarianidi 1998; Sarianidi 2010) which was incorporated within the mudbrick of the oven’s roof . Verification of the other walls of the royal tombs did not provide anything . Nothing like this has previously been found at Gonur Depe or any other Margiana sites and it may be interpreted as evidence of construction, funeral or purifying rituals .

The Bronze Age site of Gonur Depe in Turkmenistan (2300–1600 BC) was discovered by Victor Sarianidi in 1972 . Excavations began in 1974 and continue to the present, and are currently conducted by the Margiana archaeological expedition which works within the frame of agreement between the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Turkmenistan Ministry of Culture (Sarianidi 1973; Sarianidi 1990; Sarianidi 2001; Sarianidi 2005; Sarianidi 2007a; Sarianidi 2007b; and others) . The site is situated in the south-eastern part of the Kara Kum desert in the ancient delta of the Murghab River . The general description of the site and the results of the previous last years’ excavations have been described earlier (e .g . Sarianidi and Dubova 2014) . In 2004, five elite so-called ‘royal’ tombs were found, and an additional three were discovered in 2009 (Sarianidi 2005; Sarianidi 2007a; Dubova 2004; Sarianidi and Dubova 2010) (Fig . 1) . These tombs were identified as ‘royal’ or elite because of their complicated construction which includes multi-roomed underground houses with tables, niches and hearths, fine mosaic artistic decoration (Dubova 2011; Sarianidi and Dubova 2013), exceptionally rich gold, silver and bronze funeral gifts (sometimes combined as hoards), many items indicative of the high status of the buried persons such as stone staffs,

1 2 3

Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology, RAS, Moscow, Russia . Altay State University, Barnaul, Russia . Kemerovo State University, Kemerovo, Russia . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Nadezhda A . Dubova – Sergei P . Grushin – Robert M . Sataev – Alexei V . Fribus

miniature stone columns, large stone disks, and game-boards, four-wheeled wagons and with 4–19 executed servants in each one . During the Spring 2015 excavation season a metal detector was used at Gonur Depe for the first time and with its help new areas of some of old dumps were inspected . The maximum depth of the cultural level that can be scanned with this equipment was only 20cm . So investigation was limited to the upper layers of the previously excavated ground of the dumps, the height of which often exceeded 3m, and previously excavated walls were also able to be analysed . We examined some areas and the interior of one royal tomb (# 3235) and the detector indicated a high level of metal present . This was located in the vaulted ceiling of the ritual double hearth, situated between Rooms 2 and 3 (Fig . 2) . It was not attributable to any modern materials used for the conservation and restoration of the tomb because this hearth was very well preserved and no modern metal materials had been used in its conservation (Fig . 3) . To understand the cause of the indication it was decided to clean the upper part of the hearth . All the buildings and other constructions at Gonur Depe were constructed with standard mudbricks with dimensions 42–45 × 20–25 × 10–15cm, and this tomb and hearth were no exception . During cleaning, a silver funnel-strainer was found inside one of the bricks . It was crushed and had been inserted into the wet clay of the mudbrick before drying . It is clear (Fig . 4) that the brick with the strainer was positioned neither above the burner (right on the right photo), nor in the middle of the hearth, but exactly above the left chamber of the oven . Double hearths are characteristic of Gonur Depe where hundreds have been found . At other excavated Margiana sites (e .g . Togolok 1, 21; Kelleli, Taip, Aji Kui) this type of oven is either absent or present in only a few numbers . V . Sarianidi proposed that the chamber, above which the brick with the strainer was found, was used exclusively for ritual food, presumably meat, and that the fire did not touch as a result of a special partition or ledge between the chambers (Sarianidi 2010: 133–134) . Such an expensive item being found inside the construction suggests that it was evidence of building, funeral, or purification rituals . This paper does not aim to answer all possible questions about it, but primarily to describe this case, which is the only one known among all the Bronze Age sites of Central Asia, and its context . At Gonur and in Margiana, on the whole, only a few silver and bronze funnel-strainers have been found in elite tombs (Fig . 5a–f) . Some of them have a handle while others do not . The strainer from Tomb 3235 is similar to that from Tomb 3220 (Fig . 5a) . It has no handle and is cone-shaped . It is assumed that such funnels were used for straining or filtration of the juice of plants, probably those required to prepare the hallucinogenic beverage . In the buildings interpreted by V . Sarianidi as temples, in some special rooms large ceramic vessels with strainers in the bottom (Fig . 5f) for preparation of a large amount of such liquid were found . No small ceramic strainers or funnels were found . No metal strainers were found out in the common graves, with all silver and bronze examples in the graves of those that had very rich funeral gifts . It is very interesting that Grave 3310 included a lamb in the main burial (Dubova 2012: 112, fig . 4; 113, 117; Dubova 2015: 21, fig 2 .4; 23) . Since © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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this is one of the few burials that were not plundered in antiquity, its offerings can provide an idea of the type of context in which a bronze strainer would be found, so it makes sense to briefly describe it . Double-chambered Cist 3310 was situated in the south-eastern part of Gonur to the north of the ‘royal’ necropolis and to the south of the fortification wall . The grave is oriented east-west with the lamb lying in the western chamber on its right side on the brick dais . Its neck was resting on the miniature stone column laid on its side . On the floor of the same chamber were the remains of an elderly woman lying in a crouched position on her left side with her head to the west . In the northeast corner of the cist, on the earthen dais, a large jar half-filled with extensively burned sheep bones was placed . The bones of a single young animal were stacked inside the vessel after being burned elsewhere (determination: Sataev 2008; Sataev 2010) . Also near the lamb’s legs on the dais were three vessels, large and small copper and bronze dishes, and a bronze cleaver . A few bones of sheep and goats, apparently from a sacrificial meal lay nearby . In the upper layers (at a height of no less than 20cm above the level of findings), at the beginning of the clearing of the tomb, a rectangular soapstone, four-legged box was discovered . The second chamber was intended exclusively for burial offerings that were placed on an earthen elevation around 30cm high . A wide cylindrical ceramic vessel pierced through the bottom with five holes (Fig . 5e) was situated in a central place amongst them . The walls of this vessel are decorated with designs often found in Margush country ornamentation, consisting of a central ‘tree of life’ with horned goats flanking either side standing on the hind legs, incised into the wet clay . The ceramic strainer was surrounded by nine vessels, two of which were imported (probably from Iran): one features black clay with partial glaze, and the other has a high neck and is decorated with painted zigzag designs . On top of both vessels was a wooden ‘gameboard’ inlaid with ivory . To the south of this group of offerings, in the middle of the chamber, stacked together with the silver and bronze objects, were six so-called ‘playing sticks’ consisting of five flat octagons and six square figures carved from ivory . Also a silver bugle, a bronze funnel with strainer and handle, a bronze knife, and a small vial were found . In addition to these items in the middle of the chamber there were seven pieces of the rib bones of young (under a year old) sheep . At the edge of the pieces of meat lay a bronze cosmetic bottle and applicator . The collective burial of four young animals (dog, sheep, donkey and calf) arranged outside the southern wall of the cist was another feature of the grave . The animal remains were placed close to the female body inside the cist . All these components suggest the ritual nature and sacred context of the funnel-strainer . P . Akkermans and G . Schwartz, in their famous volume on archaeology of Syria (2004), explain that in the 3rd millennium BC “ . . . the gradations of social stratification can be observed in the burial data, ranging from the treasure-laden royal graves of Ebla to infant jar burials without attendant goods .” They noted that “ . . . a curious indicator of mortuary ritual is the inclusion of perforated bronze drinking strainers together with jars in graves at Leilan, Chagar Bazar, and Baghouz, pre© 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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sumably intended as provisioning for the afterlife or for funerary ritual . . .” (Akkermans and Schwartz 2004: 322) . Together with the ceramic strainers were ritual ceramic vessels which feature various decoration (e .g .: Sarianidi 1998: 36, fig . 10), small stone ‘mashers’, and bone tubes with engravings of enlarged eyes (Sarianidi 2010: 78) . In the South Gonur complex (the Temenos) there were many large jars, plastered inside with numerous layers of white substances made of various plant combinations including cannabis, ephedra and poppy (Meyer-Melikyan and Avetov 1998): all plants known to be used for the extraction of hallucinogens . The combination of these facts provided grounds for V . Sarianidi to propose the idea of a cult involving a sacred drink such as Soma-Haoma of the ancient writings and sources of the later Zoroastrian religion (e .g .: Sarianidi 1993; 1998: 2010) . Of course strainers can be used in the preparation of other drinks as well, for example in the Carpathian and Northern European Bronze Age they were used in the preparation of alcohol . J . G . Tarbay describes a strainer sold by the Gorny & Mosch auctioneers (Gorny and Mosch, Giessener Münzhandlung GMBH 4 Jahre, Auktion Kunst der Antike 29 . Juni 2011: 198, 210, fig . 510) which resembled the shape of the Gonur ones, taking into account the geographical distance and differences in the cultures, and discusses others known in Europe (Tarbay 2014) . In this context, the idea that the funnel-strainer was used as a sacrifice is very interesting . The tomb where it was found, as mentioned above, is an elite or ‘royal’ tomb in the form of an underground house . Despite the fact that it (like all the others) was repeatedly robbed in antiquity, rich funeral gifts were found there (Fig . 2) . Just in this tomb alone a fine silver vessel with relief decoration depicting a complicated symbolic scene (Sataev and Sataeva 2015), together with two golden, one silver, and two bronze vessels, were found in the treasury under the floor of Room 3 . Above them, on the floor near the wall, a long stone scepter with its end in a form of hoof lay . Within the same room there were many gold foil fragments, two pendants with large agate beads set in gold,12 flint arrowheads, a beautiful flower with petals made from turquoise, the center from gold foil, and the stem and leaves from bronze . Fragments of another similar flower were found in the oven of the hearth, inside the roof where the brick containing the silver funnel was found (Fig . 6) . The walls of Room 3 of this tomb were well-plastered with clay . The quality of plastering was much better than in the other rooms of the same tomb . This is where the mosaic probably originally was located as is suggested by the presence of such fine plaster . Unfortunately only a few fragments of the mosaic compositions were found in situ in Rooms 1 and 2 . One of them was on the wall to the right of the double-hearth in Room 2; another decorated the walls of a small wooden box in Room 1 . It can be assumed that most rich goods were placed in Room 3 and possibly in Room 2 . This is suggested by the fact that in front of the entrance to Room 3, under the floor (at a depth of 40cm) of Room 4 there were buried seven people; three young men (20–30 years) and four women (30–35 years) . The precise number of people, representative of the elites buried there is not easy to discern . Remains of 12 people were found, only © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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one female skeleton (apart from the above-mentioned seven servants) was lying in situ and two skulls were close to it . In different places of the tomb the remains of two more people were detected, but we do not know whether they are the main focus of the burial or servants . There is evidence of a tradition of successive burials in elite tombs (Sarianidi 2001; Sarianidi 2007a; Sarianidi 2007a; Dubova 2004) . In Tomb 3235 there were three double hearths (in Rooms 2, 3 and 6) and two simple ones (in Corridor 4 and Hallway 5) . All the burnt parts of them were filled with earth mixed with ash which suggests that all the hearths were used only once or less . The construction of this tomb is more complicated than the others (Sarianidi 2006; Sarianidi 2007b) because it has eight components and features four small fire altars . In 2015 all the ruins of the ‘royal’ cemetery were examined with a metal detector and no other findings were detected there . Because the funnel-strainer was located inside a mudbrick it is possible to consider that it alludes to rituals associated with it construction . This was our first assumption (Dubova et al. 2016), but usually widespread construction rituals involve human or animal sacrifice (‘foundation sacrifice’), or putting skulls, other parts of the skeleton, or coins under the foundation of a new dwelling . In this case the item was not put there and not in the beginning, therefore it may not fit this pattern . It also seems unlikely that it was a case of mortuary ritual, because the action of embedding the strainer inside the mudbrick and using the brick in the building was undertaken during rather than after the burial . It is difficult to presume that mortuary ritual included destroying and repairing the tomb . Perhaps then, this process was a part of a funeral ritual, if we use this term in its widest sense, and the strainer was included during the construction of the tomb . It needs to be repeated that the aim of this paper is not to discuss sacrifice, but to describe an interesting archaeological discovery, and to emphasise the dissimilarity of this case to other known rituals . It is proposed that the silver funnel-strainer was placed inside the wet clay of the mudbrick before it was dried and subsequently used in the construction of the vaulted roof of the oven in the ritual double hearth, inside the room with the richest gifts in the tomb for an elite person or persons . Certainly we do not currently know a great deal about the rituals of the Bactria-Margiana archaeological complex (BMAC) . The existence of this center of civilisation in the ancient Murghab delta and the neighboring areas only became known to science a few decades ago . Only a few artifacts are published and the catalogs are not yet compiled, therefore specialists can analyse only a small amount of what has been found . The majority of the hundreds of objects are carefully stored in the Museum of Turkmenistan waiting for examination . We believe however, that attentive research of this material will open a new chapter in the history of human civilisation and its worldview . To conclude, we can afford to make an assumption about the discovery . The juice of the plant components of the Soma-Haoma drink had to pass through a physical strainer in order to be cleaned of the stems and leaves of the plants which were unnecessary to the gods . So too, the smells and smoke from the victim (animal or © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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plant) prepared in the oven of the ritual hearth had to symbolically pass through the funnel-strainer concealed within the roof in order to be rid of impurities and made fit to appear before the gods . Perhaps, in a manner akin to using incense, the ancients were attempting to purify the souls of their relatives buried within this tomb . Bibliography Akkermans, P . M . M . G . and Schwartz, G . M . 2004 The archaeology of Syria from complex hunter-gatherers to early urban societies (c. 16,000– 300 BE). Cambridge . Dubova, N . A . 2004 Mogilnik i carskij nekropol’ na beregah bol’šogo bassejna Severnogo Gonura . In: M . F . Kosarev, P . M . Kozhin and N . A . Dubova (eds .), Near the Sources of Civilization . Moscow, 254– 281 [in Russian] . 2011

Gonur mosaics with elements of painting . In: Ş . Myratgutlyýewa, O . Pirnepesowa and N . Smirnowa (eds .), The Ancient Material Culture of Turkmenistan and its Place in the Development in World Civilization. Materials of the International Scientific Conference, April 7–8, 2011. Ashgabad, 48–51 .

2012

Pogrebeniâ životnyh v strane Marguš . In: V . I . Sarianidi, P . M . Kozhin, M . F ., Kosarev and N . A . Dubova (eds .), Trudy Margianskoj arheologičeskoj ekspedicii / Transactions of Margiana Archaeological Expedition, Volume 4 . Moscow, 101–139 [in Russian] .

2015

Animal Burials and their Cults in Margiana . In: N . Laneri (ed .) Defining the Sacred: Approaches to the Archaeology of Religion in the Near East. Oxford, 13–23 .

Dubova, N . A ., Sataev, R . M ., Grushin, S . P . and Fribus A . V . 2016 A unique evidence of construction rituals of Bactria-Margiana archaeological complex in Turkmenistan (case of Gonur Depe) . In: 10th International Congress on the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East. Abstract Booklet. Austrian Academy of Sciences. Vienna, Austria, 25‒29 April, 2016 . Vienna, 37–38 . Meyer-Melikyan, N . R . and Avetov, N . A . 1998 Analysis of floral remains in the ceramic vessel from the Gonur Temenos . In: V . Sarianidi, Margiana and Protozoroastrism . Athens, 176–177 . Sarianidi, V . I . 1973 Drevnosti nizovij Murgaba, Arheologičeskie otkrytiâ 1972, Moskow, 483–484 [in Russian] . 1990

Drevnosti strany Marguš . Ašhabad [in Russian] .

1993

Excavations at Southern Gonur . Iran 31, 25–38 .

1998

Margiana and Protozoroastism . Athens .

2001

Necropolis of Gonur and Iranian Paganizm . Moscow .

2005

Gonur Depe. Turkmenistan. City of Kings and Gods. Aşgabad .

2006

Carskij nekropol’ na Severnom Gonure . Vestnik drevnej istorii 257 (2006/2), 155–192 [in Russian] .

2007a Necropolis of Gonur . Athens . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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2007b Dvorcovo-hramovyj kompleks Severnogo Gonura . Rossijskaâ arheologiâ 1, 49–63 [in Russian] . 2010

Long before Zaratushtra . Moscow .

Sarianidi, V . and Dubova, N . 2010 Nouvelles sepultures sur le territoire de la ‘necropole royale’ de Gonur Depe . Arts Asiatique 65, 5–26 . 2013

Mozaika III tys . do n .è . v Gonur Depe (Turkmenistan) . In: G . Ü . Kolganova, A . A . Petrova and S . V . Kullanda (eds .), Poslednij ènciklopedist. K übileü so dnâ roždeniâ B.A. Litvinskogo . Мoscow, 379–413 [in Russian] .

2014

Gonur excavations in 2000–2010 . In: P . Bieliński, M . Gawlikowski, R . Koliński, D . Ławecka, A . Sołtysiak und Z . Wygnańska (eds .) Proceedings of the 8th International Congress on the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East. 30 April – 4 May 2012. University of Warsaw. Volume 2: Excavation and Progress Reports, Posters. Wiesbaden, 503–518 .

Sataev, R . M . 2008 Životnye iz raskopok gorodiŝa Gonur-Depe . In: V . I . Sarianidi, P . M . Kozhin, M . F ., Kosarev and N . A . Dubova (eds .) Trudy Margianskoj arheologičeskoj ekspedicii / Transactions of Margiana Archaeological Expedition, Volume 2 . Moscow, 138–142 [in Russian] . 2010

Reconstrukciâ uslovij kremacii životnyh iz žertvennikov Gonur-Depe . In: P . M . Kožin, M . F . Kosarev and N . A . Dubova (eds .), Na puti otkrytiâ civilizacii. Sbornik statej k 80-letiü V.I. Sarianidi [Trudy Margianskoj arheologičeskoj ekspedicii. Tom 3] / On the Track of Uncovering a Civilization. A Volume in Honor of the 80th-Anniversary of Victor Sarianidi. [Transactions of the Margiana Archaeological Expedition, Volume 3] . Saint Petersburg, 466–484 .

Sataev, R . M . and Sataeva, L . V . 2015 Animalistic composition on a beaker from the hoard in the royal necropolis of Gonur-depe . Zapiski Instituta material’noj kul’tury / Transactions of the Institute for the History of Material Culture 12, 106–120 . Tarbay, J . G . 2014 Grog in the Bronze Age Carpathian Basin? Thoughts on the Late Bronze Age Drinking Culture in Connection with a Unique Strainer . Hungarian Archaeology e-journal, Summer, www .hungarianarchaeology .hu

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Fig . 1 General scheme of the ‘royal’ necropolis of Gonur Depe (© Margiana archaeological expedition) © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Fig . 2 General of the sepulcher 3235 at the ‘royal’ necropolis of Gonur Depe . Main goods: 1 – pottery; 2 – fragments of ceramic items; 3 – mosaics inlets; 4 – stone staff-scepter; 5 – human skeletal remains; 6 – two human skulls; 7 – ceramic vase and pottery fragments; 8 – remains of three young men and four women; 9 – human skeletal remains; 10 – traces of the wooden box decorated with mosaics; 11 – two silver vessels; 12 – silver hair-pin with the top in the form of lying bull; 13 – ivory items; 14 – two agate beads with the golden holders and separated golden holders; 15 – a flower made from the turquoise with the golden middle and bronze stem; 16 – pottery; 17 animal bones; 18 – hoard with two golden, three silver (including one with the relief image of the animalistic scene) and two bronze vessels; 19 – agate bead with the golden holders; 20 – traces of the wooden box on the bronze ‘legs’; 21 – small fire altars; 22 – groups of flint arrowheads (totally 12 items); 23 – small stone pendant in a form of eagle; 24 – traces of the wooden box without decoration (© Margiana archaeological expedition)

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Fig . 3 General view of the sepulcher 3235 from the east, after it cleaning in 2004 autumn (left) and from the south-west in 2012 after conservation and later winter raining (right) . The vaulted ceiling of the ritual double hearth situated between room 2 and 3 is pointed by the arrows (© Margiana archaeological expedition)

Fig . 4 S . Grushin is cleaning the hearth in the sepulcher 3235 (left) and silver funnel-strainer on its place after cleaning (right) (© Margiana archaeological expedition)

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Fig . 5 Funnel-strainers from Gonur Depe: a – sepulcher 3220; b – tomb 2900; c – sepulcher 3235; e – tomb 3310; d – from Togolok 1 temple; f – Ceramic strainer form Gonur Depe, tomb 3310 (© Margiana archaeological expedition)

Fig . 6 Turquoise flower with the golden center and bronze stem and fragment from the second one from the sepulcher 3235 of Gonur Depe (© Margiana archaeological expedition) © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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The Roles of Ritual Practice in Prehistoric Cyprus Fabian Heil 1 Abstract Recently within Cypriot archaeology a focus on ritual practice has given rise to new questions regarding the social interaction of Early and Middle Bronze Age peoples . Using the theoretical framework of ritual mechanisms, Cypriot archaeological material is re-evaluated in order to provide new possibilities and achieve a better understanding of cultural developments .

1. Realigning a perspective Interpretations of cultural development within prehistoric Cyprus (Tab .1) are influenced by similarities found in the archaeological material of many surrounding cultures . For instance, a period of ‘apparent isolation’ during the Neolithic and Chalcolithic periods (Steel 2004: 143) is contrasted with the beginning of the Bronze Age, because many aspects of Cypriot culture and ceramic assemblages of the Philia phase have remarkable parallels to material from western and southern Anatolia (Bolger 1983: 72; Mellink 1991: 172–173) . A second period of isolation is also assumed for large parts of the Early and Middle Bronze Ages (Steel 2004: 124–125, 143), although an accumulation of so-called exotica from Minoan Crete, the Levant, Egypt, and Anatolia is detectable in funeral contexts dating to the early phases of the Middle Bronze Age (Mina 2013: 34, 36) . Indications in style and form, for instance, show connectivity between Cyprus and its surrounding cultures and this has been interpreted as indicating a strong affiliation with other cultural backgrounds . The combination of distinctive cultures (Knapp 2013: 268) evident from these items may indicate a process of ‘hybridisation’; the term ‘hybrid’ being used to categorise objects that fall into multiple cultural categories, although the ideas behind the term are controversial . A definition of hybridity presupposes an archetypal form and a consequent concept of degeneration and inferiority (Ackermann 2012: 6), resulting in the expectation of a ‘finished’ item that was deliberately altered . In the case of Cyprus, this approach supports the scenario of periods of isolation as well as strong cultural influx from foreign cultures (Sherratt 2015: 75) . Despite the apparent blurriness of these periods of proposed mutual exchange and isolation, it is still commonly thought that the major difference during the Bronze Age was the development from an isolated island characterised by a mainly egalitarian society into an elite-driven, internationalised, hybridised island culture (Knapp 2013: 348–349; Steel 2004: 142) .

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Graduate School Distant Worlds, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität Munich, Germany . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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The term ‘hybridity’ emerged from post-colonial scholarship as part of a political agenda of intentional consolidation, however such a framework cannot be assumed for Prehistoric Cyprus (van Dommelen and Rowlands 2012) . Hybridity in Cypriot archaeology has been used to explain the ancient economy, proposing that the early copper trade trigged the establishment of a local elite, evident from the presence of prestigious objects used within ritual (Knapp 2013: 310) . The role of the economy is akin to a basic concept of the macro-scale approach of the ‘World-Systems-Theory’ model and appears to be an adequate explanation for cultural change . This approach has its drawbacks, however, and can be criticised for ignoring the involvement, adaption and agency of actual human beings (Harding 2013) . The widespread and successful adoption of new cultural elements is not a conscious decision undertaken by the few, but rather a result of interaction and positive reception by the many . It is proposed therefore, that local processes of change are influenced by a variety of sources, materials, social practices, habits and even personalities (Bourdieu 1990: 54–55) . The notion of isolated and connected phases of Cypriot exchange has recently received attention . As a result of focusing on the less-traceable actions that create continuous exchange mechanisms, a stronger interconnection between all archaeological phases of the Cypriot Bronze Age has been proposed (Crewe 2014: 144–145; Webb 2016) . So far, this approach has lacked a model for internal communication such as a specific locus for the collective confrontation of peoples and ideas wherein we may encounter ritual practices . Only some of the most elaborate ritual actions that involve pronounced physical component are represented through archaeological material, such as so-called ‘sanctuaries’ or through burial customs, while more ephemeral activities remain elusive . More intangible rituals have to be expected, however, despite their being beyond detailed description (Maran 2016: 583) . 2. Ritual as a platform for interaction As we lack almost any written sources about Cyprus during this period, it is hard to archaeologically define a specific situation as related to ritual . The traditional approach toward this problem has been to analyse ritual paraphernalia – apparently non-profane objects such as figurines and grave goods – and try to identify ritual actions within patterns of behaviour . This approach relies on an elaborate form of ritual practice, which can usually be identified at sanctuaries . Colin Renfrew is frequently cited to support the significance of sanctuaries as the main sources for ritual actions in prehistory; however, he has stated that one may only identify a fraction of ritual activity through the analysis of the archaeological record (Renfrew 1985: 141–147) . Based on this approach, Jennifer Webb identified ritual structures and sanctuaries from Late Bronze Age Cyprus (Webb 1999) mainly through installations such as altars, benches and hearths, in combination with figurines and bull-related imagery . However, ritual structures and actions cannot be reliably identified this way for the © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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entire Early, Middle, and beginning of the Late Bronze Ages . Until now, only burial customs and the sites of Pyrgos Mavroraki and Sotira Kaminoudhia have been cited (with reservations) as places of ritual encounter in these periods (Keswani 2004; Swiny et al . 2003; Belgiorno et al. 2010) . There is apparently a consensus to understand ritual as a set of characteristics, a controlled performance involving a “culturally standardized, repetitive action, primarily symbolic in character, aimed at influencing human affairs […] and involving the supernatural realm” (Kertzer 1988: 8) . Through emphasising a supernatural realm this definition of ritual is limited to religious actions that depend on separation of the spheres of the sacred and the profane . Defining what a ritual actually is remains wholly debateable, however, the concept of so-called ‘ritual action’ is in fact an artificial construct of supposedly meaningful actions which are categorised through various rankings of meaning, repetition, and consciousness and whether being ‘profane’ determines whether or not an action is seen as a ritual . In principle, any action has the potential to incorporate ritual elements, as explained by Axel Michaels: “the classification or typology of rituals does not really serve to clarify this terminological mixture but nearly all actions can be combined with the term ritual” (Michaels 2015: 7) . Catherine Bell attempted to divide rituals into specific subcategories that identify any of those actions and describes six basic genres of ritual action: Rites of Passage, Calendrical Rites, Rites of Exchange and Communication, Rites of Affliction, Feasting, Fasting and Festivals and Political Rites . All of these have a diverse repertoire of potential manifestations and need not be confined to those with a strong religious theme, but include any that have an impact on the participants (Bell 1997) . A different yet interconnected approach, describes ritual in terms of a set of attributes and explains how these are connected to the actions involved . Embodiment highlights the degrees of intentionality in performance . Formality accounts for the factor of reproducibility which excludes routine actions, Framing defines a moment in regard to its beginning or ending, Transformation and Agency address changes of status or competence, while Elevation is a means of accomplishing stability within a community through the placation of supernatural beings or creation of trust (Brosius et al. 2013) . None of these approaches fully deal with the issue of identifying ritual space, and only serve to reveal the potency of ritual actions, however, the very category of ‘ritual’ itself still evades definition . How then, are we able to identify archaeological sites as being involved in some form of ritual action? Indeed, how many possible ritual situations will remain elusive due to a lack of archaeological evidence? The issues inherent in these questions stem primarily from the effort to identify a general pattern of ritual action, yet it is the very process of actions and their consequences that is of particular interest in archaeology . As there is no common understanding of ritual activity, but a certain amount of agreement in respect to its various elements, such as repetition and communication, and their respective impact, ritual can only be understood as a cognitive/sensual, valued action which can be traced . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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3. Objects and material re-examined Louise Steel utilised a similar idea in her reinterpretation of the famous Vounous Model (Fig . 1), although the mechanisms of ritual practices are not mentioned explicitly (Steel 2013) . The model is one of several contemporary vessels and models with varying scenes and was found in Early Cypriot Chamber Tomb No . 22 at Vounous (Dikaios 1940) at the necropolis of Vounous-Bellapais, located on the north coast of Cyprus . The model shows 20 anthropomorphic figurines of different sizes in a moreor-less scenic composition . The vessel has been interpreted as a representation of burial customs (Frankel and Tamvaki 1973: 42), a village scene (Morris 1985: 283), or as an accumulation of scenes not necessarily connected with each other in time or space (Dollhofer and Schaller 2000) . As we lack any evidence of circular buildings during the Early and Middle Bronze Age on Cyprus, the degree of realism in this composition is debateable, although many elements are known from other depictions, the most prominent example being a three-pillared construction with bucrania atop each post . Similar depictions are recognisable in the well-known ‘Bucranium Walls’, terracotta models from Kotsiatis, Kotchati and Kalopsidha, and bucranium poles known from contemporary vessels (Karageorghis 1970) . In the model from Vounous, gatherings of people are performing many ritual-like activities . The manner in which specific scenes depicted within the bowl should be viewed, as either together in groupings, or individually, is unclear and a non-pictorial representation may even have been intended as well . Nevertheless, a substantial amount of information can be extracted from this arrangement in terms of valued – or ritual – activities, including the apparent role of bucrania (but not necessarily living cattle) as foci of adoration and submission, and the accompanying sacrificial or offering practices . With the (re)introduction of cattle to Cyprus at the beginning of the Bronze Age, representations of various bovine elements increase, making it the predominant ‘farm animal’ depicted throughout the Bronze Age (Knox 2012: 144, 158, 167) . Representations of cattle appear in various forms at settlements as well as in burials, featuring prominently as ceramic bucrania incorporated within the previously-mentioned models, and also horns made of terracotta . This indicates that a specific value was attached to cattle and their importance in Cypriot ritual practices has long been recognised (Karageorghis 1971); however, only recently has scholarship focussed on the manner in which this development was, possible and how ritual actions may have been incorporated (Webb 2016) . Edgar Peltenburg argued that the individual scenes within the Vounous Model were interconnected and he interpreted the composition as a conscious depiction concerned with the legitimation of elites that symbolised a ‘radically new construct of authority’ (Peltenburg 1994: 162) . Steel, on the other hand, connects the specific elements incorporated in the vessel with its wider cultural context, narrowing down the possible interpretations . She explains that ‘social messages [are] encoded in material culture’ (Steel 2013: 52), and stresses the type of social communication taking place, which foregrounds the agency of things (Hodder 2012) . In light of the agency © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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of the vessel and its communicative properties, Steel seeks to identify various social elements including a strong hierarchical display of the figures according to size, position, and gender . She agrees with Peltenburg when she argues that the different groups of people represented are of varying social status and incorporated into an ancestor cult, depicting initiates, elders, and ancestors within a display of social and symbolic capital (Peltenburg 1994: 160; Steel 2013: 58–59, 62, 68) . The vessel may therefore be seen as a representation of events where multiple groups of people actively, as well as passively, share experiences and ideas, and interact with one another, thus providing an instance in which basic ritualistic mechanisms take effect . The aforementioned value of ancestor worship and familial ties may be particularly important . This is suggested by various figural representations from settlements and burial contexts used throughout the Bronze Age . While only six poorly-preserved parts of figurines from Philia settlements are extant, many types and styles were specific to particular regions of the island during the first half of the Bronze Age . These became a commonly shared element over time, although the changes are indicative of shifts in socio-political power (Knox 2012: 129, 210–211) . Beside iconographic depictions on vessels, we may also refer to the well-known terracotta plank-shaped figurines, which measure up to around c . 30cm in size and have thin decorated bodies . These date from the end of the Early Bronze Age up until Middle Cypriot II and may be connected to Anatolia (a Campo 1994) . Approximately 200 are known to date, many are without provenience, but 68 derive from tombs and 41 from settlements (Knox 2012: 150) . Considering the heavy looting that Cypriot tombs have undergone (Frankel and Webb 2007) we can assume at least a ratio of one-third deriving from settlements and two-thirds from burial contexts in total . Only in very few instances can sex be determined (Bolger 2010), however, the misleading assumption that the figurines depict females is prevalent (Lorentz 2005: 45) within the scholarship . The notable lack of specific genitalia in many cases, however, as well the presence of other ‘unisexual’ elements (erroneously termed ‘female’ markers), such as earrings, highlights the variable nature of these objects . Carvings covering their front, back and sides may represent various forms of clothing and ornamentation . The characteristic shape is thought to derive from wooden prototypes and the undecorated lower parts, which often show signs of abrasion, to indicate that they were positioned in the ground (Knox 2012: 201) . Variation in this practice might have been common, as suggested by the example from a pottery workshop at Ambelikou Aletri which was suddenly destroyed, where a figurine was found close to a burned wooden beam located near the entrance (Webb and Frankel 2013) . The figurine may have been attached to the beam or situated within a niche in the building . The figurines were used in settlement contexts as well as in burials, where deliberate destruction of the figurines appears to be connected to a secondary use of the graves, some with figurines having signs of repairs (Knox 2012: 151) . We have to view these items therefore, as being integrated into distinct contexts of space and meaning; namely, displayed in settlements and deposited with the dead together as accompanying grave goods where they may have been placed standing in a prominent position . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Different combinations of style further indicate that the manner of depiction was also important . The figurines were used in various settings: as freestanding figurines, applied to vessels; in opposition to another less stylised figure (Fig . 2); or in reliefs . In addition, some multi-headed examples may have been intended to be interpreted as supernatural . Because the plank-shaped figurines are found as pairs or holding infants, they may indicate social or family ties, which leads to the possibility of interpreting the multi-headed figurines simply as people or ancestors linked to each other by social bonds, rather than as fantastic creatures or godlike entities . Thus, the figurines may symbolically represent people, whether ancestors, living relatives or friends . They may have functioned as companions and representations of, and for, both the living and the dead . Their exact social and biological nature may have been interchangeable, according to individual intention and context . Therefore along with settlements, burial areas, with their associated practices of feasting, were also important spaces for collective gatherings, communication, and ritual activities, enacted in order to accumulate social capital and mediate social relations . The impressive Cypriot multi-chambered tombs were an important place of encounter, and were not the invention of a single culture, as the undeniable similarities to foreign burial practices reveal (Keswani 2004: 55) . The work involved in cutting burial chambers into the bedrock would have demanded the time and labour of several family members, and we can postulate a communal element with some certainty on the basis of the habit of secondary burials, evidence of feasting in the assemblages inside the graves, and the presence of board games . Furthermore, carved features comparable to shrine-like constructions suggest the possibility of including the graves in the detection of other modes of ritual activity (Frankel and Webb 2007; Webb et al. 2009) . So-called work feasts (Dietler and Herbich 2001) encourage the work involved in the preparation of a particular location and were also an opportunity to cement social relations during funeral rites, although direct indicators for such events are scarce . This suggestion is underpinned by distinguishing between the ceramic assemblages used for actual food consumption, and the more elaborate ceramics used as grave goods or with more specific functions . Most notable are the composite vessels with scenic applications, for example, the combination of two bowls and a jug (Fig . 3) . This commonly arises among grave goods (Webb and Frankel 2008: Plate 3 .4) and can also be found on various composite vessels, thereby indicating carefully selected elements rather than just simply a random composition . The actual creation of the tombs was only a fraction of the whole event associated with burial and subsequently should not be reduced to the last act of a funeral, but considered to be embedded in all the activities accompanying it . Nonetheless, funerary activities have been recognised as one of the primary mechanisms by which individuals gained social and symbolic capital on Cyprus (Keswani 2004: 82) . It cannot be determined who the deposited material belonged to and it is suggested that they were a combination of personal belongings and gifts from the bereaved (Keswani 2004: 75) . The great effort involved in the creation of unique chamber tombs and extraordinary objects has been interpreted as signifying the formation of elite identity, © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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supported also by the evidence of very rare imports, especially at sites on the northern coast, although these do not appear in the richest tombs (Mina 2013) . Additional aspects may be employed to ascertain the value of these imports such as the so-called ‘Tomb of the Seafarer’, a burial in a side-chamber of Chamber Tomb 11b at Karmi Palealona excavated in 1962, where an average setting of grave goods also included some faience beads and a Minoan Kamares Ware cup, placed upside down, possibly on the right hand of the body (Steward 1962, Webb et al. 2009: 246–247) . More recent interpretations maintain that the cup represents an extraordinary item, and this elevates the position of its holder within the social hierarchy . The cup should be seen as more than just an item of display and indicator of trade however . In combination with deposited jugs and bowls, this cup is an integral element of a valued action, and participates in a burial rite as a medium of communication and exchange on many social levels connected to the burial’s participants . 4. Conclusion In the absence of any clear evidence for sanctuaries within a proposed ritual space, rituals must be understood as cognitive and valued actions in order to elucidate more detailed questions of human interactions . Approached in this way, a revaluation of elaborate burial customs and iconographic depictions from prehistoric Cyprus offers new perspectives on social status and family relations . Investigations of Cypriot figural representations enhance the articulation of familial relations, gender, and age . The variation in their positions as well as interaction of style, suggests that figural representations incorporate strong reference points for multiple types of people, including supernatural or ancestral beings, the recently deceased, as well as the living of any age, sex or amount within both settlements and burial contexts . If ritual actions accompanying the burial of the dead are considered, the amount of vessels used for consumption of food or drink show a striking two-to-one ratio, indicating the importance of this duality . If these ritual practices extended beyond a simple interpretation of prestigious display, through the incorporation of exotic material and objects, the meaning of a Minoan Kamares Ware cup in a burial context can be more than an indicator of sporadic trade relations . As Cyprus had a faintly detectable role in long-range trade, the import of items was obviously not exclusively commercial and people outside the island may have been participating in various activities and rituals themselves . Thus, an enduring influence from various groups interacting with each other throughout the island and its surroundings can be presumed . As these interactions occurred across time spans which are barely perceptible within the archaeological record, and the preserved material shows neither the frequency nor quality of interaction, there must have been a degree of mutual dependence among both the internal and external communities associated with the island . Indeed, the various affiliations between all the different cultures during the Early and Middle Bronze Age is a strong indicator that this occurred . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Bibliography Ackerman, A . 2012 Cultural Hybridity: Between Metaphor and Empiricism . In: P . W . Stockhammer (ed .), Conceptualizing Cultural Hybridization: A Transdisciplinary Approach . Berlin – Heidelberg, 4–45 . Belgiorno, M . R ., Fossataro, D . and Menozzi, O . 2010 Project: Pyrgos (Limassol) and its Territory; Preliminary Report of the 2010 Archaeological Investigations. http://www .pyrgos-mavroraki .eu/pyrgos-mavroraki_g000010 .pdf (02 .09 .2016) Bell, C . 1997 Ritual. Perspectives and Dimensions . Oxford . Bolger, D . L . 1983 Khrysiliou-Ammos, Nicosia-Ayia Paraskevi and the Philia Culture of Cyprus. Report of the Department of Antiquities, Cyprus 1983, 60–73 . 2010

Gender and Social Complexity in Prehistoric and Protohistoric Cyprus . In: D . Bolger and L . Maguire (eds .), The Development of Pre-State Communities in Ancient Near East. Studies in Honour of Edgar Peltenburg. British Association for Near Eastern Archaeology Publication Series 2 . Oxford, 156–164 .

Bourdieu, P . 1990 The Logic of Practice . Stanford . Brosius, C ., Michaels, A . and Schrode, P . 2013 Ritualforschung Heute – ein Überblick . In: C . Brosius, A . Michaels and P . Schrode (eds .), Ritual und Ritualdynamik. Schlüsselbegriffe, Theorien, Diskussionen. Göttingen, 9–24 . a Campo, A . L . 1994 Anthropomorphic Representations in Prehistoric Cyprus: A Formal and Symbolic Analysis of Figurines, C. 3500–1800 B.C . Studies in Mediterranean Archaeology and Literature . Pocket Book 109, Jonsered . Crewe, L . 2014 Expanding and Shrinking Networks of Interaction: Cyprus c . 2200 BC . In: H . Meller, H . W . Arz, R . Jung and R . Risch (eds .), 2200 BC – A Climatic Breakdown as a Cause for the Collapse of the Old World? Halle, 131–148 . Dietler, M . and Herbich, I . 2001 Feast and Labor Mobilization . Dissecting a Fundamental Economic Practice . In: M . Dietler and B . Hayden (eds .), Feasts. Archaeological and Ethnographic Perspectives on Food, Politics, and Power . Washington and London, 240–264 . Dikaios, P . 1940 The Excavations at Vounous-Bellapais in Cyprus, 1931–2 . Archaeologia 88 . Oxford, 1–174 . Dollhofer, L . and Schaller, K . 2000 Die Quadratur Kreisförmiger Heiligtümer der Kyprischen Bronzezeit . Forum Archaeologia14/III/2000. http://homepage .univie .ac .at/elisabeth .trinkl/forum/forum0300/14dosch .htm (26 .01 .2015) van Dommelen, P . and Rowlands, M . 2012 Material Concerns and Colonial Encounters . In: J . Maran and P . W . Stockhammer (eds .), Materiality and Social Practice. Transformative Capacities of Intercultural Encounters. Papers of the Conference, Heidelberg, 25th–27th March 2010 . Oxford, 20–31 . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Frankel, D . and Tamvaki, A . 1973 Cypriote Shrine Models and Decorated Tombs . Australian Journal of Biblical Archaeology 2, 39–44 . Frankel, D . and Webb, J . M . 2007 The Bronze Age Cemeteries at Deneia in Cyprus . Studies in Mediterranean Archaeology 135 . Uppsala . Harding, A . 2013 World Systems, Cores and Peripheries in Prehistoric Europe . European Journal of Archaeology 16, 378–400 . Hodder, I . 2012 Entangled. An Archaeology of the Relationship between Humans and Things . Oxford . Karageorghis, V . 1970 Two Religious Documents of the Early Cypriote Bronze Age . Report of the Department of Antiquities, Cyprus 1970, 10–13 . 1971

Le Taureau et le Serpent, 1500 Ans de Symbolisme Religieux à Chypre . Archeologia 43, 58–63 .

Keswani, P . 2004 Mortuary Ritual and Society in Bronze Age Cyprus. London . Kertzer, D . I . 1988 Ritual, Politics, and Power. New Haven . Knapp, A . B . 2013 The Archaeology of Cyprus. From Earliest Prehistory Through the Bronze Age. Cambridge . Knox, D .-K . 2012 Making Sense of Figurines in Bronze Age Cyprus. A Comprehensive Analysis of Cypriot Ceramic Figurative Material from EC I – LC IIIA (c.2300BC – c.1100BC). PhD thesis, University of Manchester . Lorentz, K . 2005 Late Bronze Age Burial Practices: Age as a Form of Social Difference . In: V . Karageorghis, H . Matthäus and S . Rogge (eds .), Cyprus: Religion and Society. Möhnesee-Wamel, 41–56 . Maran, J . 2016 Towards an Anthropology of Religion in Minoan and Mycenaean Greece . In: E . Alram-Stern, F . Blakolmer, S . Deger-Jalkotzy, R . Laffineur and J . Weilhartner (eds .), Metaphysis. Ritual, Myth and Symbolism in the Aegean Bronze Age . Aegaeum 39, Leuven, 581–591 . Mina, M . 2013 Exotica in Early and Middle Bronze Age Cyprus: exploring aspects of the secular and sacred economy . In: A . B . Knapp, J . M . Webb and A . McCarthy (eds .), J. R. B. Stewart: An Archaeological Legacy. Studies in Mediterranean Archaeology 139, Uppsala, 33–45 . Mellink, M . 1991 Anatolian contacts with Chalcolithic Cyprus . Bulletin of the American School of Oriental Research 282/283, 167–175 . Michaels, A . 2015 Homo Ritualis. Hindu Ritual and its Significance for Ritual Theory. Oxford . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Morris, D . 1985 The art of ancient Cyprus: with a check-list of the author’s collection. Oxford . Peltenburg, E . 1994 Constructing Authority: the Vounous Enclosure Model . Opscula Atheniensia 20: 157–162 . Renfrew, C . 1985 The Archaeology of Cult: The Sanctuary of Phylakopi. London . Sherratt, S . 2015 Cyprus and the Near East: Cultural Contacts (1200–750 BC) . In: A . Babbi, F . BubenheimerErhart, B . Marín-Aguilera and S . Mühl (eds .), The Mediterranean Mirror. Cultural Contacts in the Mediterranean Sea Between 1200 and 750 B.C. Mainz, 71–84 . Steel, L . 2004 Cyprus before History: From the Earliest Settlers to the End of the Bronze Age. London . 2013

The Social World of Early-Middle Bronze Age Cyprus: Rethinking the Vounous Bowl . Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology 26 .1, 51–73 .

Steward, S . T . 1962 The Tomb of the Seafarer at Karmi in Cyprus . Opuscula Atheniensia 4, 197–204 . Swiny, S ., Rapp, G ., and Herscher, E . 2003 Sotira Kamminoudhia: An Early Bronze Age Site in Cyprus. American Schools of Oriental Research, Archaeological Reports 8, Cyprus American Archaeological Research Institute Monograph 4, Boston . Webb, J . M . 1999 Ritual Architecture, Iconography and Practice in the Late Cypriot Bronze Age. Jonsered . 2016

Ritual as the Setting for Contentious Interaction: From Social Negotiation to Institutionalised Authority in Bronze Age Cyprus . In: A . B . Knapp and P . van Dommelen (eds .), The Cambridge Prehistory of the Bronze and Iron Age Mediterranean. Cambridge, 619–634 .

Webb, J . M . and Frankel, D . 2008 Fine Ware Ceramics Consumption and Commensality: Mechanisms of Horizontal and Vertical Integration in Early Bronze Age Cyprus . In: L .A . Hitchcock, R . Laffineur and J . L . Crowley (eds .), The Aegean feast: DAIS, proceedings of the 12th International Aegean Conference, University of Melbourne, Centre for Classics and Archaeology, 25–29 March 2008. Aegaeum 29, Liège, 287–295 . 2013

Ambelikous Aletri: Metallurgy and Pottery Production in Middle Bronze Age Cyprus . Studies in Mediterranean Archaeology 138, Uppsala .

Webb, J . M ., Frankel, D ., Eriksson, K . O . and Hennessy, J . B . 2009 The Bronze Age Cemeteries at Karmi Palealona and Lapatsa in Cyprus. Excavations by J. R. B. Stewart. Studies in Mediterranean Archaeology 136, Sävedalen .

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Alterna!ve Scheme Absolute Chronology BCE 2400/2350–2250 PreBA I 2250–2000

2000–1750/1700

PreBA II

1750/1700–1450 (Transi!on)

ProBA I

1450–1300

ProBA II

1300–1050

ProBA III

Tradi!onal Scheme Rela!ve Chronology Philia Early Cypriot I Early Cypriot II Early Cypriot IIIA Early Cypriot IIIB Middle Cypriot I Middle Cypriot II Middle Cypriot III Late Cypriot IA Late Cypriot IB Late Cypriot IIA Late Cypriot IIB Late Cypriot IIC Late Cypriot IIIA Late Cypriot IIIB Late Cypriot IIIC/CG I

Absolute Chronology BCE 2500–2300 2300–2150 2150–2100 2100–1950 2025–1950 1950–1850 1850–1750 1750–1650 1650–1550 1550–1425 1425–1375 1375–1330 1330–1200 1200–1100 1100–1050 1050–1000

Tab . 1 Based on Knapp 2013, tab . 2

Fig . 1 Model, Vounous T . 22, No . 26 . H . 8cm, D . 37cm, Cyprus Museum, Nicosia (drawing: N . Kuch and F . Heil) © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Fig . 2 Pyxis, Vounous T . 2, No . 91 . H . 19cm, L . 22cm, Cyprus Museum, Nicosia (drawing: N . Kuch)

Fig . 3 Model, Vounous T . 9, No . 63 . H . 17cm, L . 32cm, Cyprus Museum, Nicosia (drawing: N . Kuch) © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Dolmens in the Ritual Landscape of Muraygat Susanne Kerner 1 Abstract At the site of Murayghat in central Jordan, near Madaba, several dolmen fields are situated around and possibly oriented towards a central knoll which features several structures built from standing stones . The dolmen fields are characterised by trilithon dolmens made from one, or sometimes two, side-stone slabs and a roof slab . These were quarried locally and appear in roughly two sizes . The dolmen fields most probably date to the Early Bronze Age, while the structures around the central knoll date to both the Early and Middle Bronze Age . Dolmen fields in Jordan are understood as a landscape phenomenon closely connected to the political situation in the Early Bronze Age .

1. Introduction The ‘Ritual Landscape of Murayghat’ project studies the site of Murayghat, located in central Jordan near Madaba (Fig . 1) . The project is divided into two main components: the study of the landscape and an excavation . It also functions as a fieldschool for Copenhagen University that trains students of Near Eastern Archaeology . The large dolmen site of Murayghat has been known for many years and was mentioned by several early travellers . The first western description was by Charles Irby and James Mangles who toured the region in 1817 and 1818 (Irby and Mangles 1985: 465–466) . Claude Reignier Conder visited the site in 1881 and described it and its surrounding in some detail . He estimated that 150 dolmens would have existed on the central knoll and the surrounding hills (Conder 1889: 184) . Later visitors reported the presence of Chalcolithic as well as Early Bronze Age pottery (Harrison 1997: 29; Mallon et al. 1934: 155, pl . 63 .4–9) . Between 1999 and 2001 Steven Savage and his team visited the site, surveying random squares and documenting several structures on the central knoll (Dubis and Savage 2001; Savage 2010; Savage and Metzger 2002; Savage and Rollefson 2001) . They determined that the site consisted of “ . . . several structures on the hill made up of outlines of megalithic rocks (probably columns or column bases), with cobblestone floors . . .” and “ . . . a series of concentric circles of standing stones . . .” (Savage 2010: 36–37) . Three quarries in close vicinity threatened the site, particularly the numerous dolmens (Savage 2010; Scheltema 2008) . This danger has subsided to an extent as the result of the Department of Antiquities and the Jordan Government having purchased the dolmen fields west of the central knoll, although a large number of dolmens have already disappeared . Other disturbances to the site were caused by

1

Institute for Regional and Cross-Cultural Studies, Copenhagen University, Denmark . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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agricultural and pastoral activities on and around the central knoll . The Ritual Landscape of the Murayghat project is consequently also a salvage project which will document as many of these unique monuments as possible . 2. The site The site is formed by the central knoll (Area 1; Fig . 2) which is surrounded by low hills to the north (Area 3), west (Area 4) and southwest (Areas 5 and 6) . A road east of the knoll separates it from a field that runs towards the steep sides of Wadi Main . This field (Area 7) contains some rather large dolmens and continues northwards until the Hadjar al-Mansub, a large standing stone located around 1km from the centre of the central knoll which has been mentioned in all the earlier reports of the site . The northern hill (Area 3) has nearly been eaten up by the northern quarry, but similar activities that also threatened the south-western hill (Area 5) ceased in 2015 . The quarries still work to the west and the south, but not in the direction of the site . Some disturbance is therefore still occurring in Areas 6 and 8 . Along the road (in Areas 3 and 7) are some broken dolmens, which according to the local population, have been blown up within recent decades . The modern road may indicate that Murayghat has always been situated at an important position, at the entrance to the Wadi Main and the Jordan valley . 3. The central knoll The central knoll measures approximately 3 .5ha and is defined in the west by Wadi Murayghat (which flows into the Wadi Main) and in the east and south-east by the street heading towards the Wadi Main . This street also leads to the southern and western quarries, which causes some disturbances . The northern edge is limited by an artificial wall formed by bulldozing activities dating back to the 1970s . The knoll itself consists of limestone, a material that breaks in relatively straight slabs and is thus easy to use for the construction of dolmens without requiring much further work . One of the objectives of the project is to undertake an intensive survey of the central knoll (Fig . 3) . To this end, a net of 10 × 10m squares was laid over the site and 30% (1ha) was surveyed with the visible bedrock, cup-marks and assemblages of surface collections documented . The central knoll exhibits two possibly circular alignments on the highest point on the bedrock (O–P/50–51) . From there a good view is provided to the surrounding area and almost all the dolmens on the hills (Areas 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7) would have been visible from this point . Better still, this point would have been visible from nearly all the dolmens on the surrounding hills (Fig . 4) . Even two dolmens along a small side road above the Wadi Main have sight lines to the central knoll of Murayghat, over a distance of 1 .5km . The Hadjar al-Mansub, however, is not visible . The other structures on the central knoll are four large horseshoe-shaped arrangements, of which HS1 (P–Q/47–48), HS2 (I–J/55–56) and HS4 (F–H/54–55) (Fig . 5) are located © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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on the north-western and south-western sides of the central knoll . Only HS3 is on the north-eastern side of the knoll (E/61–61) and thus oriented toward the larger dolmen along the modern road . The dating of HS3 is uncertain and it might be a much later construction used as an animal pen . Another very large horseshoe-shape (HS5) just south of HS4 was recognised in the geo-mag- netic survey carried out in 2015, as only small parts of it are visible on the surface . Several rectangular structures have also been documented: the R2 (F51) and R3 (J/50–51) are again on the western side of the central knoll on the flatter area outside the immediately visible bedrock . They are built from smaller stones and situated on flat, even ground . R1 is built from large standing stones and sits on the bedrock east of the hilltop (H57, Fig . 5) . The south and west of the central site is delimited by a wall which has, for the most part, an interior and exterior face . On the eastern slope of the central knoll, two other double walls are visible, forming an entrance-like structure (L57 and K58), while the western slope, again, has an entrance-like structure where two larger standing stones form a gap in a longer wall made from orthostats (O49) . Three possible dolmens are located inside the surrounding wall, while one well-preserved dolmen is situated south of the wall . The latter has approximately a dozen cup-marks on the top of the roofing stone . Over 40 cup-holes have been documented; there is a concentration of them along the edge of Wadi Murayghat where in some cases groups of four and six have been found . They usually measure around 15 to 20cm in diameter and are of various depths . The central knoll is surrounded on all sides by flat ground with the bedrock disappearing under layers of soil of varying thickness/depth . Area 2 to the south has obviously a long tradition of agricultural use and consequently minimal cultural remains have been found . The space to the west and east has been proven by the geo-physical survey in 2015 to contain many cultural structures . In the north, excavations were carried out, which showed the existence of Middle Bronze and Early Bronze Age structures in Trenches 3 and 4 (see Fig . 3) . The walls were, with one exception, very flimsy and not built to stand up to substantial height . Floors were found only in the form of small fragments and were covered with different kinds of fill 3 .1 The survey The systematic survey of the vicinity was carried out in five different areas that were divided into fields, all together covering over 50ha . The fields were surveyed and all features within them recorded as loci which included many stone features, caves, and terracing walls; however, this article will only deal with the documented (fully measured, drawn and photographed) dolmens . Area 3 is the smallest of the survey areas (Fig . 2) and yielded four dolmen, some of which were the largest ones in the area . The large dolmens are positioned along the road (L .3042, L .3043, L .3044) and a huge stone might be the capstone and only remnant of a fourth dolmen (L .3045) . Only L .3042, at 14m² a large example (Fig . 6), © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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was well preserved with its roof-stone still in situ, while the broken side- stone slabs are the last visible remains from L .3043 and L .3044 . Area 7 is situated east of the road and also contains some of the largest dolmens of the area (Fig . 2) . One of the dolmens is situated further downslope towards the steep Wadi Zerqa Main, and does not have any line of sight to the central knoll of Murayghat (and is rather singular in this) . Five dolmens have been found, of which only one is complete (L .7001) while all others are collapsed (L .7002, L .7004, L .7005, L .7006) . The large standing stone, known as Hadjar al-Mansub, is located in Area 7 (L .7007, Scheltema 2008; Savage 2010) . One other large stone, possibly originally part of a dolmen, but possibly also a former standing stone, was also documented (L .7003) . Area 4 is the north-western hill and encompasses around 10ha (Fig . 2) . The area is demarcated by Wadi Murayghat in the east (towards Area 1), by two side wadis running west-east into the Wadi Murayghat to the north and south . The western limit is west of the hilltop has not been finally reached yet . Area 4 can be divided into a number of geographical/geological zones consisting of a ploughed field at the bot-tom of the eastern slope and a steep slope toward the SW along the main wadi, and another steep slope to the northern as well as the southern side wadis . The lower parts of the steep slopes are only partly covered with soil from which the steep bedrock layer rises up as a cliff (up to c . 10–15m) to the lowest rock terrace located at mid-slope . Seven of these rock terraces form the slope up to the hilltop and the survey fields were usually arranged along these geographical formations . It has proven to be very difficult to judge whether some of the terrace edges along the hill are natural or artificial . In some cases it is very clear that they were artificially enhanced with long, low walls . The Murayghat project has recorded 78 dolmens here, of which 23 are complete and in situ, or only very slightly disturbed, while 55 of them are collapsed but can quite certainly be identified as dolmens . Twelve dolmens have been documented completely, while the remaining ones have only been registered . Area 5 is also to the west of the central site (Fig . 2) and forms the southwestern hill . It is defined by the Wadi Murayghat to the east, the small side wadi dividing Areas 4 and 5 to the north, and the quarry to the south – originally another small wadi would have divided the Areas 5 and 6 where the quarry is now . 13 dolmens have been found in this area as well as some Byzantine structures on the hilltop . Like Area 4, the hill has many terraces . Other dolmens have been documented in Areas 6 and 8 located further away from the central knoll . In Areas 4 and 5 the dolmens are nearly exclusively situated on the upper terraces, consequently leaving the usable agricultural land free . 3 .2 Dolmen excavation Only one dolmen has been excavated so far . This was a broken dolmen situated in Area 1, on the actual central knoll (Fig . 7) . A group of possibly three dolmens, two being very much ruined and therefore not clearly identifiable as dolmens, existed south of the central circles . The dolmen L . 1205 (Trench 6) was standing but in© 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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com-plete which allowed easy access . The side-stones abutted the floor-stone very tightly, causing considerable difficulties when the floor-stone was removed with the side-stones still standing and smaller stones were used to wedge the larger ones in place . EB I material was found in the fill layers, as well as some finger bones . 4. Dolmens in Murayghat All together 122 dolmens have been recorded but not all of them have been documented in detail . They mostly consist of a single side-stone slab (sometimes two), a capstone and a floor-stone, and thus belong to Type A2 of Zohar’s typology (Zohar 1992) . A discussion of the usefulness of the existing typologies follows below, it is, however, practical to situate the material from Murayghat in an existing typology to enable the reader to better imagine the structures . Dolmens can be built on a platform and some incorpo-rate the last remains of a surrounding circle . The dolmens in Murayghat occur mostly in two different sizes, either 2–3m or over 4 .5m long, the latter being the exception . Most slabs, and this is true for all kinds: side, floor and roof slabs, are smoother on the inside than the outside, which is nearly always obviously weathered and left in its original shape . The outside was also originally the surface of the bedrock, when the stone was extracted from it . The floor-slabs and the blocking slabs at the entrances are much smaller than the orthostats at the side and the capstones . The floor-stones seem to be carefully chosen because they fit very snugly in between the vertical slabs/orthostats . The roof slabs are frequently ‘roof-shaped’, meaning that they are triangular in section on the outside (Fig . 8) . So far, no work marks on the directly adjacent bedrock have been found which would have indicated preparatory work for the assembly of the dolmen . Nevertheless, the dolmens, especially those along the steep slopes, have been built on carefully chosen platforms . The quarrying for most of the dolmens seems to have occurred in the direct surrounding of their subsequent location . The local limestone breaks off along fault-lines, often charac-terised by flint nodules which are frequently recognisable on the surfaces of the slabs incorporated into the dolmen . In one case a single stone slab lay only a few meters away from a gap in the bedrock that has the exact shape of that stone . In several other cases the connection between dolmen slabs and quarrying signs were suggestive but not absolutely clear . All dolmens studied so far have been empty and most of them, even the stillstand- ing ones, are in a state of disorder that does not allow secure interpretation of their front or back . It is therefore very difficult to make decisive statements about their orientation . The majority of dolmens in Murayghat point towards the centre of the site, but not all follow this rule . The direction of the dolmen opening, as far as that can be determined, is also often dictated by the location of the dolmen on the terraces along the hill slopes . The hypothesis that dolmens in the Near East were oriented towards the solstices or equinoxes (Al-Shorman 2010; Polcaro and Polcaro 2006) cannot convincingly be confirmed at Murayghat . Recent research on the dol© 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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men and stone alignments in different parts of Europe has shown that a general direction has too often been assumed based on only a few elements or examples . This is not meant to exclude any such directional plan behind a structure, but at present it is more persuasive to demonstrate the connection between a single structure and a particular directional intent (e .g . Rosen et al. 2007) rather than prove the same for a large col-lection of structures . 5. Dolmens as landscape phenomena Dolmens, meaning large upright stones with a ‘table’ stone on top, the word deriving from the Breton dol = table and men = stone, 2 have been found all over the world . A closer look, however, shows that the examples in Cornwall (Great Britain), Carnac (France), or the Hünengräber in the Lüneburger Heide (Germany), have little or nothing in common with the dolmen fields in Jordan . In addition it is generally accepted that the European megalithic monuments have very little in common with those in Korea or India . The attempt to create a world-wide megalithic ‘movement’, which developed during times of diffusionist models (Fergusson 1872; Peet 1912), has lost most of its fervour . In these times of small-scale archaeology when most global models of explanation have been abandoned, it is appropriate to follow examples from Near Eastern archaeology 3 and concentrate on the development of regional typologies first, before constructing larger cultural entities . The typologies for Near Eastern dolmens have been developed – among others – by Steimer-Herbet (2004), Zohar (1992) and Epstein (1985) . All three typologies attempt to include a wide variety of megalithic structures, subsuming quite different forms and shapes under the term dolmen and incorporate the simple trilithon dolmen, with one or two side-slabs and a roof slab, with much larger, sometimes far more complex structures . As Frazer convincingly demonstrates, this principally laudable attempt at creating an encompassing typology led to the conflation of two different traditions from two different periods into a single dolmen phenomenon: “While the trilithons represent a north- south mortuary tradition in the Rift Valley and its eastern uplands in the EB I–II, the ‘gallery tombs’ represent an east-west ‘basalt’ tradition of the EB IV . . .” (Frazer 2015: 72) . This conflation is responsible for inconsistencies in the dating of dolmens in the Southern Levant and is closely related to the on-going discussion concerning the relationship between dolmens and nomadic populations . Dolmens have been dated to a number of different time periods, from the Early Bronze Age I to the Early Bronze Age IV or Middle Bronze Age (Epstein 1985; Prag

2 3

It was first used in the Near East by Felicién de Saulcy, who used the term to describe the monuments he encountered at Adeimeh in 1850 (de Saulcy 1865: 312–316, quoted in Frazer 2015: 12) . Very good examples of the tendency to first establish a firm local or regional chronology and interpretation can be found in Nieuwenhuyse et al. 2013. © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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1995; Yassine 1985) . They have also been connected to either urbanism (4th millennium BC) or ruralism (late 3rd millennium BC), and interpreted as burial grounds for an urban population or as landmarks of an essentially nomadic population . More recent studies have confirmed what Prag already pointed out (Prag 1995) which is that dolmen fields in Jordan are usually close to large 4th millennium BC sites, as is spectacularly evident at Mutawwaq (Polcaro 2013; Polcaro et al. 2014) and also known from Tuleilat Ghassul, Iktanu, Mount Nebo and other sites . Al-Shorman (2010), and in much more detail Frazer, illustrate the connection between trilithon dolmen and geology . The dolmens in the Southern Levant are erected in areas of “ . . . sand-stone and travertine in the Jordan Valley, micritic limestone in the eastern escarpment, and crystalline basalt in the Jaulan and Leja . . .” (Frazer 2015: 120) . This is a very interesting parallel to the megalithic monuments of Northern Europe which are clustered in areas of similarly geologically suitable material . Both the megalithic structures in the Netherlands and Northern Germany make use of large, very attention-arresting, boulders left in the region by the last Ice Age (Scarre 2005) . 6. Discussion The dolmens at Murayghat cannot be precisely dated at this stage of the project, although excavation has indicated an Early Bronze Age date for Dolmen L .1205 . The other excavation trenches have so far proved Early Bronze Age I–II and Mid-dle Bronze Age occupation for the site (Kerner et al. in press) . As discussed above, there are strong indications that a connection exists between 4th millennium BC sites and dolmen fields: the fields are located on ground that cannot easily be used for agricultural purposes, as it is too stony and/or steep . The landscape – certainly in Murayghat – has a stark beauty for our eyes today, and may have been impressive to earlier visitors too . Several visitors have used the metaphor of a ‘natural amphitheater’ to describe the position of the central knoll settled between the rising hills to the north, west and south . The dialectic relationship between na-ture and culture, which are only opposites for our modern western thinking (Thomas 2001: 167; Ingold 2000: 40), may have been one of the reasons for building dolmens . Effortlessly noticeable, easily breakable large stone slabs would have facilitated the deliberate creation of a landscape, where natural stone and cultur-al stone monuments existed in close relationship . While humans shape landscape, landscape also affects humans: objects and subjects constitute each other (Thomas 1996) . This landscape, with large, easily breakable stone slabs, became significant because human agents made it so . Through such landscaping ancient people made statements about their presence, leaving an imprint on the land with the potential to have an effect through history, as there appears to be tendency for a Middle Bronze Age re-use of more dolmens than just those at Murayghat . The dolmen field around Mount Nebo also indicates both a connection between an EB I settlement (Conder’s Circle) and later re-use, when several of the smaller circular structures were built (Mortensen and Thuesen 1998; Thuesen 2009) . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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The Early Bronze Age I in the Southern Levant has been discussed as a period of change . First, the transition from the socio-political system of the Late Chalcolithic based on the importance of metal objects and cultic nodes on different scales to the Early Bronze Age I, included a change in settlement pattern, prestige objects and basis for subsistence . Later in the Early Bronze Age another change towards smallscale urbanisation and very regular distribution of cultic buildings, together with an increasing importance of funeral buildings, occurs (Chesson and Philip 2003) . The phenomenon of dolmen fields should be seen within this socio-political setting char-acterised by changing ways of life and thought . Acknowledgements The financing of the project was possible due to the support of the University of Copenhagen, the H . P . Hjerl-Hansen Mindefondet for Dansk Palæstinaforskning and the Danish Institute in Damascus . Bibliography Al-Shorman, A . 2010 Testing the function of Early Bronze Age I dolmens: a GIS investigation . Near Eastern Archaeology 73, 46–49 . Chesson, M . and Philip, G . 2003 Tales of the City? Urbanism in the Early Bronze Age Levant from Mediterranean and Levantine Perspectives . Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology 16, 3–16 . Conder, C . R . 1889 The Survey of Eastern Palestine: Memoirs of the Topography, Orography, Hydrography, Archaeology, etc. Volume I: The Adwân Country . London . Dubis, E . and Savage, S . H . 2001 Moab Archaeological Resource Survey: the dolmen field at al-Murayghât . Archeologia 52, 91–96 . Epstein, C . 1985 Dolmens excavated in the Golan . Atiqot 17, 20–58 . Fergusson, J . 1872 Rude Stone Monuments in All Countries, their Ages and Uses . London . Frazer, J . 2015 Dolmens in the Levant . PhD thesis, University of Sydney . Harrison, T . P . 1997 Shifting Patterns of Settlement in the Highlands of Central Jordan during the Early Bronze Age . Bulletin of the American Schools for Oriental Research 306, 1–37 .

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Ingold, T . 2000 The Perception of the Environment: Essays in Livelihood, Dwelling and Skill . London . Irby, C . L ., and Mangles, J . 1985 Travels in Egypt and Nubia, Syria and Asia Minor during the Years 1817 & 1818 . London . Kerner, S ., Barnes, R . H ., Flender, M ., Ruben, I . and Andersson, A . in press The 2014 season in the ‘Ritual Landscape of Murayghat’ project . Annual of the Department of Antiquities of Jordan 2016. Mallon, A ., Koeppel, R . and Neuville, R . 1934 Teleilat Ghassul I: Compte rendu des fouilles de l’Institut biblique pontifical . Rome . Mortensen, P . and Thuesen, I . 1998 The Prehistoric Periods . In: M . Piccirillo and E . Alliata (eds .), Mount Nebo. New Excavations 1967–1997 . Studium Biblicum Fransiscanum Collectio Maior 27 . Jerusalem, 84–99 . Nieuwenhuyse, O . P ., Bernbeck, R ., Akkermans, P . M . M . G . and Rogasch, J . 2013 Interpreting the Late Neolithic of Upper Mesopotamia . Papers on Archaeology from The Leiden Museum of Antiquities 9 . Brepols . Peet, T . E . 1912 Rough Stone Monuments and their Builders . London . Polcaro, A . 2013 The stone and the landscape: the phenomenon of megalithic constructions in Jordan in the main historical context of the southern Levant at the beginning of the 3rd millennium BC . In: L . Bombardieri, A . D’Agostino, G . Guarducci, V . Orsi and S . Valentini. (eds .), SOMA 2012: Identity and Connectivity. Proceedings of the 16th Symposium on Mediterranean Archaeology . Oxford, 127–132 . Polcaro, A ., Muniz, J ., Alvarez, V . and Mogliazza, S . 2014 Dolmen 317 and its hidden burial: an Early Bronze Age I megalithic tomb from Jebel al-Mutawwaq (Jordan) . Bulletin of the American Schools for Oriental Research 372, 1–17 . Polcaro, A . and Polcaro, V . F . 2006 Early Bronze Age dolmens in Jordan and their orientations . Mediterranean Archaeology and Archaeometry 6, 16–17 . Prag, K . 1995 The Dead Sea dolmens: death and the landscape . In: S . Campbell and A . Green (eds .), Archaeology of Death in the Ancient Near East . Oxford, 75–84 . Rosen, S . A ., Bocquentin, F ., Avni, Y . and Porat, N . 2007 Investigations at Ramat Saharonim: a desert Neolithic sacred precinct in the central Negev . Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 346, 1–27 . Saulcy, Felicien C . de 1865 Voyage en Terre Sainte, Volume 1 . Paris . Savage, S . H . 2010 The endangered Chalcolithic/Early Bronze Age site at al-Murayghât-Hajr al-Mansûb . Near Eastern Archaeology 73, 32–46 . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Savage, S . H . and Metzger, M . 2002 The 2001 field season of the Moab Archaeological Resource Survey . Annual of the Department of Antiquities of Jordan 46, 217–236 . Savage, S . H . and Rollefson, G . O . 2001 The Moab Archaeological Resource Survey: some results from the 2000 field season . Annual of the Department of Antiquities of Jordan 45, 217–236 . Scarre, C . 2005 Displaying the Stones: the Materiality of ‘Megalithic’ Monuments . In: E . DeMarrais, C . Gosden and C . Renfrew (eds .), Rethinking Materiality . Cambridge, 141–152 . Scheltema, G . 2008 Megalithic Jordan. An introduction and field guide . Amman . Steimer-Herbet, T . 2004 Classifications des Sépultures à Superstructure Lithique dans le Levant et l’Arabie Occidentale (IVe et IIIe Millénaires av. J.-C.). Oxford . Thomas, J . 1996 Time, Culture and Identity: an Interpretive Archaeology . London . 2001

Archaeologies of place and landscape . In: I . Hodder (ed .) Archaeological Theory Today . Cambridge, 165–86 .

Thuesen, I . 2004 Messages in stone: the megaliths of the Nebo region in Jordan . In: K . von Folsach, H . Thrane and I . Thuesen (eds .), From Handaxe to Khan . Aarhus, 105–117 . Yassine, K . 1985 The Dolmens: Construction and Dating Reconsidered . Bulletin of the American Schools for Oriental Research 259, 63–69 . Zohar, M . 1992 Megalithic cemeteries in the Levant . In: O . Bar-Yosef and A . Khazanov (eds .), Pastoralism in the Levant: Archaeological Materials in Anthropological Perspectives . Madison, 43–63 .

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Fig . 1 Map showing position od Murayghat (graphics: H . Barnes)

Fig . 2 Map showing all areas in Murayghat (graphics: H . Barnes) © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Fig . 3 Overview Area 1 with surveyed squares and excavation trenches (graphics: H . Barnes)

Fig . 4 Analysis illustrating sight between the central knoll and dolmen in the surrounding (graphics: H . Barnes) © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Fig . 5 Area 1 with documented structures (HS: horse-show shapes, R: rectangles, gates are tentatively named) (graphics: H . Barnes)

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Locus 3042 hts above sea level

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Fig . 6 Plan of locus 3042, a dolmen in Area 3 situated along the road (graphics: H . Barnes)

Fig . 7 Aerial view of locus 1206, the excavated dolmen in Area 1 (photo: S . Kerner)

Fig . 8 Photo of locus 5338, a dolmen in Area 5 (photo: K . Tophøj) © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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The Expression of Gender through Symbolic and Human Imagery in Early Neolithic Northern Mesopotamia Tatiana V. Kornienko 1 Abstract 2 The paper examines characteristic features of the correlation between gender components within the ideology and social life of the population of northern Mesopotamia during the transition from the Epipaleolithic to the Neolithic . Various types of source materials are used, primarily different categories of symbolically decorated objects with human images . The article also discusses the problems evident in previous studies of ideology, ritual and symbolic systems as mechanisms of formation and maintenance of communal identity in prehistoric societies . These problems are analysed by employing psychosocial and other approaches through the example of materials of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic of Northern Mesopotamia . Psychosocial transformations are considered here an important constituent of the process of Neolithisation in the Near East .

1. Introduction The problem of the specificity, evolution and characteristics of the spread of anthropomorphic images and symbols in the region of the Near East, during the transition from the Epipaleolithic to the Neolithic, started to be discussed in the second half of the twentieth century as a result of excavations at Jarmo, Jericho, Mureybet, Çayönü, Çatalhöyük, Magzalia and other expressive sites . Publication of the monograph by J . Cauvin, Naissance des divinités. Naissanсe de l’agriculture. La Révolution des symboles au Néolithique in 1994, provided a new impetus to this subject . Cauvin identified a striking characteristic of “la revolution des symboles au Néolithique” whereby the zoomorphism, previously the dominant characteristic of art, including the Early Natufian, was replaced by anthropomorphism, primarily in the form of stone and clay images of women with accentuated sexual characteristics . Studies of Epipaleolithic and Early Neolithic sites in Western Asia from the late 20th and early 21st centuries confirm the relevance of the term ‘symbolic revolution’ introduced by Cauvin to describe the Near Eastern process of Neolithisation . At the same time, these works make major adjustments which require the revision of previously established views, including those concerning the features of socio-cultural development in different regions of the Fertile Crescent . In the analysis of materials from Northern Mesopotamia dating to the Pre-Pottery Neolithic (Fig . 1), researchers

1 2

Voronezh State Pedagogical University, Russia . The paper represents the basic theses from my articles published in Russian (Корниенко 2015а; 2015b) . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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repeatedly recorded the quantitative and substantial domination of male images and symbols over female ones, which was quite unexpected in the Neolithic (Нauptmann 1999; Schmidt 2006; Hodder and Meskell 2011 and others) . Male images and symbols are especially more prevalent, massive and monumental in public cult buildings, the presence and a certain degree of standardisation of which are an important feature in Early Neolithic Northern Mesopotamia (Kornienko 2009), while connections with animals, evident though zoomorphism, features in both male and female images . Connections with animals, zoomorphism features in both male and female images . Since the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A in Northern Mesopotamia, vertically-installed slabs, pillars and steles that could be duplicated by pilasters, were important markers of sacred space . It is generally agreed that conditionally, schematically and realistically they represent supernatural beings in anthropomorphic or in mixed zooanthropomorphic form . In the central part of the area of this tradition, pillars had a T-shaped form . At the intertribal regional center of Göbekli Tepe, T-shaped pillars, in most cases covered with reliefs, are impressive in regard to their quantity, complexity of design and monumentality in the lower layer (III) of the site, dating to the Epipaleolithic/PPNA (Schmidt 1998, 2006) . If we agree that stele in Northern Mesopotamia conventionally portray human figures, we can conclude that in the area under discussion dominant, symbolically-decorated objects of public importance were represented in anthropomorphic form already at the dawn of the Neolithic period . 2. Points of view Dominance of male symbols and images over female ones (including the anthropomorphic images) is characteristic for the Early Neolithic materials in Northern Mesopotamia . Connection of this element of the symbolic system with other components, such as the motif of separation of the head from the body, images of carnivores, wild and dangerous animals (lions, leopards, foxes, wild boars, bears, snakes, scorpions, spiders and birds of prey) has been interpreted by a number of researchers in the context of performing the cult of the dead together with the beginning of the process of centralization of power and social stratification in conditions of acute social and psychological situation as a reaction to demographic stress and other effects of the transition to a sedentary lifestyle . This led to risks of the spread of aggression, violence, disease and deaths in communities (Schmidt 2006; Hodder and Meskell 2011; Benz and Bauer 2013) . In my opinion, it is necessary to clarify and expand on a number of points in relation to such an interpretation of the underlying social and psychological transformations of Neolithization . M . Benz and J . Bauer, in their examination of a psychosocial approach to the study of symbolic systems of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic, hypothesise that fear and aggression was the dominant feeling and behavioral response of Northern Mesopotamian communities during the transition to the Neolithic way of life . They © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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see the artistic expression of the corresponding emotions reflected in symbols and images of Northern Mesopotamia - the images of deadly animals in aggressive poses placed in premises, where a threatening atmosphere prevailed (Benz and Bauer 2013: 13–14) . It is worth noting, however, that archaeological evidence from the Early Neolithic obtained to date from Upper Mesopotamia does not confirm a hypothesis of widespread armed conflicts or other manifestations of mass violence and aggression . Among other things, recently published research by Y . and D . Erdal of a paleo-anthropological analysis of around 1120 skeletons from Early Neolithic Anatolian settlements do not contain any data indicating the spread of organised violence in Northern Mesopotamia and neighboring areas during the Pre-Pottery Neolithic (Erdal and Erdal 2012) . M . Benz and J . Bauer’s work is based on the detection of evidence of fear and aggression in symbols and images of Northern Mesopotamia, and assumes that feelings and emotions of fear – being natural and related to the instinct for self-preservation – became markedly increased in the transition period characterised by the formation of long-term coexistence within large communities . The impact of the Neolithisation process on the feelings and emotions thus forming a world view, but another basic instinct of human behavior, that of procreation, is not taken into account which may affect the objective interpretation of evidence . I . Hodder and L . Meskel reject the idea of female reproduction, as well as fertility, as fundamental elements of the symbolically-expressed worldview of the residents of the first permanent settlements in South-Eastern Turkey during the transition to a producing economy . They rely upon the earlier assumptions of K . Schmidt, including his as yet unconfirmed empirically – through the discovery of burials – hypothesis of dedication of the Göbekli Tepe complex to the cult of the dead (Schmidt 2006: 125–127) . The claim that “… it was such a suite of symbolism that was in the mind’s eye of the earliest settled villagers and agriculturalists in southeast Turkey, rather than symbolism based mainly on fertility and female reproduction” (Hodder and Meskell 2011: 236) . Hodder and Meskel use the term ‘fertility’ as comparable to ‘vitality’ which, according to M . Verhoven, was one of the four basic principles of ritual practice and ideology of the population of the Levant, Syria and South-Eastern Anatolia in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic В (Verhoeven 2002а; 2002b) . However, the exclusion of the concept of ‘fertility’ from the basic complex of symbols, ideological concepts and principles involved in creating social organisation within Northern Mesopotamian communities in the Early Neolithic is incorrect . 3. Review of the evidence and discussion 3 .1 Incised drawings Female images are indeed rare within the rich and diverse repertoire of symbols and images of the socially significant Northern Mesopotamian ritual complexes . The © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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only artifact of this kind that definitely depicts a woman comes from Layer II at Göbekli Tepe (Fig . 2 .1) . It appears in the so-called ‘Building with the Lion Stelae’, in the area of the pillars featuring reliefs of feline predators and figures with male genitalia, on the slab in the central part of the structure, and is an incised drawing of a frontally positioned naked woman with her legs wide apart and arms bent at the elbows (Schmidt 2006: 228–235, fig . 102– 105) . It is highly likely, judging by pose and proportions that the incised figure on the bench slab in public building EA100 at Jerf el Ahmar also depicts a frontally facing, intentionally headless woman upside-down (Stordeur and Abbès 2002; Fig . 2 .2) . Similar images of female figures with their hands raised to the chest and truncated (chipped, removed) heads are well-known in the Levant and Northern Mesopotamia from the Epipaleolithic to the Chalcolithic periods . 3 .2 Stelae, pillars, and pilasters Undoubtedly the most publically important objects within cult buildings of Northern Mesopotamia were specially decorated stelae (pillars, pilasters), predominantly interpreted as signifying the presence of the patron deities of the community . It is very likely that an arrangement of a group of such pillars (usually exceeding ten) along the perimeter of wide-room structures around one or two pairs of central pillars that differ in size and design from the others, 3 is reflective of the social structure of a well-organized, ideologically-united group, around the leaders through their representatives . The reconstruction of the social structure through symbolically significant architecture is consistent with other archaeological evidence suggesting the preserved system of obvious egalitarianism with complicated social relations and broad powers allocated to administrative leadership in public life within Early Neolithic settlements of Northern Mesopotamia . In such a model power is based on sacred knowledge, ritual and ideology, it was collective and participation in decision-making was limited to representatives of the families (lines, clans) . Verhoeven (2002а: 245, 247, tab . 6) and A . McBride (2013: 60–61) drew attention to the size of Early Neolithic cult buildings provides evidence that not the whole adult population participated in important social gatherings and rituals held there, but only its representatives, possibly chosen according to their gender, age and/or other important social criteria . Interestingly, a close study of monumental pillars originating from the cult complexes of the Northern Mesopotamian Pre-Pottery Neolithic and less commonly from the neighboring territories, over several decades has not provided researchers with concrete information on the gender of the supernatural creatures depicted .

3

Despite the known variations in the design of Early Neolithic ‘temples’ in Northern Mesopotamia, the mentioned arrangement of stelae in cult buildings has been registered in various areas of the region and is most impressively represented by materials from Çayönü Tepesi, Nevali Çori, Tell ‘Abr 3, Jerf el Ahmar and Göbekli Tepe (Kornienko 2009) . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Within Cult Structure II at Nevali Çori, fragments of portrait sculptures with human faces and bird-like bodies, composing a so-called ‘totem pole’ of stone, over one meter tall were found (Hauptmann 1999: 76; Fig . 2 .3) . The presence of protruding breasts means that the images were initially interpreted as female; however, with the accumulation of knowledge about the peculiarities of Northern Mesopotamian Early Neolithic iconography, there were grounds to define the fragments as the parts of human-bird images, analogues of which are now also know from other areas, consequently the gender of these beings remains questionable . T-shaped ‘pillars of Nevali Çori type’ (Fig . 3 .1) found at several sites were defined as anthropomorphic, due to relief carvings depicting arms bent at the elbows with five-fingered hands folded on their bellies, as well as several other features . For a long time gender was not discussed, however, realistically sculpted images comparable in time, material, production style and composition have been in some cases confidently determined as male (Fig . 3 .2) . In the absence of any evidence pointing to their gender, paired central pillars and pilasters within cult complexes of Northern Mesopotamia do not provide any evidence to conclude that, at least in some cases, a classic heterosexual couple, ‘a man and a woman’ was intended . Paired stelae, including those with mirror images featuring predatory animal figures, sometimes demonstrate male symbols and images, as in the case with the ‘lion stelae,’ or exhibit no identifiable gender symbols at all . For the first time ever, central anthropomorphic stelae in Structure D at GöbekliTepe discovered in 2009 (Fig . 4) had ‘male’ loincloths under the creatures’ arms folded on their bellies in the relief (Dietrich et al. 2012: 679, 682–683, fig . 7, 8) . Another recently documented ‘metaphor’ in the relief that is proposed to symbolically demonstrate the maleness of a creature is depicted on Pillar 57 at Göbekli Tepe (Fig . 5) . Here the images depict a circle, on both sides of which are two snake heads, located in the zone of the front side of the stele, under the creature’s arms folded on its belly (Dietrich et al. 2014: 13–14, fig . 6) . These ‘metaphorical’ depictions of male genitalia on the anthropomorphic pillars in the form of animal skins, and with the use of figures of snakes, demonstrate that the symbols of animals and snakes could be associated with the notion of sacred kinship between groups of people who built their cult structures and specific kinds of animals whose images were used for magical purposes, rather then with aggression and violence, and were meant to increase the potency of related groups associated with them . In general, the conditional, schematic, mixed zooanthropomorphic, often asexual, and sometimes bisexual nature of the images found in public cult complexes in Northern Mesopotamia through their symbolism apparently reflect the liminal stage in the development of Early Neolithic communities . The presence of phalli however (Fig . 3 .5), phallic-men (Fig . 3 .6), as well as numerous animals with obvious male characters, and other male symbols and figures along with more rare, explicitly female images, provides grounds to assume male dominance within life and community management . Nevertheless, the concept of ‘fertility’ was one of the most important reflected in cult, ideology and symbols during this period . Fertility was so significant that the as© 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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sertion of male dominance required the endowment of male images with the primary female abilities and functions, such as pregnancy and childbirth, within the sacred sphere . In order to explain this idea, the paper shall examine specific figurative motifs . 3 . 3 ‘Totem poles’ I propose that one of the symbolic objects mentioned by Benz and Bauer in regard to the display of aggression and violence can be interpreted in a different way: this being the sculpturally decorated pillar from sector L9–46 in Layer II of Göbekli Tepe (Fig . 3 .3) . According to Benz and Bauer (2013: 15), the pillar depicts “at least two humans … held by either a predator (feline or bear), or by a human dressed in a cape of fur with the head of such a predator” . Previously it was pointed out that images depicted on this symbolic object demonstrate three or possibly four figures, arranged one above the other . The head of the upper one, according to its preserved parts, the ears and eyes, is interpreted as the head of a predator (bear/lion/leopard?) . The head’s front part was destroyed in ancient times, the neck is emphasised and down the sides runs a familiar motif of arms bent at elbows with five-fingered hands/paws folded on the belly – characteristic of ‘Nevali Çori type pillars’ and the comparable anthropomorphic sculptures . As the excavators note, “The arms (or legs) are holding another head, which again lost its face in antiquity . Significantly, the motive of a wild beast holding a human head is well known from several sculptures from Nevalı Çori and Göbekli Tepe” (Köksal-Schmidt and Schmidt 2010: 74) . In my interpretation this head emerges from the upper creature’s belly . When comparing the object with other pillars and sculptural artifacts from Pre-Pottery Neolithic Northern Mesopotamia, a comparative typological analysis shows that the head of the lower creature protruding from the belly of the upper one may at the same time depict the phallus of the upper creature (Корниенко 2011: 80–90) . Under the second figure, which also has its arms bent at the elbows, is a head and arms of a third one, now shown from the front, with its hands folded on the creature’s belly/phallus, and the next image’s head coming out of it . Köksal-Schmidt and Schmidt note that “It seems likely that the person is depicted giving birth, albeit that a very different explanation is also conceivable, e .g . the person could be presenting his phallus” (2010: 74) . Under this protrusion is a chipped area but no further images . Below the arms of two upper creatures, on each side of the pillar there are large reliefs of snakes . When considered sideways they may also depict the legs/hind legs of a large creature . Every lower figure emerges from the upper creature’s belly (or phallus) and is smaller than the previous one . It is not simply by chance that similar-looking Early Neolithic pillars in Northern Mesopotamia were conventionally named ‘totem poles’ by analogy with the ethnographically-known cult objects of Native American tribes . A similar approach, represented by other means, is used in the ‘matryoshka’, the Russian wooden egg-shaped toy . From the belly of a large ‘matryoshka’ another similar object of a smaller size appears whose belly contains yet another smaller one and so on . This amazing parallel is likely to apply in certain types of Northern Mesopotamian Early © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Neolithic sculpture and expresses the idea of kinship and continuity of generations, as does the Russian toy . The closest analogy for this motif to the one depicted on the ‘totem pole’ at Göbekli Tepe, is represented on a sculptured pillar (Fig . 3 .4) which was an accidental discovery originating from the Turkish province of Adiaman northwest of Göbekli Tepe, which supposedly dates to the PPNB (Hauptmann 2000) . This also shows the sequence of images where the lower human figure’s face emerges from the phallus/ belly of the upper one who has a head of an unknown, possibly stylized creature similar to the T-shaped pillars that depict an anthropomorphic image or some kind of animal such as a lizard . As for the lower figure whose front facing body and hands can also be interpreted as the phallus of the top one, because of a hollow under the hands folded on its belly, it has been suggested that the creature has either bisexual nature or that the hollow was once used for manipulations with an insertable sculptured phallus (Verhoeven 2001) . This hypothesis seems plausible since stone phallic figures are known in Northern Mesopotamian Early Neolithic materials (Fig . 3 .6) . Repetitive reproduction of the depictions of genitalia on the pillar, with male and female symbols being combined, yet with male obviously dominating, must have strengthened its magical significance . I think that this motif on Northern Mesopotamian Early Neolithic pillars may literally make visible the idea expressed in a set phrase from the Old Testament “descend from/originate/come out of somebody’s loins”, and clearly conveys the idea of ancestry/kinship with the succession of generations, primarily through a male line . This motif on Northern Mesopotamian Early Neolithic pillars may literally make visible the idea expressed in a set phrase from the Old Testament to “descend from/ originate/come out of somebody’s loins”, 4 and clearly conveys the idea of ancestry/ kinship with the succession of generations, primarily through a male line . 3 .4 A Piece of stone bowl from Nevali Çori Among the materials from Nevali Çori (PPNB) is an interesting piece from a stone bowl depicting a ritual scene (Hauptmann 1993: 67; 1999: 76) . The fragment shows a relief image of a group of three figures (Fig . 2 .4) . Two of them are obviously human figures depicted frontally, with raised arms, large bellies and their legs apart . They frame a smaller, rounded figure, also with its hands raised and legs spread apart that is reminiscent of a turtle . The image continues to the right and left, but the figures cannot be discerned due to the fragmentation of the vessel . The whole bowl may have once been girded by a frieze depicting a ritual dance scene with male and female participants, as Y . Garfinkel (2003: 114) has proposed .

4

Gen 15:4, 35:11, 46:26, 49:10; Exod 1:5; Jdg 8:30; 2 Sam 7:12, 16:11; 1 Kings 8:19; 2 Chr 6:9, 32:21; Isa 48:19 (cf . Acts 2:30; Heb 7:5, 10) . I am very grateful to classical scholar and Hebraist, L .V . Manevich, for detailed consultation on this matter . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Other interpretations see it as a family celebrating a new birth (Uzunoglu 1993: 43) or a tortoise-like pregnant figure (Yakar 1991: 315) . The turtle is an amphibious creature, often considered a female symbol; however, these images of carefully portrayed full-length figures, including the ‘turtle’, do not demonstrate any signs of gender although they all have enlarged bellies . I share Schmidt’s (2006: 79–80, 217) assumption that this narrative may be associated with ‘shamanic’ rituals . Anthropological data shows that during the course of dancing, and under the influence of other stimulants, the shaman’s and other participants of the dance borderline state of consciousness enables them to transform into different creatures and acquire supernatural properties . Relying on evidence of male dominance in the social life of Early Neolithic communities in Northern Mesopotamia, and in the absence of any defined attributes for gender of the figures under discussion, it cannot be certain that it is females that are shown among the participants of the ritual dance on the bowl from Nevali Çori . Asexuality of ritual dancers, with the ‘turtle’ (shaman?) in the center, rather speaks in favor of their modified masculine nature . According to both archaeological and ethnographic data, a combination of male and female signs in clothing, attributes and the ritual behavior of some leaders of early complex communities that retained the system of visible egalitarianism, is well known (Штернберг 1936: 140–178; Антонова1994) . Such figures were considered to embody both male and female qualities and functioned as ritual leaders . In any case, large bellies interpreted as a sign of pregnancy/overcrowding/ satiety/abundance demonstrate that the dance was aimed at magic stimulation of procreation; in the broader sense as universal fertility, prosperity and well-being of the community, the members of which performed the rite . 3 .5 Evidence from residential and economic areas of settlements In the everyday household and ritual life of the family and home, the role of women was apparently no less important than that of men . This idea is supported by evidence comprised of male and female figurines, usually made of clay, that are frequently found in residential and economic areas of settlements and male and female burials, often secondary and joint, sometimes with children, in most cases located under the floors of houses . There are no obvious preferences regarding male figurines or the remains of male individuals . V . Alekshin (Алекшин 1994: 63–65) studied features of the burial rite on the basis of materials from Neolithic Southwest Asia available in the early 1990’s and argued that the remains of adults of different sex were buried together (sometimes with children) for magical purposes . He proposed that funerary rituals of Western Asian Neolithic communities were associated with a cult of fertility – a hypothesis I thoroughly agree with after studying much new evidence (Kornienko 2015) . Various kinds of objects found in residential and economic areas of Early Neolithic settlements in Northern Mesopotamia indicate that residents incorporated both male and female symbols in the magic of production . Among them in particular are samples of ‘grooved stones’ with incised drawings, as well as decorated pestles and bowls . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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4. Conclusions It can be concluded that there was a variety of practices and situations in which female characters and symbols were used in Early Neolithic Northern Mesopotamia, including domestic ritual actions, magic of production, burial rites, and in rare cases, socially important ceremonies conducted in special cult buildings . There is no doubt that the vast majority of monumental relief and sculptured images within public cult buildings depict male symbols and figures . While anthropomorphic ‘pillars of Nevali Çori type’ 5 possess no obvious sexual characteristics, their symbolism as well as their comparison with contemporary realistically-made anthropomorphic sculptures speaks in favor of the probability of male images . Nevertheless, it is difficult to support the view that the social structure of Early Neolithic communities in Northern Mesopotamia was mainly based on rigid subordination and violence on the part of male leaders, as this is contrary to the findings of paleoanthropologists, as well as the absence of conclusive material evidence denoting frequent military clashes or the spread of human sacrifices . In addition, I believe that the idea of reproduction/power of cropping/prosperity/ propagation – the concept of ‘fertility’ in the broadest sense – was amongst the most important concepts for society during this time and in this place, and was regularly updated by the collective performance of ritual acts and other manifestations of symbolic behavior . This is confirmed by material evidence obtained not only in residential and economic areas of the settlement, but also in cult complexes of public importance . Considering the general picture of symbolism and human images in Early Neolithic Northern Mesopotamia, it is logical to conclude that the main markers of sacred complexes such as monumental stelae, columns, and pilasters, in one of their main meanings quite clearly represented the male procreative force . The image of a human-phallus is also known from other types of archaeological sources in the symbol system of Epipaleolithic and Early Neolithic Northern Mesopotamia . The idea of ‘fertility’ was so important for the life of these communities that in the course of carrying out socially significant rituals, the management and implementation of which was dominated by men, the latter could have symbolically appropriated essential female functions such as childbearing and delivery . This is vividly manifest in the recurring motif evident in the design of the pillars where a smaller lower figure emerges from the belly/phallus of a larger creature, as well as the image of the ritual dance of people and a turtle-like creature with increased/overflowing bellies on the bowl fragment from Nevali Çori .

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It cannot be excluded that these objects have a combined anthropo-zoomorphic nature . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Bibliography Benz, M . and Bauer, J . 2013 Symbols of Power – Symbols of Crisis? A Psycho-Social Approach to Early Neolithic Symbol Systems . Neo-Lithics 2/13, 11–24 . Cauvin, J . 1994 Naissance des divinités. Naissanсe de l’agriculture. La Révolution des symboles au Néolithique . Paris . Çelik, В . 2000 An Early Neolithic Settlement in the Center of Şanliurfa, Turkey . Neo-Lithics 2+3/00, 4–6 . Dietrich, О ., Heun, М ., Notroff, J ., Schmidt, K . and Zarnkow, М . 2012 The Role of Cult and Feasting in the Emergence of Neolithic Communities . New Evidence from GobekliTepe, South-Eastern Turkey . Antiquity 86, 674–695 . Dietrich, O ., Köksal-Schmidt, Ç ., Notroff, J ., Kürkçüoğlu, С . and Schmidt, К . 2014 Göbekli Tepe . Preliminary Report on the 2012 and 2013 Excavation Seasons . Neo-Lithics 1/14, 11–17 . Erdal, Y . S . and Erdal, O . D . 2012 Organized Violence in Anatolia: A Retrospective Research on the Injuries from the Neolithic to Early Bronze Age . International Journal of Paleopathology 2, 78–92 . Garfinkel, Y . 2003 Dancing at the Dawn of Agriculture . Austin . Hauptmann, H . 1993 Ein Kultgebäude in Nevali Çori . In: M . Frangipane, H . Hauptmann, M . Liverani, P . Matthiae and M . Mellinck (eds .), Between the Rivers and Over the Mountains. Archaeologica Anatolica et Mesopotamica Alba Palmieri Dedicata. Roma, 37–69 . 1999

The Urfa Region . In: M . Özdoğan and N . Başgelen (eds .), Neolithic in Turkey: The Cradle of Civilization: New Discoveries. Ancient Anatolian Civilizations Series 3 . Istanbul, 65–86 .

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Ein frühneolitisches Kultbild aus Kommagene . In: J . Wagner (eds .), Gottkönige am Euphrat: Neue Ausgrabungen und Forschungen in Kommagene . Mainz / Rhein, 5–9 .

Hodder, I . and Meskell, L . 2011 A Curious and Sometimes a Trifle Macabre Artistry: Some Aspects of Symbolism in Neolithic Turkey . Current Anthropology 52, 235–263 . Köksal-Schmidt, Ç . and Schmidt, K . 2010 The GöbekliTepe ‘Totem Pole’ . A First Discussion of an Autumn 2010 Discovery (PPN, Southeastern Turkey) . Neo-Lithics 1/10, 74–76 . Kornienko, T . V . 2009 Notes on the Cult Buildings of Northern Mesopotamia in the Aceramic Neolithic Period . Journal of Near Eastern Studies 68, 81–102 . 2015

On the Problem of Human Sacrifice in Northern Mesopotamia in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic . Archaeology, Ethnology and Anthropology of Eurasia 43, 42–49 . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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McBride, A . 2013 Performance and Participation: Multi-Sensual Analysis of Near Eastern Pre-Pottery Neolithic Non-Domestic Architecture . Paléorient 39, 47–67 . Schmidt, K . 1998 Frühneolithische Tempel . Ein Forschungsbericht zum präkeramischen Neolithikum Obermesopotamiens . Mitteilungen der Deutschen Orient-Gesellschaft 130, 17–49 . 2006

Sie bauten die ersten Tempel. Das rätselhafte Heiligtum der Steinzeitjäger. Die archäologische Entdeckung am Göbekli Tepe. München .

Stordeur, D . and Abbès, F . 2002 Du PPNA au PPNB: mise en lumière d’une phase de transition à Jerf el Ahmar (Syrie) . Bulletin de la Société Préhistorique Française 99, 563–595 . Uzunoglu, Е . 1993 Women in Anatolia from Prehistoric Ages to the Iron Age . In: G . Renda (ed .), Woman in Anatolia: 9000 Years of the Anatolian Woman . Istanbul, 16–24 . Verhoeven, M . 2001 Person or Penis? Interpreting a ‘New’ PPNB Anthropomorphic Statue from the Taurus Foothills . Neo-Lithics 1/10, 8–9 . 2002а Ritual and Ideology in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B of the Levant and Southeast Anatolia . Cambridge Archaeology Journal 12, 233–258 . 2002b Transformations of Society: the Changing Role of Ritual and Symbolism in the PPNB and the PN in the Levant, Syria and South-East Anatolia . Paléorient 28, 5–14 . Yakar, J . 1991 Prehistoric Anatolia: The Neolithic Transformation and the Early Chalcolithic Period . Tel Aviv . Алёкшин, В . А . 1994 Черепа людей в обрядах неолитических земледельцев Юго-Западной Азии // Памятники древнего и средневекового искусства . Проблемы археологии 3, 59–78 . Антонова, Е . В . 1994 Знаки престижа и один из признаков архаических лидеров . Российская археология 3, 92–96 . Корниенко, Т . В . 2011 Стелы Северной Месопотамии эпохи раннего неолита: предварительныйобзор . Археологические вести 17, 70–95 . 2015а Гендерные проявления в символике и изображениях человека на территории Северной Месопотамии в эпохураннего неолита . Проблемы истории, филологи и культуры 4, 92– 108 . 2015b О возможностях применения психосоциального подхода в изучении доисторических сообществ (на примере исследований символических систем Северной Месопотамии эпохи раннего неолита) . Археологические вести 21, 292–303 . Штернберг, Л . Я . 1936 Первобытная религия в свете этнографии . Ленинград .

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Fig . 1 Map of Northern Mesopotamia with the indication of the main Late Epipaleolithic and Early Neolithic sites

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Fig . 2 Female symbols and images in Northern Mesopotamia of Early Neolithic: 1 – from Building with the Lion Stelae at Göbekli Tepe (after Schmidt 2006: Abb . 104); 2 – from Building EA100 at Jerf el Ahmar (after Stordeur and Abbès 2002: fig . 15 .5); 3 – from Structure II at Nevali Çori, a reconstruction (after Schmidt 2006: Abb . 16); 4 – from fragment of the bowl from of House 3 at Nevali Çori (after Hauptmann 1993: fig . 27)

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Fig . 3 Men symbols and images in Northern Mesopotamia of Early Neolithic: 1 – stele from Building at Nevali Çori, h 2 .4m (after Hauptmann 2000: Abb . 7); 2 – statue of the early Neolithic layers in the old center of the modern city Şanliurfa, h 1 .90m (after Çelik 2000: fig . 2); 3 – ‘Totem poles’ from sector L9–46 in layer II of Göbekli Tepe, h 1 .92m (Köksal-Schmidt and Schmidt 2010: fig . 1); 4 – stele from Adiaman province, Turkey, h 80cm (after Hauptmann 2000: Abb . 9); 5 – ithyphallic protome from Göbekli Tepe, h 40 .5cm (after Schmidt 2006, Abb . 28); 6 – sculptural representation of phallus, comechance from vicinity Kisilik, h 38cm (after Hauptmann 2000: Abb . 10)

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Fig . 4 The central pillars of Enclosure D at GöbekliTepe (after Dietrich et al. 2012: figs . 7, 8; photo: N . Becker)

Fig . 5 Pillar 57 carries the relief of two antithetic snakes with a round object between them (after Dietrich et al. 2014: fig . 7; photo: N . Becker, DAI) © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Libation for the Gods in Early Bronze Age Mesopotamia Dorota Ławecka 1 Abstract In this paper all possible archaeological remains of libation places in temples are discussed (mainly vessels embedded in floors close to ‘altars’ or podia inside temple cellas, but also other features which may be regarded as remains of installations where liquid offerings might have taken place) . Most of the examples come from sites in the Diyala region and Nippur, with a few instances from Mari and northern Mesopotamia . In the second part of the paper, third millennium BC scenes of libation before the gods depicted in art (glyptics, stelas, votive plaques) are compared with the archeological evidence examined in the first part of the article .

Libation – a liquid offering to gods or spirits of the deceased – was a vital part of many rituals in ancient Mesopotamia . It was performed in different localities and circumstances, for instance, during religious festivals, dedicatory and purification rites, exorcisms, divination, etc . Water was the most common substance, but other liquids, such as beer, wine, oil or milk were also used . Although libation is quite frequently mentioned in written sources, we lack detailed information on the way it was practiced and on the utensils and installations essential in this practice (Danmaville 1955; Heimpel 1987–1990; Homès-Fredericq 1987–1990) . The aim of the present article is to examine all material remains which may have been connected with ritual libations to gods that have been found in 3rd millennium BC Mesopotamian temples, and to compare them with scenes depicting liquid offerings to gods illustrated in the art of that period . Several installations found in temple cellas that might have served for performing this ritual have been found in Early Dynastic sanctuaries excavated in the Diyala river area . In Archaic Shrine III at Tell Asmar the altar’s top sloped toward the north-western corner, with a groove running down its side into a jar at the foot of the altar (Fig . 1a) . From successive stages of occupation, two jars remained, one placed above the other . Also in Archaic Shrine IV, this time near the south-westernern corner of the altar, a very small jar was set in the floor plaster (Delougaz and Lloyd 1942: 165, 167, fig . 121) . Some of the most interesting installations were found in the Tell Asmar Square Temple (Shrine I) and in its predecessor . In Fig . 1b remains of two altars are shown, one above the other, each equipped with a vertical bitumen-lined gutter . In the lower one, belonging to the predecessor of the Square Temple, the gutter ends in a bitumen-

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Institute of Archaeology, University of Warsaw © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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lined trough (Delougaz and Lloyd 1942: 172, fig . 131) . It was positioned close to the corner of the altar, as were the vessels in the instances mentioned before . The outline of the installation and the application of a bitumen layer indicate that a liquid was poured into the gutter to flow into the trough during some kind of ceremony . Similar installations were found in Khafajah in a few levels of the Sin Temple sequence . Temple V is singled out from the other Diyala temples by the presence of a freestanding ‘offering table’ in front of the altar in its cella . Against one of the table’s longer sides, close to a corner, there was a cylindrical vessel partly imbedded in the floor (Delougaz and Lloyd 1942: 33, fig . 28) . Although the general idea seems similar as in the abovementioned cases, and liquids could have been poured to the vessel, other explanations are also possible in this case . In the cylindrical, open vessels, perhaps resembling ‘les barcasses’ from Mari (cf . infra), some other kind of offering (incense?, dry foodstuffs?) might have been placed . In temple VI, vessels were found at two corners of the altar (Fig . 2a): the one to the left was similar to the vessel discussed above that is cylindrical and partially imbedded in the floor . On the other side there was a large ovoid jar, almost completely buried, with only its rim visible in the floor (Delougaz and Lloyd 1942: 42, figs . 36, 37) . Similarly, in building level VIII of the Small Temple located in square O: 43, at each side of the altar there was a spouted vessel partly let into the floor (Delougaz and Lloyd 1942: 111, fig . 102) . Other installations possibly connected with a libation ritual were found in the Nintu temple in Khafajah and in the Shara Temple in Tell Agrab . In one of the cellas of the Nintu V temple a bitumen-lined groove leading down to a step-like bitumen-plastered surface in the north-eastern corner of the altar was found (Delougaz and Lloyd 1942: 95) . At the other end of the same room, in levels V and IV, there was a square, bitumen-plastered patch in the floor . In level IV it had a round depression in the middle and was surrounded by a low rim, also covered with bitumen (Delougaz and Lloyd 1942: 95–99) . Also in this case the purpose of this installation is not clear . It brings to mind a so called ‘ablution place’ rather than a setting for libations; yet most ablution installations were located outside the inner sanctum, so its appearance in the cella itself is inconsistent with that purpose . In front of a high altar in the cella of the Shara Temple there was a lower step, or pedestal . In its north-western part a niche was cut, in which a shallow stone trough was mounted (Fig . 2b) . Liquid poured over it would drain into a stone cup partially embedded in the altar’s step (Delougaz and Lloyd 1942: 233, fig . 183) . In the middle part of the cella, in the first occupation level, there was a shallow depression; it was circular in shape, approximately 15 cm deep in the center, and coated with bitumen (Delougaz and Lloyd 1942: 234) . Although the application of bitumen indicates the use of water, the purpose of this installation is uncertain . Remains of a partially buried jar near a corner of an altar were also found in an earlier Shara Temple, in the secondary shrine M 14: 15 (Delougaz and Lloyd 1942: 256) . Vessels placed in altars’ corners were occasionally found in the courtyards of temples in the Diyala region, but they also appeared in connection with platforms which may be regarded as altars . On the courtyard of the Oval I temple there was a © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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stepped altar built against a platform . Under its south-western corner, a typical location, a jar was placed (Delougaz 1940: 40, fig . 38) . Finally, in the courtyard of Sin Temple VIII, a small trough-like vessel was found at the north-western corner of the altar-like structure (Delougaz and Lloyd 1942: 55–56) . Close analogies to the installations from the sanctuaries in the Diyala region can be found in both Early Dynastic shrines known from Nippur . The earliest Inanna Temple shrine, level IX, is a double cella arrangement, with the western one probably left unroofed . In both cellas podia and offering stands were found . In level IXB, in the front room, there was a stepped altar with a straight apron in front of it . A V-shaped cut ran vertically down the face of the altar . In level IXA, the apron in front of the altar had a double curve giving it the appearance of horns abutting the altar . A cut in its facade, similar to that found in the older phase, continued as a small channel running between the ‘horns’ and emptying into a brick-lined drain in the floor . Interestingly, one of the altars in the latest phase of the inner sanctuary also had a vertical groove in its front face, leading to a pot sunk in the floor (Hansen and Dales 1962: 82; Zettler 1992: 22–27) . Level VII of the North Temple is the only one where a vessel that may have served for libations was found . It was a medium-sized pot set into a step at the corner of the altar . At floor 1, the pot protruded several centimetres from the surface in which it was embedded; at floor 2, the step was flush with the top of the pot (McCown et al. 1978: 9, pl . 7A, B) . Different arrangements, clearly connected with the use of some liquids, were found in temple V and IV . In the cella of level V, a large bitumen-covered oval structure was erected on a solid foundation made of broken baked bricks . In the center there was a pit, 18cm deep, also coated with bitumen . In time, the repeatedly plastered floors of the cella rose, and the basin developed; at the time of the latest replasterings, it was additionally encircled with two courses of unbaked bricks . In level IV, a foundation of the bitumen oval was made of large potsherds . A central circular pit was also coated with bitumen, as before . Later on, it was partially filled with large sherds placed at an angle, probably to provide support for a large jar fixed inside the pit (and restored in drawing from the sherds found inside the feature) . A second ring of sherds was added for the same purpose later on . In level IV, a foundation of the bitumen oval was made of large potsherds (McCown et al. 1978: 14–15, 20) . As in the case of the other bitumen-coated surfaces or depressions in the Nintu and Shara temples, this one is also in some distance from the altar, and its purpose is unclear; the feature resembles an ablution place usually located close to the entrance to the temple compound . Although it might have been associated with the ritual of libation, one cannot exclude that the ablution ceremony was repeated after entering the cella, or that a ritual of yet a different kind was performed there . The remaining installations described above, dated to the Early Dynastic period (ca . 2900–2334 BC, according to the Middle Chronology), most probably served for the libation ritual, performed in the most sacred place of the temple, presumably before a statue or a symbol of the god . In most cases, a jar or pot is set against a corner of the altar . The custom of pouring libation into a vessel is well substantiated © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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by the Sumerian term dug-a-da-gur5, standing for a vessel into which cultic libations are made (Selz 2004: 202) . As remarked by Ohnan Tunca, who listed most of such vessels in his publication on Early Dynastic Mesopotamian religious architecture, they were not different from those used elsewhere in the settlements (Tunca 1984: 152, 255) . They were indeed common ware pottery vessels of domestic sort, with the exception of the stone through and the high-quality stone conical cup from the Shara temple, more apt to this monumental sanctuary . These installations are, however, relatively rare in comparison to the number of temple levels unearthed . It seems that they were not an indispensable part of the ritual, which could also be performed in other ways . For instance, in a chapel in House D located inside Oval Temple I, a jar was simply standing on the floor in front of the altar, again close to its corner (Delougaz 1940: 47, figs . 44 and 73, fig . 65) . Moreover, among the finds from the auxiliary room 2 across the courtyard from the cella of Sin Temple VIII, a large pottery vat, a typical bronze libation vessel well known from Early Dynastic iconography, and a terracotta cult wagon were found (Delougaz and Lloyd 1942: 57–59; Frankfort 1935: 42–50) . The latter item (Fig . 3) is especially interesting – it consists of a wheeled stepped house-model with a stemmed dish on top and two jars standing on the lower step . The stemmed dish could serve as an offering table, and the two jars – as liquid containers . A large collection of terracotta house models (most probably serving as altars) was found in the Ishtar Temple at Assur (Bär 2003: 239–259, Taf . 94–133); similar models were found at Tell al-Marmus in the Makhul Dam Area (Mühl and Sulaiman 2011: 377, pl . XXVIIb) . In Ishtar Temple G, in the rear end of the cella, at the base of an altar and along its edge, five bowls were sunk into the floor (Bär 2003: 59, 397 Abb . 11) . Similar small, oval or round bowls called ‘les barcasses’ were frequently encountered in Mari City II temples, both in the cellas embedded in, or at the base of platforms, and in the rooms adjacent to the cellas . Although they might have served for the libation ritual, neither in Assur nor in Mari can their function be determined with certainty, and is still the matter of debate (Tunca 1984: 150–152; Margueron 2014: 145) . The other libation installation from Mari leaves no doubts as to its purpose . It was unearthed in a great hall adjoining the cella in the palace P2 sanctuary . It consists of three stone slabs, each provided with an outlet leading to a gypsum or bronze vessel placed in a hollow below (Margueron 2004: 204, 252) . The idea seems to be similar to the Shara temple arrangement . Iconography does not offer any direct parallels to the archaeological remains presented above . The corpus of visual representations is not uniform and the scenes depicted belong to several different groups . The libation scenes are quite numerous, being illustrated mostly on cylinder seals, votive plaques and stelas, but among the many vessels featuring in these scenes, I was not able to find even a single one which might be compared with those known from the archaeological contexts mentioned here . Early Dynastic seals depicting libations are quite rare . On one of them a liquid is poured before a seated drinking person, presumably a god; no installation of any kind is shown (Amiet 1980: pl . 101 .1349, Khafajah, cf . also Amiet 1980: pl . 61 .823) . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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On a few Akkadian seals a liquid is poured either over a stepped altar, resembling both the stepped platforms and the terracotta house-altars, or on the ground close to it (Fig . 4a–b, cf . Boehmer 1965: 373) . I believe that it must have been poured into a container or installation of some kind, even if it has never been shown on a seal; otherwise the libation would result in a muddy puddle in front of a god, which would be particularly inconvinient if the ceremony was taking place in a temple cella . In the second group of images a liquid is poured into a sort of pedestal bowl or stand, usually set on the floor (cf. e .g . Buchanan 1981: 175, no . 454; Collon 1982: pl . XXXII .225; Boehmer 1965: Taf . XXXII .384; Frankfort 1955: pl . 55 .585; Legrain 1936: pl . 31 .533, 534), but sometimes placed on a stepped altar before the statue of a god or goddess (cf. e .g . Ur III seal, Evans 2010: 26, fig . 37) . On one seal (Boehmer 1965: Taf . LIV .648) the vessel is apparently not empty – probably incense is burning inside, so it looks like an altar – and the liquid is again poured on the ground behind it . Occasionally, more than one vessel or altar is depicted (Al-Gailani Werr 1992: 14, phot . 18; Margueron 2004: fig . 398 on page 408; Porada 1948: pl . XLIV .290) . In a few instances, the liquid is poured, rather strangely, close to the wall of a vessel instead in the center, as if to avoid splashing it over something already placed inside, like for example on the Disc of Enheduanna (Woolley 1956: pl . 41d) . One of the most interesting scenes of libation was depicted on a late 3rd millennium BC wall painting from room 132 in the Mari palace (Margueron 2004: fig . 398) . Here the liquid is poured not only into two vessels, but also on the altar from which it is flowing down, possibly onto a sort of a libation slab . This is the only example of a fairly detailed depiction of a libation installation that I was able to find among the visual representations . The most popular motif since the Early Dynastic period till the end of the Early Bronze Age, and even later, is a vessel placed before a sitting god, perhaps a sort of a hollow stand in which a plant, a ‘sacred tree’ is displayed, usually resembling a stylized date palm or date leaf with two clusters of dates(?) . A liquid is poured into the container (Fig . 5; the hand of a deity is visible on the second joining fragment, Suter 2000: 342, St . 4) . This motif is shown on two Early Dynastic plaques, one from Ur (Fig . 6), the other from Tello (Boese 1971: Taf . XXXI .1, T 10) . On the Ur plaque (on which the plant itself is missing) the ceremony is repeated twice . First in front of the temple, where the stand is adorned with date clusters symmetrically hanging down its sides, and the liquid is poured in its center . And for the second time presumably in the cella, before the god; here the composition of the principal scene is rather clumsy: one cluster is missing and the stream of liquid is asymmetrically depicted . Sometimes the tree or leaf is not shown at all (cf ., e .g . an early Akkadian seal on which the stand is adorned solely with what looks like two strings of beads rather than a date cluster, Buchanan 1981: 175 no . 455) . The motif of a liquid sacrifice poured into a vessel with a plant was relatively common in Mesopotamian glyptics since the Early Dynastic period (Amiet 1980: pl . 101 .1350, pl . 102 .1357; cf . also a ‘sacred tree’ in front of a sitting person on a seal from Ur on pl . 101 .1346, in front of a deity on pl . 92: 1218, and an Akkadian seal © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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from Tell Brak, Matthews 1997: pl . XXX .377) and is known also from monumental art, for instance the royal stelas of Eannatum, Urnamma and Gudea, or the Susa stela (Suter 2000: 195–197 and fig . 27b on page 239; fig . 33b on page 246; ST . 4 on page 342, fig . 34 on page 251) . Two Akkadian seals are exceptional in depicting a libation seemingly poured into the ground; however, the presence of a tree on each seal suggests that the basic idea was the same (Moortgat 1988: Taf . 27 .194, 195) . In the postAkkadian period, particularly in Ur, the tree in the vessel is frequently adored by two standing persons (e .g . Legrain 1951: pl . 18 .259–264, 266, 267, 269–271, 274–276) . In the Shu-Sin Temple at Tell Asmar an entirely different installation, most probably also connected with the libation ritual, was found (Fig . 7) . Buried in the cella’s earthen floor, just in front of a step leading to the cultic niche, there was a drain in the form of the upper part of a large pot, approximately 70 cm in diameter, with four rows of holes on the shoulders . Close to it was a second, slightly sloping terracotta drain pipe . It was incased in another pipe, square in section, and ended in a jar nearby . Only the upper parts of both drains protruded from the floor (Frankfort et al . 1940: 16–22) . A similar installation was found in front of steps leading to the niche in the Palace chapel, but it was far more damaged; here a drain laid on a small mound covered with bitumen was found together with other pottery fragments . The drain was also protruding from the floor, its mouth level with the lowest step (Frankfort et al . 1940: 42, fig . 33) . The location of both fixtures, immediately in front of the cultic niche, seems to be appropriate for a libation installation and is in accordance with iconography . Some kind of a superstructure must have been present, otherwise the functioning of the installation would be difficult to explain . According to the excavators’ suggestion, which I find reasonable, a stand holding a plant of the kind discussed above would be placed on top of the drains, akin to the stand shown on the Urnamma stela (Frankfort 1933: 22–23; Frankfort et al . 1940: 16, 22) . Such a vessel would need to be bottomless, which I also consider probable . If the depiction were realistic, a large tree, live or artificial, would be difficult to affix in the shallow bowl in the upper part of the vessel . If we pursue this line of explanation, we must also assume that the ritual performed in the Tell Asmar temple had an entirely different meaning . In all the archeologically known installations mentioned above the liquid (probably water) was poured either into a vessel, or into a waterproof drain or bowl-like depression, without any outlet (only in one case, in the description of the Inanna Temple IX at Nippur, the details are not given) . However, in the Tell Asmar temple, the liquid would end up in the ground . This brings to mind the watering of a ‘sacred tree’ in a ritual of libation, which – as Gebhard Selz put it – “…evoke ideas of fertility, renewal and reproduction…” (Selz 2004: 200) . In the Early Dynastic period the motif of a ‘sacred tree’ in a container seems to be common in the art of the region of Sumer, while the libation installations known from the Diyala region display features pointing to another kind of ritual . If this regional difference has any deeper meaning is, however, impossible to ascertain because of the paucity of archaeological contexts from southern Babylonia . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Bibliography Al-Gailani Werr, L . (ed .) 1992 Old Babylonian Cylinder Seals from the Hamrin, Edubba 2. London . Amiet, P . 1980 La glyptique Mésopotamienne Archaïque. Paris . Bär, J . 2003 Die älteren Ischtar-Tempel in Assur. Stratigraphie, Architektur und Funde eines altorientalischen Heiligtums von der zweiten Hälfte des 3. Jahrtausends bis zur Mitte des 2. Jahrtausends v. Chr. Wissenschaftliche Veröffentlichung der Deutschen Orient-Gesellschaft 105 . Saarbrücken . Boehmer, R . M . 1965 Die Entwicklung der Glyptik während der Akkad-Zeit. Untersuchungen zur Assyriologie und vorderasiatischen Archäologie 4 . Berlin . Boese, J . 1971 Altmesopotamische Weihplatten. Eine sumerische Denkmalsgattung des 3. Jahrtausends v. Chr. Untersuchungen zur Assyriologie und vorderasiatischen Archäologie 6 . Berlin – New York . Buchanan, B . 1981 Early Near Eastern Seals in the Yale Babylonian Collection. with introduction and seal inscriptions by William W . Hallo, edited by Ulla Kasten . New Haven – London . Collon, D . 1982 Catalogue of the Western Asiatic Seals in the British Museum. Cylinder Seals II, Akkadian–Post Akkadian Ur III-Periods . London . Cross, G ., Heuzey, L . and Thureau-Dangin, F . 1914 Mission Française de Chaldée. Nouvelles fouilles de Tello. Paris . Danmaville, J . 1955 La libation en Mésopotamie . Revue d’Assyriologie et d’archéologie orientale 49/2, 57–68 . Delougaz, P . and Lloyd, S . 1942 Pre-sargonid Temples from the Diyala Region. Oriental Institute Publications 58 . Chicago . Evans, J . M . 2010 Nippur . In: Y . Rakic (ed .), Discovering the Art of the Ancient Near East . Archaeological Excavations Supported by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1931–2010. The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin LXVIII/1, 23–26 . Frankfort, H . 1933 Tell Asmar, Khafaje and Khorsabad: Second Preliminary Report of the Iraq Expedition. Oriental Institute Communications 16, Chicago, Illinois . 1935

Oriental Institute Discoveries in Iraq, 1933/34, Fourth Preliminary Report of the Iraq Expedition. Oriental Institute Communications 19 . Chicago .

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Stratified Cylinder Seals from the Diyala Region. Oriental Institute Publications 72 . Chicago .

Frankfort, H ., Lloyd, S . and Jacobsen, Th . 1940 The Gimilsin Temple and the Palace of the Rulers at Tell Asmar. Oriental Institute Publications 43 . Chicago . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Hansen, D . P . and Dales, G . F . 1962 The Temple of Inanna Queen of Heaven at Nippur . Archaeology 15, 75–84 . Heimpel, W . 1987–1990 Libation . A . I . Philologisch . Mesopotamien . Reallexikon der Assyriologie und Vorderasiatischen Archäologie 7, 1–5 . Homès-Fredericq, D . 1987–1990 Libation . B . I . Archäologisch . Mesopotamien . Reallexikon der Assyriologie und Vorderasiatischen Archäologie 7, 7–10 . Legrain, L . 1936 Archaic Seal Impressions. Ur Excavations III . Oxford . 1951

Seal Impressions. Ur Excavations X . Oxford .

Margueron, J .-C . 2004 Mari. Metropole de l’Euphrate au IIIe et au début du IIe millénaire av. J.-C. Paris . 2014

Le temple d’Ishtar: ce que l’on peut en dire 80 ans après la fouille . In: S . Cluzan and P . Butterlin (eds .), Voués à Ishtar. Syrie, janvier 1934, André Parrot découvre Mari. Exposition au muse de l’Institut du monde arabe 23 janvier–4 mai 2014. Beyrouth, 131–148 .

Matthews, D . M . 1997 The Early Glyptic of Tell Brak. Cylinder Seals of Third Millennium Syria. Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis 15 . Göttingen . McCown, D . E ., Haines, R . C . and Biggs, R . D ., assisted by Carter, E . F . 1978 Nippur II. The North Temple and Sounding E, Excavations of the Joint Expedition to Nippur of The American Schools of Oriental Research and The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago. Oriental Institute Publications 97 . Chicago . Moortgat, A . 1988 Vorderasiatische Rollsiegel. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Steinschneidekunst . Berlin . Mühl, S . and Sulaiman, B . S . 2011 The Makḥul Dam Project . In: P . A . Miglus and S . Mühl (eds .), Between the Cultures. The Central Tigris Region from the 3 rd to the 1st Millennium BC. Heidelberger Studien zum Alten Orient 14 . Heidelberg, 371–384 . Porada, E . 1948 Corpus of Ancient Near Eastern Seals in North American Collections I, The Collection of the Pierpont Morgan Library. The Bollingen Series 14 . Washington, 1948 . Selz, G . J . 2004 Early Dynastic Vessels in ‚Ritual‘ Contexts . Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenlandes 94, 185–223 . Suter, C . 2000 Gudea’s Temple Building. The representation of an Early Mesopotamian Ruler in Text and Image . Cuneiform Monographs 17, Groningen . Tunca, Ö . 1984 L’Architecture religieuse protodynastique en Mesopotamie . 2 Volumes, Akkadica Supplementum II . Leuven .

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Woolley, L . 1956 The Early Periods. Ur Excavations 4 . Philadelphia . Zettler, R . L . 1992 The Ur III Temple of Inanna at Nippur. The Operation and Organization of urban Religious Institutions in Mesopotamia in the Late Third Millennium B.C. Berliner Beiträge zum Vorderen Orient 11 . Berlin .

a – Archaic Shrine III (As . 1369)

b – Abu Temple and its predecessor (As . 1110)

Fig . 1 Libation installations in the Tell Asmar temples (courtesy of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago)

a – Sin Temple VI at Khafajah: (Kh . V-61)

b – Shara Temple Main Level (Ag . 160)

Fig . 2 Libation installations in Khafajah and Tell Agrab temples (courtesy of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago) © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Fig . 3 Terracotta stand with vessels (partly reconstructed) from room 2 in the Sin Temple VIII (Kh . IV–254) (courtesy of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago)

a – A 7123, purchased, probably from the Diyala region (courtesy of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago)

b – Ur, BM118561 (© The Trustees of the British Museum)

Fig . 4 Impressions of Akkadian seals © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Fig . 5 Libation scene: Tello, stela of Gudea (after: Cross et al. 1914: 294, fig . 7)

Fig . 6 Early Dynastic votive plaque from Ur (BM118561, © The Trustees of the British Museum) © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Fig . 7 Installation in the cella of the Shu-Sin Temple at Tell Asmar (As . 417, courtesy of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago)

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The Archaeology of Religion: Tell Afis during the Iron Age II–III Giuseppe Minunno 1 Abstract Excavations conducted by the Italian Archaeological Mission, directed by Stefania Mazzoni, on the acropolis of Tell Afis brought to light significant evidence of cultic buildings and ritual activities dating to the Iron Age II–III . Although the structures were severely damaged by later spoliation, careful examination yields interesting information about the religious world of this Aramaean city . The presence of clay anatomical parts suggests that ritual healing activities were practiced on the acropolis; the presence of dog burials hints at worship of the goddess Gula in whose cult both these features are attested . Since at Tell Afis Assyrian cultural influence increased from the Iron Age II onwards, it is not unlikely that Gula was worshipped in this Aramaean city .

Tell Afis, in north-western Syria, is a large mound located at the northern border of the fertile Idlib Plain, 11 km north of Tell Mardikh/Ebla (Fig . 1) . Excavations at the site were carried out in the 1970s by the Archaeological Mission of the University of Rome ‘La Sapienza’ directed by Paolo Matthiae (Matthiae 1979) . A new research project was started in 1986 under the direction of Stefania Mazzoni involving, in addition to ‘La Sapienza’, the universities of Pisa, Bologna, and Florence (Mazzoni 2008a; Mazzoni 2013a; Mazzoni 2014a; Mazzoni 2014b) . The site of Tell Afis most likely corresponds to the Aramaic Hazrak (Biblical Ḥadrakh), known as Hatarikka in Assyrian sources . A major change in the settlement took place in the Iron Age II, probably prompted by the new Aramaean élite; the settled area spread to the lower city and was enclosed by a wall, while the top of the acropolis was mainly occupied by monumental official buildings . The town was completely redesigned as an Aramaean capital and equipped with a ceremonial centre (Mazzoni 2012: 35) . In his famous inscription, King Zakkur claims to have extensively rebuilt the town . Only scanty remains of an Iron Age II temple (Temple AII) were found in the same area where later the Iron Age III temple (Temple AI) was built: partial remains of a floor and a whitish limestone basin might have survived from the AII temple phase (Mazzoni 2012: 29; Mazzoni 2014a: 45) . Between the end of the Iron Age I and the early Iron Age II, a terrace labelled Terrrace J was constructed (Cecchini 2014: 58–60; Di Michele 2014) . Its outer mudbrick walls were partly reinforced by rows of large limestone blocks . It is possible to connect Terrace J in its final phase of use with Temple AII and to date them to the middle or late Iron Age II . An earlier phase of use of these structures, together with a ‘mastaba’ found a few metres south of

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Terrace J, can also be identified and attributed to the early Iron Age II . South of Terrace J an open area (Plaza F2) equipped with a plastered altar was brought to light . Some 25m to the east of Terrace J, in Area G, was a sunken cobbled floor measuring 15 .50 × 15m, without an apparent entrance (Fig . 2) . It was lined with unplastered mudbrick walls that were narrower at the base (1 .8 m) than higher up (2 .2m), and which leant against the earlier Iron Age I deposits; they apparently measured 8m high . This structure, the function of which is unknown, can be dated to the Iron Age II on the basis of sherds found on the floor under the inwardly-collapsed walls . The structure (Building G) might have been used for a short time, or may not ever have been completed (Cecchini 2000; Cecchini 2014: 60–63), perhaps due to problems of stability, “ . . . given both the structure of the walls (wider at the top than at the bottom and leaning on the more ancient accumulation of Iron Age I, without any foundation) . . .” (Soldi 2009: 104) . During the Iron Age III an imposing building, Temple AI, was built to the west of Terrace J (Mazzoni 2010a; Mazzoni 2010b; Mazzoni 2011; Mazzoni 2012: 30–32) . Temple AI had a tripartite in antis plan with towers on the façade and rooms on its long sides . Unfortunately, it was subsequently used as a quarry and thus severely damaged . To the south and west of Temple I was an open court, Court F . To the south, Plaza F was bordered by two buildings which stood on either side of a street (G) running north-south . Of the eastern building (H) two square rooms (H2–3) and two round, probably underground structures, perhaps silos or bothroi (H1, 5), which were later filled and covered by a thick deposit of ashes, are currently visible . The upper surface of Plaza F (F1) relates to the final use of the temple and apparently covered H1 . The lower floor (F2) is in phase with the outer standing portions of H1 and H5, indicating that these structures were partially sunken (Mazzoni 2012: 32–33; D’Amore i npress) . Building C, which stood on the ruins of the northern part of Terrace J and the southern part of Building B, is dated to the Neo-Assyrian period; only the foundations made of large stones or their robbed trenches remained . Therefore, although the imposing remains still attest to the importance of religious ideology at Iron Age II–III Tell Afis, unfortunately only a few clues survive regarding the ritual activities for which these structures were built . The presence of many fragments of painted clay vessels that were probably used as incense burners in the area in front of the façade of Temple AI (Soldi 2009: 113; 114: fig . 12a; 115: fig . 12b) suggest the practice of burning fragrant materials . I would like to consider some further evidence of ritual activities which allow an interesting interpretation . In district H, to the south of Temple AI, and especially in the silo H1, a small group of clay anatomical representations and figurines were found (Fig . 3; Mazzoni 2014a: 46; D’Amore 2015; D’Amore in press), which S . Mazzoni has suggested were votive offerings related to healing rituals (Mazzoni 2014a: 46; cf . D’Amore 2015: 279) . Figurines and clay models of body-parts have been found in the Temple of Gula at Isin (Hrouda 1977b) . The anatomical models were initially misinterpreted as fragments of figurines, but later A . Spycket identified them as anatomical ex-voto offerings (Spycket 1990) . Another group of clay items epigraphically connected to Gula was found near ‘Aqar Quf in 1949: “ . . . some hundreds of broken terracotta fig© 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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urines in varying states of preservation . . .” are mentioned (Mustafa 1947: 19) . Since only a few items were published, it is possible that anatomical ex-votos were also present but, as in the case of Isin, were not initially identified as such . Another interesting feature is that some of the human figurines connected with Gula’s cult indicate the part of the body to be healed (Mustafa 1947: 20) . Due to the poor preservation of the Tell Afis figurines we do not know if they belong to this group, nor whether these clay objects were offered before or after the healing had taken place . We know of healing spells or prayers asking Gula to cure the sick person and accept a gift; possibly one of the types of objects we have mentioned (Böck 2014: 114) . Admittedly, to propose a cult of Gula at Tell Afis on this evidence alone would be difficult to justify but there is a further element to take into account, namely the dog skeletons found on the acropolis (Fig . 4) . Numerous articulated dog skeletons were found in Iron Age contexts (Wilkens 2000b: 9; cf . Wilkens 1998: 436–438; Wilkens 2000a: 44; Wilkens 2000c: 40; Wilkens 2002: 66; Wilkens 2005: 110) . The earliest deposited dogs appear to be two subadult individuals which can be attributed to the Iron Age II (Wilkens 2000a: 44) . The last deposition seems to have taken place in the Persian period, since a dog deposition in a pit cutting silo H1 has been dated to this time (an equid was also found there) . Shortly after the conquest of Hazrek/Hatarikka by the army of Tiglath-Pileser III in 738 BC, Building G was abandoned (Soldi 2009: 104) and the area was used as a dump (F .1008) from the Assyrian period probably until Neo-Babylonian times . Numerous articulated dog skeletons were found in dump F .1008 (Wilkens 2000c: 40) . Indeed, the objects discarded in the dump are somewhat peculiar, since they include, along with hundreds of bones, objects such as a bronze smiting god figurine, a fragment of a lion’s muzzle from a basalt sculpture, an Aramaic ostracon bearing the characters []lwr, probably the name of the god Ilwer, and much Red Slip Ware (RSW) . The latter accounts for almost 40% of the total pottery found in the dump, while samples from Iron Age II–III layers in other areas contain around 2 .7%, or even 1 .1% RSW (Soldi 2013: 205) . The place therefore seems to have had some special significance . Depositions of dogs have been found in numerous Iron Age sites in the Levant . At Ashkelon more than 1200 dog burials were recovered, dating from the Persian period until the early years of the Hellenistic period (Stager 1991; Wapnish and Hesse 1993) . In Area M of Persian period Ashdod, five adult dogs were buried, laid on their sides in oval pits, with usually one per cut (Dothan and Porath 1982: 42, 44) . At Tel Dor several dog burials were found in Persian period streets; the total number of dog burials at the site being about twenty-five . The stratigraphy of the burials shows that the animals were interred over a lengthy period of time, rather than all at once; while most are dated to the Persian period, one is early Hellenistic . All of the dogs, seven juveniles and five adults, were found laid on their sides, buried in shallow, probably unmarked, pits . No butchery marks were found on any of the bones, indicating that the dogs most probably died of natural causes (Stern and Gilboa 1995: 39; Stern et al. 1997: 65; Stern et al. 1998: 39; Sapir-Hen 2011: 138) . At Akko, several dog burials were noted in the 1st millennium levels, “ . . . but they were not fixed and did © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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not find the attention of scholars . . .” (Heltzer 1998: 149 note 5) . At Tel Burak, in the fourth century BC, an area was used as a burial ground for dogs (Kamlah and Sader 2003: 149; Sader and Kamlah 2010: 132; Çakirlar et al. 2013) . In Beirut at least 10 dog burials were found, dating to the Persian period; the skeletons were lying on their sides with the limbs folded under their bodies (Finkbeiner and Sader 1997: 130–132) . At Khalde eight dog skeletons were deposited during the Iron Age or in the Persian period (Saidah 1967: 166–167) . Seven dog skeletons “ . . . ranging from puppies to mature dogs . . .” were deposited during the Persian period at Shoham, a site located near Ben Gurion Airport at Tel Aviv (Nadelman 1995: 80; cf . Wapnish and Hesse 1993: 68) . At Persian period Tel Qasile, a dog was found buried in a jar (Stager 1991: 39 note 4) . At Tell el-Hesi the body of a headless canid was found in the fill of a silo (Bennet and Blakely 1989: 64) and that of another headless (juvenile) individual was discovered in a pit; both probably dating to the Late-Persian-Hellenistic period (Bennett and Schwartz 1989: 262) . At Tel Batash/Timnah (in the Shephelah) the remains of a small dog were found in a Persian period pit, underneath a vessel (Wapnish and Hesse 1993: 69; Mazar 1997: 164) . The excavator suggests that the animal was just thrown into the pit, rather than intentionally buried (Kelm and Mazar 1995: 172) . At least three partial dog skeletons were found in Persian period Megadim (Çakirlar et al. 2013: 257) . In Jerusalem two dog burials without grave goods were found directly below a tower belonging to a wall . The dogs supposedly died of old age and showed no signs of violence, sickness or malnutrition (Mazar 2009; Raban-Gerstel et al. 2015) . While the excavator suggested a Persian period date for the wall (Nehemiah’s wall), according to Finkelstein it is more likely to belong to the Hasmonean period (Finkelstein 2009) . In Hellenistic contexts at Gezer, complete or almost complete dog skeletons were found (Gitin 1990: 20 with note 22 p . 2) . At the Jordanian site of Hesban, 10km north of Madaba, six complete or partial skeletons of puppies and subadult dogs were found in Late Hellenistic deposits (Little 1969: 237; Weiler 1981: 170–184; von den Driesch and Boessneck 1995: 73) . At Tell Abou Danné, pits dated to the second century BC contained the remains of various animals, including dogs (Tefnin 1980: 195–196; Doyen and Gautier 1985) . At Tell Beydar Seleuco-Parthian pits in Field E and F yielded a total of seven dogs (Van Neer and De Cupere 2000: 76) . 2 Although complete dog skeletons are also found in earlier contexts (e .g . Maher 2005: 286–288), it is in the Persian period that most of the dog burials occur . A single explanation could hardly be valid for each and every case . Scholars, however, have mainly focused on the case of Ashkelon . Explanations proposed for the dog burials in Ashkelon have especially pointed to a Phoenician role: according to Lawrence

2

Dog burial(s?) from the Persian and/or Hellenistic period at Gan Soreq are referred to in Edrey (2008: 276), but no longer mentioned in Edrey 2013 . At Apollonia-Arsuf (Edrey 2008: 276; Edrey 2013: 17) there is a high percentage of dog bones (31%) in the Late Persian period sample: 190 bone fragments for a MNI of 4 (Sade 1999: 264) . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Stager, the dogs were probably involved in a healing cult, just as they were in the sanctuaries of Gula . Dogs are strongly connected to the worship of Gula (Fuhr 1977; Collon 1994; Groneberg 2000: 297–304; Ornan 2004), and were probably fed in her main sanctuaries . At Isin, 33 dogs were found buried near her temple; they probably date to between 1050 and 900 BC (Hrouda 1977a; Boessneck 1977) . According to B . Halpern it is “ . . . plausible that a version of Gula’s cult somehow spread under Assyrian and neo-Babylonian influence, probably to Cyprus and the eastern Aegean . . .” during the orientalizing period; then “ . . . . a Graecised version of Gula’s cult made its way to coastal Ashkelon . . .” (Halpern 2000: 137) . Conceivably, “ . . . it was in the Phoenician incarnation of Eshmun (or of Eshmun assimilated to Melqart) that Asklepios was worshiped . . .” at Ashkelon (Halpern 2000: 141) . Tell Afis, part way from Assyria towards the coast, could well have been one of the steps in this westward movement . Evidence of Assyrian influence in Tell Afis has accumulated over the years . According to Mazzoni, “ . . . the layout of Temple III at Afis represents a late adaptation combining a native model with imported imperial traditions and ritual practices . . .”, suggesting that the ambulatory or side annexes in the Tell Afis AI temple could be explained as a local adaptation of Assyrian temples (with side chambers added), and that the presence of the towers framing the façade might also be due to Assyrian influence (Mazzoni 2014a: 45) . A bronze bowl of Neo-Assyrian type (Fig . 5) was found in the debris of Temple AI (Soldi 2011) . Three frit cylinder seals provide further evidence of the spread of provincial Assyrian cultural traits: all belong to the standardized class of small frit seals, featuring an archer attacking a horned serpent, modelled in a linear style (Mazzoni 2008b; Mazzoni 2013b) . Furthermore, an Assyrian provincial governor was present in Hatarikka, probably from the time of Tiglath-Pileser III . Consequently the presence of the cult of Gula at Tell Afis would not be surprising . I am not suggesting that Temple AI was actually dedicated to Gula; however, as a ‘visiting goddess’ (Alroth 1987) she may well have been worshipped in another deity’s sanctuary, just as seems to have been the case in the temple of Ninurta at Nippur (Gibson 1993: 15) . In the Iron Age II, the main god on the acropolis of Tell Afis was probably Baal Shamayin, or perhaps the storm-god Iluwer, but under Assyrian rule, things could have changed . As suggested by Paola D’Amore (in press), a cylinder seal found in the southern district south of Temple AI (Fig . 6; Mazzoni 2012: 33; Mazzoni 2014a: 46–47) may indicate that the god of Harran was the main deity of the acropolis . Indeed, the Assyrian kings supported the cult of Sin of Harran and spread it westwards, so that he eventually became the patron of their expansion in the west (Theuer 2000: 365–366) . The healing practices may have been less politically significant but met an important need of the populace, as the widespread diffusion of healing cults in the Mediterranean region in the Persian and Classical periods demonstrates . To sum up, the presence of anatomical parts made of clay suggest that a healing cult was practiced on the acropolis of Tell Afis; the dog burials hint at the goddess Gula, in whose cult both these features are attested . Since the Assyrian cultural influence increased from Iron Age II onwards, it is not at all unlikely that Gula was worshipped in this Aramean city . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Templi e corredi del culto a Tell Afis nell’Età del Ferro e le tradizioni del Levante . In: P . De Vita and F . Venturi (eds .), Da Tell Afis a Mozia. Culture a confronto tra Oriente e Occidente . Lugano, 27–53 .

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2013a Tell Afis . History and Excavations . Near Eastern Archaeology 76, 204–212 . 2013b Seals and Seal Impressions of the Iron Age . In: W . Orthmann, P . Matthiae and M . al-Maqdissi (eds .), Archéologie et Histoire de la Syrie I. La Syrie de l’époque néolithique à l’âge du fer . Wiesbaden, 571–583 . 2014a Tell Afis in the Iron Age: The Temple on the Acropolis . Near Eastern Archaeology 77, 44–52 . 2014b The Archaeology of Tell Afis and the Iron Age II–III in Syria: A Reassessment . In: F . Baffi, R . Fiorentino and L . Peyronel (eds .), Tell Tuqan Excavations and Regional Perspectives. Cultural Developments in Inner Syria from the Early Bronze Age to the Persian/Hellenistic Period. Proceedings of the International Conference, May 15th–17th 2013, Lecce . Galatina, 343–390 . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Mustafa, M . A . 1947 Kassite Figurines . A new group discovered near ‘Aqar Qûf . Sumer 3, 19–22 . Nadelman, Y . 1995 Shoham . Excavations and Surveys in Israel 14, 80–81 . Ornan, T . 2004 The Goddess Gula and her Dog . Israel Museum Studies in Archaeology 3, 13–30 . Raban-Gerstel, N ., Agha, N ., Sapir-Hen, L . and Bar-Oz, G . 2015 Dog burial from the City of David: zooarchaeological, taphonomic, and pathological analysis . In: E . Mazar (ed .), The Summit of the City of David Excavations Seasons 2005–2008: Final Reports Volume I . Jerusalem, 487–496 . Sade, M . 1999 Faunal Remains of the Persian and Hellenistic Periods . In: I . Roll and O . Tal (eds .), Apollonia-Arsuf Final Report of the Excavations, I: The Persian and Hellenistic Periods . Monograph Series of the Institute of Archaeology of Tel Aviv University 16 . Tel Aviv, 262–268 . Sader, H . and Kamlah, J . 2010 Tell el-Burak: A New Middle Bronze Age Site from Lebanon . Near Eastern Archaeology 73, 130–141 . Saidah, R . 1967 Fouilles de Khaldé . Bulletin du Musée de Beyrouth 20, 165–169 . Sapir-Hen, L . 2011 Dog Burials at Dor . In: J . L . Nitschke, S . R . Martin and Y . Shalev, Between Carmel and the Sea . Tel Dor: The Late Periods . Near Eastern Archaeology 74, 132–154 . Soldi, S . 2009 Aramaeans and Assyrians in North-Western Syria: Material Evidence from Tell Afis . Syria 86, 97–118 . 2011

Notes on a bronze bowl from Tell Afis . In: M . Rossi (ed .), Archaeology for Cooperation. Afis-Deinit and the Museum of Idlib – Activities in the frame of the MEDA Project . Bacoli, 110–116 .

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Red Slip Ware from the Acropolis of Tell Afis: The Evidence of Area G . In: S . Mazzoni and S . Soldi (eds .), Syrian Archaeology in Perspective. Celebrating 20 Years of Excavations at Tell Afis. Proceedings of the International Meeting. Percorsi di Archeologia Siriana – Giornate di studio – Pisa 27–28 Novembre 2006 – Gipsoteca di Arte Antica – S. Paolo all’Orto . Ricerche di Archeologia del Vicino Oriente 4 . Pisa, 201–222 .

Spycket, A . 1990 Ex-voto mésopotamiens du IIe millénaire av . J .-C . In: Ö . Tunca (ed .), De la Babylonie à la Syrie, en passant par Mari. Mèlanges offerts à Monsieur J.-R. Kupper à l’occasion de son 70e anniversaire . Liège, 79–86 . Stager, L .E . 1991 Why Were Hundreds of Dogs Buried at Ashkelon? Biblical Archaeology Review 17, 26–42 . Stern, E ., Berg, J ., Gilboa, A . and Sharon, I . 1998 Tel Dor – 1995 . Excavations and Surveys in Israel 18, 37–40 . Stern, E . and Gilboa, A . 1995 Tel Dor – 1991 . Excavations and Surveys in Israel 13, 37–40 . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Stern, E ., Gilboa, A . and Berg, J . 1997 Tel Dor – 1994 . Excavations and Surveys in Israel 16, 64–67 . Tefnin, R . 1980 Deux campagnes de fouilles au Tell Abou Danné (1975–1976) . In: J . C . Margueron (ed .), Le Moyen Euphrate. Zone de contacts et d’échanges. Actes du Colloque de Strasbourg, 10–12 mars 1977 . Leiden, 179–199 . Theuer, G . 2000 Der Mondgott in den Religionen Syrien-Palästinas. Unter besonderer Berücksichtigung von KTU 1.24 . Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis 173 . Freiburg – Göttingen . Van Neer, W . and De Cupere, B . 2000 Faunal Remains from Tell Beydar (Excavation Seasons 1992–1996 and 1997 Partim) . In: M . Lebeau and A . Suleiman (eds .), Tell Beydar, Three Seasons of Excavations (1992–1994). A Preliminary Report . Subartu III . Turnhout, 69–115 . von den Driesch, A . and Boessneck, J . 1995 Final Report on the Zooarchaeological Investigation of Animal Bone Finds from Tell Hesban, Jordan . In: Ø . S . LaBianca and A . von den Driesch (eds .), Faunal Remains: Taphonomical and Zooarchaeological Studies of the Animal Remains from Tell Hesban and Vicinity (Hesban 13) . Berrien Springs, MI, 65–108 . Wapnish, P . and Hesse, B . 1993 Pampered Pooches or Plain Pariahs? The Ashkelon Dog Burials . The Biblical Archaeologist 56, 55–80; Reprinted in: L . E . Stager, J . D . Schloen and D . M . Master (eds .), Ashkelon 1. Introduction and Overview (1985–2006) . Winona Lake, 541–564 . Weiler, D . 1981 Säugetierknochenfunde vom Tell Hesbân in Jordanien . PhD thesis, University of Munich . Wilkens, B . 1998 The Faunal Remains . In: S . M . Cecchini and S . Mazzoni (eds .), Tell Afis (Syria). Scavi sull’acropoli 1988–1992. The 1988–1992 Excavations on the Acropolis. Pisa, 433–450 . 2000a Rapporto preliminare sui resti faunistici . In: S . Mazzoni (ed .), Tell Afis, Siria – 1999. Pisa, 43–46 . 2000b Archaeozoology Westwards: The Fauna of Tell Afis (Syria) . Topoi, Suppl . 2, 5–14 . 2000c Faunal Remains from Tell Afis (Syria) . In: M . Mashkour, A . M . Choyke, H . Buitenhuis and F . Poplin (eds .), Archaeozoology of the Near East IVB. Proceedings of the Fourth International Symposium on the Archaeozoology of Southwestern Asia and Adjacent Areas. Groningen, 29–39 . 2002

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2005

Relazione preliminare sui resti faunistici provenienti dalle campagne di scavo 2002–2003– 2004 . In: S . Mazzoni (ed .), Tell Afis, Siria – 2002–2004 . Pisa, 104–111 .

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Fig . 1 Plan of the site of Tell Afis (© Tell Afis Archaeological Mission)

Fig . 2 Building G on the acropolis of Tell Afis (© Tell Afis Archaeological Mission) © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Fig . 3 Ex-votos from Tell Afis district H (© Tell Afis Archaeological Mission)

Fig . 4 Dog deposition found in 1999 in Tell Afis, Area G (© Tell Afis Archaeological Mission)

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Fig . 5 Bronze bowl of Neo-Assyrian type from Tell Afis, Area A (© Tell Afis Archaeological Mission)

Fig . 6 Seal with Sin Symbol from Tell Afis, Area A (© Tell Afis Archaeological Mission)

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Mesopotamian Incense Burners from the Third and Second Millennia BC

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Mesopotamian Incense Burners from the Third and Second Millennia BC: An Archaeological Approach Agnieszka Pieńkowska 1 Abstract Written sources from ancient Mesopotamia list widespread uses for aromatic products and provide evidence for their importance in Mesopotamian rituals . It is not surprising therefore that incense burners are frequently mentioned in the texts as well . It seems obvious that vessels such as censers should occupy a particular place in temples, but their presence is only detected through scattered remains and they have never been studied as a whole . This paper will present different kinds of vessels found in the Mesopotamian region from the Third and Second millennia BC identified as an incense burners .

The use of aromatic substances was widespread throughout the entire ancient Near East . Written sources leave no doubt in regard to the importance of fumigation rituals, both in the sacral and private spheres . It would seem that the pleasant aroma emitted through burning fragrant materials was an indispensable element of almost every cultic ceremony . Although the texts enumerate a variety of aromatic substances, proving the popularity of the practice, the archaeological finds of the 3rd and the 2nd millennia BC are surprisingly scarce and seem to contradict the picture emerging from the texts . Although there have been artefacts identifiable as incense burners found at many Mesopotamian sites, the criteria for distinguishing such objects are vague, to say the least . In fact, the very definition of an incense burner is far from precise, as it only states that an incense burner is an object in which incense or other aromatic substances were burned . Even the most common vessel such as a simple bowl could have fulfilled this function, therefore one may ask how it is possible to identify an incense burner, when no single standard form is known . Written sources and iconography may be helpful in this respect because although the texts do not offer a description of incense burners, they list the materials from which the objects were made, describe the preparations for fumigatory ritual, and list the aromatics used . These scattered data prove that incense burners were made of clay, stone, and precious metals . Texts also state that an incense burner was to be filled with burning coals, which in turn were covered with aromatic substances . As mentioned above, the simplest vessel that could be used as an incense burner is a bowl and this is supported by Akkadian and Ur III glyptic iconography (Fig . 1a) . According

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to this evidence, one end of an altar may feature flames, libation offerings, animals or food, and these are usually accompanied by bowls that emit one or more distinctively articulated columns of smoke (Collon 1982: fig . 187; Kist 2003: fig . 141; Porada 1948: pl . XXXIX .246; Van Buren 1940: pl . 2: no . 13 .IB .SA:16) . A very interesting depiction appears on a seal from Khafajah, where the bowl is placed in the very center of the altar, right above the flames (Fig . 1b; Frankfort 1955: pl . 63 .681) . Traces of use constitute one of the most important criteria for determining the function of an object . In regard to incense burners, such traces mainly consist of burn marks left by smoldering aromatics . Such traces may be misleadingly similar, however, to those seen on bowls used as lamps . If a bowl features an opening for a wick or a slight hollow on the rim or even a shell-like shape, it is almost certainly a lamp . Yet a substantial number of bowls with traces of burning do not exhibit any characteristic traits . In theory, bowls used as lamps would show spot burns on their rims caused by wicks . If a bowl was used multiple times and a wick was replaced, such marks may be visible in several restricted areas or the entire rim may even be heavily covered in burn marks . If a bowl was used as an incense burner, traces of burning should be more prominent on the bottom and walls of the vessel, rather than on its rim . It is reasonable to suppose, however, that in some cases the traces would overlap, for instance, a juniper branch smoldering in a bowl and giving off scent but not much light, would leave the kinds of traces virtually indistinguishable from those left by a wick . The ambiguity involved in telling lamps and incense burners apart can be shown in the example of the publication of ceramic finds from Nippur and Tell Rimah . The Temple of Inanna at Nippur yielded a deposit of 50 ceramic vessels located in a cella behind the altar (McCown et al . 1967, pl . 32 .2) . According to the publication, these were all lamps . Certainly most of them did play such a function, especially those with a hollow for a wick and those with a shell-like shape; however, it is very likely that some vessels in the deposit were actually small incense burners . Unfortunately the publication does not mention the location of burn marks – whether on the rim or the inside of the vessel – and they cannot be determined on the photographs . The vessels found at Tell Rimah consist of over 20 examples with traces of burning, mostly small bowls with rim diameters ranging from 8 to 13cm (Fig . 1c; Postgate et al . 1997: pl . 32 .84, 87; pl . 52 .411, 412; pl . 53 .435, 442, 455; pl . 54 .460, 467–469; pl . 55 .483; pl . 58 .519) . Information concerning burn marks in the catalogue description reads as follows: “… burning on the rim …,” “… burning at one point on the rim …,” “… burning on the rim along one side …” . All these bowls were categorized as lamps and justly so, as their rims have visible marks left over by wicks . Only one vessel was classified as an incense burner; a small, rectangular tray measuring 8 by 9 cm and mounted on four short legs (Fig . 1d) . This interpretation most probably stems from the fact that the inner side of the tray was heavily covered in traces of burning (Postgate et al . 1997: pl . 99: 1193), yet one element of the tray, namely the spout, indicates that it was in fact a lamp . Moreover, there are other examples of spouted lamps in the catalogue of ceramic finds from Tell Rimah (Postgate et al . 1997: pl . 101 .1229, 1231) . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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One bowl found at this site could have actually functioned as an incense burner (Postgate et al . 1997: pl . 39 .198) . Contrary to lamps, the traces of burning on this bowl are present on its interior and not on its rim . Furthermore, its rim diameter is approximately 10 cm larger than that of an average ‘saucer lamp,’ suggesting it could easily hold even a larger piece of aromatic substance (Fig . 1e) . Different issues confound the identification of the so-called ‘braziers’ . From the textual sources of the 2nd millennium BC there can be no doubt about their cultic function . Inside the braziers animal sacrifices and objects of magical significance were burned, as well as aromatics, as in the case with incense-burners (CAD 1 .1, part II, 343) . The braziers’ flame was used for igniting cultic torches or receiving pledges (CAD 11, part I, 71, 217) . The objects identified as braziers have a similar form to pot-stands: a cylindrical or hour-glass shape, with openings in their sides . Some feature an opening in the base as well, while others have solid bottoms . Only a few known examples of braziers have traces of burning, and three such examples were found in situ in a temple room at Tell Brak (Fig . 2b; Oates et al . 2001: fig . 56) . Traces of burning were visible both on the inside of the braziers, as well as around them . As is the case with incense burners, the written sources do not describe the form of braziers either, therefore the identification of the function of these objects is never certain . Given the fact that it is impossible to define the standard forms of incense burners and braziers, what criteria should be used for identifying of such objects, and how can we distinguish one from the other based solely on traces of burning? In the 3rd and the 2nd millennia BC, the aromatic substances used in incense burners included juniper, cedar, tamarisk and acacia . Taking into account these aromatics, it seems improbable that only small bowls would be used as incense burners . Moreover, texts describing rituals during the Assyrian period mention three names for incense burners: nignakku and ša tÿlilti, which were smaller, portable incense burners fueled by crumbled pieces of wood; and šeÌtu, which was a large, stationary censer, stoked with bulky chunks of wood (CAD 11, part II, 216–217, CAD 17, part I, 264–265) . The texts also mention that censers were used for burning animal sacrifices (Scurlock 2006: 42) . It is possible that a similar distinction was also true for the 3rd and 2nd millennia BC . The possibility that the type of objects we call braziers or at least some of them, were in fact large censers in which aromatic wood was burned, cannot be excluded . A different category of vessel, usually identified as incense burners, comprises ‘pedestal bowls’ . These are of small size and often found in contexts suggesting their cultic significance . In one of the side rooms of the Great Temple at Tell Rimah, was found a small pedestal bowl with traces of burning on its inner walls (Fig . 2c; Postgate et al . 1997: pl . 100 .1216) . A pedestal bowl from Ur (Fig . 2d) found in layers dating to the Old Babylonian period in a sanctuary from Area AH, was described as “… perhaps an incense burner …” (Woolley and Mallowan 1976: 127, fig . 135) . The grounds for this interpretation are unclear and there is no information about traces of burning or the lack thereof . We can only suppose that the interpretation was © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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a purely intuitive one, resulting perhaps from the context of the find . Conversely, a pedestal bowl from the Ur graves (Fig . 2e) is described as an incense-brazier due to the inclusions used in its construction which produced ‘… coarse clay plentifully mixed with grit to resist heat …” (Woolley 1934: 391, pl . 266 .242) . A similar vessel made of basalt was also found in Tepe Gawra (Fig . 2f), in the Eastern Temple and described as a “… charcoal brazier type …” (Speiser 1935: 97, pl . LXXVI .17) . Another interesting pedestal bowl identified as an incense burner was found in an Old Babylonian house at Tell Halawa, a site in the Hamrin region (Fig . 2a) . It is significantly larger than the previously discussed examples and bears visible traces of burning; however, such traces are also present on the walls of the room, as well as on other objects found within it . It is reasonable to assume that these traces resulted from a fire in the house and as such are not indicative of the function of the vessel (Yaseen 1995: 30, pl . 41B) . Another group of vessels are the so-called ‘offering stands or potstands’ . This is a numerous group attested at many Mesopotamian sites . According to W . Andrae, this type of stand, dubbed a ‘Räucherstander’, was used as its German name suggests as a support for an actual incense burner (Fig . 2i–l; Andrae 1938: Abb . 37) . One such support vessel was found at Tell Arbid in a temple dated to the Nineveh 5 period in a cella near the altar (Fig . 2g–h; Bieliński 2010: figs . 15, 17) . A hollow at the top of the object was very even and a bowl would certainly fit well into it . More importantly, there were no traces of burning in the hollow itself, which was to be expected if the incense burner proper was in fact a replaceable bowl . Although some ostensible traces of ashes were found directly in front of the altar, they were undoubtedly the remains of a regular, rectangular hearth . Without doubt, the hearth fulfilled a cultic function and it is possible that it was also used for burning aromatics, as was the case in Ur where three so-called ‘incense-hearths’ were found (Woolley and Mallowan 1976: 29, 124, 137, pls . 41, 145, 149) . This does not, however, prove that the offering stand was used as a base for a bowl/an incense burner, as it is equally possible that it was used for liquid offerings instead . Other possible offering stands such as the one from Tell Arbid, also without traces of burning on their tops, were found at many Mesopotamian sites . At Tell Chuera, as at Assur, they were described as Räucherstander (Moortgat 1960a: 19, 22, 25, 27, 32, Abb . 16, 24–25; 1960b: Abb . 26) . Stands from the Temple of Sin at Khafadjah, as described in the publication of pottery finds from the Diyala region, may have been used as simple pedestals for various kinds of offerings placed in a brazier or a censer (Delougaz 1952: 56, pl . 45) . Much as in the case of Tell Arbid, these sites did not yield any bowls that could be interpreted as a potential incense burner proper . A potstand found in a cella in a temple at Tepe Gawra (Speiser 1935: 15, pl . LXXIV .205) is unique due to the presence of a concave base and a set of openings situated up to 1/3 of the vessel’s height . Given its find spot, this object must have been of cultic significance; however, there is no solid basis for classifying it as an incense burner because, as in the previously discussed cases, no information about traces of burning was provided . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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One type of object that can be interpreted as incense burner with a degree of certainty is the so-called ‘cuboid-incense burner’, a small incense burner in a form of a cube on four legs . Examples of such vessels were found across the entire Persian Gulf, the Levant, and Mesopotamia (Fig . 3b), and remained in use for a very long time, up until the Islamic period (Le Maguer 2011) . In the Levant and southern Mesopotamia, the cuboid incense burners, with some exceptions (Woolley and Mallowan 1976: 60, pl . 97i) were dated to the 1st millennium BC (Czichon and Werner 2008: Taf . 274 .8691, 8692; O’Dwyer Shea 1983: 76–109; Ziegler 1942: 224–240) . A unique set in this respect was found at Tell Halawa in the Balikh region, where they were most popular during the 2nd millennium BC (Pruß 1994: 182–193) . The oldest example from the Persian Gulf dating to the end of the 3rd millennium BC, was found at the site of Ra’as al-Jins, Oman, and bears traces of burning (Cleuziou and Tosi 1997: figs . 6–9) . This particular cuboid-incense burner is especially interesting as it featured the names of aromatics carved onto its side walls (Cleuziou and Tosi 2007: fig . 251; Maraqten 2014: 487–490) . The last group of artefacts to be discussed consists of models of houses and temples . These have been found across the entire Near East, dating back to Prehistoric times . Their function often puzzled their discoverers; sometimes they were interpreted as incense burners mainly based on the context of the find and the shape of the object which suggested that the top of the model could support a bowl or a proper incense burner much like the offering stand . Examples of such objects are known, for instance, from Babylon (Reuther 1926: Taf . 7 a, b), Tepe Gawra (Tobler 1960: 144, 223, pl . LXXVIIId, pl . CXXXII .228) and Nuzi (Starr 1939: pl . 140c), to name a few locations . Only in the case of a model found in a temple at Tepe Gawra does the description mention traces of burning (Fig . 3a; Tobler 1950: 223) . Sadly there is no proof that the remaining models were indeed used in the capacity of incense burners . There are examples of models with bowls attached to their tops and which therefore constitute an integral part of the object, for instance from Ur (Fig . 3f; Woolley 1955: pl . 33 .U .19593) or Tell Agrab (Muller 2002: fig . 1), but none of them exhibited traces of burning . They could have been used in any capacity therefore, ranging from lamps to incense burners or libation vessels . There are only a handful of house models with traces of burning and, interestingly, they are all of small size . One model of a house or a shrine with prominent traces of burning on the inside was found at Tell Arbid in a Khabour grave, dated to the first half of the 2nd millennium BC (Fig . 3e; Bieliński 2005: 488, fig . 10) . A similar object was uncovered at Tell Munbaqa (Rouault and Masetti-Rouault 1993: 370), at Tell Chagar Bazar (Fig . 3d; Mallowan 1936: 20, fig . 5:25) and several other small-scale house models with traces of burning on the inside were found at Tell Mozan (Fig . 3c; Bianchi and Wissing 2009: 361–362, Taf . 74–83) . These are the only examples of house models I am aware of that could have been used as incense burners or lamps . Objects that seems particularly promising are the vessels with solid bottoms and openings in their walls, which could have easily functioned as censers (Fig . 4b, d, e; Starr 1939: pl . 140c; Delougaz 1952: pl . 24a, pl . 105a, 172:C .305 .400; Watelin © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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and Langdon 1934: 15, pl . I .16), similarly to the so-called ‘incense cups’ from the Levant (Fig . 4a; Amiran 1970: photo 316) . Although the publications do not mention the presence of traces of burning on these vessels, their interpretation as censers still seems plausible owing to a parallel find from the Iranian site of Hasanlu . This vessel, although identified as a lantern, bears significant traces of burning (Fig . 4c; Danti 2004: 49, fig . 26 .13, pl . R) . The issue of whether it was used as a lantern, lamp or incense burner is incredibly difficult to determine . Nonetheless, the Hasanlu example proves that vessels of this form could have fulfilled one of the above functions . Another interesting find is an object from Tepe Gawra identified as a ‘top of [a] censer’ (Fig . 4g; Speiser 1935: 61, fig . 209) and is essentially a lid with holes . Again, it is unclear on what evidence the author based his interpretation, perhaps on parallel finds, as simple bowls covered with similar kinds of lids represent a well-known type of incense burner from Egypt (Fig . 4f; Podzorski 2003: 25, fig . 2 .1) . In this context it would be worth taking a closer look at bowl-shaped strainers or lids which could have fulfilled a similar function, for instance a vessel from Khafajah (Delougaz 1952: pl . 120d) or another from Tell Bazi (Otto 2007: Abb . 47 .2) . The overview of objects interpreted as incense burners, and of the criteria dictating such identification, presented here clearly demonstrates a significant gap in our knowledge of the equipment used for burning aromatics . It is all the more striking, as the written sources offer an abundance of information concerning various types of aromatic substances . Perhaps it is this variety, accessibility and ubiquity of aromatics that resulted in different forms of incense burners . In addition, the same vessel could have been used both as a lamp and an incense burner . In such cases, traces of burning that would otherwise enable us to distinguish between one use and another are rendered meaningless . One of the reasons that it is difficult to identify incense burners amongst the archaeological material may be the imperfect documentation of finds . Particularly in the case of sites with an overabundance of pottery, the preliminary selection of sherds may result in insufficiently detailed examination of apparently undiagnostic material . Traces of burning which constitute the most informative evidence are also threatened during the stage of washing the sherds – a task often delegated to the local workforce – during which any traces may be effectively erased, thus preventing correct identification . As a result, final publications only show vessels with ostensible traces of burning, predominantly those with a complete or non-standard form . Moreover, a common misconception is that incense burners should bear marks of burning mainly on the inside of the vessel . Yet the iconographic evidence of the seal from Khafajah reveals that an incense burner could have been placed directly above the flames, resulting in traces of soot on the outside of the vessel . There is consequently little chance for such vessels to be classified as incense burners . Spectacular forms or various deposits are often expected in temples or other cultic contexts, as was the case with Nippur, yet incense burners intended for domestic use are much more difficult to identify and require great attention to detail . Just as a pottery sherd with a wick and some oil was often used as a lamp, so too the same © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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principle applied to an incense burner . In fact, any simple vessel, or a fragment thereof, in which aromatics could be placed and ignited, should be considered an incense burner in its own right . Such rudimentary incense burners could have been used for domestic rituals or even as an air freshener . In the case of many archaeological sites, even when a vessel is identified as an incense burner or a lamp, there is no information provided regarding the criteria for such identification, whether it be traces of burning, parallel examples, the context of the find, or even the intuition of the author . The information concerning traces of burning provided in the publication of the finds from Tell Rimah is particularly detailed, but also exceptional . More often than not the descriptions simply state that the object in question is an incense burner, but without providing any basis for such an interpretation, making it impossible to verify . Bibliography Amiran, R . 1970 Ancient Pottery of the Holy Land: From Its Beginnings in the Neolithic Period to the End of the Iron Age . Jerusalem . Andrae, W . 1938 Das Wiedererstandene Assur. Leipzig . Bianchi, A . and Wissing, A . 2009 Die Kleinfunde. Ausgrabungen 1998–2001 in der zentralen Oberstadt von Tall Mozan/Urkeš . Studien zur Urbanisierung Nordmesopotamiens, Serie A, Volume 2 . Wiesbaden . Bieliński, P . 2005 Tell Arbid . The Ninth Season of Syrian-Polish Excavations . Preliminary Report . Polish Archaeology in the Mediterranean XVI, 475–489 . 2010

Tell Arbid . Preliminary Report on the Results of the Twelfth Season of the Syrian-Polish Excavations . Polish Archaeology in the Mediterranean XIX, 537–554 .

CAD 1956–2010 The Assyrian Dictionary of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, Ignace J . Gelb et al. (eds .) . Chicago . Cleuziou, S . and Tosi, M . 1997 Evidence for the Use of Aromatics in the Early Bronze Age of Oman: Period III at RJ-2 (2300– 2200 BC) . In: A . Avanzini (ed .), Profumi d’Arabia. Roma, 57–84 . 2007

In the Shadow of the Ancestors. The Prehistoric Foundations of the Early Arabian Civilization in Oman . Muscat .

Collon, D . 1982 Catalogue of the Western Asiatic seals in the British Museum. Cylinder Seals II. Akkadian. Post-Akkadian and Ur III Periods . London . Czichon, R . M . and Werner, P . 2008 Ausgrabungen in Tall Munbaqa-Ekalte IV, Die bronzezeitliche Keramik. Wissenschaftliche Veröffentlichungen der Deutschen Orient-Gesellschaft 118 . Wiesbaden . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Danti, M . D . 2004 The Ilkhanid Heartland: Hasanlu Tepe (Iran) Period I . Hasanlu Excavation Reports 2 . Philadelphia . Delougaz, P . 1952 Pottery from the Diyala Region . Chicago . Frankfort, H . 1955 Stratified Cylinders Seals from the Diyala Region . Oriental Institute Publications 72 . Chicago . Kist, J . 2003 Ancient Near Eastern Seals from the Kist Collection. Three Millennia of Miniature Reliefs . Leiden – Boston . Le Maguer, S . 2011 Typology of incense-burners of the Islamic period . Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies 41, 173–186 . McCown D . E ., Haines, R . C . and Hansen, D . P . 1967 Nippur I. Temple of Enlil, Scribal Quarter and Soundings. Excavations of the Joint Expedition to Nippur of the University Museum of Philadelphia and the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago. Chicago . Mallowan, M . E . L . 1936 The Excavations at Tell Chagar Bazar and an Archaeological Survey of the Habur Region 1934–1935 . Iraq III, 1–85 . Maraqten, M . 2014 A New Small Inscribed Cuboid Incense Burner from Yemen . In: C . C . Lamberg-Karlowski and B . Genito (eds .), ‘My Life is like a Summer Rose.’ Maurizio Tosi e l’Archeologia come modo di vivere. Papers in Honour of Maurizio Tosi for his 70th birthday . Oxford, 487–490 . Moortgat, A . 1960a Tell Chuera in Nordost-Syrien Vorläufiger Bericht über die Grabung 1958 . Köln – Opladen . 1960b Tell Chuera in Nordost-Syrien Vorläufiger Bericht über die zweite Grabungskampagne 1959 . Wiesbaden . Müller, B . 2002 Les Maquettes Architecturales Du Proche-Orient Ancien, Beyrouth . Oates, D ., Oates, J . and McDonald, H . 2001 Excavations at Tell Brak, vol.2: Nagar in the third millennium BC . Oxford . O’Dwyer Shea, M . 1983 The Small Cuboid Incense-Burner of the Ancient Near East . Levant 15, 76–109 . Otto, A . 2007 Alltag und Gesellschaft zur Spätbronzezeit: eine Fallstudie aus Tall Bazi . Subartu XIX . Turnhout . Podzorski, P . V . 2003 Incense Burners of the Late Predynastic Period in Egypt: An Examination of the Evidence from Three Sites . In: C . A . Redmount and C . A . Keller (eds .), Egyptian Pottery: Proceedings of the 1990 Pottery Symposium at the University of California, Berkeley . Berkeley, 22–37 . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Postgate C ., Oates, D . and Oates, J . 1997 The Excavations at Tell Al Rimah. The Pottery . Iraq Archaeological Reports 4 . London . Porada, E . 1948 Corpus of Ancient Near Eastern Seals in North American Collections: The Collection of the Pierpont Morgan Library . Bolligen Series XIV . Washington . Pruß, A . 1994 Räucherkästchen . In: J . Waalke-Meyer and A . Pruß (eds .), Ausgrabungen in Halawa 2. Die Kleinfunde von Tell Halawa . Saarbrücken, 181–192 . Reuther, O . 1926 Die Innestadt von Babylon (Merkes) . Wissenschaftliche Veröffentlichungen der Deutschen Orient-Gesellschaft 47 . Leipzig . Rouault, O . and Masetti-Rouault, M . G . 1993 L’Eufrate e il tempo: Le civiltà del medio Eufrate e della Gezira siriana . Milano . Scurlock, J . 2006 The Techniques of the Sacrifice of Animals in Ancient Israel and Ancient Mesopotamia: New Insight Through Comparison, Part 1 . Andrews University Seminar Studies 44, 13–50 . Speiser, A . E . 1935 Excavations at Tepe Gawra, Volume 1 . Philadelphia . Starr, R . F . S . 1939 Nuzi. Report on Excavations at Yorgan Tepa Near Kirkuk, Iraq . Cambridge, Mass . Tobler, J . A . 1950 Excavations at Tepe Gawra, Volume 2 . Philadelphia . Watelin, L . Ch . and Langdon, S . 1934 Excavations at Kish. Oxford Field Museum Expedition, Volume 4 (1925–1920) . Paris . Woolley, L . 1955 Ur Excavations IV. The Early Periods. Philadelphia . 1934

Ur Excavations II. The Royal Cemetery. Oxford .

Woolley, L. and Mallowan, M . E . L . 1976 Ur Excavations VII. The Old Babylonian Period . Philadelphia . Van Buren, E . D . 1940 The Cylinder Seals of the Pontifical Biblical Institute . Rome . Yaseen, G . H . 1995 Old Babylonian Pottery from the Hamrin. Tell Halawa . London . Ziegler, L . 1942 Tonkästchen aus Uruk, Babylon und Assur . Zeitschrift für Assyriologie und vorderasiatische Archäologie 13, 224–240 .

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Fig . 1 Cylinder seals depicting incense burners (a, b) and vessels from Tell Rimah (c–e) interpreted as an incense burner or lamp; a – Collon 1982: fig . 187; b – Frankfort 1955: pl . 63 .681; c – McCown et al. 1967: pl . 32 .2; d – Postgateet al. 1997: pl . 53 .455; e – Postgate et al. 1997: pl . 99 .1193; f – Postgate et al. 1997: pl . 39 .198 (drawings: M . Puszkarski)

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Fig . 2 Brazier from Tell Brak (b) . Pedestal bowl (a, c–h), offering stands (i–l) identified as an incense burner; a – Yaseen 1995: 30, pl . 41 .B; b – Oates et al. 1997: fig . 56; c – Postgate et al. 1997: pl . 100 .1216; d – Woolley and Mallowan 1976: fig . 135; e – Woolley 1934: pl . 266 .242; f – Speiser 1935: 97, pl . LXXVI .17; g–h – Bieliński 2010: fig . 17; i–l – Andrae 1938: Abb . 37 (drawings: M . Puszkarski; g–h: digitizing: M . Puszkarski, M . Momot) © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Fig . 3 a – Speiser 1935: pl . LXXIV . 205; b – Woolley 1976: pl . 93 .n; c – Bianchi and Wissing 2009: Taf . 74 .1206; d – Mallowan 1936: fig . 5 .25; e – Bieliński 2005: fig . 10; f – Woolley 1955: pl . 33 .U .19593 (drawings: M . Puszkarski) © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Fig . 4 a – Amiran 1970: 301, photo 316; b – Delougaz 1952: pl . 105a; c – Danti 2004: fig . 26:13, pl . R; d – Delougaz 1952: pl . 172 .C .305 .400; e – Starr 1939: pl . 140c; f – Podzorski 2003: fig . 2 .1; g – Speiser 1935: fig . 209 (drawings: M . Puszkarski) © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Wealth Sacrifice and Legitimacy: The Case of the Early Bronze Age Başur Höyük Cemetery (South-eastern Turkey) Haluk Sağlamtimur 1 – Martina G. M. Massimino 2 Abstract The incredibly rich metal assemblages found in seventeen tombs at Başur Höyük-Siirt, in the Upper Tigris River Valley, shed new light on the perception and use of metal in south-eastern Turkey and northern Syria at the beginning of the Early Bronze Age . The lavishness of the grave goods suggests that they belonged to an emerging elite who chose to build their cemetery among the ruins of the previous late Uruk-related settlement . Their newly achieved power, was legitimised through the deposition in mortuary ceremonies of copious amounts of metal in the form of symbolically charged objects . This ostentatious disposal of metalwork characterised other contemporary contexts, as at the ‘royal’ tomb of Arslantepe . As identified by Wengrow (2011), this strategy of social achievement was based on a system in which metal was valued not as a commodity but as something to be hoard and sacrificed in spectacular performances . It is argued there that after the collapse of the Uruk system at the end of the 4th millennium BC, the public display and sacrifice of large quantities of metal at burial events marks the transition to a different form of power .

1. Introduction In recent decades, numerous mortuary contexts dated to the first half of the Early Bronze Age (ca . 3100–2600 BC) have been discovered during rescue and salvage archaeological investigations carried out in south-eastern Turkey and northern Syria, especially in the intensively studied area along the Upper and Middle Euphrates Valley . In many cases the most striking aspect of these Early Bronze Age burial sites lies in the sheer quantity of metal items deposited in graves to accompany the dead . This practice appears to contrast sharply with the previous Late Chalcolithic period (ca . 4200–3100 BC), when evidence for burial customs was generally limited to a few intramural pit and jar burials with poor or no grave goods . This suggests that in the transition from the Late Chalcolithic to the beginning of the Early Bronze Age a remarkable change occurred not only in the funerary customs but more specifically in the role played by metal in the economy and social dynamics of the communities inhabiting this area at the northern border of the Mesopotamian world .

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Department of Archaeology, Ege University, Turkey . Department of Archaeology, Durham University, UK . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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In order to point out the significant consumption of metal artefacts deposited as grave goods at the beginning of the 3rd millennium BC, a brief review of the data provided by the main archaeological contexts in south-eastern Turkey and northern Syria is necessary . North of the Taurus, in the Malatya region, after the violent destruction by fire of the Uruk-influenced palace at the end of the 4th millennium BC, Arslantepe was a temporary settlement of freestanding huts built in wattle and daub and occupied by pastoral groups in stable relationships with Trans-Caucasian Kura-Araxes communities (Phase VI B1) (Frangipane and Palmieri 1983; Frangipane 2014) . Immediately after or during the last moments of this period – dated around 3100–2900 BC – a ‘royal’ cist tomb was built on the ancient mound, with rich grave gifts including seventy-five metal objects (Frangipane et al. 2001; Hauptmann et al. 2002) . The dramatic ceremony organised around the burial of the deceased lord (a man aged between 35 and 45) involved the sacrifice of four young individuals (three girls and a boy aged 12–14), whose skeletons were found on top and close to the cover stone of the cist grave . South of the Taurus – in the Middle Euphrates Valley – the so-called ‘princess’ of Qara Quzaq was buried – along with an adolescent – in a chamber tomb (L 12) with approximately one kilogram of metal objects consisting of seven spearheads and twenty-five metal pins (Montero Fenollós 2004) . In addition to these two exceptionally lavish burials, several sites located along the Middle Euphrates – e .g . Hacınebi, Hassek Höyük and Carchemish 3 – revealed stone-lined cist tombs which contained more metal items than other contemporary burials in the same site or cemetery, 4 suggesting they belonged to members of the local elite . At the same time, the frequent inclusion of few metal objects – mostly consisting of highly stereotyped pins and weapons – within the grave repertoire of a large number of less rich contemporary graves possibly represents an attempt to imitate on a smaller scale some aspects of the new elite’s behaviour, including their funerary customs (Philip 2007: 195) . An example of this tendency could be found at the Birecik Dam cemetery (Sertok and Ergeç 1999), where more than 300 burials yielded 410 metal items as grave goods . The majority of burials contained between one and three metal items each, many of which were personal ornaments (Squadrone 2007) .

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The exact position of the Carchemish graves within the Early Bronze Age has long been a matter of debate, but on the basis of the associated finds, they could now be assigned to the early part of the 3rd millennium BC (Falsone and Sconzo 2007: 77–79; Philip 1989: 69–70) . See respectively Stein et al. 1997; Behm-Blancke et al. 1981; Behm-Blancke et al. 1984; Woolley and Barnet 1952; Woolley 1914 . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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2. The Başur Höyük ‘Royal’ cemetery As for the Upper Tigris River Valley, which until recently was an almost unexplored region from an archaeological point of view, the recent discoveries at the site of Başur Höyük are providing a significant contribution in shedding new light on the changing perception and use of metal in south-eastern Anatolia in the transition from the Late Chalcolithic to the Early Bronze Age . Discovered in 1963 by Robert Braidwood and Halet Çambel 5 (Benedict 1980), Başur Höyük has been excavated since 2007 within the Salvage Project of the Archaeological Heritage of the Ilisu Dam Reservoir by a team from Ege University, Izmir (Turkey), led by Dr . Sağlamtimur (Fig . 1) . The site is located in modern Siirt province, about 150m west of the Başur stream that flows through the Bitlis Valley into the Botan River, a tributary of the Tigris River (Fig . 2) . This is a strategic position, in connection with the main access routes connecting northern Mesopotamia with eastern Anatolia and the rich obsidian and copper deposits located west of the Lake Van . Measuring ca . 3 .8ha in size (250 × 150m), the mound rises on a natural conglomerate terrace with a cultural deposit of about 15m . Based on the analysis of surface finds, it has been determined that the mound was first inhabited during the Neolithic period . The earliest extensively exposed occupational levels – centred in the southern part of the mound – date to the Late Chalcolithic period with two main phases: a pre-contact phase, with the only occurrence of local Anatolian material culture, and a contact phase characterised by the possible presence of an Uruk-influenced central administration (Sağlamtimur and Kalkan 2015), as suggested by the cylinder seals and the hundreds of mass-produced beveled-rim bowls found in situ inside multiroomed buildings and storerooms . Apart from some intramural jar burials for infants, no other mortuary evidence has been found in the Late Chalcolithic levels . At the end of the 4th millennium BC, after the demise of the Uruk Expansion, the settlement was abandoned and no later occupation was established on top of it . However, a so-called ‘royal’ cemetery dated to the immediately ‘post Uruk’ phase – the very beginning of the Early Bronze Age –was recently exposed on the south-eastern slope of the mound among the remains of the Late Chalcolithic settlement (Fig . 3) (Sağlamtimur and Ozan 2013; Sağlamtimur and Ozan 2014) . The initial dating of the cemetery to the transition between the 4th and the 3rd millennium BC, on the basis of the typological comparanda of the pottery and the metal objects recovered inside the graves, has been further confirmed by the radiocarbon analysis performed on some samples of textiles, which gave a date between 3100 and 2900 BC .

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Given the information concerning its size and location, Başur Höyük can be identified with the mound recorded as S 64/4 (Benedict 1980: 117) . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Seventeen burials have been found thus far in the cemetery – mainly cist graves but also simple earthen pits, most of them oriented in west-east direction . The cist graves consist of a rectangular pit lined with neatly cut limestone blocks and capped on top with a large stone slab; in some cases the bottom of the grave is also paved with stone slabs . Most of the graves contained multiple burials . The human remains – generally found in flexed position and poorly preserved – are currently under examination by bioarchaeologist Dr . B . Hassett . The graves seem to be associated with each other by complex relationships, which need to be further investigated in order to better understand the internal chronology of the cemetery and the possible contemporaneity of some depositions . Most of these burials have proved to be extraordinarily rich in funerary gifts, yielding a large number of ceramic vessels, beads and especially metal items . More than five hundred ceramic vessels have been recovered from the graves, mostly consisting of painted and unpainted jars, goblets, cups and kernoi (Fig . 4) . A significant number bear a geometric decoration painted in dark red/brown, typical of the early phase of the Ninevite 5 horizon in northern Mesopotamia (cf . Schwartz 1985; Rova and Weiss 2003; Grossman 2014) . Tens of thousands of beads, made of rock crystal, carnelian, shell and other semi-precious stones were found inside some vessels, on the chest or close to the neck of some skeletons . More often they were collected in the entire filling of the grave, from immediately underneath the cover stone to the bottom of the grave, probably thrown during the interment . Moreover, 39 small stones carved in the shape of animals, pyramids, spheres and bullets have been unearthed inside a burial as a set in the same cluster with badly preserved wooden remains (Fig . 5) . They belong to the same type of game pieces or tokens found at Jemdet Nasr (Matthews 2002: 32, figs . 60, 61, 62, pl . 48) and other contemporary Mesopotamian sites in Iraq, like Fara (Martin 1988: 208 .179–183), Telloh (Geouillac 1935: pl . 37 .1) and Uruk (Schmandt-Besserat 1988), pointing again to the existence of relations with the south . As already mentioned, metal items represent the most significant part of the grave repertoires . There are about six hundred metal objects in total, mainly consisting of copper base pins with rolled (Fig . 6) and coiled head (Fig . 7), and tripartite spearheads with leaf shaped blade, long butt and chisel-like tang (Fig . 8) . Additionally, some of the richest graves contained unique objects, like standards and sceptres (Figs . 9, 10), metal vessels, spoon-like ritual objects (Fig . 11) and castanets, as well as cylindrical pendant-amulets (seals?) (Fig . 12) . These exceptional pieces – mostly decorated with geometric design and animal figurines, in particular bulls, goats and birds – show an absolute mastery in the complex lost-wax casting technique . A goblet with two standing bird-headed female figures holding the basin (Fig . 13) and a cup with a spiral handle topped by two goat figurines (Fig . 14) are among the finest examples . In the Upper Tigris River Valley a similar mortuary context was found at Asaği Salat, where 46 stone-lined cist tombs have been excavated by the Diyarbakir Archaeological Museum . Unfortunately in this case almost all the graves were dis© 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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covered to have been robbed . The only intact burial (M-14) yielded Ninevite 5 vessels, metal pins with rolled head and beads closely resembling those found at Başur Höyük (Şenyurt 2002; Şenyurt 2004) . Additionally, the closest parallels for the metal objects unearthed at Başur Höyük are provided by the above mentioned contemporary sites discovered along the Euphrates Valley, both north and south of the Taurus Mountains . In particular, the tripartite spearheads belong to a long-lasting type originating in the Caucasus and Eastern Anatolia during the second half of the 4th millennium BC and then particularly widespread in the Syro-anatolian area during the 3rd millennium BC (Philip 1989: 69–70; Gernez 2007: 296–98; Squadrone 2015: 309) . In particular, ther are found at Arslantepe, in the VI A period metal cache (Frangipane 1983: figs . 58 .1–3, 59 .1–4, 60 .1–5, 61 .3–5), in the VI B1 ‘royal’ tomb (Frangipane et al. 2001: figs . 18, 23) as well as on the floor of a storage room (A1369) of the monumental building 36, also dated to VI B1 period (Di Nocera 2013: 123, fig . 7 .2), at Tell Qara Quzaq (Montero Fenollós 1995: L 12: fig .1 .A, B), in the Birecik Dam cemetery (Squadrone 2007: fig . 16 .6 .1–2), at Hassek Höyük (Behm-Blancke et al. 1984, G 12: 50–51, figs . 7, 8 .1–2) and Carchemish (Woolley and Barnet 1952: KCG 1: 219, pl . 61b .1, 4; KCG 15: 222, pl . 61c .2, 4) . Other specimens come from uncertain contexts at Tell Kara Hasan (Woolley 1914: pl . 19C 2, 5) and Tülintepe (Yalçın and Yalçın 2009: fig . 3 .2–6), but they can probably date back to the early part of the 3rd millennium BC, according to stylistic considerations . Besides, cylindrical pendant-amulets (seals?) similar to those from Başur Höyük have been found at the Birecik Dam cemetery (Squadrone 2007: fig . 13 .5 .4–6), Hassek Höyük (Behm-Blancke 1984: 62, pl . 12 .4, from pithos 70), Carchemish (Woolley and Barnet 1952: KCG 2: 219, pl . 60b: 2) and Arslantepe 6 (Di Nocera 2013: fig . 10 .1) . Other metal objects from the Başur Höyük cemetery are not standardised types, but highly embellished ‘individualised’ creations, possibly manufactured for the single mortuary event during which they were displayed and ritually deposited/sacrificed . It is also worth noting that, as in the ‘royal’ tomb of Arslantepe, in many graves the metal items were not directly associated with the body of the deceased, but heaped along the sides of the grave, tied together in bundles with strings of linen or wrapped in textiles . This may suggest that in these elite burials metalwork was not intended to represent just the personal belongings of the individual buried (Philip 2007: 189) . Rather, the public display and sacrifice of metal in conspicuous quantities and in the form of symbolically charged objects was most likely considered an essential part of a spectacular mortuary ceremony .

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The Arslantepe pendant is the only specimen found so far in a non- funerary context, as it comes from a niche in the fortification wall dated to Period VI B2 (Di Nocera 2013: 127) . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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3. Discussion and conclusion In light of the evidence presented up to this point, Başur Höyük cemetery and the other contemporary burial contexts along the Upper and Middle Euphrates Valley suggest that a remarkable change occurred in the role metal played in the economy and social dynamics of south-eastern Anatolia and northern Syria in the transition from the Late Chalcolithic to the beginning of the Early Bronze Age (Stork 2015) . The limited amount of metal artifacts that entered the archaeological record during the 4th millennium does not necessarily mean that a prolific and advanced metallurgy had not yet developed (Philip 2007: 188–190) . Uruk-related elites may have employed strategies of social enhancement and display other than the ostentatious disposal of metal goods within burial contexts . On the other hand, the centralising power of Uruk bureaucratic institutions was probably able to strictly control the circulation of high demand materials within the larger economic system, precluding individual groups from accumulating – and wasting through interment – large amounts of metal . Therefore, considering the likely invisibility of metal in the 4th millennium archaeological record, only the occasional discovery of hoards can give us a glimpse at the types of metal objects available at that time . The metal cache from the Late Chalcolithic palace at Arslantepe is one such case (Frangipane and Palmieri 1983) . Found in a layer of collapse inside Building III, the hoard consists of a quadruple spiral plaque, nine swords (some of them decorated with a sophisticated silver inlay), and twelve tripartite spearheads, belonging to the same type of the later 3rd millennium specimens . Another remarkable example is represented by the Nahal Mishmar hoard (BarAdon 1980) . Accidentally found in a cave west of the Dead Sea, it consists of 429 objects – mostly made of copper or copper-base alloys – and dating to the early 4th millennium BC . Although geographically distant from the Tigris Valley, the strong similarity with the Başur Höyük metal objects in terms of variety, technological and artistic virtuosity as well as animal iconography (for example, the recurring motif of the goat), leads to comparisons between the two assemblages . This is especially significant when we consider that the copper-arsenic-antimony ternary alloys used to produce some of the objects of the Nahal Mishmar hoard are thought to have originated from an ore deposit in eastern Anatolia (Tadmor et al. 1995) . Given that metal was not being deposited in graves in any great quantity before 3000 BC, with Başur Höyük being an early example, we might ask whether the striking assemblage from the site represents more a change in depositional practices and so in the visibility of metalwork, rather than a completely new industry . That being so, it is quite possible that in combination Başur Höyük and Nahal Mishmar offer a valuable insight into the nature of the otherwise poorly known metal industry of the 4th millennium BC . Therefore, in the transition from the Late Chalcolithic to the Early Bronze Age, the substantial increase observed in the amount of metals being consumed within grave repertoires appears to be the result of socio-political developments and the establishment of new highly visible strategies of display of wealth, power and prestige . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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As pointed out by Marcella Frangipane et al. (2001), during this period a radical change occurred in the form of power and resource control, marking a shift from a centralised administrative system exercising a tight control over the circulation of goods, to a more ‘individualistic’ system, in which status was legitimised and maintained through the acquisition, display and eventual sacrifice of prestige items – including metals . Immediately after the demise of the Uruk network system, the lack of strong centralising powers in the early phases of the Early Bronze Age enabled various local groups – probably based on kinship – to gain access and exercise control over the material resources that could be used to achieve a higher social status in the community . One method by which individual units or family groups could attain this goal was the ostentatious display and disposal of large amounts of metal items in mortuary contexts . As a valuable good which required a significant investment of time, labour and advanced technological skills to be collected and processed, metal perfectly suits this purpose . Furthermore, the relative proximity to the major copper and silver sources, which gave local communities easy access to metal, may have been an additional incentive in making metal more suitable for conspicuous deployment than other potential materials . As highlighted by David Wengrow, this strategy of social achievement was based on a system in which metal was valued not as a commodity but as something to be hoard and sacrificed in spectacular performances (Wengrow 2011) . As opposed to the so-called ‘archival’ system – as we can find during the 4th millennium BC and where metals are considered commodities being valued as part of the constant flow of goods and resources within the broad economic system – a ‘sacrificial’ system of value is based on the deliberate removal of sheer quantities of finished metal work from circulation . This includes – as already mentioned – the public display and sacrifice through interment of copious amounts of unique metal objects as grave goods in order to establish a legitimacy, as also pointed out by Christoph Bachhuber for the Alaca Höyük graves (Bachhuber 2011) . In this regard, as suggested by Giulio Palumbi, the decision to build elite burials in areas previously occupied by Late Chalcolithic settlements – as is the case not only at Başur Höyük, but also at Arslantepe, Hacınebi and Hassek Höyük – could represent a deliberate act of symbolic and physical connection with the past . Even after the destruction and abandonment, the site still retains its importance in the memories of the local community, enough to be considered the proper location for the chief’s burial . In this way the mound becomes a territorial marker and an ancestral place, in order to claim rights over its surroundings and acquire legitimacy for emerging power positions (Palumbi 2007: 37) . Interesting enough, as pointed out by Graham Philip, at least on the basis of the currently available archaeological data, it seems that the practice of utilizing metalwork in large quantities within grave assemblages appears rather earlier in south-eastern Anatolia and north-western Syria compared to southern Mesopotamia, where the conspicuous consumption of metal items in mortuary contexts is not doc© 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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umented before 2700–2600 BC (Philip 2007: 189–190) . This suggests that the material expressions of social strategies arising in apparently ‘peripheral’ societies may possibly have come to shape aspects of elite behaviour that were to emerge in the Syro-Mesopotamian world during the second quarter of the mid–3rd millennium BC . Acknowledgements We would like to thank the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of Turkey for its support and the permit for archaeological work at Başur Höyük since 2007 . The project has been jointly planned with the Archaeological Museum of Batman, and to its director, Mr . Vehbi Yurt, go our warmest acknowledgments . Our acknowledgments are extended to the archaeologists and the workmen who worked at the site . We would also like to express our deepest gratitude to Prof . G . Philip, Dr . N . Laneri and Dr . D . Allegra for the helpful insights and comments on an early version of the article . Finally, we would like to thank the Northern Bridge Doctoral Training Partnership for the financial support to present this paper at the 10th ICAANE in Vienna . Bibliography Bachhuber, C . 2011 Negotiating Metal and the Metal Form in the Royal Tombs of Alacahöyük in North-Central Anatolia . In: T . C . Wilkinson, S . Sherratt and J . Bennet (eds .), Interweaving Worlds: Systemic Interactions in Eurasia, 7th to the 1st Millennia BC. Oxford, 158–174 . Bar-Adon, P . 1980 The Cave of the Treasure: The Finds from the Caves in Naḥal Mishmar. Jerusalem . Behm-Blancke, M . R ., Becker, H ., Boessneck, J ., von den Driesch, A ., Hoh, M . R . and Wiegand, G . 1981 Hassek Höyük . Vorläufiger Bericht über die Ausgrabungen in den Jahren 1978–1980 . Istanbuler Mitteilungen 31, 5–93 . Behm-Blancke, M . R ., Hoh, R ., Karg, N ., Masch, L ., Parsche, E ., Wiener, K . L ., von Wickede, A . and Ziegelmayer G . 1984 Hassek Höyük . Vorläufiger Bericht über die Ausgrabungen in den Jahren 1981–1983 . Istanbuler Mitteilungen 34, 31–150 . Benedict, P . 1980 Survey Work in Southeastern Anatolia . In: H . Çambel and R . J . Braidwood (eds .), The Joint Istanbul-Chicago Universities’ Prehistoric Research Project in Southeastern Anatolia . Istanbul, 107–149 . Di Nocera, G . M . 2013 Organization of Production and Social Role of Metallurgy in the Prehistoric Sequence of Arslantepe (Turkey) . Origini 35, 111–142 . Falsone, G . and Sconzo, P . 2007 The ‘Champagne-Cup’ Period at Carchemish . A Review of the Early Bronze Age Levels on the Acropolis Mound and the Problem of the Inner Town . In: E . J . Peltenburg (ed .), Euphrates River Valley Settlement: The Carchemish Sector in the Third Millennium BC. Oxford, 73–93 . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Sertok, K . and Ergeç, R . 1999 A New Early Bronze Age Cemetery. Anatolica 25, 87–107 . Squadrone, F . F . 2007 Regional Culture and Metal Objects in the Area of Carchemish during the Early Bronze Age . In: E . J . Peltenburg (ed .), Euphrates River Valley Settlement: The Carchemish Sector in the Third Millennium BC. Oxford, 198–213 . 2015

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Stein, G . J ., Boden, K ., Edens, C ., Pearce Edens, J ., Keith, K ., McMahon, A . and Özbal, H . 1997 Excavations at Hacınebi, Turkey . Anatolica 23, 111–171 . Stork, L . A . 2015 Systems of Value and the Changing Perception of Metal Commodities, ca . 4000–2600 BC . Journal of Near Eastern Studies 74/1, 115–132 . Tadmor, M ., Kedem, D ., Begemann, F ., Hauptmann, A ., Pernicka, E ., Schmitt-Strecker, S . 1995 The Naḥal Mishmar Hoard from the Judean Desert: Technology, Composition, and Provenance . ’Atiqot 27, 95–148 . Wengrow, D . 2011 ‘Archival’ and ‘Sacrificial’ Economies in Bronze Age Eurasia: An Interactionist Approach to the Hoarding of Metals . In: T . C . Wilkinson, S . Sherratt and J . Bennet (eds .), Interweaving Worlds: Systemic Interactions in Eurasia, 7th to the 1st Millennia BC . Oxford, 135–144 . Woolley, C . L . 1914 Hittite Burial Customs . Annals of Archaeology and Anthropology 6, 87–98 . Woolley, C . L . and Barnet, L . 1952 Carchemish, Part III. The Excavations in the Inner Town and the Hittite Inscriptions. London . Yalçın, Ü . and Yalçın, G . 2009 Evidence for Early Use of Tin at Tülintepe in Eastern Anatolia . Türkiye Bilimler Akademisi Arkeoloji Dergisi 12, 123–142 .

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Fig . 1 Topographic map of Başur Höyük (© Başur Höyük Archaeological Project)

Fig . 2 View of the mound from the east (© Başur Höyük Archaeological Project)

Fig . 3 Aerial view of the cemetery area (© Başur Höyük Archaeological Project) © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Fig . 4 Vessels from the EB I graves (© Başur Höyük Archaeological Project)

Fig . 5 Game pieces from grave 9 (© Başur Höyük Archaeological Project) © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

Wealth, Sacrifice and Legitimacy

Fig . 6 Rolled head pin (© Başur Höyük Archaeological Project)

Fig . 7 Coiled head pin (© Başur Höyük Archaeological Project)

Fig . 8 Tripartite spearhead (© Başur Höyük Archaeological Project)

Fig . 9 Spoon-like object . The bottom is decorated in relief with a goat between two snakes . The handle is shaped like a goat (© Başur Höyük Archaeological Project)

Fig . 10 Cylindrical pendant-amulet (seal?) with concentric geometric design, surmounted by four birds and a pierced handle (© Başur Höyük Archaeological Project)

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Fig . 11 Standard in the shape of a goat (© Başur Höyük Archaeological Project)

Fig . 12 Standard in the shape of a bull surmounted by a goat (© Başur Höyük Archaeological Project)

Fig . 13 Goblet with two standing bird-headed female figures (© Başur Höyük Archaeological Project)

Fig . 14 Cup with spiral handle topped by two goat figurines (© Başur Höyük Archaeological Project)

© 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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The Ekur of Nippur in the Late and Post-Assyrian Periods Bernhard Schneider 1 Abstract 2 This paper will examine the remains which can be dated to the Late (Clayden and Schneider 2015: 349–382) and Post-Assyrian periods, with a focus on the latter . In order to do this, the paper will primarily focus upon the area toward the north-east of the ziggurat around the ‘Enlil Temple’ 3 in relation to the eastern part of the ziggurat courtyard . Through newly accessible documentation, it is possible to add to the understanding of the sequence of construction, especially during a lesser-known period in the history of this Mesopotamian sanctuary .

1. Introduction Ekur is situated on the north-eastern part of the mounds of Nippur, on the ‘Temple Mound’ to the north-west of the ‘Tablet Hill’, separated from the ‘West Mound’ by the now-dry Shatt en-Nîl channel (Gibson et al . 1999: 546–565) . After initial explorations during the mid of the 19th century (Layard 1853: 557; Rawlinson 1849/50: 401–483; Loftus 1856: 131–153; Loftus 1857: 94–104), the University of Pennsylvania conducted first large scale excavations at Nippur from 1889 to 1900 . Four excavation campaigns were directed, consecutively, by John Punnet Peters, John Henry Haynes, and Hermann Vollrath Hilprecht . Haynes was

1 2

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Institut für Alte Geschichte und Altorientalistik, Leopold-Franzens-Universität Innsbruck, Austria . This paper is an outcome of my ongoing PhD thesis at the University of Innsbruck . An overview of the final results was also presented at the poster session of the conference . It is the re-worked and extended version of a paper first presented at a workshop 2013 in Munich organized by Prof . Michael Roaf, Simone Mühl, Alexander Sollee and Helen Grieß . Since then, substantial changes were made after further research during my ongoing PhD thesis, supported by the University of Innsbruck from 2011–2013 . Collaboration with Tim Clayden resulted in a paper about Assurbanipal’s work in the Ekur (Clayden and Schneider 2015: 349–382) . Some new insights were obtained during a subsequent research trip to Philadelphia in 2016 . My Magister’s thesis concerned the 1st Millennium ziggurat of Nippur (Schneider 2010) . This paper would not have been possible without the constant support by the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology archivist Alex Pezzati who granted access to the Nippur archive, as well as Manfred Krebernik who facilitated access to the archive of the ‘Schriftliche Nachlass’ in the Hilprecht-Sammlung, Jena and Kai Lämmerhirt who provided invaluable help help at a stay in Jena 2012 . The terms ‘Enlil Temple’ and ‘Temple of Enlil’ were used by the excavators during 1948–1950 to designate the sacred building to the north east of the ziggurat (McCown and Haines 1967: 1–33) . Here the term ‘Enlil Temple’ was chosen as it is the one which most closely approximates the shortcut ‘EN’ for the excavations of 1948–1950 in the Ekur . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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already the photographer for the first two campaigns and directed the larger part of the last two . Hilprecht took part as a second Assyriologist in the first campaign of 1889 and directed the excavations of the fourth campaign from March until May 1900 . Publication of the campaigns was mainly limited to popular, narrative accounts (Peters 1895a; Peters 1895b; Peters 1895c; Peters 1897; Hilprecht 1893– 1996; Hilprecht 1903a; Hilprecht 1903b; Hilprecht 1904a; Hilprecht 1904 b) with one exception (Fisher 1905/1906) . A planned publication of the narrative written by J . H . Haynes was stopped by H . V . Hilprecht, and both Peters and Hilprecht presented the outcome of his excavations according to their own views (Peters 1897; Hilprecht 1903) . After World War II, the Joint Expedition of the Oriental Institute of Chicago and the University Museum of Philadelphia excavated the so-called ‘Enlil Temple’ to the north-east of the ziggurat between 1948 and 1950 (McCown 1952: 169–176; McCown and Haines 1967: 1–33), followed by smaller scale excavations during the 1950’s . Later, during their ninth and tenth seasons, the Chicago expedition reexamined the Parthian remains on the area around the southern part of the ziggurat courtyard (Knudstad 1966: 111–114; Knudstad and Keall 1968: 95–106; Keall 1970) . The expedition’s plan to excavate the deeper levels was stopped by the Iraqi Department of Antiquities in order to preserve the higher remains of the ‘Parthian Fortress’ before they could reach the lower levels . 2. The archaeological evidence of the Late-Assyrian period Nippur reached a remarkably large size in the seventh century (Gibson 1992: 48–49), although at the temple mound, the upper levels were badly disturbed by the large-scale constructions of the ‘Parthian Fortress’ during the first and second centuries AD . Its deep foundations occasionally reach down to the remains of the Ur III period and these constructions destroyed a great part of the Neo-Assyrian evidence (McCown and Haines 1967: 18–20) . On the other hand, the constructions preserved considerable remains of the ziggurat from further erosion . 2 .1 Historical sources as time frame Ekur is known from texts of the so-called Governor’s Archive, which dated to the third quarter of the 8th century BC (Cole 1996b: nos . 1, 33) . According to cuneiform sources published by Van der Spek, the temple was a functioning institution at least until the Late Seleucid Period in 152 BC (Van der Spek 1992: 235–260) . The evidence of the building inscriptions shows that major construction work in 1st millennium Ekur began during the reign of Esarhaddon (Frame 1992: 75; Frame 1995: 177–179, B .6 .31 .12–13) . This falls into the period of the large-scale reconstruction program of this king following the Babylonian campaign of Sennacherib in 689 BC . The spoils of Esarhaddon’s Egyptian campaigns were used to © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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sponsor temple reconstruction, and it may have primarily occurred during the latter part of his reign (Brinkman 1984: 75–76: n . 368) . For the construction history of Nippur it must be pointed out that the renovation of Ekur was begun before the work on the Inanna Temple to the south-west began . According to his building inscriptions, Ashurbanipal 4 (from foundation cylinder fragments, not in situ) at least continued the construction work at the Ekur and especially on the ziggurat where a great amount of the inscribed and stamped bricks bear his name (Frame 1995: 219–221, B .6 .32 .15–17; Clayden and Schneider 2015: 349–382) . As already stated by Armstrong and Frame, the question remains open as to whether Ashurbanipal’s work at the Ekur was started before or after the revolt of Šamash-šuma-ukīn (Armstrong 1989: 236; Frame 1992: 149–150) . The last Assyrian building inscription (Frame 1995: 265–266, B .6 .35 .4) found within the temple precinct was that of Aššur-etel-ilāni (631 BC–ca . 627 BC) . A single part of the inscription cut out from one of his bricks was found in disturbed context near the eastern corner of the ziggurat courtyard . It was found already in this cut-down state during excavation, according to J . H . Haynes’s unpublished 24th Report from July 22nd 1899 . Within the same report a squeeze of the inscription was sent to Philadelphia and is preserved in the archive of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology . The Joint Expedition from 1948 to 1950 found stamped bricks of Nebukadnezar II as part of a small-scale restoration of a higher floor within the ‘Enlil Temple’ along the northeast of the ziggurat (McCown 1952: 171; McCown and Haines 1967: 18) . 2 .2 The south-eastern part of the ‘Enlil Temple’ In photographs of the 19th century excavations it is clearly evident that the ‘Ashurbanipal pavement’ covered the earlier remains of the southeastern part of the ‘Enlil Temple’ (Hilprecht 1903a: Fig . opposite 377) and it seems that the older remains of walls were incorporated into the new building . Also, for some time the higher remains of the earlier (‘Kassite’) north-eastern wall were still visible when the so-called Neo-Assyrian building was constructed (McCown and Haines 1967: pl . 26) . The addition of the Parthian Fortress (Phase II/III) to the ziggurat destroyed a large part of the plan of the older building . In addition, an undocumented trench through the space between the Enlil Temple and the ziggurat (McCown and Haines 1967: pl . 19) was cut by the 19th century excavations .

4

The spelling of the names of kings follows the conventions of Frame 1995 . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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2 .3 The pavement of the ziggurat courtyard The courtyard surrounding the ziggurat was covered by the so-called ‘Ashurbanipal pavement’ (Phase 2), as can be discerned from the documented area south-east of the Enlil Temple . Large sections of the pavement were cut by the foundations of the ‘Parthian Fortress .’ The reason it was called the ‘Ashurbanipal pavement’ already during the excavations of the 1890’s was because primarily broken burnt bricks bearing the stamp of Ashurbanipal were found over the pavement . Initially the brick inscription was identified by Hilprecht as that of ‘Meli-Siha’ which he later corrected (Clayden and Schneider 2015: 355, note 42) . Some of the bricks and fragments were found to have a greenish blue glaze preserved on them . In addition, several fragments of foundation cylinders were reported from the same rubble layer . The pavement itself does not bear any bricks with the name of Ashurbanipal . It was situated over a layer of mud that levelled the irregular ground, described as “… wind and weather accumulated layers …” below as seen in the published photographs of the so-called ‘Column of Earth’ (Fisher 1905/1906: pl . 18) . An unpublished plan (Fig . 1) made by architect J . A . Meyer, in 1894 (Myer 1992: 137–149) shows a two-part pavement with two different sizes of brickwork . Larger flat pavement tiles 38 × 38 × 5 .7cm to the southwest and 30 × 30 × 7cm to the northeast were noted by Meyer, and the latter bricks were also documented by the later excavators (McCown and Haines 1967: 1) . The earlier south-eastern gate appears to have been reused at a higher level, as a pavement of two courses can be seen in photographs . The pavement and gate were subsequently covered by the central tower of the south-eastern wall of the Parthian Fortress during the 1st century AD (Keall 1970: 19–21; Clayden and Schneider 2015: 360–361) . The fortification wall is founded on the remains of the older south-eastern courtyard wall of the Ekur . In contrast to the north-east of the ‘Enlil Temple’ the excavators included the ‘Kassite’ courtyard wall into the plan of the Neo-Assyrian Period Level II . 2 .4 The sequence of laying the ‘Ashurbanipal pavement’ The south-western part of the pavement (Phase 2a) might belong to the constructions of Ashurbanipal or to a later phase of renovation . At an even later time the north-eastern part of the pavement (Phase 2b) was added, utilising more common-sized bricks which were also used in wall construction . The sequence of these pavements becomes clear if one looks at the borders of the Kassite and Post-Kassite Level III of the ‘Enlil Temple’ (McCown - Haines 1967: Pl . 22) . The south-western pavement ends, almost exactly where the part of the older burnt brick ‘socle’ runs below it . This is also evident from an unpublished sketch (Fig . 2) by J . A . Meyers’ now-lost diary of 1894, preserved in the archives of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, through a tracing by C . S . Fisher . It is possible therefore, that the builder of the south-western part of the pavement © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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maintained the plan of the traditional ‘Enlil Temple’ (Phase 2a), while Phase 2b would belong to a later renovation which could already date to Post-Assyrian times . 2 .5 The north-east wall of the ziggurat courtyard At the level of the north-eastern part of the pavement (Phase 2b) a mud-brick wall was built in a slightly different line than the earlier ‘Kassite’ wall . It is recognisable on published plans of the early Pennsylvania expeditions as a buttressed and recessed wall, although a description of it is not preserved (Fisher 1905/06: pl . 14) . This wall was eventually built over, and partly cut by the foundations of the ‘Parthian Fortress .’

3. Further Post-Assyrian vidence (Phase 3) 3 .1 The ziggurat So-called ‘socle’ additions were constructed to protect the footing of the earlier ziggurat façade with buttresses and recesses . The use of mainly re-used burnt brick material and clay mortar means that it may be similar to constructions reported by Zettler at the Inanna temple to the southwest of the Ekur (Zettler 1992: 49–50) . There were Ekur bricks of Esarhaddon and Ashurbanipal found, reused in the fabric of a burnt brick ‘socle’ built against the façade of the building on the third and uppermost floor of the Late Assyrian construction period . Rather than interpreting this as positive proof for construction work at the Inanna temple during the reign of Ashurbanipal, it is more likely to be evidence for even later renovation work post-dating the reign of the same . 3 .2 The ‘Enlil-Temple’ Small-scale repair work within the ‘Enlil Temple’ is attested on a higher floor (EN II Floor 1) in which Nebukadnezar II bricks were used to repair wall footings in Room 6 . The repair belongs to a renovation phase post-dated by these bricks . A thin separation wall between Rooms 7 and 8 was considered by the excavators to belong to this phase (McCown and Haines 1967: 18, pl . 26) . The construction of a wall over the Neo-Assyrian one, and which does not follow its plan, is evidence of an even later restoration phase which was itself eventually cut by foundations of the ‘Parthian Fortress .’ This wall was probably pre-Parthian, according to the excavation report (McCown and Haines 1967: 18) . 3 .3 The Ziqqurrat courtyard The latest dated cuneiform tablet from the Ekur was found below the foundations of a tower of the Parthian Fortress, according to Hilprecht’s entry of 20 April 1900 in © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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his unpublished diary, which is nowadays stored in the Hilprecht-Sammlung, Jena . The position of this tablet in the remains of the south-eastern walls of the ziggurat courtyard could be secondary . According to Hilprecht, it belongs to the Murashû archive and dates to the time of Darius II (Hilprecht 1903a: 502) . The tablets of the Murashû archive were otherwise found almost exclusively on the ‘West Mound .’ It is possible that this tablet arrived along with the material of the Parthian constructions, although, it is not impossible that it was stored within the sacred precinct for some reason . The identity and location of the tablet is unknown to me, but may now be either in Istanbul or in a private collection . 3 .4 The rubble layer with Assurbanipal’s building inscriptions One part of an inscription from a foundation cylinder of Assurbanipal was “found in debris” ascribed to that king, toward the north corner of the ‘Temple Area’ according to Haynes’ diary entry of October 2nd 1899 (Clayden and Schneider 2015: 360) . This rubble layer begins over the level of an apparent mud floor which is separated from the so-called ‘Ashurbanipal pavement’ by fill or accumulations (Hilprecht 1903a: fig . opposite 377) . Three fragments with the same cylinder inscription (L-29–632+633+636) were found in the debris that covered the “… pavement of Assurbânipal near the east corner of the court of the stage-tower …”, according to Hilprecht (1903a: 460) . Another fragment was found during the third Season of the 1952 Joint Expedition in Sounding K2, near virgin soil . This would support the theory of the post-World War II excavators, that the basin to the northwest of the Ekur was a source for the brick material for the construction of the Late Parthian Fortress built over the ‘Temple Mound’ during this work . 3 .5 Near the ziggurat’s west corner About 110 cuneiform tablets and fragments (including ‘6 sound tablets’) were found on the ‘Ashurbanipal pavement’, near the western corner of the ziggurat in 1894 . Located about 90cm higher, a duck weight was found . Despite not having been mentioned by the excavators, this may have come from a higher mud floor as found elsewhere in the temple precinct by later excavations . An alternative explanation is that it was part of the rubble layer covering part of the courtyard . The construction period of the first millennium is partly separated from the earlier period of Late- and Post-Kassite times below by ‘sandy’ weather-accumulated deposits (McCown and Haines 1967: 27; Armstrong 1989: 198–199; Schneider 2015: 166–167; 2016a: 54–62; Schneider 2016b: 387–408) . Such deposits are well known from the more recent excavations on the ‘West Mound’ and ‘Tablet Hill’ of Nippur (Armstrong 1989: 45–46; Brandt 1990: 67–73; Armstrong and Brandt 1994: 255–263) . A filling of clay to level the ground is often found immediately under burnt brick pavement . At other places a more massive filling of mud and mudbricks was preserved . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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According to the archaeological and epigraphic evidence, Ashurbanipal rebuilt the ziggurat after a period of neglect (Clayden and Schneider 2015: 349–382) . This reconstruction project might have already started during the reign of Esarhaddon, although his bricks were found within the ziggurat courtyard of Ekur in a secondary position only (Clayden and Schneider 2015: 352–353) . According to mainly unpublished archival material from the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, there was a phase of construction after Ashurbanipal at the ziggurat and the ‘Enlil Temple,’ as well as at the north-eastern courtyard wall (McCown and Haines 1967: 18; Schneider 2010) . It is possible therefore, that the temple remained in use throughout the Achaemenid period and even the Seleucid period (Armstrong 1989: 204–205) . An obvious change in the plan involved the extension of the courtyard pavement over the southeastern part of the former ‘Enlil Temple .’ Was the ziggurat courtyard of the Ekur more accessible at later times? The ziggurat of this period, without a lateral staircase on the south-east side, also indicates a change in the cultic practices . 4. When was the Ekur rebuilt? Most of the Nippur texts dating to the reign of Ashurbanipal (Cole 1996a: n . 36) come from the time during, or after, the revolt of Shamash-shumu-ukin (652–648 BC) . Therefore one is tempted to date the construction work after the revolt . Nippur was in Assyrian hands again, from the eleventh month of 651 onwards (Brinkman 1984: 97; Cole 1996a: n . 35) . It could have been possible that at Nippur Ashurbanipal continued the work of his father, as at other locations (Armstrong 1989: 236; Frame 1992: 197) . According to the archaeological evidence (Table 1) the ziggurat was rebuilt with a new foundation in Phase 1, during the reign of Ashurbanipal himself, or already begun in the reign of Esarhaddon . For the main construction work of Phase 2a the evidence of the texts, in combination with a garrison assumed from the time after the revolt onward, suggests a date after 651 BC . A considerable renovation (Phase 2b) took place sometime afterwards, which incorporated most of the older structures, extended the courtyard pavement towards the north-east, and finally changed the meager remains of the ‘Enlil Temple’ probably into a mere storage facility . Some of these constructions, like a later ‘socle’ along part of the north-east side of the ziggurat, could have already been related to a higher floor level (Phase 3), post-dated by bricks with the stamp of Nebuchadnezar II . Over this, extensive rubble layers are found around the East corner of the ziggurat and elsewhere . The end of the traditional building came with the construction of several phases of a fortress in late Parthian times . According to Hilprecht, a Murashû tablet from the reign of Darius II (423–405 BC) was found below the foundation of the south-eastern fortress walls . Ekur was also mentioned in later texts from the Achaemenid period (Armstrong 1989: 204–205) and the temple was a functioning institution until at least late Seleucid times, with © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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the latest dated text known so far from 152 BC . Nippur itself was still mentioned in the Astronomical Diaries when it was raided in 137 BC (Boiy 2004: 170) . A gold coin of Tiberius (14–37 AD) found in a tomb within a room of the last phase of the fortress is, to my knowledge, the earliest datable coin from the ‘Temple Mound .’ Because of its high silver value, coins of this emperor were circulating in the Persian Gulf region until at least the 2nd century AD, and this is therefore not helpful for a more precise dating (Howgego and Potts 1992: 183–189) . The numismatic evidence points toward the mid-first century AD as the most probable time of the erection of the ‘Parthian Fortress’ (Keall 1970: 18–21) . A single coin of Osroes found in a higher floor of Parthian Fortress I provides for now the only approximate terminus ante-quem for the erection of the phase I fortress . The vast mounds of Nippur and its surroundings never lost their strategic significance . Even up to modern times (Clayden and Schneider 2015: figs . 2–3) a moreor-less continuous occupation of varying scale has to be considered as a working hypothesis for the latter part of its history from at least around the eighth century BC onwards until at least the Ilkhanid period (Gibson 1992: 48–54) . Bibliography Armstrong, J . A . 1989 The Archaeology of Nippur from the Decline of the Kassite Kingdom until the Rise of the Neo-Babylonian Empire. PhD thesis, University of Chicago . Armstrong, J . A . and Brandt, M . C . 1994 Ancient Dunes at Nippur . In: H . Gasche, M . Tanret, C . Janssen and A . Degraeve (eds .), Cinquante-deux reflexions sur le Proche-Orient ancien offertes en hommage à Leon De Meyer . Mesopotamian History and Environment, Occasional Publications 2 . Leuven, 255–263 . Boiy, T . 2004 Late Achaemenid and Hellenistic Babylon. Orientalia Lovanensia Analecta 136 . Leuven – Paris – Dudley, MA . Brandt, M . C . 1990 Nippur: Building an Environmental Model . Journal of Near Eastern Studies 49, 67–73 . Brinkman, J . A . 1984 Prelude to Empire . Occasional Publications of the Babylonian Fund 7 . Philadelphia . Clayden, T . and Schneider, B . 2015 Assurbanipal and the ziggurat at Nippur . KASKAL. A Journal of History, Environment and Cultures of the Ancient Near East 12, 349–382 . Cole, S . W . 1996a Nippur in Late Assyrian Times (c. 755–612 BC) . State Archives of Assyria Studies 4 . Helsinki . 1996b Nippur IV. The Early Neo-Babylonian Governor’s Archive from Nippur . Oriental Institute Publications 114 . Chicago . Fisher, C . S . 1905/1906 Excavations at Nippur, Volumes 1–2 . Philadelphia . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Frame, G . 1992 Babylonia 689–627 B.C. A Political History . Nederlands Historisch-Archaeologisch Instituut te Istanbul . Leiden . 1995

Rulers of Babylonia: From the Second Dynasty of Isin to the End of Assyrian Domination (1157–612 BC) . Royal Inscriptions of Mesopotamia Babylonian Periods 2 . Toronto – Buffalo – London .

Gibson, Mc G . 1992 Patterns of Occupation at Nippur . In: Ellis M . deJong (ed .), Nippur at the Centennial. Papers Read at the 35e Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale, Philadelphia, 1988 . Occasional Publications of the Samuel Noah Kramer Fund 14 . Philadelphia, 33–54 . Gibson, Mc G ., Hansen, D . P ., and Zettler, R . L . 1999 Nippur B . Archäologisch . Reallexikon der Assyriologie und voderasiatischen Archäologie 9, 546–565 . Hilprecht, H . V . 1893–1896 Old Babylonian Inscriptions Chiefly from Nippur. Babylonian Expedition of the University of Pennsylvania. Series A: Cuneiform Texts, Volumes 1–2 . Philadelphia . 1903a Ausgrabungen der Universität von Pennsylvania im Bêl-Tempel zu Nippur. Leipzig . 1903b Explorations in Bible Lands during the 19th Century. Philadelphia . 1904a Die Ausgrabungen in Babylonien und Assyrien 1. Teil . Leipzig . 1904b In the Temple of Bel in Nippur . Philadelphia . 1908

The so-called Peters-Hilprecht Controversy. Philadelphia .

Howgego, C . J . and Potts, D . T . 1992 Greek and Roman coins from Eastern Arabia . Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy 3, 183–189 . Keall, E . J . 1970 The significance of Late Parthian Nippur. PhD thesis, University of Michigan . Knudstad, J . E . 1966 A Report on the 1964–1965 Excavations at Nippur . Sumer 22, 111–114 . Knudstad, J . E . and Keall, E . J . 1968 A Preliminary Report on the 1966–67 Excavations at Nippur (Historical Summary: E . J . Keall) . Sumer 24, 95–106 . Layard, A . H . 1853 Discoveries in the Ruins of Nineveh and Babylon . New York . Loftus, W . K . 1856 Notes of a Journey from Bagdad and Busrah . Journal of the Royal Geographic Society 26, 131–153 . 1857

Travels and Researches in Chaldaea and Susiana with an Account of Excavations at Warka, the “Erech” of Nimrod, and Sush, “Shushan the Palace” of Esther, in 1849–52, under the Orders of Major-General Sir W. F. Williams of Kars, Bart K.C.B., M. P., and also of the Assyrian Excavation Fund in 1853–54. New York .

McCown, D . E . 1952 Excavations at Nippur, 1948–50 . Journal of Near Eastern Studies 11, 169–176 . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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McCown, D . E ., and Haines, R . C . 1967 Nippur I: Temple of Enlil, Scribal Quarter, and Soundings. Excavations of the Joint Expedition to Nippur of the University Museum of Philadelphia and the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago . Oriental Institute Publications 78 . Chicago . Myer, C . F . 1992 Joseph Andrew Meyer, JR . Architect at Niffer, In: M . deJong Ellis (ed .), Nippur at the Centennial. Papers Read at the 35e Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale, Philadelphia, 1988 . Occasional Publications of the Samuel Noah Kramer Fund 14 . Philadelphia, 137–149 . Peters, J . P . 1895a Some Recent Results of the University of Pennsylvania Excavations at Nippur, especially of the Temple Hill . American Journal of Archaeology 10, 13–46 . 1895b University of Pennsylvania Excavations at Nippur II . The Nippur Arch . American Journal of Archaeology 10, 352–368 . 1895c University of Pennsylvania Expedition to Babylonia . III . The Court of Columns at Nippur . American Journal of Archaeology 10, 439–468 . 1897

Nippur or Explorations and Adventures on the Euphrates – The Narrative of the University of Pennsylvania Expedition to Babylonia in the Years 1888–1890, Volumes 1–2. New York – London .

Schneider, B . 2010 Die Baukörper der Ziqqurrat von Nippur im 1. Jahrtausend vor Christus – Beitrag zur Archäologie des É . K U R in Nippur. MA thesis, Leopold-Franzens-Universität Innsbruck . 2015

An inscribed bead with a votive inscription of Kadašman-Turgu (L–29–449) . Nouvelles Assyriologiques Brèves et Utilitaires 2015/99, 166–67 .

2016

Remarks on the Archaeology of the Kassite Ekur of Nippur, including some Lapis Lazuli Findings in Context . In: E . Foietta, C . Ferrandi, E . Quirico, F . Giusto, M . Mortarini, J . Bruno and L . Somma (eds .), Cultural & Material Contacts in the Ancient Near East. Proceedings of the International Workshop 1–2 December 2014, Torino . Florence, 54–62 .

2017

Some Remarks on the Archaeology of the Ekur of Nippur during Post-Kassite Times . In: Proceedings of the 60 Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale, Warsaw 2014 . Winona Lake, 387–408 .

Rawlinson, H . C . 1849/50 On the Inscriptions of Assyria and Babylonia . Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 12, 401–483 . Van der Spek, R . J . 1992 Nippur, Sippar, and Larsa in the Hellenistic Period . In: M . deJong Ellis (ed .), Nippur at the Centennial – Papers Read at the 35e Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale, Philadelphia, 1988, Occasional Publications of the Samuel Noah Kramer Fund 14 . Philadelphia, 235–260 . Zettler, R . L . 1992 The Ur III Temple of Inanna at Nippur. The Operation and Organization of Urban Religious Institutions in the Late Third Millennium B.C. Berliner Beiträge zum Vorderen Orient 11 . Berlin .

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The Ekur of Nippur in the Late and Post-Assyrian Periods ‘Ashurbanipal pavement’

‘Enlil Temple’

North-east wall of courtyard

Near ziggurat’s west corner

Phase 1

Leveling with a clay filling (below Phase 2a pavement) over ‘wind and weather layers’

Clay filling over ‘Kassite’ building . Partly reuse of older walls . Mud floors preserved in Rooms 9 and 10

Reused older north-east walls

–

Phase 2a

South-western part of ‘Enlil Temple’ b . b . pavement pavement (with 38cm²) with several Ashurbanipal without inscription! bricks (EN II Fl . 2)

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Burnt brick pavement without inscriptions: on it archive of cuneiform tablets

Phase 2b

Phase 3

Later

North-eastern part of pavement (with 30 cm² South-eastern part of ‘Enlil Northeast wall burnt bricks) without Temple’ built over rebuilt inscription! Higher mud floor with repair (EN II Fl . 1) work (NebukadHigher mud (?) floor nezar II . bricks) and separating wall Burnt brick rubble layer

‘pre-Parthian’ (?) wall, before Fortress II cuts EN II

– Duck weight found 90cm above pavement

Table 1 Different parts of the Ekur with archaeological evidence . As this is a work-in-progress report, the numbering of the phases has to be seen as preliminary

Fig . 1 Tracing and description by B . Schneider on the plan by J . A . Meyer, 1894 of the ‘Ashurbanipalpavement’ (‘Melisiha’) (courtesy of the archive of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology)

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Fig . 2 Sketch of the situation around the East corner of the ziggurat . a: Phase 2a pavement, b: Phase 2b pavement, c: later structure, d: “fire pot with ashes + traces of fire sunk c . 5’’ below pavement”, e: higher level, f: East corner of ziggurat, g: “low wall” socle (EN III), h: deep trench . Tracing by C . S . Fisher from the original journal XXI of J . A . Meyer (entry of 10 August 1894) (courtesy of the archive of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology)

354 Bernhard Schneider

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Funerary Landscapes in 2nd Millennium BCE Tayma, Northwest Arabia Alina Zur – Arnulf Hausleiter, with a contribution by Emmanuele Petiti 1 Abstract In the year 2014, Saudi-German salvage excavations in the cemetery of al-Nasim at the oasis of Tayma revealed four circular graves as part of a vast funerary landscape which have been dated to the late 3rd to early 2nd millennium BCE by 14C and associated pottery . Bronze weapons from a primary context of one of these graves, in particular a fenestrated axe and a socketed spearhead, corresponding to the set of grave goods known from ‘warrior graves’ suggest stronger ties between Northwest Arabia and the adjacent regions at the time of the Early-Middle Bronze transition than previously expected .

1. Introduction The oasis of Tayma is located in the northwest of the Arabian Peninsula, today in the eastern part of the province Tabuk (Fig . 1) . Tayma is known as one of the major sites on the so-called Incense Road connecting South Arabia with the Levant . It was, however, part of larger trading and communication networks including Egypt, Syro-Mesopotamia and the Gulf region . The oasis lies south of an approximately 20km² large former salt lake (sabkha), which was formed in the humid phase of the Early Holocene around 9300 calBP . In the frame of climatic changes this lake disappeared around 4800 calBP; oasis cultivation is attested from approximately 6300 calBP onwards (Engel et al. 2012; Dinies et al. 2015) . Like most parts of the Arabian Peninsula the Tabuk region has an arid climate characterised by less than 100 millimetres of annual rainfall determining the subsistence strategies of the ancient populations . At Tayma water supply is provided by ground water aquifers exploited by wells (Wellbrock 2015) . The walled area of the oasis comprised 9 .2km² and most of the walls enclosing the oasis and the settlement may have been built as early as the late 3rd millennium BC, if not earlier (Schneider 2010; Hausleiter 2011; Hausleiter and Zur 2016; Hausleiter 2017a) . Since 2004, interdisciplinary research conducted by the Saudi Commission for Tourism and National Heritage (SCTH), Riyadh, and the Orient Department of the German Archaeological Institute (DAI), Berlin, mainly funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG), Bonn, has been providing evidence for a continuous occupation of the oasis from the 3rd millennium BC onwards – combining environmental data (palynological evidence from the geoarchives in the sabkha and botanical macro-remains from the

1

All three authors: German Archaeological Institute, Orient Department, Berlin, Germany . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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settlement), with archaeological ones from the settlement, in particular chronostratigraphy and a pottery sequence (Tourtet et al. forthcoming) . 2. Cemetery Areas The oasis of Tayma is surrounded by numerous cemeteries (Fig . 2) . Several parts of the burial ground(s) south of the walled settlement have been excavated from the 1980s onwards: Rujum Sa’sa’, Sana’iye, Tal’a, and al-Nasim . They are all characterised by a visible funerary architecture consisting of various grave types built with roughly hewn stones on the surface, usually on the bedrock . Of these, circular structures may have been used as early as the late 3rd millennium BC, whereas rectangular chambers, often added to the circular ones, appear at the latest from the 9th century BC onwards (Hausleiter and Zur 2016; also cf . Petiti et al. 2014) . Areas inside the walls have been used as burial grounds from the 4th century BC onwards; at this time the settlement size had been considerably reduced and parts of it had been abandoned (Hausleiter 2017a) . Attested are single inhumations in rockcut graves, pits close to the surface and further rectangular grave chambers . The latter are different from those at Tal’a and have only been identified on the surface . First overviews on the Tayma cemeteries have recently been published (Hausleiter and Zur 2016; Petiti et al. 2014) . Therefore, the focus of the present contribution lies on the evidence of the area of al-Nasim, located south of the oasis, with its late 3rd / early 2nd millennium BC burial ground (Hausleiter et al. forthcoming; Hausleiter 2015) . The pertaining graves are circular in shape and have a cross-shaped interior . 3. The Cemetery of Al-Nasim The area of al-Nasim is located between the southern parts of the walled oasis and Rujum Sa’sa’ . Due to the rapid expansion of the modern settlement, salvage excavations by the SCTH in this area started in 2013 . The discovery of a fenestrated axe on the surface of al-Nasim in 2014 directed attention to this area and simultaneously called for a reconsideration of those bronze weapons discovered already in 2003 in a secondary context at Sana’iye, i .e . a fenestrated axe and a ribbed dagger (Eichmann et al. 2006; al-Hajiri 2011) . Such artefacts are known as key-fossils of so-called ‘warrior graves’ in Syria and the Levant (Philip 1995) . In 2014, excavations were carried out in Areas al-Nasim D and E, the former located in an area owned by the Ministry of Education . The SCTH excavations by M . al-Najem and M . al-Hajri were added by joint SCTH-DAI excavations in these areas . As to the chronological setting of the graves and their occupation, the pottery record contributed significant information . Ceramics from a disturbed large funerary complex consisting of a circular structure with added rectangular chambers in Area al-Nasim D (D-g13) suggested a multi-period occupation, since Red Burnished © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Ware, Early Iron Age Painted Ware, Qurayyah Painted Ware and Sana’iye Pottery (Hausleiter 2014; Tourtet et al. forthcoming) had been found – at that time covering a range from the mid–2nd millennium BC to the 5th century BCE . 2 Such a multi-period occupation includes the possibility of re-use of existing built structures for subsequent burials . Further east, on the surface of Areas al-Nasim E and F Gritty Ware (formerly Grey Sandy or Grey Burnished Ware), Red Burnished Ware (henceforth RBW), RBW with Barbotine decoration and Qurayyah Painted Ware were encountered pointing at least to a pre–1st millennium BCE occupation of these graves . In the meantime, based on stratigraphic evidence from the centre of the settlement, Gritty Ware has been identified as mid–3rd millennium BCE ceramic group followed by Red Burnished Ware (Tourtet et al. forthcoming) . In addition to the funerary architecture with human remains, Areas al-Nasim D and F revealed two accumulations of human bones of 109 individuals (MNI – Minimum Number of Individuals) . The bone remains followed a certain layout in the placing of crania and long bones . Four to five layers of bones were identified, the material in Area al-Nasim F being less disturbed than that in Area al-Nasim D . It is expected that the study of these bones, once completed, will contribute to the discussion of their chronological and social relation to the adjacent graves . Salvage excavations in 2004 at the 9th to 5th century BCE cemetery at Tal’a (Area S; Beuger 2010; Eichmann 2009) recorded altogether 64 individuals from collective burials distributed over five grave chambers . Contrary to al-Nasim, these bone remains were recovered from within the graves . However, as in Area al-Nasim D (and numerous complexes at Sana’iye) Tal’a shows rectangular chambers added to round structures with the pottery record suggesting a multi-period occupation too . Even though the collected data of the bone material was limited due to looting and poor state of preservation, both gender as well as adult and juvenile individuals were observed (Lora et al. 2010) . 4. Graves in Area Al-Nasim E Area E in al-Nasim was excavated and studied by the German component in 2014 (Hausleiter 2015) . Four graves (E-g1–E-g4) of circular shape with cross-shaped interior were recorded . Both individuals in graves al-Nasim E-g1 and E-g2 were found in primary contexts and contained remains of one individual each (MNI) . Graves E-g3 and E-g4 revealed one human bone each and appeared to be looted . The diameter of the built graves ranges between 2 .5 and 3 .5m; the walls are up to 0 .8m preserved and built directly onto the bedrock . Beneath loose surface layers of sand

2

Egyptian objects discovered in Sana’iye, as well as in Areas al-Nasim D and G have been dated to the end of the 1st half of the 1st millennium BCE (G . Sperveslage, pers . comm .) . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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mixed with modern material, various sand layers, the lower ones of them sterile, were uncovered inside the graves . Human bones and grave goods, covered by the latter, were deposited in hard layers of sand . Outside of the graves pottery sherds were discovered in association with ash layers; furthermore, beads and molluscs were found . The building and occupation process of the graves has been reconstructed as follows: 1 . Construction of an outer double-faced wall of circular shape on the bedrock; 2 . Setting of a floor made of flat stones in a number of graves (Grave al-Nasim E-g1 and at least two others in al-Nasim); 3 . Building of four roughly triangular interior wall segments forming the characteristic cross-shaped interior; 4 . Deposition of the corpse and grave goods within the grave . 5 . Closure of the grave: whether only the burial or the entire grave was covered must remain open at the present stage of analysis . No remains were uncovered inside the grave nor did the limited number of collapsed stones from the grave walls indicate a covering . 3 According to the current hypothesis, pottery and objects outside the grave may have been deposited in the context of ritual activities at the grave (Hausleiter and Zur 2016) . 5. Dating The human bones from Grave al-Nasim E-g2 have been dated by 14C to exactly the turn from the 3rd to the 2nd millennium BCE (2033–1920 calBC) . The occupation of Grave al-Nasim E-g1 can be dated later (1871–1636 calBC) . The slightly earlier date of wooden remains from the former haft of the fenestrated axe (2275–2035 calBC) coincides the dating of grave al-Nasim E-g2 . 4

3

4

During a survey at Rujum Sa’sa’ in 2016 (Hausleiter 2017b) medium-sized stones were observed, apparently sunken into lower laying deposits of circular graves with cross-shaped interior . Although they have not been excavated, it appears at least possible to consider them as part of the covering system which may have consisted of stones lying on the surface of the segments and protruding over their edge reaching over the rectangular parts of the grave . 14 C-samples have been analysed by the Center of Applied Isotope Studies, University of Georgia, Athens . Sample from Grave E-g2 (left tibia), TA 16775, UGAMS 20566 (bioapatite): Radiocarbon date: 3620±20; Sample from Grave E-g1 (right ulna), TA 17004, UGAMS 20899 (bioapatite): Radiocarbon date: 3420±30; Hardwood (identified by R . Neef, Scientific Division at the Head Office of the DAI): TA 18125, UGAMS 20900: Radiocarbon date: 3740±30 BP (all data: 2σ range, probability 95 .4%; calibrated with OxCal v4 .2 .4) . The earlier dating of the wood may have been caused by a time lapse between felling and actual use . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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6. Human Bones by Emmanuele Petiti The human bones from Grave al-Nasim E-g1 belong to different bone districts, and they are only partially articulated . There are no elements to suppose the presence of more than one individual . Since the growth processes of the bone tissues were completed at the age of death, the individual can be assessed as ‘adult’ without narrowing the age class due to the absence of diagnostic elements . For the same reason the sex of the individual was not assessed . The presence of at least some elements still articulated suggests a disturbed primary burial, which is supported by the distribution of the grave goods, especially the beads, which were found on and outside the grave walls . The data of Grave al-Nasim E-g2 is very complex and offers the opportunity to test the methods of taphonomic analyses applied to remains in hyper-arid environments . As in the case of Grave E-g1 there is no reason to suggest the presence of more than one individual . There are no double attested bone elements, no differences in degree of maturation, in relative dimensions, or state of preservation . The age at death in this case was determined to be between 35 and 50 years . The individual was most likely male and no relevant pathological signs have been observed . The distribution of the remains of the individual in Grave E-g2 is particularly interesting . The bones of the different body parts were in joint connection (Fig . 3), yet distributed in an unusual manner in the grave chamber . Some of them were showing their ventral side some their dorsal side, others lay on top of each other . Anthropological analysis contradicted the hypothesis of a disturbed grave, as no post-depositional factor could have scattered the bone remains without moving also the bones of hands and feet, or the patellae . Looting or accidental disturbance, either anthropic or by animals, can be ruled out . The separation of the body parts supposedly took place before the decomposition of the bones of hands and feet, thus more or less right after the death of this individual . Anthropological analyses in the laboratory did not attest to any dismemberment . 7. Grave Goods Grave al-Nasim E-g2 (Fig . 3) contained two bronze weapons (Fig . 4), a fenestrated axe (TA 16792) belonging to the so-called broad type and a socketed spear head (TA 16791), both intact . Based on their typology they can be dated to the transition from the 3rd to 2nd millennium BCE . Comparative material for the axe has been identified at the offering hoards at Byblos, where such specimens have been considered key fossils (Gernez 2008: 144, fig . 11 / Type B) . Although the contexts of these hoards are problematic, they are generally dated to the time between 2100 and 1900 BCE . The long socketed spear head (31 .3cm) is a less common type and also has the best comparison with the Byblos hoards, ‘Dépot I’ from the ‘Champs des offrandes’ (Gernez 2008: 146, fig . 15 .3) . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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The beads from the graves (Fig . 5 a–c) are made of ostrich egg, drilled molluscs, faience or glass paste, Chalcedony, sandstone or ceramic . Among the beads made from mollusc shell Engina mendicaria (Linnaeus, 1758), Clanculus pharaonius (Linnaeus, 1758) and Nerita sp. (Linnaeus, 1758) were determined . 5 With 11 out of 50 beads the molluscs form the second largest material group of beads (after ostrich egg) in the graves from al-Nasim . North and west of the graves in Area al-Nasim E fragments of animal bones, beads and at least five pottery vessels were uncovered . Completely preserved pottery vessels have also been discovered next to other graves in al-Nasim (M . al-Najem, pers . comm .) . Among the animal bones sheep or goat was identified and possibly ox/ bos sp., as suggested by a piece of horn and a skull bone . Additionally, molluscs of larger size than the drilled ones from the inside of the graves were identified, mainly conus shell and undetermined gastropod shell . 8. Pottery from Outside the Graves The pottery from the Area E graves at al-Nasim consists of a total of 204 sherds of which more than 40% have been identified as Red Burnished Ware (RBW) and RBW with so-called Barbotine decoration . Previous to the discovery in association with the graves in al-Nasim the beginning of RBW had been dated to the later part of the first half of the 2nd millennium BCE (Hausleiter 2014) . In view of the dating of the occupation of Graves al-Nasim E-g1 and E-g2 in combination with chronostratigraphic evidence from the centre of the settlement, an early 2nd millennium BCE date can now be adopted for RBW (Hausleiter and Zur 2016) . As to the manufacture, 17% of the sherds identified as RBW show traces of a tournette or throwing-wheel – thus contrasting with the observations made on RBW from the centre of the settlement (F . Tourtet, pers . comm .) . Among the pottery from Area al-Nasim E seven body sherds of Gritty Ware were also identified . This pottery group (formerly Grey Burnished or Grey Sandy Ware), has been dated to the mid-to-late 3rd millennium BC, based on stratigraphic evidence in the centre of the settlement (Tourtet et al. forthcoming) . 9. Discussion The newly discovered circular graves in Area al-Nasim E provide valuable evidence for the burial customs at the oasis of Tayma at the turn from the 3rd to the 2nd millennium BCE, apparently integrating ‘external’ elements into a predominantly local

5

According to Anja Prust, DAI Orient Department, with reference to the World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS) . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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funerary tradition . This local tradition is expressed by the use of built architecture for burying the dead (in our case circular graves with cross-shaped interior) as well as (local) ceramics . Pottery vessels of RBW and parts of animals placed outside of the grave could be either related to the burial activities or were part of subsequent actions connected to the care of the dead . The tradition of graves built on the bedrock at Tayma continues until the 5th century BCE (Hausleiter and Zur 2016) . As to the typological tradition within the region, excavations at the site of Rujum Sa’sa’ south of Tayma in the 1990s (al-Hajri 2002) revealed circular graves with a stepped section, usually labelled cairns . These graves are larger than the circular ones with cross-shaped interior, but share the same circular outline . Furthermore, multi-chambered rectangular structures were excavated, similar to those discovered by the Saudi team in al-Nasim in 2015 (al-Hajri, pers . comm .) . Built remains of this rectangular type find close parallels in the northwest of the Arabian Peninsula, in particular at the site of Jabal al-Khraymât at Mada’in Salih, and it was W . Abu-Azizeh (2015) postulating a regional funerary tradition based on these similarities in architecture . But it seems that one can go further: a comparison of the pottery from Tayma with that from Jabal al-Khraymât suggests that the pottery from the tombs at Mada’in Salih and the Gritty Ware from Tayma are very similar (Tourtet et al. forthcoming) . The dating of this pottery from stratified contexts in the centre of Tayma to the mid-to-late 3rd millennium BCE indicates a broad chronological horizon for these cairns which precede the type of graves described in detail in this contribution . The extent of a regional tradition, however, needs to be verified by further excavation and material analysis . The two bronze weapons found in Grave al-Nasim E-g2, in the context of our discussion, would then be considered ‘foreign’ – probably indicating contacts between Tayma or Northwest Arabia and the Levant and Syria, if not other regions . 6 The dating of Grave al-Nasim E-g2 clearly suggests a contemporaneity of the inhumation and the use of the weapons as grave goods to the EBA/MBA transition . At the same time the close similarity of these items in a single burial of a male individual implies certain knowledge about the tradition of ‘warrior graves’ characterised by the presence of usable or symbolic weapons (excluding multifunctional tools) (Philip 1995) . Whether or not the buried individual was part of a so-called élite or sub-élite at Tayma must remain unsettled for the present . The fact that Tayma may have been an oasis approaching its greatest extent at the end of the 3rd millennium BCE (Hausleiter and Zur 2016) could be used in favour of hypothesising the existence of a stratified, i .e . socially diversified society using ‘rank-burials’ (D’Andrea 2014) .

6

A first analysis of the fenestrated axe and ribbed dagger from Sana’iye provided a chemical fingerprint for the copper similar to that of the Feinan-Arabah ores (Höppner et al. 2011); this information, however, is not sufficient for defining the production place of these objects . Further objects from Tayma are currently under analysis . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Even though in view of the known exchange networks of the Early and Middle Bronze Ages in the Near East, the contacts between Tayma and the Levant, Syria, Mesopotamia and Egypt, may have been motivated by commercial interests, there is little evidence for how these contacts were actually implemented . The fact that until now six fenestrated axes have been found in circular graves with cross shaped interior at Tayma (M . al-Hajri and M . al-Najem, pers . comm .), pointing towards a regular use of a burial practice otherwise linked mainly to the Levant, may indicate the extent of these contacts . The production of large quantities of Chalcedony beads using tools of a lithic industry at Tayma for export (Haibt 2013), shortly after oasis cultivation initiated (see above), i .e . around 4000 BCE, indicates that one of the oasis’ raison d’être from its beginnings was aimed at the creation of and participation into exchange networks . In the light of the new evidence from Tayma, the question of whether the cultural regions Northwest Arabia and the Southern Levant need to be redefined (D’Andrea 2014) is of the highest interest and needs further discussion . Acknowledgements We are indebted to Dr . Abdullah Alsaud, Director General for Research and Survey of SCTH for kindly supporting our work in al-Nasim . The German component of the team working at al-Nasim was funded by SCTH in summer 2014 and by the DFG in 2015 . Team members: Arnulf Hausleiter, Andrea Intilia, Matthias Kolbe, Emmanuele Petiti, Susanne Storch and Alina Zur . In 2015, Sophie Heisig and Emmanuele Petiti recorded human bones from Area al-Nasim D and transferred the material to the Tayma Museum . In spring 2014 Svenja Grötzner, Andrea Intilia, Emmanuele Petiti and Alina Zur briefly participated in the Saudi excavations . We thank M . al-Najem and M . al-Hajri for fruitful collaboration and exchange of information . Tessa Rickards read and corrected the English language of this contribution . Bibliography Abu-Azizeh, W . 2015 Excavation of a Crain Complex in Jabal al-Khraymât . In: L . Nehmé, W . Abu-Azizeh, T . Bauzou, C . Durand, J . Rohmer, I . As-Sabban, N . Delhopital, K . Alhaiti, M . Al-Musa, Y . Gerber, J . Humbert, R . Douaud, M . al-Hajiri , J . Studer, L . Tholbecq and F . Villeneuve (eds .), Report on the Fifth Season (2014) of the Madâ’in Sâlih Archaeological Project. Paris, 171–192 . al-Hajri, M . 2002 Tayma Excavations . Rujoum Sasa, First Season 1418 . ATLAL – The Journal of Saudi Arabian Archaeology 17, 23–25 . 2011

Syro-levantische Bronzewaffen aus Tayma’ . In: U . Franke and J . Gierlichs (eds .), Roads of Arabia. Archaeological Treasures of Saudi Arabia. Berlin, 112 . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Beuger, A . 2010 Salvage Excavations at the Burial Site of Tal’a (Area S) . In: R . Eichmann, A . Hausleiter, M . H . al-Najem and S . F . al-Said (eds .), Tayma – Autumn 2004 and Spring 2005 . 2nd Report on the Joint Saudi-Arabian-German Archaeological Project . ATLAL – The Journal of Saudi Arabian Archaeology 20, 133–137 . DʼAndrea, M . 2014 The Southern Levant in Early Bronze IV. Issues and Perspectives in the Pottery Evidence, Contributi e Materiali di Archeologia Orientale XVII . Rome . Dinies, M ., Neef, R ., Plessen, B . and Kürschner, H . 2015 When the Desert was Green . Grassland Expansion during the Early Holocene in Northwestern Arabia . Quaternary International 382, 293–302 . Eichmann, R ., Schaudig, H . and Hausleiter, A . 2006 Archaeology and Epigraphy at Tayma, Saudi Arabia . Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy 17, 163–176 . Eichmann, R . 2009 Remains of the Pre-Islamic period at Taymāᵓ, in: J . Schiettecatte and C .-J . Robin (eds .), L’Arabie à la veille de l’Islam. Bilan clinique, Table ronde tenue au Collège de France (Paris) les 28 et 29 août 2006 dans le cadre du projet de l’Agence nationale de la recherche. De l’Antiquité tardive à l’Islam, Orient & Méditerranée 3 . Paris, 56–66 . Engel, M ., Brückner, H ., Pint, A ., Wellbrock, K ., Ginau, A ., Voss, P ., Grottker, M ., Klasen, N . and Frenzel, P . 2012 The Early Holocene Humid Period in NW Saudi Arabia – Sediments, Microfossils and Palaeo-hydrological Modeling . Quarternary International 266, 131–141 . Gernez, G . 2008 Metal weapons and cultural transformation . In: H . Kühne, R . M . Czichon and F . J . Kreppner (eds .), Proceedings of the 4th International Congress on the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East, Berlin, 29th March–3rd April 2004, Freie Universität Berlin . Wiesbaden, 125–146 . Haibt, M . 2013 Chalcolithic Bead Makers of Tayma . B .A . thesis, Freie Universität Berlin . Hausleiter, A . 2011 Ancient Tayma’, an Oasis at the Interface Between Cultures . New Research at a Key Location on the Caravan Road . In: U . Franke and J . Gierlichs (eds .), Roads of Arabia. Archaeological Treasures of Saudi Arabia. Berlin, 102–120 . 2014

With a Contribution by M . Daszkiewicz . Pottery Groups of the late 2nd Millennia BC in Northwest Arabia and new Evidence from the Excavations at Tayma . In: M . Luciani and A . Hausleiter (eds .) . Recent Trends in the Study of Late Bronze Age Ceramics in Syro-Mesopotamia an Neighbouring Regions . Orient-Archäologie 32, Rahden/Westfalen, 399–434 .

2015

Tayma, Saudi-Arabien . Rettungsgrabungen im Gräberfeld von al-Nasim . Die Arbeiten des Jahres 2014, e-Forschungsberichte 2015 des Deutschen Archäologischen Institut, Faszikel 2, Berlin, 74–76 .

2017a The outer wall of Taymāʿand its dating to the Bronze Age . In: L . Nehmé and A . al-Jallad (eds .), To the Madbar and Back Again. Studies in the Languages, Archaeology, and Cultures of Arabia to Michael C.A. Macdonald . Studies in Semitic Languages and Linguistics 92, Leiden, 341–370 . 2017b Tayma, Saudi-Arabien . Survey in Rujum Sa’sa’ . Die Arbeiten des Jahres 2016, e-Forschungsberichte des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts, Faszikel 1, Berlin, 105–113 . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Hausleiter, A ., Intilia, A ., Petiti, A ., Zur, A ., al-Hajri, M . and al-Najem, M . forthcoming Excavations in the Cemetery of al-Nasim, Tayma (2014), ATLAL – The Journal of Saudi Arabian Archaeology. Hausleiter, A . and Zur, A . 2016 Taymā’ in the Bronze Age (c . 2,000 BC): Settlement and Funerary Landscapes . In: M . Luciani (ed .), The Archaeology of North Arabia – Oases and Landscapes. Proceedings of the International Congress held at the University of Vienna, December, 5th–8th 2013. Oriental and European Archaeology 4 . Vienna, 135–173 . Höppner, B ., Lockhoff, N . and Pernicka, E . 2011 Chemische und bleiisotopische Zusammensetzung von zwei Metallobjekten aus Tayma. Unpublished Report . Lora, S ., Petiti, E . and Hausleiter, A . 2010 Burial Contexts at Tayma, NW Arabia . Archaeological and Anthropological Data . In: L . Weeks (ed .), Death and Burial in Arabia and Beyond . Multidisciplinary Perspectives . British Archaeological Reports International Series 2107 . Oxford, 237–247 . Petiti, E ., Intilia, A . and Hausleiter, A . 2014 Bioarchaeological Investigations at a 4th–3rd century BC Cemetery at Tayma, North-West Arabia . In: P . Bieliński, M . Gawlikowski, R . Koliński, D . Ławecka, A . Sołtysiak and Z . Wygnańska (eds .), Proceedings of the 8th International Congress on the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East 30 April–4 May 2012. University of Warsaw, Volume 3 . Wiesbaden, 371–390 . Philip, G . 1995 Warrior Burials in the Ancient Near-Eastern Bronze Ages . The Evidence from Mesopotamia, Western Iran and Syria-Palestine . In: St . Campbell and A . Green (eds .), The Archaeology of the Ancient Near East . Oxford, 145–154 . Schneider, P . I . 2010 Die Mauern von Tayma . In: J . Lorentzen, F . Pirson, P . Schneider and U . Wulf-Rheidt (eds .), Aktuelle Forschungen zur Konstruktion, Funktion und Semantik antiker Stadtbesfestigungen. Kolloquium 9./10. Februar 2007 in Istanbul . BYZAS . Veröffentlichungen des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts Istanbul 10 . Istanbul, 10–25 . Tourtet, F ., Daszkiewicz, M ., and Hausleiter, A . forthcoming Tayma Pottery: Chronostratigraphy, Archaeometric Studies, Cultural Interaction . In: M . Luciani (ed .) . Proceedings of the Workshop Archaeology of the Arabian Peninsula – Connecting the Evidence, 10th ICAANE, Wien, 25.–29. April 2016, Vienna . Wellbrock, K . 2015 Hydrology . In: A . Hausleiter and M . H . al-Najem . Saudi-German Joint Archaeological Project at Tayma, Spring season 2015, 4th Weekly Report (unpublished), 21–25 . Zur, A . 2016 Early 2nd Millennium BC Funerary Customs in NW Arabia and Ancient Near Eastern Contact Zones. The cemetery of al-Nasim (Tayma) . MA thesis, Freie Universität Berlin . Zur, A . and Hausleiter, A . 2016 Taymā’ in the Bronze Age (ca . 2,000 BC): Settlement and Funerary Landscapes . In: M . Luciani (ed .), The Archaeology of North Arabia: Oases and Landscapes. Proceedings of the International Congress held at the University of Vienna, December, 5th–8th 2013. Oriental and European Archaeology 4 . Vienna, 135–174 . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

Funerary Landscapes in 2nd Millennium BCE Tayma, Northwest Arabia

Fig . 1 Map of the Arabian Peninsula (al-Ghabban et al. 2010: 29)

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Fig . 2 The oasis of Tayma with cemetery areas south of it (dark grey) (DAI Orient-Abteilung, S . Lora)

Fig . 3 Grave al-Nasim E-g2 with skeletal remains and bronze weapons (the spear has been added to this photograph since discovered after the removal of the fenestrated axe) (DAI Orient-Abteilung, A . Zur) © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Fig . 4 Fenestrated axe (TA 16792) and socketed spearhead (TA 16791) from Grave al-Nasim E-g2 (DAI Orient-Abteilung, H . Kosak)

Fig . 5a–c Beads of different materials from the graves in Area al-Nasim E (DAI Orient-Abteilung, A . Zur) © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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IMAGES IN CONTEXT: AGENCY, AUDIENCES & PERCEPTION edited by M. Luciani

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Emar and its Monsters Benedetta Bellucci 1 Abstract Seal impressions on tablets unearthed in Emar reveal a wide number of composite creatures, significantly recorded in all the different stylistic groups detected upon the analysis of the impressions . Following an introduction to the data set under investigation, I will explore possible reasons for such a considerable employ of composite creatures . In order to do so, I will survey the archaeological record from Emar and sites located in the Euphrates region, together with a brief review on the state of our knowledge about local cults, and external influences due to the particular geographical and political situation of Emar during the late Bronze Age . All of these factors could have influenced the human agency responsible for creating such repertoires on seals .

1. Introduction The site of the ancient Emar (modern Meskene) was located on the river Euphrates, not far from the Mediterranean Sea . Its position, at a crossroad of various important commercial routes, made this settelment a privileged place of contact among different cultures of the Ancient Near East . The site reached a great importance during the Late Bronze Age and was violently destroyed, as testified by archaeological records and historical data (Arnaud 1975: 88–92; Singer 2002: 204) . As it is often the case, the ancient ruin is a good chance for modern scholars, since the site lacks a conspicuous superposition of historical periods that can be an obstacle for the comprehension of archaeological and epigraphical data . Emar glyptic is well documented and published (see § 3 for details) . The corpus includes quite a number of reconstructed sealings, gathered from the examination of a great number of seal impressions (mostly) on tablets, and a few seals . They belong to different styles dating to the Late Bronze Age, showing the merging of several artistic cultures . The advanced stage of publication of Emar glyptic, and of seals and seal impressions from other archaeological sites of the same area, allowed the study of a peculiar motif often represented within the corpus: monsters and demons . 2

1 2

Università degli Studi di Pavia . The present paper summarises a selection of the results reached in my PhD thesis, defended in 2009 at the University of Pavia . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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2. Monsters and demons: definitions For the purpose of this paper, I use terms ‘monster’ and ‘demon’ applied to visual arts, as proposed by E . Porada (Porada 1987: 1, and previous literature . On use and critique to this terminology see now Verderame 2013, Sonik 2013: 107–113, Wengrow 2014: 24–28, with previous bibliography) . These creatures are usually the result of the union of different parts of living beings (with some exceptions) . We identify monsters as hybrids created from parts of different animals and as imaginary animals (mainly winged animals) . While we call demons creatures composed of human and animal parts, taking usually an upright posture . There are notable exceptions to this categorizations, as is the case of the sphinx . This hybrid encompasses a human head and a lion body, sometimes winged, and is considered a demon despite being four-limbed . These modern definitions are based only on the visual characteristics of these creatures . Similarly, the name by which we denote every creature is a modern invention, at times decided according to its main visual feature (for example lion-demon), or it refers to a name transferred through a different tradition, as in the case of the Griffin, known from ancient Greek literature . It is worth remembering that there are no assumed connotations of good or bad behaviour of creatures that are defined as monsters and demons . However, since the use of these terms can be confusing and implies negative behavioural connotations, scholars usually avoid using them in favour of other words such as ‘composite creatures’, ‘composite beings’, ‘hybrids’ or Mischwesen. Although I am well aware of the problems, I will keep the use of the terms ‘monster’ and ‘demon’, as they allow a more immediate distinction between the two categories from the visual point of view (Bellucci 2013) . 3. Emar glyptic Emar glyptic includes seals and seal impressions on tablets found during regular excavation and a group collected in the antiquities market, linked to Emar examples by style, iconography, name of the owner, and usually labelled as ‘from Emar area’, ‘from the vicinity of Emar’ or ‘from Middle Euphrates region’ (Moyen Euphrate = ME), to separate them from documents from known provenance . The dataset examined in this work includes: – few actual seals excavated by regular expeditions (French salvage expedition in the 1970s, Syro-German expedition from 1996), – numerous seal impressions on tablets excavated by the French team, – seal impressions on tablets ‘from Emar area’, that surfaced on the antiquities market and are often preserved in private collections . The examination of seals and seal impressions from the regular excavation carried out in the 1970s, has been completed by D . Beyer with a final catalogue published in 2001 (Beyer 2001 . A selection of seal impressions was previously published by © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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the same author: Beyer 1980; Beyer 1982a; Beyer 1982b; Beyer 1990; Beyer 1997) . That includes 380 reconstructed seals, on the basis of 850 seal impressions, and three original seals (Beyer 2001: 15 . Among seal impressions, 280 were produced by cylinder seals, others by ring seals and stamp seals . Three actual seals are badly preserved) . Moreover, it includes a selection of impressions on tablets from a group of texts recovered out of the regular excavation (ME = Moyen Euphrate . Regularly excavated tablets bear the label Msk . ME texts are published by Arnaud 1984, Arnaud 1987b, Arnaud 1991, Arnaud 1992) . In the past decades, a selection of tablets coming from illicit excavations and preserved within private and museum collections has been published . In few publications, textual analysis was completed with an examination of the seal impressions, even if cursory (Sigrist 1982; Huehnergard 1983; Meyer-Wilhelm 1983; Tsukimoto 1984; Tsukimoto 1988; Beckman 1988; Gonnet and Malbran-Labat 1989–1990; Dalley-Teissier 1992; Sigrist 1993; Streck 2000; Westenholz 2000; Hallo 2002) while other works report only the position of the impressions (e .g ., those belonging to the Rosen Collection and Hirayama Collection, in Beckman 1996, Tsukimoto 1991; Tsukimoto 1992; Tsukimoto 1994 . Publications such as Fales 1989; Yabrudi 1986–1987; Tsukimoto 1990 include photographs of the tablets that allow an observation of the seal impressions) . Seals and seal impressions from Emar show a great variability in iconography and style . This is probably due to two main reasons: the specific geographical position of the city of Emar, and its role as harbour, and the historical moment, that allowed a superposition of different figurative cultures mixed together (Di Paolo 1997: 123–130) . Reconstructed seals are divided in groups on the basis of their style: 1 . Seals in Hittite and Syro-Hittite styles are the highest quantity (more than 200) . 3 They include cylinder, stamp, and ring seals . 4 2 . Numerous Mittanian style seals (82) 3 . Syrian and Syro-Mittanian examples (29) 4 . Seals bearing an Old Babylonian design (45) 5 . Middle Assyrian style (7) 5 6 . Cassite style (6) 7 . Cypriote style (4) 8 . Middle Elamite style (1) 9 . Egyptianising scarabs (2)

3 4 5

The term Syro-Hittite defines an artistic development born in Northern Syria under the Hittite kingdom of Suppiluliuma I (especially in Karkemiš) that merges characteristics of Hittite art and of Syrian art (Beyer 1982a: 71, Beyer 1987: 30) . See also Mora 2004 . In detail: Beyer’s group A with 111 reconstructed Hittite and Syro-Hittite cylinder seals; B with 70 reconstructions of ring seals; group C with 24 reconstructed stamp seals (square and round) . 6 in Beyer 2001, 1 in Hallo 2002 . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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What can be inferred about the human agency behind this variation of styles? As for the Syro-Hittite style, part of the seals was likely carved by expert artisans coming from Karkemiš and following Karkemisian functionaries at Emar . Other seals were commissioned by local Emarite functionaries to local workshops in that same style to increase their prestige (Beyer 1982a: 172, 176; Beyer 2001: 25) . Few Old-Syrian examples were probably a reuse of old seals, while the numerous Old Babylonian seals used to seal Late Bronze Age tablets are more difficult to explain . Probably, a group of Old Babylonian seals travelled along the river Euphrates and was used to seal documents in Emar centuries later . Part of the seals belonging to the Mittanian style had been carved before the Hittite conquest of Emar, while the town was under the influence of the Mittanian kingdom, and remain in use in later years, while others were produced locally, imitating older designs . Middle Assyrian, Cassite and other less represented styles were probably imported and not copied locally (but used by people bearing local names) . 4. Monsters and demons Seal impressions on Emar tablets show many representations of composite creatures of various types, encompassing codified hybrids as well as rare new formations . They occur in all artistic styles in which those seals were divided (Table 1) . Among monsters one encounters fabulous beasts, winged animals such as bulls, lions, antelopes and horses, together with lion-dragons and griffins, and these last are the most common . Rare is the snake-monster . A significant presence is that of the double-headed eagle . Among demons, a number of composites are well known, such as bull-men, bull-demons, lion-demons, sphinxes and griffin-demons, while others are less common or unica as an ibex-demon and a donkey-demon . 6 The most represented demon is the sphinx . Not all the stylistic groups of the Emar glyptic show high numbers of monsters and demons, and the types of creatures varies from one group to another . The Syro-Hittite group lists the higher number of representations of composite creatures . They are mainly griffins and two-headed eagles, often carved on ring seals and located at the two sides of the name of the owner, with most likely an apotropaic function . Among demons, an atlantes function is attested, for examples for bull-demons and lion-demons . Only Old Babylonian and Mittanian style seals bear images of bull-men .

6

A composite creature (Beyer 2001, nos . B53, B54) — a bird-head-man — usually represents a sign in Hieroglyphic Luwian [L 133 (*134) AQUILA, (AVIS4): phonetic value ara/i: ‘age’, ‘time?’] . A dubious sample is the human headed bull (Beyer 2001, no . D 41) . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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In order to better understand the general presence of composite creatures on these seals, I analysed each creature and its ‘history’ in the art of the Ancient Near East, by taking into account influences in the representation of specific creatures in Emar . 4 .1 Case-study: Two-headed eagle Two-headed eagles are well represented in the Syro-Hittite group, more specifically on one cylinder seal belonging to a member of the royal family of Karkemiš and impressed on tablets in Emar — the well-known seal of king Šaḫurunuwa (Fig . 1) – as well as on ring seals belonging to local functionaries (other two Mittanian samples are not treated here) . Its iconography is typically Hittite, with minor stylistic variations . The two-headed eagle is never represented flying with preys in its claws, nor is it employed as a support for deities . The Hittite two-headed eagle was some kind of representation of Hittite imperial power (Giorgieri and Mora 1996: 76) . The clear connections are debated, but it is evident that the use of the representation of this creature in Emar is slightly different . In Emar, the two-headed eagle is considered equal to other fabulous creatures, therefore, doubled on ring seals to maintain symmetry (Fig . 2) . Its prophylactic power, probably present already in the original Hittite symbol – though restricted to the royal sphere – is here extended to local functionaries . The two-headed eagle is then copied on seals and put beside the name of the owner, often a local functionary, written in Hieroglyphic Luwian . However, its symbolic value is not fully understood . 5. Conclusive remarks From a number of ca . 1000 seal impressions, scholars were able to reconstruct c . 480 different seals (this record cannot be precisely assessed because a number of photographs of seal impressions on tablets ‘from Emar area’ are not clear enough to exclude that the impression may belong to a seal already known), 150 among those bear at least one image of a hybrid creature . This represents the 35% of the total and the figure gains importance when compared to the lower numbers attested in other sites in the area . A comparison with archaeological sites geographically and chronologically close to Emar, such as Mumbaqa, Hadidi, El-Qitar, and Tell Fray evidenced the scarcity of images of monsters and demons in the glyptic (Mumbaqa: Werner 2004, Blocher et al. 2007 . Hadidi: Dornemann 1980 . El-Qitar: Culican and McClellal 1983–1984 . Tell Fray: Matthiae 1980) . This is partly due to the dearth of remains and partly to the incomplete chronological parallelism of the archives, as shown by Mumbaqa, with its 77 seals reconstructed after their impressions, 31 genuine seals (among them, only six dubious examples of griffins, one griffin-demon, one bull-man and a goat-fish) . Can we assume that there was a specific reason behind the frequent incidence of composite creatures on Emar seals? © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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It is difficult to look throughout the window opened on the magical lore and mythical past of a culture through the representation of monsters and demons in the local glyptic repertoire, and the choice of representing such creatures on seals can have rather different explanations . Among those, are the following three points: – Monsters and demons were feared and respected as powerful apotropaic creatures – Monsters and demons were represented as interesting images, as a sort of fashionable subject – Monsters and demons increased creative options for seal designers As observed by several scholars, the secular and modern idea expressed at point no . 2 . above, although it might be valid to explain certain images of hybrids in other artistic production of the Ancient World, such as the Hellenistic one, does not apply so easily to the Ancient Near Eastern glyptic production . Demons were often mentioned in ritual texts as apotropaic figures or creatures to be defeated and sent away . Several important studies have been devoted to this extremely interesting and difficult topic, and I will not enter the issue here (for an overview, see Wiggermann 1992, Wiggermann, 1993–1997, Wiggermann 2011, Green 1993–1997, Black and Green 1992) . What is true for the Near East in general is confirmed by Emar as well . Rituals are a typology of texts represented within the Emarite documentation (Fleming 1992; Fleming 2000) . Sometimes, they are part of festival procedures and, as such, they name deities . They also include a few fragments of prophylactic charms against evil spirits of Mesopotamian tradition (well-known utukkū lemnūtu . Arnaud 1987a: 337–340, nos . 729–731) . A detailed description of these evil spirits is almost never provided, as usual in these kind of texts, but objects shaped like demons were located in temples with a likely protective purpose . This was the case in Emar as well, as confirmed by the archaeological record . A good example of this can be the bull-man carved on a basin found in the temple dedicated to Aštarte . Nevertheless, representations of composite creatures on archaeological finds in Emar are limited to few specimens including the famous horn made of carved bone (Margueron 1986 . MSK 76211, Aleppo Museum), the just mentioned basin found in the temple of Aštarte (Beyer 1982c: 115; Margueron 1975: 74–75), a sphinx figurine and a second sphinx modelled on a terracotta (probably a mould . Finkbeiner 2002: 138, 140, pl .6; Finkbeiner 1999–2000: 95–100, fig . 22, pl . 10) . This scarcity can be due to the chance of the archaeological record and confirm the validity of the hypothesis sketched in point 1 . The hypothesis summarised in point 3 . requires a longer explanation, since it stresses once more why seals and seal impressions are so important for the study of monsters and demons . Composite creatures are noticeably represented in the art of the ancient Near East . In different periods new hybrids have been created, some of which became codified and remained within the artistic tradition of a specific population or, on the contrary, were transferred to other traditions . Among the most enduring and wide© 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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spread composite creatures one can observe fairly obvious changes in iconography, iconographic motifs and themes, and even in their amount compared to other images typical of a certain artistic culture . Those images of monsters and demons were carved or depicted on a range of artistic supports, but, notably, seals and seal impressions show the greatest part of them . Thanks to seals and seal impressions they not only survived until the modern age, but have also been transmitted to other cultures in ancient times (Wengrow 2014: 67) . The third hypothesis is closely connected with the function of a seal as an administrative tool and a kind of ‘signature’ of the officer who holds it . Hence, it was necessary that a seal was immediately distinguishable with respect to another, even for people not able to read the inscription (when this was really present) . Designs must show creative variety, and composite creatures have a great potential due to the possibility of mixing different parts of animals, humans and other elements, and were, therefore, an ideal choice . The geographical position of Emar, which was strategic for international politics, as well as for business, certainly influenced the artistic production . The high number of functionaries signing with their seals in the town may have requested the creation of new designs . As for the choice of a specific type of monster or demon, it could well have been connected to Mesopotamian traditions (or cults, as for the bull-men holding a standards), Hittite traditions, or be based on local ones . As noted for the two-headed eagle, an imported image maintains its typical iconography, while its position on the seal and its function may change, thus leading to a sort of representation on ring seals of local functionaries which is characteristic of Emar . Bibliography Arnaud, D . 1975 Les textes d’Emar et la chronologie de la fin du Bronze Récent . Syria 52, 87–92 . 1984

La Syrie du moyen-Euphrate sous le protectorat hittite: l’administration d’après trois lettres inédites . Aula Orientalis 2, 179–188 .

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Texts from the Vicinity of Emar in the Collection of Jonathan Rosen . Padova . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Bellucci, B . 2013 Il grifone nel Vicino Oriente e oltre . In: I . Baglioni (ed .), Monstra. Costruzione e Percezione delle Entità Ibride e Mostruose nel Mediterraneo Antico, Volume 1 . Rome, 99–114 . Beyer, D . 1980 Notes préliminaires sur les empreintes de sceaux de Meskéné . In: J .-C . Margueron (ed .), Le Moyen Euphrate. Zone de contacts et d’échanges. Actes du Colloque de Strasbourg 10–12 mars 1977 . Leiden, 265–283 . 1982a Le sceau-cylindre de Shahurunuwa, roi de Karkémish . In: M . Yon (ed .), La Syrie au Bronze Récent . Paris, 67–78 . 1982b Les empreintes de sceaux . In: D . Beyer (ed .), Meskéné-Emar: Dix ans de travaux 1972–82 . Paris, 61–68 . 1982c La sculpture . In: D . Beyer (ed .), Meskéné-Emar: Dix ans de travaux 1972–82 . Paris, 115–117 . 1987

Quelques observations sur le sceaux-cylindres hittite et syro-hittite d’Emar . In: R . Lebrun (ed .), Acta Anatolica E. Laroche oblata, Hethitica 8 . Louvain – Paris, 29–44 .

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Black, J . and Green, A . 1992 Gods, Demons and Symbols of Ancient Mesopotamia . London . Blocher, F ., Kara, H . C ., Machule, D . and Werner, P . 2007 Bericht über die Ausgrabungen in Tall Munbāqa/Ekalte 2005–2007 . Mitteilungen der Deutschen Orient-Gesellschaft zu Berlin 139, 83–130 . Culican, W . and McClellan, T . 1983–1984 El-Qitar: first season of excavations 1982/83 . Abr Nahrain 22, 29–63 . Dalley, S . and Teissier, B . 1992 Tablets from the vicinity of Emar and elsewhere . Iraq 54, 83–111 . Di Paolo, S . 1997 Osservazioni sul significato dell’‘eclettismo’ artistico a Emar per una lettura contestuale dell’oliphant decorato a rilievo . Contributi e Materiali di Archeologia Orientale 7, 115–140 . Dornemann, R . H . 1980 Tell Hadidi: an important center of the Mitannian period and earlier . In: J .-C . Margueron (ed .), Le Moyen Euphrate. Zone de contacts et d’échanges. Actes du Colloque de Strasbourg 10–12 mars 1977 . Leiden, 217–234 . Fales, F . M . 1989 Prima dell’alfabeto. La storia della scrittura attraverso testi cuneiformi inediti. Studi e documenti . Venezia . Finkbeiner, U . 1999–2000 Emar & Balis 1996–1998 . Preliminary report of the joint Syrian-German excavations with the collaboration of Princeton University . Berytus 44, 5–34 . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Giorgieri, M . and Mora, C . 1996 Aspetti della regalità ittita nel XIII sec. a. C . Como . Gonnet, H . and Malbran-Labat, F . 1989–1990 Un contrat akkadien avec sceau hittite: AO 28366 . Anatolica 16, 1–6 . Green, A . 1993–1997 Mischwesen . B . Archäologie . Mesopotamien . In: Reallexikon der Assyriologie und vorderasiatischen Archäologie 8, 246–264 . Hallo, W . 2002 Love and marriage in Ashtata . In: S . Parpola and R . M . Whiting (eds .), Sex and Gender in the Ancient Near East. Proceedings of the 47e Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale, Helsinki, July 2–6, 2001 . Helsinki, 203–216 . Huehnergard, J . 1983 Five tablets from the vicinity of Emar . Revue d’Assyriologie et d’Archéologie Orientale 77, 11–43 . Margueron, J .-C . 1975 Quatre campagnes de fouilles a Emar (1972–1974): un bilan provisoire . Syria 52, 53–85 . 1986

Une corne sculptée à Emar . In: M . Kelly-Buccellati, P . Matthiae and M . Van Loon (eds .), Insight through Images. Studies in Honor of Edith Porada . Bibliotheca Mesopotamica 21 . Malibu, 153–159 .

Matthiae, P . 1980 Ittiti e Assiri a Tell Fray: Lo scavo di una città medio-siriana sull’Eufrate . Studi Micenei ed Egeo-Anatolici 22, 35–51 . Meyer, J .-W . and Wilhelm, G . 1983 Eine spätbronzezeitliche Keilschrifturkunde aus Syrien . Damaszener Mitteilungen 1, 249–261 . Mora, C . 2004 Sigilli e sigillature di Karkemiš in età imperiale ittita . I . I re, i dignitari, il (mio) Sole . Orientalia 73, 427–450 . Porada, E . 1987 Introduction . In: A . E . Farkas, P . O . Harper and E . B . Harrison (eds .), Monsters and Demons in the Ancient and Medieval Worlds. Papers presented in Honor of Edith Porada. Mainz/Rhein, 1–6 . Singer, I . 2002 La Siria dopo la battaglia di Qadesh . In: M . C . Guidotti and F . Pecchioli Daddi (eds .), La battaglia di Qadesh. Ramesse II contro gli Ittiti per la conquista della Siria . Firenze, 198–205 . Sigrist, M . 1982 Miscellanea . Journal of Cuneiform Studies 34, 242–252 . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Benedetta Bellucci Seven Emar tablets . In: A . F . Rainer (ed .), Kinattūtu ša dārâti. Raphael Kutscher Memorial Volume . Tel Aviv Occasional Publication 1, 165–184 .

Sonik, K . 2013 Mesopotamian conception of the supernatural: a taxonomy of Zwischenwesen . Archiv für Religionsgeschichte 14, 103–116 . Streck, P . 2000 Texte aus Münchener Sammlungen . Zeitschrift für Assyriologie 90, 263–280 . Tsukimoto, A . 1984 Eine neue Urkunde des Tili-Šarruma, Sohn des Königs von Karkamiš . Acta Sumerologica 6, 65–74 . 1988

Sieben spätbronzezeitliche Urkunden aus Syrien . Acta Sumerologica 10, 153–189 .

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Akkadian tablets in the Hirayama Collection (I) . Acta Sumerologica 12, 177–259 .

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Akkadian tablets in the Hirayama Collection (II) . Acta Sumerologica 13, 275–333 .

1992

Akkadian tablets in the Hirayama Collection (III) . Acta Sumerologica 14, 289–310 .

1994

A testamentary document from Emar – Akkadian tablets in the Hirayama Collection (IV) . Acta Sumerologica 16, 231–238 .

Verderame, L . 2013 Osservazioni a margine dei concetti di ‘ibrido’ e ‘mostro’ in Mesopotamia . In: I . Baglioni, Monstra. Costruzione e Percezione delle Entità Ibride e Mostruose nel Mediterraneo Antico 1 . Rome, 160–175 . Wengrow, D . 2014 The Origin of Monsters. Image and Cognition in the First Age of Mechanical Representation . Princeton . Werner, P . 2004 Tall Munbāqa – Ekalte-III. Die Glyptik . Wissenschaftliche Veröffentlichungen der Deutschen Orient-Gesellschaft 108 . Berlin . Westenholz , J . G . 2000 Cuneiform Inscriptions in the Collection of the Bible Land Museum Jerusalem . Groningen . Wiggermann, F . A . M . 1992 Mesopotamian Protective Spirits: The Ritual Texts . Cuneiform Monographs 1, Groningen . 1993–1997 Mischwesen A . In: Reallexikon der Assyriologie und vorderasiatischen Archäologie 8, 222–246 . 2011

The Mesopotamian pandemonium: a provisional census . In: L . Verderame (ed .), Mesopotamian Demons . Studi e Materiali di Storia delle Religioni 77, 298–322 .

Yabrudi, M . 1986–1987 Une tablette d’Emar au Musée National de Damas . Annales archéologiques arabes syriennes. Revue d’archéologie et d’histoire 36–37, 87–93 [in Arabic] .

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Emar and its Monsters Composite Creature

Description

Antelope-monster Bull-monster Double-headed eagle Griffin Lion-monster Horse-monster

Winged antelope Winged bull Double-headed bird Bird head, lion body (sometimes bull) Winged lion Winged horse Lion with long neck, sometimes feather tail or long forked tail, wings Horned snake Most of demons have wings, even if not specified in description Bird head, human torso, no arms . SIGN 133 . Bull head, human torso Human-headed bull (“Bull of Heaven”) Human head, horns or horned cap, human torso, bull lower body Donkey head, human body Griffin head, human torso Ibex head, human torso, ibex lower body Lion head, human torso, animal or human lower body Human head, lion body

Lion-dragon Snake-monster Bird-demon Bull-demon Bull-demon (2) Bull-man Donkey-demon Griffin-demon Ibex-demon Lion-demon Sphinx

Quantity (of creatures, sometimes duplicated on the same seal) 2 3 32 132 3 2 1 1 2 7 1 (?) 14 1 1 1 2 24

Table 1 Hybrids, indicated with conventional names, description and numbers of seal impressions bearing images of those creatures in Emar seals and seal impressions

Fig . 1 Seal of Šaḫurunuwa (drawn after Beyer 2001: no . A1)

Fig . 2 Seal impression of a ring seal with two-headed eagles (drawn after Westenholz 2000: no . 1) © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Tell Jemmeh: Assessment of a Border Site According to its Figurative Assemblage David Ben-Shlomo

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Abstract The paper will discuss an assemblage of figurative objects (mostly terracottas and glyptic) from the Smithsonian Institution excavation at the site of Tell Jemmeh, Israel . The assemblage includes a diverse group of terracottas, scarabs, seals, amulets and seal impressions dating mostly from the Middle Bronze Age through to the Persian period, including human plaques and other figurines, zoomorphic figurines and vessels and mask fragments . The main types of terracottas will be discussed and their chronological and geographical distribution presented . An additional large assemblage of figurines from the Petrie excavations was published in 1928, but these will only be briefly discussed . Seal impressions also illustrate a wide variety of themes . The site is located near the Mediterranean coast, on the Besor River, which was the ancient border between Canaan and Egypt . In addition, during the Iron Age the settlement was geographically part of Philistia, while during the end of the Iron Age II the site probably accommodated a Neo-Assyrian administrative center . Hence, this class of finds will be assessed, and the various influences coming from Canaanite, Egyptian, Philistine and possibly Neo-Assyrian cultural traditions will be examined .

1. Introduction: Tell Jemmeh This paper will discuss an assemblage of figurative objects, mostly terracottas, coming from the site of Tell Jemmeh, Israel; it will focus on the assemblage retrieved from the newer Van Beek’s excavations . The figurative assemblage includes a diverse group of terracottas, scarabs, seals, amulets and seal impressions dating mostly from the Middle Bronze Age through to the Persian period . The main types of terracottas will be discussed and their chronological and geographical distribution presented . Tell Jemmeh is a prominent mound site located in the northwestern Negev and southern coastal plain of Israel about 12km south of Gaza and 9km west of the Mediterranean coast (see, Ben-Shlomo and Van Beek 2014) . The site is located on the Besor River, on the ancient route from Arabia to the Mediterranean coast . The Besor River was the ancient border between Egypt and Canaan (probably mentioned as ‘the brook of Egypt’) . Tell Jemmeh is probably the location of Yurza mentioned in the Amarna letters as an important Canaanite center of the Bronze Age (Maisler 1952; Ben-Shlomo 2012) . Petrie conducted large-scale excavations at the site in 1927 and published his finds in a final report (Petrie 1928) . He excavated large areas dated to the Late Bronze

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Age through the Persian period and large quantities of Neo-Assyrian style or ‘palace ware’ pottery, suggested then to be imported by the local Assyrian governor . Van Beek carried excavations in the site on behalf of the Smithsonian Institution during the years 1970–1990 . The final publication report was recently published (Ben-Shlomo and Van Beek 2014) . These excavations were conducted in two main excavation areas with a large horizontal exposure and two step-trenches . The site was continuously inhabited for at least 1400 years, from the Middle Bronze Age IIB through to the Persian period (c . 1750–350 BCE) . The Late Bronze Age (1550–1200 BCE) is represented by about eight building phases, including a large courtyard building containing many installations and rich finds . The Iron Age I period, contemporary with first Philistine occupation, is represented by two phases including a sophisticated well-preserved pottery kiln and decorated Philistine pottery . A small exposure of the Iron Age IIA, with some degenerated Philistine pottery, and late Philistine pottery was excavated, while more substantial remains date to the Iron Age IIB–C, including several well-preserved public structures illustrating sophisticated brick arches building techniques . These structures and the finds within indicate a Neo-Assyrian influence and probably presence in the site (see Ben-Shlomo 2014) . Later remains including rounded granaries are probably dated to the Persian period with large quantities of pottery and other finds dated to the 6th and 5th centuries BCE . The archaeological history of the site and its location can suggest potential influences from at least four different cultures: the Canaanite, Egyptian, Philistine and Neo-Assyrian . 2. The figurative assemblage from Tell Jemmeh The figurative assemblage from Tell Jemmeh is quite rich, as can already be seen from the publication of Petrie’s excavation with 132 illustrated items (e .g ., Petrie, 1928: pls . XXXV–XXXIX), especially so during the late Iron Age and Persian period . At least 127 figurative terracotta items were identified by the Smithsonian excavation at Tell Jemmeh, including 27 anthropomorphic (mostly female) figurines and 53 zoomorphic; additional items are fragments of zoomorphic figurines or vessels, and other figurative clay items (Ben-Shlomo et al. 2014) . The seal impressions from the site also illustrate a wide variety of themes (Ben-Shlomo and Keel 2014) . Many of the items from Tell Jemmeh come from stratigraphically unclear contexts or are surface finds, and only about 35 figurines come from more significant architectural contexts . Thus, the dating and identification relies primarily on the typology of the objects . It should be noted that fragmentary items are likely to be redeposited in fills and bricks, and thus, often date earlier to their find spot . The largest group comes from Field IV (84 items), with about 24 items from late Iron Age contexts . Of these, nine examples were found in the main, nearly complete, Assyrianstyle structure, Building I, and seven items were found in the less complete, adjacent Buildings II and III . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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The main typological groups are female and zoomorphic figurines of the Bronze and Iron Ages; zoomorphic libation vessels and other forms appear in smaller quantities . The objects are further subdivided into specific identifiable types according to style and theme . 3. The Bronze Age Within a rich MB IIB–C context a nearly complete zoomorphic cup of the Tell el-Yehudiyeh ware was found (Fig . 1; Ben-Shlomo and Van Beek 2014: 75, 78, fig . 3 .63) . The vessel is a cup or goblet comprised of a high foot, and a hollowed zoomorphic head-shaped cup, with a high bulging neck (25cm high) . The vessel is made of a grayish burnished ware and decorated by puncturing and incising, filled with white chalk . The mouth is widely incised with very deep punctured nostrils, and two rows of puncturing emphasizing the lips and the nose; the eyes are two large discs and are emphasized by white filled incisions below them . The top ridge and breakage marks indicate two ears and two horns in between them . This feature indicates that the vessel depicts a horned animal, a deer or a bull, yet its depiction is far from naturalistic due to the emphasized eyes . Zoomorphic cups or vessels are well known from the Tell el-Yehudiyeh repertoire from Megiddo, Ashkelon (falcon/Egyptian horus-shaped) and Jericho, and are often found in tombs; especially similar is a deer-shaped vessel from Jericho (see Ben-Shlomo and Van Beek 2014: 78, fig . 3 .63, references therein) . According to petrographic analysis, this vessel was produced in the central coastal plain (thus not local to Tell Jemmeh) . During the Late Bronze and Iron Ages various types of female plaque figurines illustrating common Canaanite style and iconography appear (Fig . 2 .1–3) . No male figurines were found . The plaque figurines made by applying the clay to a mould can be dated stylistically either to the 2nd or the 1st or millennium BCE . Often, the nude female is depicted standing, with her hands on her sides, or one or two hands on the belly or on the breasts; these postures and the modeling of the figurines seem to allude to pregnancy and fertility . No complete examples were found; the most complete (Fig . 2 .1) is a rather small, plaque figurine showing an en-face depiction of a nude figure with raised arms, each hand holding a longstemmed floral object, probably a lotus blossom . The head has a bulging forehead, possibly remains of a ‘feathered headdress’ . The sex of the figure is not emphasized and the breasts are very low; yet, this is probably a female figure according to most parallels . This figurine has the typical attributes of a Qedesh, Astarte or ‘Anat goddess, as at Lachish, Batash, and Beth Shemesh for example (see, e .g ., Pritchard 1943: 32–42, nos . 1–4; Tadmor 1982: 140; Cornelius 2004; Ben-Shlomo et al. 2014: 807) . Another example shows the entire lower part of the nude body, with three ankle bracelets on the lower part of each leg (Fig . 2 .2; Ben-Shlomo et al. 2014: fig . 17 .1e) . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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This is another Ashtarte-type figurine . A rather unusual item (Fig . 2 .3; Ben-Shlomo et al. 2014: 807, fig . 17 .1e) illustrates a standing female figure of a female en-face, probably pregnant with the arms hanging at the sides, a narrow-waist, wide-hip, large pubic triangle, and long feet turned to her left, one above the other . They seemingly represent the figure as standing on a platform or connected to something . Possibly the figurine is a part of a scene from a larger application, maybe broken from a stand or a shrine model . Imported LBA II figurines include Base Ring II bull figures or vessels and Mycenaean bull figurine fragments (e .g ., Ben-Shlomo and Van Beek 2014: fig . 11 .11h) . Masks may also be dated to the LBA or later and indicate Canaanite tradition; two examples from the site show the nose and mouth fragments, roughly life-sized (BenShlomo et al. 2014: 824, fig . 17 .10a, b) . These masks may be similar to various items found in LB II contexts as at Hazor and Burna (see recently, e .g ., Shai et al. 2015: 127, fig . 8 .6, 7) . 4. The Iron Age and Persian period During the Iron Age I, evidence of Philistine or Aegean-style figurines and terracottas, as the psi- or Ashdoda-type female figurines (see Ben-Shlomo and Press 2009), is unknown at Tell Jemmeh, even though the site lies within the Philistine territory, close to Gaza . Yet, one known example comes from the site and is in fact the only provenanced possible specimen of a mourning figurine from Philistia: a very schematic figurine published by Petrie (Petrie 1928: pl . XXXVI .2; Dothan 1982: 237) . Several late Iron Age period female plaque figurines include two very similar head fragments possibly made from the same mold (Fig . 2 .4, 5) . The larger fragment shows more detail, with three strokes like a downward-pointing arrow located between the eyebrows, possibly depicting a jewelry item on the forehead; under the chin, there is a similar object comprised of four vertical curly ridges . It probably depicts an amulet or necklace . Another four items published by Petrie are also very similar (Petrie 1928: pl . XXXV .8–10, 16), and all six were probably made of the same mold local to Tell Jemmeh . Several plaque figurines are made in a higher molded relief and vary in style; one has ‘Hathor’ locks hair dress and a necklace (Fig . 2 .7; Ben-Shlomo et al. 2014: fig . 17 .2g, h) . A rather large fragment of a red-slipped female figurine from the topsoil (Fig . 2 .6) is made in a style different from Iron II figurines, and this might be a Persian period example (Ben-Shlomo et al. 2014: fig . 17 .2e) . Generally, the style of the figurines is similar to those found in other regional sites of the southern Levant (e .g ., Stern 2010: 11–14) . Another Iron Age II female figurine type appearing is the hollow figurine with the arms depicted under the breasts, cupping them (Fig . 2 .10; Ben-Shlomo et al. 2014: fig . 17 .3g) . Such Iron II figurines were suggested showing Phoenician influ© 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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ence and appear in other sites of Philistia as at Ekron (e .g ., Gitin 2003: 287; Press 2012: 166–173) . Some fragments are probably of the Judean Pillar Figurine type (Fig . 2 .8, 9; Ben-Shlomo et al. 2014: fig . 17 .3e, f) . These have either molded (with the head inserted with a ‘plug’) or handmade heads . One example belonging to a pillar type female figurine is schematically depicted in a ‘bird-style’ face with a prominent pinched nose (Fig . 2 .8) . These items may indicate Judean influence, and are rather rare in Philistia (see, e .g ., Kletter 2001: 185–188) . While Zoomorphic figurines and terracottas are more common than the anthropomorphic ones, they are often less chronologically and culturally indicative . Of the 54 items only few are complete (Fig . 3); examples from Late Bronze Age contexts include a small horned animal (Fig . 3 .1), a small unidentified figurine, and a crouching animal figurine (dog or lion?; Ben-Shlomo et al. 2014: 812) . Several stumpy quadruped bodies or torsos with ovoid section may belong to bovine figurines (BenShlomo et al. 2014: 816) . A nearly complete solid bird figurine with three legs probably dates to the Iron Age (Fig . 3 .8; Ben-Shlomo et al. 2014: fig . 17 .8b) . Similar bird-shaped terracottas from Iron Age Philistia were usually hollow and used as rattles (see Ben-Shlomo 2010: 136–138, fig . 3 .77) . A possible fragment of a snake figurine (a cobra?) (Fig . 3 .7; Ben-Shlomo et al. 2014: fig . 17 .8d) with parallels from Beth Shean may indicate Egyptian influence (see Ben-Shlomo et al. 2014: 819 for references) . Iron Age II horse figurines (Fig . 3 .3–6), sometimes with riders (Fig . 3 .3, 4), are common, with dozens of clearly identified examples including several riders (BenShlomo et al. 2014: 816–819, fig . 17 .7) . The typical Iron IIB horse or ‘horse and rider’ figurines are very common in Judah and the Shephelah, yet are rare in most Philistia . An exception is Ashkelon with 70 examples (Press 2012: 183–186) . Special attention should be drawn to a couple of camel figurine fragments (Fig . 3:2; Ben-Shlomo et al. 2014: 819, fig . 17 .6e, f) . A front half of a figurine with a cylindrical body with a thick, cylindrical vertical neck has a small but prominently pointed hump applied just behind the neck (Fig . 3 .2) . While figurines with humped backs are often identified as zebu bovines, this case is different, and an identification as a camel seems more likely, due to the long cylindrical vertical neck and shape, size and location of the hump (towards the center of the body) . Other figurines that can be similarly identified as camels were published by Pertie (Petrie 1928: pl . XXXVII .10–18, 24, 26), while camel figurines were identified elsewhere in the Iron II at Buseirah (ʿAmr 1980: 217, fig . 176) and in later periods at Medinat Habu (Teeter 2010: 130, cat . no . 138) . Apparently, camels were important at Tell Jemmeh during the late Iron Age and probably later, due to the site’s role as an important stop on the trade route to Arabia . Several camel bones were identified at Tell Jemmeh, mainly from Persian period contexts (see Wapnish 1981) . Zoomorphic libation vessels and kernoi are relatively rare . A ceramic fragment is the spout of a zoomorphic vessel depicting an animal burdened with two jars on its sides (Ben-Shlomo et al. 2014: 823, fig . 17 .9e) . This is a well known libation vessel type during the Bronze and Iron Ages in the southern Levant . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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A possible rhyton may be an ibex head-shaped drinking vessel (Fig . 3 .9; BenShlomo et al. 2014: 823, fig . 17 .8a) . The depiction of the animal head seems to be located on the lower part of the vessel, with two long coiled applications, depicting the ibex horns . The mouth, which may have been the lower spout of the rhyton was not preserved . The identification of the depiction as an ibex (or an Oryx antelope), which is an important Canaanite motif, relies mainly on the long coiled horns . Parallels are few though one or two similar objects from Tell Jemmeh were published by Petrie (Petrie 1928: pl . XV .3, 5) . Other parallels, although not exact, may come from the Persian period (see Ben-Shlomo et al. 2014: 823 for references) . 5. Glyptic and other finds Several other figurative items from Tell Jemmeh which include glyptic: cylinder and stamp seals (Fig . 4 .4, 5; Keel 2014), seal impressions (Fig . 4 .1–3, 6, 7; BenShlomo and Keel 2014) and amulets (Fig . 4 .8–10; Herrmann 2014) will only be very briefly addressed . A clay cylinder seal with cuneiform signs and a geometric design was found in an MB IIB–C context and is a rather rare find in the Levant (Horowitz and Ornan 2014) . Within an MB IIB–C floor level rich with complete pottery vessels a group of eleven sealings was found (Fig . 4 .1–3; Ben-Shlomo and Van Beek 2014: fig . 3 .64) . Another group of eight was found in an Iron Age IIA context (Ben-Shlomo and Van Beek 2014: fig . 8 .29b–d) . The clusters of sealings probably indicate their relation to storage contexts and administration . The Bronze Age sealings carry impressions of typical Egyptian scarabs of the 17th to 13th centuries BCE (see Keel 2014) . Another cylinder seal found in the topsoil is a fine Mitannian style example depicting a divine seated figure a tree and a variety of animals (Ornan 2014) . Late Iron Age sealings carry impressions of various stamp seals (Fig . 4 .4, 6, 7) . The motifs and style are mostly typical of Iron Age local Canaanite styles combining some Egyptian motifs . Several stamp seals recovered include conoid and ‘anchor’ seal typical of southern Israel (Fig . 4 .4) . A small assemblage of faience amulets include Egyptian produced examples depicting Nefertum (Fig . 4 .8), Bes (Fig . 4 .9) and Horus Eye (Fig . 4 .10, ‘wdjt’) among other Egyptian motifs . Notably no evidence of Neo-Assyrian style or imagery appears in the glyptic and other figurative assemblage . 6. Discussion The relatively large figurative assemblage from Tell Jemmeh is quite diversified with human and zoomorphic depictions and mostly represents local Canaanite styles . As in other sites in the southern Levant, human figurines are rare during the MB II and become much more common during the LB II, probably as part of mostly domestic popular cultic practices . It was suggested that the scarcity of figurines in domestic © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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MB II contexts in the Levant is related to a more centralized, controlled and uniform cultic atmosphere during this period in contrast to a more diversified and pluralistic one during the LB II (see Uziel 2008: 260–266) . There are certain Egyptian influences evidenced, as the fragment possibly identified as a ‘cobra figurine’ (Fig . 3 .7) and the scarabs (Fig . 4 .5) and most seal impressions . Yet, these are not more distinct than in other southern Levantine sites . During the Iron Age I there are hardly any Aegean-style Philistine figurines, which is not surprising, since these are extremely rare outside of the main Philistine city-sites . Generally, the 1st millennium BCE female figurines resemble those of late Iron Age Ashkelon . Certain late Philistine influences can be identified in the decoration of the figurative items, especially zoomorphic . Phoenician influences may be identified in some of the female figurines . During the late Iron Age, the Neo-Assyrian influence and presence in the site does not seem to be represented in the figurative assemblage . Yet, certain southern, possibly Arabian, influences may be evidenced, for example in the camel figurines, while Judean influence is evidenced by the pillar and horse figurines . There are more zoomorphic figurines than libation vessels, and depictions of bovines and horses appear possibly in roughly the same quantities . This ratio is generally appearing in other southern Levantine sites and differs from the late Iron Age assemblage of Ekron, where zoomorphic vessels are much more numerous . In the latter the main theme is the bovine (see Ben-Shlomo 2010: 169–170, table 2) . In difference from some Philistine sites, and in similarity with Ashkelon, the horse/horseand-rider figurines are quite common during the Iron Age II . To summarize: the figurine assemblage of Tell Jemmeh is largely Canaanite in its style and iconography from the Middle Bronze through to the Iron Age . The location as a border site with Egypt, as well as being part of the Philistine territory and the Neo-Assyrian presence, is hardly represented in the figurative assemblage . This phenomenon may indicate a certain orthodox nature of this class of finds, maybe related to its association with cult and religion . Thus, the basic Canaanite nature of the site dictated the style of figurines made and used in the site, mostly in domestic contexts . It seems that events as changes of political administrations at the site had less direct effect on the figurative assemblage . Bibliography ʿAmr, A . J . 1980 A Study of the Clay Figurines and Zoomorphic Vessels of Trans-Jordan during the Iron Age, with Special Reference to Their Symbolism and Function . PhD thesis, University of London . London . Cornelius, I . 2004 The Many Faces of the Goddess. The Iconography of the Syro Palestinian Goddesses Anat, Astarte, Qedeshet and Asherah c. 1500–1000 BCE . Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis 204 . Fribourg .

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Ben-Shlomo, D . 2010 Philistine Iconography: A Wealth of Style and Symbolism . Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis 241 . Fribourg . 2012

Tell Ğemme during the Bronze Age and Canaanite household archaeology . Zeitschrift des deutschen Palästina-Vereins 128/2, 133–157, pls . 16–20 .

2014

Tell Jemmeh, Philistia and the Neo-Assyrian empire during the Late Iron Age . Levant 46/1, 58–88 .

Ben-Shlomo, D ., Gardiner, R . and Van Beek, G . 2014 Ceramic figurines and figurative terracottas . In: D . Ben-Shlomo and G . Van Beek (eds .), 2014, 804–827 . Ben-Shlomo, D . and Keel, O . 2014 Clay sealings and seal impressions . In: D . Ben-Shlomo and G . Van Beek (eds .) 2014, 857–875 . Ben-Shlomo, D ., and Press, M . D . 2009 A re-examination of Aegean style figurines in light of new evidence from Ashdod, Ashkelon and Ekron . Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 353, 39–74 . Ben-Shlomo, D . and Van Beek, G . (eds .) 2014 The Smithsonian Institution Excavation at Tell Jemmeh, Israel 1970–1990 . Smithsonian Contributions to Anthropology 50, Washington DC . Dothan, T . 1982 The Philistines and Their Material Culture . Jerusalem . Gitin, S . 2003 Israelite and Philistine cult and the archaeological record: the ‘Smoking Gun’ phenomenon . In: W . G . Dever and S . Gitin (eds .), Symbiosis, Symbolism and the Power of the Past . Winona Lake, 279–295 . Herrmann, C . 2014 Egyptian amulets from Tell Jemmeh . In: D . Ben-Shlomo and G . Van Beek (eds .), 2014, 970– 976 . Horowitz, W . and Ornan, T . 2014 A clay cylinder seal with cuneiform signs . In: D . Ben-Shlomo and G . Van Beek (eds .), 2014, 1017–1019 . Keel, O . 2014 Scarabs and stamp seals . In: D . Ben-Shlomo and G . Van Beek (eds .), 2014, 1004–1016 . Kletter, R . 2001 Between archaeology and theology: the pillar figurines from Judah and the Asherah . In: A . Mazar (ed .), Studies in the Archaeology of the Iron Age in Israel and Jordan . Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement 331 . Sheffield, 179–216 . Maisler (Mazar), B . 1952 Yurza, the Identification of Tell Jemmeh . Palestine Exploration Quarterly, 84, 48–51 . Petrie, W . M . F . 1928 Gerar . British School of Archaeology in Egypt 43 . London . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Press, M . D . 2012 Ashkelon 4. The Iron Age Figurines of Ashkelon and Philistia . Winona Lake . Ornan, T . 2014 A Mitanian cylinder Seal with a worshiper and devine images . In: D . Ben-Shlomo and G . Van Beek (eds .) 2014, 1020–1022 . Pritchard, J . B . 1943 Palestinian Figurines in Relation to Certain Goddesses Known Through Literature . American Oriental Series 24 . New York . Shai, I ., McKinny, C . and Uziel, J . 2015 Late Bronze Age cultic activity in ancient Canaan: a view from Tel Burna . Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 374, 116–132 . Stern, E . 2010 Excavations at Dor. Figurines, Cult Objects and Amulets. 1980–2000 Seasons . Jerusalem . Tadmor, M . 1982 Female cult figurines in late Canaan and early Israel: archaeological evidence . In: T . Ishida (ed .), Studies in the Period of David and Solomon and Other Essays: Papers Read at the International Symposium for Biblical Studies, Tokyo, 5–7 December 1979 . Tokyo, 139–173 . Teeter, E . 2010 Baked Clay Figurines and Votive Beds from Medinet Habu . Oriental Iinstitute Publications 132 . Chicago . Uziel, J . 2008 The Southern Coastal Plain of Canaan during the Middle Bronze Age . PhD thesis, Bar Ilan University, Tel Aviv . Wapnish, P . 1981 Camel caravans and camel pastoralists at Tell Jemmeh . Journal of Near Eastern Studies 13, 101–121 .

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David Ben-Shlomo No .

Publication (Ben-Shlomo et al. 2014)

Description

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Plaque figurine Plaque figurine Plaque figurine Plaque figurine Plaque figurine Plaque figurine Plaque figurine Pillar figurine Pillar figurine ‘Composite’ figurine

fig . 17 .1a fig . 17 .1e fig . 17 .1f fig . 17 .2a fig . 17 .2b fig . 17 .2e fig . 17 .2h fig . 17 .3e fig . 17 .3f fig . 17 .3g

Table 1 Descriptions of clay figurines in Figure 2 (female figurines)

No .

Description

Publication (Ben-Shlomo et al. 2014)

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Zoomorphic figurine Zoomorphic figurine Rider figurine Rider figurine Horse figurine Horse figurine Cobra (?) figurine Bird figurine Zoomorphic rhyton (?)

fig . 17 .5a fig . 17 .6e fig . 17 .7a fig . 17 .7b fig . 17 .7h fig . 17 .7i fig . 17 .8d fig . 17 .8b fig . 17 .8a

Table 2 Descriptions of clay items in Figure 3 (zoomorphic terracottas)

No .

Description

Publication (Ben-Shlomo and Van Beek 2014) fig . 20 .2a, see Ben-Shlomo and Keel 2014: 872 Clay (Gamma 193) fig . 20 .1b, see Ben-Shlomo and Keel 2014: 870 Clay (Gamma 183–5) fig . 20 .1i, see Ben-Shlomo and Keel 2014: 871 (GamClay ma 191) Grey stone fig . 27 .7b, see Keel 2014: 1014 (Gamma 208) Stone (steatite) fig . 27 .3c, Keel 2014: 1009 (Gamma 143) fig . 20 .6b, see Ben-Shlomo and Keel 2014: 870 Clay (Gamma 182) fig . 20 .3d, see Ben-Shlomo and Keel 2014: 868 Clay (Gamma 169) Green faience fig . 24 .1c, see Herrmann 2014: 972, cat . no . 3 Faience fig . 24 .1g, see Herrmann 2014: 972–973, cat . no . 7 Faience fig . 24 .2b, see Herrmann 2014: 974, cat . no . 14

Material

1

Seal impression on sealing

2

Seal impression on sealing

3

Seal impression on sealing

4 5

Seal Scarab seal

6

Seal impression on sealing

7

Seal impression on sealing

8 9 10

Amulet (Nefertum) Amulet (Bes) Amulet (wdjt)

Table 3 Descriptions of items in Figure 4 © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Fig . 1 A zoomorphic head-shaped cup from Tell Jemmeh (after Ben-Shlomo and Van Beek 2014: fig . 3 .63)

Fig . 2 Female figurines from Tell Jemmeh (after Ben-Shlomo et al. 2014) © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Fig . 3 Zoomorphic figurative items from Tell Jemmeh (after Ben-Shlomo et al. 2014)

© 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Fig . 4 Various figurative depictions from Tell Jemmeh (seal impressions, seals, amulets) (after Keel 2014, Ben-Shlomo and Keel 2014 and Herrmann 2014)

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The Construction of Value in Chalcolithic Cyprus: The Picrolite Cruciform Figurines and Pendants Sam Crooks 1 Abstract Constructions of value in prehistory are little theorised within archaeology . Often invoked uncritically in narratives of emerging social complexity, ranking and prestige, value is typically an implied assumption of innate worth mediated through scarcity, production, consumption or exchange . Anthropological, philosophical and sociological discourses, however, reveal value to be a powerful lens through which to apprehend meaning in prehistory, functioning in both the material expression of identity and in its (re)production through praxis . During the Middle Chalcolithic in Cyprus, picrolite, a soft blue-green stone, was used to fashion anthropomorphic cruciform figurines and pendants, objects of personal adornment thought to function as apotropaic or fertility charms . This paper will develop archaeological approaches to the construction of value in prehistory through analysis of the use of picrolite in Chalcolithic Cyprus . Contexts of acquisition, production, use and final deposition within mortuary settings will be analysed, providing insight into mechanisms of value creation and the role of value in the negotiation of changing identities in Chalcolithic Cyprus .

1. Introduction Value is implicated in central domains of culture – economy, polity, identity, and morality – and offers rich analytical potential for understanding cultural systems . Yet despite references to the concept, few serious examinations of the construction and operation of value – or attempts to develop and apply any theorised methodological approach to its apprehension in prehistory – exist in the archaeological literature, despite ideas and assumptions relating to the concept often implicitly informing archaeological discourse (Papadopoulos and Urton 2012) . The Chalcolithic in Cyprus (c . 3900–2500/2400 BCE) was characterised by small agro-pastoral villages with fluctuating scales of social complexity informed by new orientations between people and the material environment . Movement of storage and food preparation indoors, episodic increases in settlement centralisation, high status dwellings and tombs, and controlled access to ritual symbolism and ceremonial space, suggest periodic re-orientation of identities from the communal to the

1

Archaeology and History, La Trobe University, Australia . I wish to thank David Frankel and Jenny Webb for their comments on a draft of this manuscript, and the Near Eastern Archaeology Foundation of the University of Sydney, the Australian Archaeological Institute at Athens, the Classical Association of Victoria and La Trobe University for providing funding in support of this research . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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household, and attendant property rights, hereditary status and inequality (Peltenburg 1998: 243–244) . Anthropomorphic cruciform figurines and pendants are emblematic of the Middle Chalcolithic (Fig . 1) . Almost all the several hundred known examples are made of picrolite, a soft blue-green stone of limited natural distribution, providing an extremely strong correlation between fabric and form . Deriving primarily from mortuary contexts at sites in the southwest (Fig . 2) – Kissonerga-Mylouthkia, Kissonerga-Mosphilia, Lemba-Lakkous, and Souskiou-Vathyrkakas – and from south-central Erimi-Pamboula – these objects were implicated in negotiating identities, providing a powerful new iconographic convention, and ideological and ritual symbolism . The symbolic meanings of these figurines are unknown, though they are commonly interpreted as female birthing charms promoting fertility or successful parturition (Peltenburg 1992; Bolger 1996) . This interpretation rests largely on examples rendered with tucked up legs, the squatting posture coupled with the outstretched arms suggestive to some of an assisted birthing position . Indeed, less ambiguously rendered red-on-white terracotta birthing figurines of the same period sometimes wear single pendant necklaces (Peltenburg 1998: pl . 32 .10) . Though a small number of the cruciforms have bosses in the chest area, which may indicate breasts (or hands), the ascription of gender to the cruciforms remains problematic . Some even suggest they are dual-sexed, combining a phallic upper and feminine lower component (Knapp and Meskell 1997) . Other interpretations follow a familiar antiquarian tradition, suggesting goddesses, apotropaic amulets or talismans in sympathetic magic, substitute wives, concubines, servants or mourning figures, didactical aids or initiatory charms, priestesses, votaries or dolls (see Ucko 1968: 420–426) . 2. Theoretical discussion Like most object-based fields, archaeology is concerned with the study of things (Olsen et al. 2012) . The recent ‘return to things’ in the social sciences construes humans and things as relationally produced (Webmoor and Witmore 2008; Hicks 2010) . New materialisms foreground the vibrancy of things in human ontologies, stressing the dialectic between structure and agency (Miller 2005; Webmoor 2007; Witmore 2014) . Value in things, including things of value, is critical in (re)constructing cultural systems, as things and people co-habit ecologies of practice through which systems and identities are formed and transformed, (re)produced and subverted . ‘Things-in-motion’ illuminate social contexts through genealogies and biographies of objects (Appadurai 1986: 5) . In the broadest sense, value relates to signification and meaning-making, and is central to all materiality studies . Philosophical, economic, anthropological and sociological theories conceive value in contrasting ways, variously emphasising utility, production, exchange, scarcity and consumption . Analysis of each of these episodes or domains of valuation serves © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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in developing object biographies which can illuminate social contexts and mechanisms of identity formation and transformation . While Marx’s labour theory fixes value as congealed labour in commodities through production (Marx 1867), contemporary ethnographies have demonstrated that in non-capitalist societies, value is not fixed at the moment of production as a static abstraction of labour, but is contested and renegotiated through exchange (Mauss 1925) . While formalist models posit people as rational, self-interested and acquisitive, striving to obtain the maximum economic return for the minimum sacrifice (Smith 1776; Ricardo 1817; Marx 1867), substantivist models stress that the impersonal market forces associated with modern industrial capitalism should not be projected onto non-capitalist systems, which in fact operate in other ways, embedded within their own unique cultural matrices (Polanyi 1944: 46) . Value, then, is subjective and culturally contingent, never an intrinsic quality of objects, but rather a judgement upon them (Simmel 2004) . Veblen (1899) foregrounds consumption as an arena of valuation through which individuals compete for prestige, fixing value at the moment of its removal from the system, simultaneously expressing and generating status . In contrast, Simmel argues that value reflects the extent to which objects resist desire, emphasising scarcity: “… Objects are not difficult to acquire because they are valuable, but we call those objects valuable that resist our desire to possess them …” (Simmel 2004: 59–60) . If value is to be maintained, measures must be taken to restrict supply . Sumptuary laws, taboos and monopolies limit the accessibility of desirable objects through restricting their circulation . The periodic removal of valuables from the system – through physical consumption during communal feasting, through ritual destruction, caching or hoarding, or through deposition within mortuary contexts – manipulates the dynamics of supply and demand to maintain value, entrenching the cachet of those individuals with access to and control over those goods . Thus “… scarcity is not only natural, but cultural, or rather political . The statement ‘objects are valuable, because they are scarce’ can be reversed: objects are scarce because they are valuable …” (Voutsaki 1995: 10) . Value, then, is involved in a range of archaeological discourses, particularly in relation to narratives of emerging social complexity, ecological adaptation, social and symbolic storage, competitive consumption and exchange, specialization, political economy and prestige . The domains of valuation outlined above constitute behavioural arenas; analogies through which to apprehend value, which is always culturally embedded and historically particular . 3. Analysis We may infer value as a measure of cost of acquisition and labour cost in production (Voutsaki 1995: 8–9) . Primary picrolite deposits occur in snaking seams of ser© 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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pentinite in the rocky outcrops of the Troodos Mountains, with smaller deposits in the Akamas Peninsula, the Limassol forest, and in the Mamonia Complex . Petrographic, geochemical and x-ray diffraction analyses have thus far proven inconclusive in matching specific picrolite sources with the stone recovered from the Chalcolithic sites, though the Troodos deposits are identified as a likely source (Peltenburg 1991; Xenophontos 1991; Xenophontos et al. 1992) . Picrolite was also available as waterworn pebbles carried down from the Troodos by the Karyotis and the Kouris river systems, the latter, with its abundant pale blue waterworn picrolite pebbles, a probable source for cruciform manufacture . Deliberate selection of a visually striking stone that is not locally available suggests the significance of these ornaments . Other local resources were being exploited: vessels and figurative sculpture were produced from local clays, while bone, shell and other stones were ready to hand . Use of picrolite, however, is more labour intensive, requiring procurement through travel or exchange and implying intra-territorial knowledge, and networks of interaction . Scarcity required specialised knowledge of sources for direct acquisition or control of networks of exchange, making it a suitable medium for social (or political) manipulation . Erimi-Pamboula is located in south central Cyprus at the lower reaches of the Kouris . The long duration and apparent wealth of the site has been attributed to its proximity to this rich secondary picrolite source, the distribution of which the local population may have controlled (Bolger 1988: 128; Peltenburg 1991: 109) . Cruciforms were carved here, though they are generally of relatively unskilled execution and may reflect imitation, or competitive emulation, of more skilfully produced examples of the southwest . The distribution of waterworn picrolite blanks of Kouris blue and of manufactured pendants in areas distant from the resource zones indicates that picrolite may have been an exchange commodity, with evidence for importation of both raw picrolite and finished cruciforms, as well as localized pendant production (Peltenburg 1991) . Recent excavations of the settlement at Souskiou-Laona report widespread picrolite reduction activities, including zones dedicated to preparation of roughouts and ‘finishing’ of cruciforms, perhaps by ‘specialist’ artisans, in a dedicated workshop (Peltenburg et al. 2006b; Peltenburg 2011) . The site also yielded slabs of quarried tabular picrolite suitable for carving cruciforms . Standardization of types may suggest centralised production at Souskiou, with finished pendants of likely Souskiou manufacture occurring at other sites . 2 Souskiou is positioned near the entrance to the Dhiarizos river valley, occupying a nodal point within communication routes connecting coastal areas and linking the Mediterranean Sea with the Troodos Mountains (Peltenburg 2011: 683) . The settle-

2

The forthcoming publication of the excavation of the settlement of Souskiou-Laona will expand our understanding of resource acquisition and cruciform production, and increase the corpus of picrolite cruciform pendant figurines . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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ment is associated with four extensive extra-urban cemeteries, a mortuary arrangement without precedent in Cyprus, which is otherwise characterised by intra- and extra-mural interments within settlements . The Souskiou mortuary complex exceeds population estimates for the settlement, the complex perhaps representing a focal burial place for populations inhabiting a wider region (Peltenburg 2011: 684) . Specialised production of cruciforms in a dedicated workshop at this location strongly implies the symbolic significance of the picrolite cruciforms in mortuary ritual . The cruciforms vary considerably in size, degree of working and picrolite quality . The largest example (Fig . 3), of which only a fragment survives, is estimated to have been over 30cm in height (Goring 1998: 153) . Picrolite is not easily scratched yet can be readily worked with a tool . While the majority are relatively schematic some are highly elaborate and finely finished, exhibiting advanced technical and artistic skill . Singularity and redundancy in design may each imply value . Picrolite occurs mostly in the light or medium green to pale blue colour range (Munsell Plant Tissue Color Chart 5G 7/1 to 5G 6/2), though examples are known in grey and brown (Peltenburg et al. 2006a: 98) . Aesthetic values are implied by the apparent matching of pendants to form uniformly coloured pendant necklaces with dentalium spacers . An exquisite figurine from Souskiou-Vathyrkakas Tomb 85 (Fig . 4) demonstrates highly skilled craftsmanship, apparently carved to exploit the natural mottling of the stone while hiding from view the sole blemish, a small area of cortex hidden at the back of the head . While some tool-marks are visible on the front, these are mostly abraded out, the back surface was left relatively unpolished (Goring 2006: 67) . It would appear that the material properties of picrolite were carefully evaluated and manipulated to produce finished cruciforms which reflect aesthetic choices . This foregrounds the sensory dimension in their function as communicative acts of attention . The relatively flat, two-dimensionality of the majority of the cruciforms implies their purposeful design as ornaments to be viewed from one side, both maximising their visual impact and minimizing resource and labour costs . Body decoration functions in the construction of identities, serving as communicative markers expressing similarity or distinction . Use of desirable materials in jewellery may distinguish individuals or groups as possessing unique status through their ability to acquire, possess and control those materials . Cruciforms are widely thought to have been worn as single and occasionally multiple pendants suspended on single or double-stranded necklaces of dentalium shell beads (Fig . 5) . 3 Distinguishing between figurines and pendants, however, is not straightforward . Often the presence of a perforation is considered diagnostic, though unperforated cruciforms may have been suspended in other ways, likely secured

3

The frequently illustrated multiple pendant and dentalium spacer necklace from Souskiou-Vathyrkakas Tomb 23, however, is a conjectural reconstruction . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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beneath their heads . The famous figurine from Yialia (Fig . 1), for example, wears a tiny pendant replica of itself, suspended in this way . Often cruciforms show little or no evidence of pre-depositional wear (Goring 2006: 71–72), suggesting a primary mortuary function (Peltenburg et al. 2006a: 99) . In other cases, however, knocks, chips and scratches, imply circulation, while perforation wear indicates suspension, as in SVP 79/3 from Souskiou-Vathyrkakas where the hole has worn almost pear-shaped (Peltenburg 2006: pl . 26 .3), and in KM 2165 from Kissonerga-Mosphilia which is entirely worn through (Fig . 6) . In vivo use of the cruciforms is further attested at Kissonerga-Mosphilia where pendant KM 2165 was recovered from Floor 1 of domestic Building 834 (Peltenburg 1998: 50, fig . 48), and from Lemba-Lakkous where fragment LL 510 was found outside building B2, inside which the re-worked fragment LL 152 was recovered (Peltenburg 1985) . It is reported by Dikaios (1936) that the Erimi-Pamboula cruciforms derive from domestic contexts, though no further contextual information is provided . Cruciforms are associated with adult, adolescent and infant burials of both sexes (Peltenburg 1992) . On occasion, the dimensions of the cruciform and dentalium necklace preclude that they were worn by the individuals with whom they are interred . In Kissonerga-Mosphilia Grave 563, for example, the large cruciform figurine KM 2717 was recovered from the chest area of a 1 ½ year-old infant (Peltenburg 1998: fig . 57) . Over 10cm tall, this cruciform is too large to have been worn by the infant in life . Evidence of pre-depositional wear, however, indicates a prior uselife: perhaps worn by a relation of the deceased infant (Peltenburg 1992: 32; Goring 1998: 163) . The extremely large size of some exceptional examples suggests another function entirely – perhaps serving as cult figures or household charms . None, however, is self-supporting suggesting they may have been carried or held, or propped up in some way (Goring 1998:151) . Re-working, repair and re-fashioning strongly imply the high value of individual cruciforms . At some point, the head and part of the neck of SVP 79/2 from Souskiou-Vathyrkakas broke off . Subsequently, the broken edge was polished and a perforation drilled between the figure’s feet – a unique orientation in which the broken pendant may have continued in use suspended upside-down (Goring 2006: 87; Peltenburg 2006: pl . 26 .2) . This object was not casually discarded and easily replaced but had a value more durable than its original form . Perhaps cruciforms may on occasion be understood as inalienable possessions, with life-histories intimately connected with particular individuals (Weiner 1992) . Approximately 20% of the picrolite cruciforms are broken in some way . The majority of breaks appear in structurally vulnerable locations, and were likely accidental . Some, however, suggest deliberate damage . KM 1934 from Kissonerga-Mosphilia (Fig . 7) received extensive secondary treatment . After its head broke or was deliberately broken off, the pendant was re-perforated through the neck . It continued in use and shows signs of deliberate defacement – pecking, incisions and chips – and the smearing of ochre over its surface as well as exposure to fire (Goring 1992: 37) . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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KMyl 106 from Kissonerga-Mylouthkia (Peltenburg 2003: pl . 13 .7) shows evidence of pecking to the top of the head (Goring 2003: 173), while examples from Souskiou-Vathyrkakas likewise appear deliberately damaged . Pecking in the breast region of SVP 58/1 may be intentional (Goring 2006: 81) while the surface of SVP 65/1 is worn and highly polished, with gouge marks to the breast and a notched edge at the side of the less vulnerable stomach area (Goring 2006: 68) . Likewise figurine fragment SVP 67/1 (Goring 2006: 84; Peltenburg 2006: pl . 21 .2), the surviving head and neck of which were cleanly separated from the figurine body which was not found inside the tomb . The underside of the break is worn indicating that the fragment likely continued in circulation for some time prior to burial . The unique double-armed cruciform SL 866 was recovered from Building 34 at Souskiou-Laona (Peltenburg et al. 2006b: 98–99, fig . 22) . Roughly in the centre of the building was a pit containing an ashy fill, animal bones and, in a deliberate orientation (Peltenburg personal communication), a further picrolite cruciform in direct association with a copper spiral-form pendant (SL 554) (Peltenburg et al. 2006b: 98, fig . 21) . The association of putative special goods strengthens inference concerning their individual values, this arrangement at Souskiou-Laona providing a tantalising hint of the non-mortuary uses of the cruciforms . Funerary rituals – formalised, repeated social performances – are arenas in which social orders are negotiated, reiterated and transmitted . Deployment of valuables in mortuary contexts implicates the identities of the ritual actors and the deceased, and manipulates supply and demand, maintaining the scarcity of valuables through their removal from circulation (Brück and Fontijn 2013: 202) . Mourners maintain control and symbolic possession of sacrificed valuables, simultaneously leveraging advantage through conspicuous consumption, and perhaps generating indebtedness – and reciprocal favour – of the ancestors (Hubert and Mauss 1964 [1889]; Voutsaki 1997: 38) . Mortuary ritual is a powerful arena for expressing identity and generating distinction . Differentiated mortuary practices are evident at Souskiou-Vathyrkakas, most exceptionally in the enormous size of Tomb 73, which dwarfs all other tombs at the site (Peltenburg 2011: 684) . Inter-tomb variability in grave-goods implies social differentiation (Renfrew 1986: 153) . Though many are partially or entirely looted, several tombs stand out for the exceptional volume and quality of their grave-goods . Tomb 23 contained seven picrolite cruciforms, a copper spiral and three of the total of 36 ceramic vessels recovered from the cemetery (Peltenburg and Christou 2006: 14) . Tomb 86 contained an extraordinary eight vessels, including the exceptional anthropomorphic vessel SVP 86/20, alongside eleven picrolite cruciforms (Peltenburg and Christou 2006: 29–30) . Of the 82 Middle Chalcolithic tombs, only 19 contained cruciforms: it is clear that not all the Souskiou mortuary population were able, entitled, or wanted to be buried with cruciforms . It appears that picrolite cruciforms were subject to sumptuary restrictions or taboos . They are not, for example, found with anthropomorphic figurines fashioned from other materials . At Souskiou-Vathyrkakas, the only occasions where cruciforms associate with other anthropomorphic objects, distinctions which confirm this © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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rule apply . The terracotta anthropomorph from Tomb 86 (SVP 86/20), which contained numerous cruciforms, is not a figurine but a vessel, while the single cruciform associated with the fragmentary head of a terracotta anthropomorphic figurine from Tomb 29 (SVP 29/6) is one of the extremely rare cruciforms not fashioned from picrolite – it is made from bone (Peltenburg 2006: pl . 12 .4) . The only instance in which a picrolite cruciform shares a context with a figurine of a different fabric is in a refuse pit at Kissonerga-Mosphilia where the damaged picrolite head fragment KM 3095 was found in association with clay figurine leg KM 3100, both objects apparently broken and discarded (Goring 1998: 161) . 4. Conclusion Value theory provides a framework of behavioural analogies through which to apprehend and consider value and its workings archaeologically, and provides a powerful lens through which to apprehend meaning in prehistory . Utility, production, scarcity, exchange and consumption provide rich analytical fields through which to develop understandings of dynamics and mechanisms of cultural (re)production, foregrounding materialisations of value in the expression, negotiation and (trans) formation of identities . The picrolite cruciforms of Chalcolithic Cyprus represent a significant new social convention, with remarkable observation of and adherence to proscriptions relating to material, morphology and use . Deployed in a ‘dialectics of control’ by ascendant groups (Peltenburg 2006: 175), these objects can be understood as metaphors for identities and ideals, generating and expressing distinction through the marshalling of ideological and ritual symbolism . Bibliography Appadurai, A . 1986 Introduction: commodities and the politics of value . In: A . Appadurai (ed .), The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspectives . Cambridge, 3–63 . Bolger, D . 1988 Erimi-Pamboula: A Chalcolithic Settlement in Cyprus . British Archaeological Records International Series 443 . Oxford . 1996

Figurines, fertility, and the emergence of complex society in prehistoric Cyprus . Current Anthropology 37 .2, 365–373 .

Brück, J . and Fontijn, D . 2013 The myth of the chief: Prestige goods, power, and personhood in the European Bronze Age . In: H . Fokkens and A . Harding (eds .), The Oxford Handbook of the European Bronze Age . Oxford, 197–215 . Dikaios, P . 1936 The excavations at Erimi, 1933–1935 . Report of the Department of Antiquities Cyprus, 1–81 . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Goring, E . 1992 Secondary treatment of figurines: An example from Chalcolithic Cyprus . In: G . Ioannides (ed .), Studies in Honour of Vassos Karageorghis . Nicosia, 37–40 . 1998

Figurines, figurine fragments, phalli, possibly figurative worked and unworked stones, unidentifiable worked stone and pottery fragments . In: E . Peltenburg, Lemba Archaeological Project II.1A. Excavations at Kissonerga-Mosphilia, 1979–1992 . Studies in Mediterranean Archaeology 70/2 . Jonsered, 148–167 .

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Figurines, figurine fragments, unidentifiable worked stone and pottery fragments . In: E . Peltenburg, Lemba Archaeological Project III.1. The Colonisation and Settlement of Cyprus. Investigations at Kissonerga-Mylouthkia, 1976–1996 . Studies in Mediterranean Archaeology 70/4 . Sävedalen, 169–176 .

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Anthropomorphic and zoomorphic figurines and pendants . In: E . Peltenburg, The Chalcolithic Cemetery of Souskiou-Vathyrkakas, Cyprus. Investigations of four Missions from 1950 to 1997 . Nicosia, 67–90 .

Hicks, D . 2010 The material-cultural turn: event and effect . In: D . Hicks and M . C . Beaudry (eds .), The Oxford Handbook of Material Culture Studies . Oxford, 25–98 . Hubert, H . and Mauss, M . 1964 Sacrifice: Its Nature and Function . Chicago . Knapp, A . B . and Meskell, L . 1997 Bodies of evidence on prehistoric Cyprus . Cambridge Archaeological Journal 7, 183–204 . Marx, K . 1990 [1867] Capital, Volume I . Trans . B . Fowkes . London . Mauss, M . 1990 [1925] The Gift: the Form and Reason for Exchange in Archaic Societies . Trans . W . D . Halls . London . Miller, D . (ed .) 2005 Materiality . Durham, NC . Olsen, B ., Shanks, M ., Webmoor, T . and Witmore, C . 2012 Archaeology: The Discipline of Things . Berkeley . Papadopoulos, J . K . and Urton, G . (eds .) 2012 The Construction of Value in the Ancient World . Los Angeles . Peltenburg, E . 1985 Lemba Archaeological Project I: Excavations at Lemba-Lakkous 1976–1983 . Studies in Mediterranean Archaeology 70/1 . Göteborg . 1991

Local Exchange in Prehistoric Cyprus: An Initial Assessment of Picrolite . Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 282/283, 107–126 .

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Birth pendants in life and death: Evidence from Kissonerga Grave 563 . In: G . Ioannides (ed .), Studies in Honour of Vassos Karageorghis . Nicosia, 27–36 .

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Lemba Archaeological Project III.1: The Colonisation and Settlement of Cyprus: Investigations at Kissonerga-Mylouthkia, 1976–1996 . Studies in Mediterranean Archaeology 70/4 . Sävedalen .

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The Chalcolithic Cemetery of Souskiou-Vathyrkakas, Cyprus: Investigations of Four Missions from 1950 to 1997 . Nicosia .

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The prehistoric centre of Souskiou in southwest Cyprus . In: A . Demetriou (ed .), Proceedings of the IV. International Cyprological Congress. Lefkosia, 681–690 .

Peltenburg, E . and Christou, D . 2006 Catalogue of tombs and other features . In: E . Peltenburg, The Chalcolithic Cemetery of Souskiou-Vathyrkakas, Cyprus. Investigations of four Missions from 1950 to 1997 . Nicosia, 9–35 . Peltenburg, E ., Shortland, A . and Tite, M . 2006a Body ornaments, including non-figurative pendants . In: E . Peltenburg, The Chalcolithic Cemetery of Souskiou-Vathyrkakas, Cyprus: Investigations of Four Missions from 1950 to 1997 . Nicosia, 91–100 . Peltenburg, E ., Bolger, D ., Kincey, M ., McCarthy, A ., McCartney, C . and Sewell, D . 2006b Investigations at Souskiou-Laona settlement, Dhiarizos valley, 2005 . Report of the Department of Antiquities Cyprus, 77–105 . Polanyi, K . 1985 [1944] The Great Transformation . Boston . Renfrew, C . 1986 Varna and the emergence of wealth in prehistoric Europe . In: A . Appadurai (ed .), The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspectives . Cambridge, 141–168 . Ricardo, D . 1817 On the Principles of Political Economy and Taxation . London . Simmel, G . 2004 The Philosophy of Money, 3rd ed . London . Smith, A . 1994 [1776] An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations . New York . Ucko, P . J . 1968 Anthropomorphic Figurines of Predynastic Egypt and Neolithic Crete with Comparative Material from the Prehistoric Near East and Mainland Greece . London . Veblen, T . 2007 [1899] The Theory of the Leisure Class: an Economic Study in the Evolution of Institutions . New York . Voutsaki, S . 1995 Value and exchange in pre-monetary societies: anthropological debates and Aegean archaeology . In: C . Gillis, C . Risberg and B . Sjoberg (eds .), Trade and Production in Premonetary Greece: Aspects of Trade. Proceedings of the Third International Workshop, Athens 1993 . Studies in Mediterranean Archaeology and Literature, Pocketbook 134 . Jonsered, 7–17 . 1997

The creation of value and prestige in the Late Bronze Age Aegean . Journal of European Archaeology 5 .2, 34–52 . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Webmoor, T . 2007 What about ‘one more turn after the social’ in archaeological reasoning? Taking things seriously . World Archaeology 39, 547–562 . Webmoor, T . and Witmore, C . 2008 Things are us! A commentary on human/things relations under the banner of ‘social’ archaeology . Norwegian Archaeolgical Review 41/1, 53–70 . Weiner, A . B . 1992 Inalienable Possessions: The Paradox of Keeping-While-Giving . Berkeley . Witmore, C . 2014 Archaeology and the New Materialisms . Journal of Contemporary Archaeology 1, 203–224 . Xenophontos, C . 1991 Picrolite, its nature, provenance, and possible distribution patterns in the Chalcolithic period of Cyprus . Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 282/283, 127–138 . Xenophontos C ., Malpas, J . and Elliott-Xenophontos, C . 1992 The mineralogy of picrolites used for the manufacture of decorative artefacts in Prehistoric Cyprus . In: G . Ioannides (ed .), Studies in Honour of Vassos Karageorghis . Nicosia, 53–66 .

Fig . 1 CM 1934/III-2/2 (photo: S . Crooks; reproduced by permission of the Department of Antiquities, Cyprus) © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Fig . 2 Map showing sites mentioned in the text (graphics: S . Crooks)

Fig . 3 KM 943 (photo: S . Crooks; reproduced by permission of the Department of Antiquities, Cyprus)

Fig . 4 SVP 85/1 (photo: S . Crooks; reproduced by permission of the Department of Antiquities, Cyprus)

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Fig . 5 SVP 23/15–24 (photo: S . Crooks; reproduced by permission of the Department of Antiquities, Cyprus)

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Fig . 6 KM 2165 (photo: S . Crooks; reproduced by permission of the Department of Antiquities, Cyprus)

Fig . 7 KM 1934 (photo: S . Crooks; reproduced by permission of the Department of Antiquities, Cyprus)

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Images of Domestication: Context and Interpretation Anne Devillers 1 Abstract Images featuring animals are omnipresent in Near Eastern art . A fine-scale analysis of the frequency of species occurrence in a given time in selected localities is proposed, exploiting glyptic as a privileged media in such as providing an abundance of material from a homogeneous data source . A quantitative evaluation of images featuring animals on seals and sealings of known origin from the end of the 4th millennium to the second third of the 3rd millennium shows considerable differences between regions in several parameters, such as the prevalence of some domestic species over others or the ratio of domestic vs . wild animals . Examining these specificities in light of local paleo-environmental contexts and regional patterns contributes to the understanding of seal production agency and use and the codes that govern their iconography .

Domestic animals and scenes of animal husbandry or animal use are widely represented in Near Eastern glyptic from the late Neolithic onwards . These representations have been exploited to detect the existence, at a given time and a given place, of particular agro-pastoral or transport techniques (Collon 2005), but relatively little attention has been paid, at least for Upper Mesopotamia in the 4th and 3rd millennia BCE, to the relative frequencies of representations of various domestic animals, to the spatial and temporal variations in these relative frequencies, or to the ratios of domestic to wild animals found among the images . There has been little attempt to relate these parameters to the environmental and socio-economic contexts of animal husbandry and interactions with wildlife or to compare the place given to domestic animals by the producers and the users of the glyptic images to the importance of these animals in the real economy . This comparison can yield hypotheses on the concerns of these users and the distribution and evolution of these concerns (Fig . 1) . We examine here, through an inventory of the images of domestic animals detected on seals or sealings found in situ in five areas of Upper Mesopotamia, whether differences between periods and regions in the abundance ratio of domestic vs wild animals, the prevalence of some domestic species over others and the focus on a type of animal use can be related to contexts of climate and habitat, social and cultural conditions, networks of influence of local and regional urban centres and their relations to their hinterland, and information about centres and patterns of domestication . We do this, in part, through a comparison with the archaeozoological record . The period chosen for the survey extends from the end of the 4th millennium

1

Scientific Collaborator, Royal Museums of Art and History, Brussels . This research was funded by the Belgian Federal Science Policy Office (BELSPO) Interuniversity Attraction Poles Programme IAP 7/14: Greater Mesopotamia . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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to the second third of the 3rd millennium, that is from the late Uruk period (EJ 0–1) to the end of the Early Dynastic (EJ III/ED III), through the various Ninevite V stages (Rova 2013) . The regions considered are the Upper Euphrates, the Balikh, the Khabur, the Upper Tigris and the Diyala . They are, to the exception of the Diyala, the same as those investigated in a preliminary analysis of wild fauna (Devillers 2016) . 1. Environmental context The areas discussed in this contribution lie to the north of the 250mm rainfall line (Fig . 2) that separates areas where dry farming is possible from the semi-desert areas to the south where it is not (Wilkinson 2003) . This boundary has changed over time, ensuing variations in regional feasibility and practicalities of animal husbandry, an occupation highly dependent on small vagaries of that isohyet and thus on small shifts of climate and habitats . A persistent, gradual trend of drying runs through the 4th and 3rd millennia BCE, punctuated by episodes of severe drought at the end of the 4th millennium BCE and near the end of the 3rd millennium BCE (Kenett and Kenett 2006, Kenett and Kenett 2007; Roberts et al. 2011; Menze and Ur 2012) . Outside of these crisis periods, the climate, although deteriorating constantly, remains slightly wetter than today . The exact position of the isohyets during the wet and dry periods is difficult to evaluate based on the proxy data available . However, one can fairly safely assume that their situations would more or less correspond to those obtained for present-day wet years and dry years respectively, as inter-annual variations in rainfall, particularly severe in those regions, are of the same order of magnitude as the estimated secular variations . The period we are focusing on includes two prolonged periods of drought, at the end of the 4th millennium BCE and in the second third of the 3rd millennium BCE . A detailed reconstruction of Upper Mesopotamian potential vegetation has been conducted by Hillman and colleagues (in Moore et al. 2000) using climate parameters and edaphic conditions, actual vegetation and vegetation remnants . Moore et al. (2000) have combined this potential vegetation map with pollen sequences and carbonised plant remains to describe the probable vegetation cover in Upper Mesopotamia until the onset of the 4th millennium BCE, providing a baseline for the 4th and 3rd millennia BCE . When relating the situation of our study areas to climatic and vegetation reconstructions, it appears that environmental conditions were probably barely affected by the 3rd millennium drought along the lower and middle Euphrates up to the level of Mari . Indeed, below the 250mm isohyet, resources were probably always concentrated along the river, as the surrounding area, without irrigation, was only amenable to extensive pastoral activities . The upper Tigris region and the Diyala may also have experienced limited change, as they probably remained in a dense deciduous oak-Rosacea woodland situation . Higher reaches of the Syrian Euphrates, on the contrary, certainly suffered a severe loss of non-riverine woodland at some time be© 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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tween the 5th and the 3rd millennium BCE . There does not seem to be enough data to situate exactly the time of this loss . The proximity of the area to the 250mm isohyet and the regional topography suggest an effect of drought periods on the possibility of dry agriculture, at least in the south of the area . It is probable that a similar impact on woodland availability and dry agriculture possibility affected the Balikh and Khabur basins . Certainly, in the case of the Khabur, the impact was differential, much stronger on the southern part of the area than on its northern part . Deckers (2010) provides anthracological data for the Syrian Middle Euphrates in the 3rd millennium BCE . She finds a still fully developed riverine forest but little evidence for the persistence of Terebinth-Almond woodland away from the river . Summarising information available for the dry period of the 3rd millennium BCE, she notes the persistence of oak park-woodland in the very upper reaches of the Syrian Euphrates as well as along its Turkish course, in the Upper Khabur basin to below the latitude of Tell Leilan, and in eastern Upper Mesopotamia . The data are insufficient to establish the limit between woodland and steppe in the Balikh basin and in the Khabur basin . Riverine forests with species such as Populus euphratica, Fraxinus rotundifolius, Ulmus spp ., and, locally, Platanus orientalis, as well as dense thickets of Tamarix spp . and Vitex spp . persisted along the entire course of the Khabur and Balikh and along the Euphrates, at least above its confluence with the Khabur . 2. Socio-economic and cultural context Towards the end of the 4th millennium BCE, at the end or in the aftermath of the Uruk expansion, northern Syria and the upper Tigris basin returned to a principally rural organisation, with small administrative centres . Local traditions re-emerged and village life became the norm (Akkermans and Schwartz 2003; Van De Mieroop 2003; Riehl et al. 2012) . Starting around 2900 BCE, a new process of urbanisation took place in upper Mesopotamia with the appearance of a new material culture named, after its pottery style, Ninevite V . Urban conditions prevailed only from 2600 BCE on, with the constitution of city-states characterised by an accumulation of political power through agricultural surplus production . Walled cities and dense population concentrations reappeared . A complex administrative organisation, mostly centred on secular seats of power, became evident, particularly in the largest capital cities such as Tell Brak, Tell Chuera and Tell Hariri/Mari (Van De Mieroop 2003; Riehl et al. 2012) . Texts from Tell Beydar give indications on the organisation of one of these citystates (Sallaberger 2004; Sallaberger and Ur 2004; Ur and Wilkinson 2008; Riehl et al. 2012) . All or most of the population of the city was included in the central organisation . Collective labour underpinned the entire agricultural activity, involving both the urban centre and smaller satellite settlements . The organisation of collective labour included the central allocation of human resources, draught animals © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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and agricultural tools, the storage of grain in communal granaries and its regulated distribution to the population, the management of animal flocks that were entrusted to herdsmen, and the supervision of craftsmen . Some human resources, such as artisans involved in metal and textile production, military officials and the attendants of the court, were directly attached to the centres of power . The trade routes are particularly relevant to the circulation of images . In the second half of the 4th millennium BCE they appear to have predominantly linked northern Mesopotamia to southern Mesopotamia via the valleys of the Euphrates and the Tigris . Towards the end of the millennium they shifted to an arc that, originating in southwestern Iran, in the region of Susa, followed the piedmont of the Zagros and of the Taurus, linking the Diyala, the Upper Tigris basin, northern Syria and the Levantine area (Collon 2005: 20) . Southern Mesopotamia was no longer part of this network . Around 2600–2500 BCE, at the transition between southern Mesopotamian ED II and ED III, southern Mesopotamia regained its links to southwestern Iran and northern Mesopotamia (Crawford 1992; Collon 2005: 20, 27) . 3. Contribution of the archaeozoological record We have, in previous analyses (Devillers 2008; Devillers 2013; Devillers 2016), noted the limitations of the use of the artistic evidence as an indicator of the presence or relative abundance of species of wild animals in the local fauna at the assumed time of production of the images . They relate clearly to the cultural and socio-economic factors underlying the choice of animals represented . They also relate, however, to the probability for the inspiration of the images to be local and contemporary rather than remote or second-hand as well as to the accuracy of the allocation of the artefact to a locality and time of production . The same constraints exist of course when using glyptic representations and their frequency to evaluate the importance of a domestic animal in animal husbandry and in the industry of primary or secondary products . Similar categories of limitations apply to archaeozoological data . The first and most interesting filter is that of the choice of uses of animals by contemporary people . Like the choice of animals to depict, this choice yields information on the relation of the society to fauna or to domesticates . More than artistic representations, the archaeozoological record has been considered relatively free of other biases and capable of delivering unimpeded access to the ancient modes of production and use (Hesse and Wapnish 2001) . However, Hesse and Wapnish (2001), among others, point out several post-use taphonomic processes that considerably blur the picture . First, the way and place of discard profoundly differ between uses . Second, the conservation potential of bones differs between species . Third, bones and bone fragments are often very difficult or impossible to identify to species without recourse to genetic investigation techniques that have only recently become available . They remain hazardous in some cases and are costly . Fourth, the collection of bone material in archaeological excavations has often, mostly in the past, been casual © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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and insufficiently documented, with, in particular, little attention to indications of whether the bones had truly been deposited in the level they were associated with, or whether they were part of fill material, or reworked soils . This, of course, can also apply to pottery shards or fragments of sealings, but, in these cases, style can usually be a guide to dating . Dating of bone, which contains large amounts of organic material, would also be possible with a fair level of accuracy with biochemical techniques . However, this has rarely been done in the past because bone was thought to be poor material for such analyses . More recently, this was because the most adequate techniques of radiocarbon analyses were costly, required meticulous handling and preparation, and, besides, did not seem to be part of the culture of most archaeologists when bone was concerned (Higham et al. 2006) . It is only very recently that much less costly and very promising approaches have appeared (Harvey et al. 2016) . In spite of these obstacles, the consideration of a substantial number of archaeozoological records, especially when the most recent, most careful and clearly targeted efforts are privileged, gives an extremely useful insight, independent from that offered by the glyptic on the use of animals by ancient societies . It is even more relevant for domestic animals than for the wild fauna because the possible locations of discard are fewer and less likely to be overlooked in excavations centred on residential areas . We have therefore thought useful to compare our glyptic results to the archaeozoological record, not in absolute terms, which would make no sense, but at the level of relative proportions of representations . 4. Data A survey of the iconography of around 800 seals and sealings has yielded 300 identifiable representations of domestic animals on cylinder and stamp seals and sealings from 32 Uruk-period and Early Dynastic-period sites in the five main piedmont regions to the North and East of the Mesopotamian plain, the Upper Euphrates, the Balikh, the Khabur, the Upper Tigris and the Diyala . This material, gathered in the framework of a wider study on animal iconography, has provided the core data for this contribution . The figures discussed below are of course tributary to the amount of data available . For certain areas and certain periods, results, in parentheses in Table 1, are less reliable due to the paucity of data . Data were insufficient to provide credible estimates for Ninevite V on the Upper Euphrates . We have also examined the presence and relative abundance of sheep, goats, cattle and pigs reported in around 100 published archaeozoological samples obtained in sites situated within our areas of interest and related to the period considered . We have retained those that clearly indicated careful procedures and dedicated protocols . Integrating those records over a given area and period is challenging because of different modes of evaluation of the samples . We have endeavoured to extract from the reports comparable proportions of representation within the sample . The results of © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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this literature review are presented in Table 2 . Sheep and goat are combined, as many remains cannot be surely be attributed to one or the other without genetic analysis . 6. Contribution to reconstruction of agency, modes and audiences of visual communication and the perceptions they elicited Seals and sealings show cross-regional trends on which significant differences between regions and through time of several parameters are superimposed . Table 1 shows the preponderance of sheep and goat in almost all periods and all regions . Cattle never exceed goat and sheep, or even goat or sheep, except in ED III Upper Euphrates and perhaps in Ninevite V Balikh, for which, however the sample is insufficient . Frequency indices above 30% are however common . No domestic pigs were recognised in the sample under consideration . A few wild boars were found on glyptic from the Late Uruk of Habuba Kabira (Upper Euphrates) and ED III of Tell Brak (Khabur) . Equids seem to appear nowhere in the glyptic considered before ED III, except in the Khabur where several earlier representations occur, notably at Brak . Although it is impossible to ascertain whether or not these are domestic (no plow, harness, etc .), one must note the particular interest this area seemed to have in equids as early as the late 4th millennium BCE . In the second third of the 3rd millennium they are prominent in the Khabur region . The archaeozoological record summarized in Table 2 displays similar patterns, but with marked differences . Sheep and goat strongly dominate again in almost all periods and all regions . For ED III, their frequency indices are much higher than in the glyptic in northern Syria, lower in the Zagros vicinity . Cattle is usually present but with low abundance, seldom reaching or exceeding 10% . A value above 15% is only found in the late Uruk upper Euphrates, where cattle is poorly represented in the glyptic . Pigs are very present everywhere, with substantial percentages, particularly in Ninevite V and in the east . Domestic equids are insignificant, except in the Khabur . The high values claimed for the Diyala probably refer to a large part, or for some periods entirely, to wild animals of unclear identity . Comments accompanying the data indicate that in ED II–ED III, goat/sheep/cow are usually slaughtered as older animals, indicating that they are used primarily for secondary products . Comparison of the two sets of data reveals interesting patterns . A common parameter to all regions and all periods, not apparent in the tables, is the under-representation of wild animals in the glyptic compared to their frequency in the archaeozoological record . The archaeozoological record measures the post-mortem use of animals, the quantity of animals slaughtered or butchered in a settlement . It primarily relates to use for meat . It includes by-products of other forms of animal exploitation, offsprings or old ages of animals used for milk, wool or draught . It may in some cases include sacrificial use or use for hides . The glyptic, on the other hand, reflects the interests and the status of the seal users . In the words of Russel (2012) “… people depict animals because they are © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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food for thought rather than just food …” . The over-representation of wild animals, plainly states that the users of the seals and those to which they wanted to convey a message cared more about the symbolism attached to these animals and the glamorous activities of hunting and defence of herds than to the food supply . A lack of interest in meat production by the seal users can be argued through the case of pigs . They were clearly widely bred and used for meat as attested by their strong presence in the archaeozoological record, often second only to sheep/goat in quantity of remains identified . They are, however, totally absent, nearly everywhere, in the glyptic . Of the domestic animals concerned, pigs are the only ones that are mainly used for meat . Perhaps the low level of technicity involved in raising pigs in an environment such as that of the Khabur or the Upper Euphrates, where the oak parkland around villages can probably entirely support them, contributed to their lack of iconographical interest . Looking more closely at the domestic species ratio in the late 3rd millennium BCE, some interesting regional variations appear . In the second half of the 3rd millennium BCE, the economy of the large towns of the upper Khabur basin was centred on wool production, management of animals for traction and, locally, trade in equid hybrids . Agriculture was intensive and directed to feeding not just people but also animals . Complementary agricultural and pastoral pillars of the economy were to a large extent controlled by elite households . A glance at the figure shows that the glyptic reflects the interests of these elite households, with the dominance of wool-carrying animals, fairly often depicted with long hair, and the over-representation of traction animals, particularly equids, for which the Khabur basin was apparently specialised . According to this model, one sees a similar situation in the Balikh, except that in the absence of an equid industry, cattle were even more over-represented . The glyptic of the upper Tigris suggests that the wool industry was predominant, not an improbable situation in an area where the habitat had remained favourable and overgrazing was perhaps not yet an issue . The Upper Euphrates, coincidentally situated in the area of domestication of the aurochs, stands out with its overwhelming over-representation of cattle . The region, probably offered a highly favourable riverine habitat for cattle pasturing, and may have permitted the raising of high-quality animals and the organisation of high added-value derived activities . Pastoralism, however, although well present as indicated by the archaeozoological record, may have become arduous in the drying steppic environment, away from the river, and its organisation have turned to be less of an elite-activity . Acknowledgements I thank Professors Eric Gubel, Philippe Talon and Eugène Warmenbol for their continued support and I am grateful to Dr . Roseline Beudels and her collaborators of the Conservation Biology unit at the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences for their precious advice and many interesting discussions . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Menze, B . H . and Ur, J . A . 2012 Mapping patterns of long-term settlement in northern Mesopotamia at a large scale . Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 109 n . 14: E778–E787 . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Moore, A . M . T ., Hillman, G . C . and Legge, A . J . 2000 Village on the Euphrates . Oxford . Riehl, S ., Pustovoytov, K ., Domauer, A . and Sallaberger, W . 2012 Mid-to-Late Holocene agricultural system transformations in the northern Fertile Crescent: A review of the archaeobotanical, geoarchaeological, and philological evidence . In: L . Giosan, D . Q . Fuller, K . Nicoll, R . K . Flad and P . D . Clift (eds .), Climates, Landscapes, and Civilizations . Geophysical Monograph Series 198 . Washington DC,115–136 . Roberts, A . P ., Rohling, E . J ., Grant, K . M ., Larrasoana, J . C . and Liu, Q . 2011 Atmospheric dust variability from Arabia and China over the last 500 000 years . Quaternary Science Reviews 30, 3537–3541 . Rova, E . 2013 The Ninivite 5 period in northeast Syria . In: W . Orthmann and J .-W . Meyer (eds .), Archéologie et histoire de la Syrie I – La Syrie de l’époque néolithique à l’âge du fer. Wiesbaden, 107–118 . Russell, N . 2012 Social Zooarchaeology: Humans and Animals in Prehistory . Cambridge . Sallaberger, W . 2004 A note on the sheep and goat flocks – introduction to texts 151–167, Subartu 12, 13–21 . Sallaberger, W . and Ur, J . 2004 Tell Beydar/Nabada in its regional setting, Subartu 12, 51–71 . Ur, J . A . and Wilkinson, T . J . 2008 Settlement and economic landscapes of Tell Beydar and its hinterland . Subartu 21, 305–327 . Van De Mieroop, M . 2003 A History of the Ancient Near East c. 3000–323 BC . Malden, Mass . Wilkinson, T . J . 2003 Archaeological Landscapes of the Near East . Tucson .

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Area

Upper Euphrates

Balikh

Khabur

Upper Tigris

Diyala

Anne Devillers

Period

Cattle

Goats

Sheep

Equids

Late Uruk

9%

69%

22%

0

Ninevite V

–

–

–

–

ED III

60%

20%

20%

0

Late Uruk

(0)

(99%)

(1%)

(0)

Ninevite V

(80%)

(10%)

(10%)

(0)

ED III

24%

33%

40%

3%

Late Uruk

3%

59%

28%

10% (wild?)

Ninevite V

32%

63%

5%

0

ED III

19%

45%

24%

12%

Late Uruk

(8%)

(90%)

(2%)

(0)

Ninevite V

40%

58%

2%

0

ED III

2%

95%

3%

0

Late Uruk

(33%)

(34%)

(33%)

(0)

Ninevite V

20%

77%

3%

0

ED III

26%

68%

3%

3%

Table 1 Occurrence of domestic species representations in North Mesopotamian glyptic assemblages expressed as percentages of representations of all domestic ungulates

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Area

Upper Euphrates

Balikh

Khabur

Upper Tigris

Diyala

Period

Cattle

Sheep/ Goats

Pigs

Equids

Late Uruk

21%

78%

1%

–

Ninevite V

–

–

–

–

ED III

9%

81%

9%

1%

Late Uruk

–

–

–

–

Ninevite V

8%

80%

12%

–

ED III

2%

95%

1%

2%

Late Uruk

8%

86%

6%

–

Ninevite V

6%

79%

15%

–

ED III

7%

80%

8%

5%

Late Uruk

8%

75%

17%

–

Ninevite V

11%

56%

33%

–

ED III

4%

66%

29%

1%

Late Uruk

4%

91%

0%

5%?

Ninevite V

11%

39%

11%

39%

ED III

5%

61%

17%

17%

Table 2 Occurrences of domestic species in archaeozoological samples expressed as percentages of representations of all domestic ungulates

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Fig . 1 Map showing the isohyets 200–500 in greater Mesopotamia (after Wilkinson 2003: 102, fig . 6 .2)

Fig . 2 Herding at the foot of Tell Beydar, Syria (2010) (graphics: A . Devilliers) © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Between Myth and Kingship: The Epic of Early Syrian Ebla in the Narrative of Images Rita Dolce 1 Abstract The wealth of data from the Royal Archives in Palace G has made it possible to reconstruct the economic, social and, perhaps, political systems and structures of one of the leading kingdoms of Syria in the second half of the 3rd millennium BC, but not its mythical and ideological apparatus in the absence of ‘literary’ texts clearly connected to the roots of kingship at the site . Few images from Palace G maybe are connected to this issue and among these, male and female fragmentary heads are quite unique in the documentation from the royal palaces of Early Syria and Early Dynastic Mesopotamia, as the surviving ‘splinters’ of a system of visual communication strongly based on legitimation . Rather, the sources that can shed light on the mythical and ideological apparatus of Early Syrian Ebla are, on the one hand, the images of the palace glyptic and, on the other, the hundreds of wooden carvings, the largest corpus of wooden works hitherto recovered from the pre-classical Near East .

The data currently available on the wooden carvings from Royal Palace G of Mature Early Syrian Ebla form a very important body of knowledge . 2 This is due both to the exceptional nature of this corpus, the largest assemblage of wooden works hitherto recovered in situ 3 in the Near East, and to the added value specifically of these artefacts, extremely fragile and fragmentary and easily perishable even when kept under ideal conservation conditions for several decades . For this reason, it might be helpful to focus on some general points that have punctuated and guided our research, before suggesting a line of interpretation for the visual and ideological contents of these artefacts . 4 The durability of wood is an intrinsic property determined by the type of wood employed, the purpose for which it was used, the environment in which it found itself and the organisms responsible for decay; in all cases the diagnostic procedure

1 2

3 4

Università degli Studi Roma Tre-DSU . From the recordings of each individual piece in a database, to the photographs and drawings of many of the finds, the palaeobotanical analyses of some specimens and the patient reconstruction carried out many years ago by the conservators and by P . Matthiae of some known sequences, including that in Matthiae 1984, pl . 37 and facing text (TM .74 .G .1019; TM .74 .G .1012) . The over 500 fragments of wooden carvings were found in the North-West Wing of Royal Palace G, all in a single room – L .2601 – with the absolute majority lying at the base of the east wall: Dolce 2015: 124, fig . 7 . I personally carried out the most recent first-hand review of the wooden fragments discovered in Royal Palace G at Ebla, held and in part displayed at the museums of Aleppo (Alep) and Idlib in the autumn of 2010, a few months before the start of the current crisis. © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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should be carried out before any conservation work, according to the studies on this issue 5 . Obviously, these aspects intrinsically linked to the works are one of the criticalities with which we must deal during the study, alongside others that will be indicated below . The peculiar nature of the Ebla corpus also lies in the fact that finds of wooden artefacts are fairly rare 6; the few exceptions, in an exceptional state of preservation, include the equipment from the royal tombs of Ur (Woolley 1934: 256 (PG/1151), 275–276 (PG/800, PG/513), pls . 95, 118b); or, in far more recent times, the table from the tomb of Gordion (Fig . 1) and in the same burial the wooden remains that may provide the most useful parallels for the works from our corpus, belonging to a chair, with carvings of animal and plant subjects and framing registers with geometrical motifs7 (Fig . 2) . Even these, however, do not, in my opinion, provide definitive reference points for the analysis of the pieces from Ebla, except as concerns the general fact that they belong to furniture and furnishings; as a result they are listed among the ‘comparanda’ in the recent overall reconstruction of the Gordion wooden furniture .8 On the other hand, the simultaneous presence of various techniques of execution in the wooden carvings, from open-work carvings, to high relief and sometimes

5 6

7

8

Palanti 2013; an example of the application of non-destructive techniques to the study of wooden artefacts, with multispectral analyses, only in a few instances necessitating microsamples taken from the inside of the wooden core is in Maino and Biagi Maino 2004 . It is known that wood was used for the interior furnishings and decorations of important architectural monuments, from palaces to tombs, in Mesopotamia from the Uruk IV period and for the following three millennia both from archaeological remains and from written sources . Some traces of wooden coatings have been found from the period of the city-states of Mesopotamia and Syria, contemporary with the kingdom of Ebla, in the area of cemetery Y at Kish, and of the Royal Cemetery at Ur and in the palaces of Mari . Wood is also used, albeit sporadically, in the Akkadian period at Nuzi and during the III dynasty of Ur, from the area of the Mausoleum of Shulgi, to mention just the data from the 3rd millennium BC: cf . Moorey 1994: 358–359 . Of particular interest among the known documentation is a wooden installation found in level III of the Kassite period of the Temple of Enlil at Nippur; this is a sort of screen that does not present figurative decorations and that probably served to block the view from one cella to another (loci 10, 13) inside the sanctuary: McCown et al. 1967: 15, pl . 10 B, 25, 6 . Simpson 2010: 31–40, fig . 21, 112–116, pls . 104, 105; the context of these artefacts is dated to the 8th century BC: Simpson 2010: 7–9 . According to the Simpson (Simpson 2010: 113) the original dimensions of the chair must have been 60cm by 60cm rather than 80cm wide and 70cm deep as previously proposed by R . Young, given the actual find conditions of the chair legs, apparent in the photographic documentation . The remains of wooden carvings from Ebla attributed to a chair have not allowed for a reconstruction of its dimensions: Matthiae 1977: 87, 89 . Simpson 2010: 41–42 . The latter mentions as a point of comparison, as the most ancient specimen of the Near East, the table from Ebla of the tray-table type . Cf . Matthiae 1977: 86–87; Matthiae 2010: 75 confirms the proposed typology of these two pieces of furniture . Alongside the potential typological similarities between these two artefacts, we also find evident differences in the creative idea that informs the production of wooden artefacts at Ebla, aimed at celebrating the foundational episodes in the mythical origins of kingship in this place . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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sculptures in the round (Dolce 2014a: 652–654, figs . 5c, 7a, 11c) is a further peculiarity of this corpus and finds convincing parallels in the luxurious furniture taken as the spoils of war and displayed on Neo-Assyrian reliefs (Dolce 2014a: 654, fig . 10a) . This demonstrates the peculiar nature of this refined Eblaite production that does not have significant parallels over a period of hundreds of centuries . Another feature on which we should focus (see already Dolce 2015: 123) is the determination of the type of wood used, following the analyses carried out on a sample of some fragments . 9 These turned out to be made of the pomoideae species, whose taxonomy can be narrowed down to pear, apple or medlar; no further determinations are possible given the consolidation work undertaken on the fragments when they were discovered . These soft woods are still used today for craft working given their fine grain that makes them easy to carve and paint . However, they do not appear either among the species identified by palaeobotanical analyses among the remains from the site or among the species mentioned in the texts of the Ebla Archives . 10 The Ebla texts do tell us, however, that the Palace obtained various typically Mediterranean woods and essential oils at fairs, alongside resins and other types of coastal woods, not all of which were available in the Ebla region (Biga 2006: 342; Biga 2011: 85–86) . We can thus assume that the wood used for particularly valuable and finely executed works such as carvings, made in situ by skilled craftsmen from the palace workshops, was imported; unfortunately, however, we do not at present have further data on the basis of which to circumscribe the provenances, quantities and purpose of these woods . Exchanges of luxury wooden furnishings and even of inlaid panels between Mature Early Syrian Ebla and contemporary Ur have also been suggested – through a system of commercial relations between the two cities, perhaps via Mari or directly between the two (Pinnock 2006: 93–95) – on the basis of the more recent data from the written texts of Ur III and, for the region around Ebla itself, from those of the kingdom of Gudea (Owen 1992: 114–121) . Some time ago I recalled the sources of the Ur III Period, especially of Shu-Sin and of Gudea of Lagash, which mention Ebla as a town famous precisely for wood

9

The analyses were carried out in 2006 by Prof . G . Fiorentino, Laboratorio di Archeobotanica e Paleoecologia- Dipartimento di Beni Culturali at the University of the Salento . Data are available for only two of the seven fragments taken for analysis (T .M .74 .G .425, T .M .74 .G . 865) respectively fragments of garments and from the frames . 10 The most frequently mentioned species for furnishings and craft work are box and poplar: Conti 1997: 64–65 and passim; the texts mention large numbers of royal furnishings such as thrones and tables, accompanied by the technical details of their execution, made from wood of these two species: Pasquali 2005: 47–56 especially . As concerns Mesopotamia, by contrast, it is worth noting that apple wood is mentioned frequently in the texts from Presargonic Lagash for various types of pegs and certainly for those used in cart-ribs and wagons: Powell 1992: 114 . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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and also the presence of ‘messengers’ sent from Ebla to Ur for trade relations . 11 However, these reliable data refer to contacts with Ur during the time of the Late Early Syrian ‘Second Ebla’, in that lively phase of recovery that followed the period of Palace G and the unique palatine production of wooden carvings . The texts provide information on Ebla’s reputation for valuable wood that does not seem to be in keeping with the specific nature of the corpus of Mature Early Syrian carvings, made from types of wood absent from the local habitat and imported from elsewhere . In the absence of unequivocal evidence from either city, the probable pre-existing relationship in this specific sphere of craft production between Early Dynastic Mesopotamia and Ebla at the time of Archives remains an open question . Finally, with the exception of the remains of wooden beams burned during the destruction of Palace G, the wooden artefacts from Mature Early Syrian Ebla, aside from the corpus of carvings, are limited to a panel (Fig . 3) with two partial profiles of male human subjects in relief up to the top of the shoulders found in situ and used as the door of a cupboard for precious objects in L .2764 (Matthiae 1977: 71, figs . 27, 28; Matthiae 1984: pl . 41a and facing text) . The considerations already formulated by P . Matthiae on this work indicate the distance from the expressive criteria of contemporary Mesopotamia and reveal that in this case they had been surpassed . Equally, in my opinion, the formal and stylistic quality of most of the wooden carvings from the corpus marks an ‘otherness’ of both productions, Mesopotamian and Eblaite, showing perhaps the result of a more recent development on the part of the royal workshops and/or of different inputs on the part of the central power during the final phase of the Mature Early Syrian kingdom . The creative and ideological framework that can still be discerned from the disiecta membra of these over 500 fragments certainly suggests the existence of impressive visual programmes of communication, where the time of myth lies at the origins of the history of Ebla; the life-size male and female sculpted heads from Palace G may be surviving fragments of these programmes (Matthiae 1980a; Dolce 2008a: 151–153, pl . III, photo 5 b, c; Dolce 2014b: 191), within a broader system of communication strongly aimed at legitimation (Dolce 2014c: 194–196; Krasnik and Meyer 2001: 387–389 for some possibly comparable works) . It should be noted that the corpus of wooden carvings does not find exhaustive comparanda in figurative documents from Ebla with the exception of the images of the palatine glyptic, as was noted some time ago (Matthiae 1992: 236–238); nonetheless even these few, precious similarities do not resolve the issue, due certainly to the fragmentary state of the carvings, but also to other factors . Among the distinctive features of this Eblaite production, we should mention the recognizable variety of subjects depicted, though the relations between these within the overall framework of meanings and values to be communicated can currently only

11 Dolce 2001: 24–25 and notes 53, 56, 58; the data reported here concern contacts between Ur at the time of the 3rd dynasty and Ebla of the Late Early Syrian Period (EB IVB) . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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be guessed at . We find representations of male and female human subjects, mythical subjects (rare), animal subjects like bovines and caprids with the lion as the only feline (Dolce 2014a: 652); for some of these, I was able to reconstruct different size scales for series of the same human and animal subjects, 12 perhaps belonging to different artefacts . The underlying question is – whatever the original artefacts were, according to P . Matthiae and further hypotheses advanced by others, myself included, over the years (Matthiae 2010: 75–76, 156–158; Dolce 2015: 128–132) – whether this production was the expression of a unitary system of concepts and values linked to the foundational roots of kingship at the site, as we can assume . Were this the case, we would be dealing with a wide-ranging programme of visual communication, from epic-mythical deeds to present-day splendours of kingship in Early Syrian Ebla; this programme is certainly hard to reconstruct under the current conditions 13 and I am suggesting it here as a working hypothesis . Despite the variety of subjects of the corpus of wooden carvings, and in particular of male and female human subjects, it does not appear to include any deities, or at least any subjects identifiable as such on the basis of known iconographical canons . We do not even see the goddess of fertility, or the goddess attested on one occasion in the glyptic with her horned headgear, the only protagonist of the Ebla pantheon in the representations of the known palatine glyptic (according to Matthiae 1992: 231–232, 238); rather, it is the rank of royalty that presents close parallels between the two productions in the figure of the sovereign, the en of Ebla, as was noted some time ago for some iconographical and antiquarian features, from the turban to the garments (Matthiae 1992: 236 and passim) . The king’s craving for ‘protagonism’ in the visual and ideological apparatus of both programmes is evident, and marked in the wooden figure sculpted in the round (Fig . 4) by the symbol of established royal power displayed by the en, the axe . It seems to me that the presence of the king is manifested in different ways in the glyptic and in wooden carvings, suggesting different spheres of action: on the palatine seals, where he is paired with a female figure interpreted as the queen, the en tames animals and evokes a mythical time of dominion over nature on the part of his illustrious ancestors, the founders of the kingdom invested with royal sacredness . The en of the wooden image is an icon of earthly kingship with the symbol of his power, motionless and solemn in a sort of epiphany, where the sacred nature of this institution is

12 Dolce 2014a: 651–652, fig . 4; Dolce 2015: 122–123 and fig . 5; we see differences in height of 2cm among the largest and most intact figures and restorable fragmentary figures that reached a height of up to 13cm, like the female subjects, or 12cm, like the heroes and warriors . I have omitted here the wooden carvings on animal subjects with assaults by lions on bulls and goats, which recur in accordance with uniform schemes reconstructed some time ago as open-work inserts . 13 Practically in the absence of literary texts in the strict sense from the Archive documentation, as also noted by Matthiae 1992: 224; Matthiae 2008: 220–221. © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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already established . 14 This distinction, alongside some clues provided by the rest of the documentation and discussed below, suggests that the mythical world may have been evoked in a peculiar way in the programme of visual communication of the wooden carvings . Permanent and present kingship is not credited with dominion over nature as it is, on the other hand in the language employed in glyptic, but instead through a different ‘narrative’ that emerges by fragments from the corpus . This narrative has at least three major ideal levels, for each of which subjects were represented in actions or conditions denoting a sequence of the whole ‘narrative’ . P . Matthiae has already shown that the figurative programme of the wooden carvings is epic in tone and centred on the heroic sphere, though it also entails the presence of the king . He proposes that it is the outcome of a remote oral tradition connected to kingship . 15 Indeed, the epic sphere is absent from all other surviving images from Mature Early Syrian Ebla and marks a distinction of the corpus, an ‘otherness’ in the contents of the visual communication and its meaning . It seems to me that another original aspect also emerges, which appears to underlie the visual narrative: the link that we perceive in the figurative programme between a ‘before’ and an ‘after’, that connects the epic deeds, perhaps belonging to the oral tradition, to the present time of Ebla . Against this background, we can only propose partial reconstructions of individual subjects, and not of the original composition to which they belonged within a wide-ranging ideological tapestry; the latter unfortunately remains elusive at the current state of the documentation . In the beginning are the struggles between heroes who fight one another for a primordial primacy (Fig . 5); they also fight the only other fearsome enemy: savage nature par excellence, in other words the lion (Fig . 6); perhaps it may be worth noting that both heroes and lions are pierced by the same weapon but with variations in the type of hilt . 16 Here the mortal struggle is between equal forces, man and beast, a

14 Matthiae considers the wooden image of the en to be indicative rather of the ‘peculiar sacredness’ of kingship at Ebla, in the form of a theophany, different to the formulation developed in contemporary Mesopotamia: cf . Matthiae 1992: 236 . 15 Matthiae 1992: 239–240; for some considerations on the genesis of the Eblaite wooden production cf . Dolce 2006: 178–180 . 16 The existence of two different types of dagger hilt was noted by Pinnock 1997: 467, note 15 . The knob-shaped hilt is attested among the remains of the wooden carvings whilst the weapon with crescent shape hilt – already depicted on the more ancient ‘victory panel’ of Ebla and on local seal impressions of the Mature Early Syrian Period (Pinnock 1997: 465, fig . 7) – reappears with some variations in the royal funerary equipment from larger contemporary towns like Alaça Hüyük and Ur, and in the figurative documentation of Early Dynastic and Akkadian Mesopotamia . This weapon, which held a ritual significance, albeit uncertain and in any case ambiguous (cf . Pinnock 1997: 463–475), given the variety of contexts in which it appears, is not present in the known images of Eblaite kingship showing the living en, whilst it does feature in the aforementioned subjects: with the heroes of a mythical epic on the wooden carvings and with the soldiers intent on piercing the enemy in sequences showing hand-to-hand combat on the ‘victory panel’ . The sword with knob© 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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selection of the species for power and not a clash between an established power, the en and the lion, as was already the case in proto-historical Uruk (Hansen 1975: 182, pl . 68) . The handsome men of the Eblaite carvings are the predecessors and founders, in some sense, of the kingship to come, endowed with extraordinary capacities compared to ordinary mortals . Another level of the narrative celebrates kingship, as manifested in the figure of the king (Fig . 4) in its consolidated fullness, legitimated by the very fact that this is a sacred institution, descended from the epic deeds of the heroes . Around this icon there was probably a choral representation of the Eblaite court, rather than that of deities of the local pantheon or elements from the sacred sphere, 17 judging from the surviving fragments where women are a recurrent presence (Fig . 7): an inventory of the society of high-ranking and important women, the dam-en, that does not reappear in this choral form in the rest of the figurative documentation from Ebla, where individual images of important women stand out in a variety of different contexts and that in some cases may find echoes in the Archive texts . 18 It is likely that the male figures not apparently engaged in aggressive actions belong to the same context; they wear helmets with long cheek pieces and necklaces over their chests (Fig . 8) and may represent part of the highest ranks of the political establishment who assisted the en of Ebla in ruling the kingdom . 19 A slight but interesting clue to a further aspect of the system of concepts and values formulated in the corpus, are the hands holding and raising up cups and vases (Fig . 9), an allusion to human subjects engaged in actions connected with celebrations or rituals whose nature is impossible to define more clearly . These remains may be the surviving clues to the evocation of ceremonies, secular and/or cultic, of particular importance in the formation and government of Mature Early Syrian Ebla,

shaped hilt, also attested with some variants, in the sealings of Early Dynastic Mesopotamia (from Fara to Kish) and in a precious specimen from the RC of Ur (Pinnock 1997: 466), may have been chosen in the figurative programmes of the Eblaite royal workshops of the Mature Early Syrian Period as a lethal weapon against untamed nature in the primordial epic deeds of the heroes, ancestors and founders of kingship at the site: cf . on this also below . Terms identified referring to daggers, of small size, and hilts, also appear in the Eblaite texts: cf . Pasquali 2005: 139–140 . 17 Matthiae 1992, 231–232 notes the absence of divine figures in the context of the images; the tone of these representations is instead secular and regal . 18 These are female figures of very high rank portrayed in relief and in the round, all from Royal Palace G and the object of various interpretations: Dolce 2008b: 70–71, figs . 5, 8; Matthiae 2009; Dolce 2014c: 198–199, fig . 4; Dolce 2015: 128–130; Pinnock 2015: especially 3–5 . 19 Matthiae 1992: 238, proposes that the subjects of the wooden carvings are secular and military in nature; on a peculiar type of headgear, a sort of helmet, documented by a fragment of an almost life-size statue from the site of Atareb and considered some time ago by Matthiae 1980b to be a local Syrian type of headgear linked to Eblaite royalty, we could recall the considerations of the present author on the close parallels with the helmets worn by some figures, perhaps wearing parade uniform, who recur among the subjects of wooden carvings, as powerful exponents of the elite governing the kingdom’s military affairs: Dolce 2014b: 193, fig . 9a . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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rightfully occupying a significant space in the reconstruction through images of the mythical and real history of the kingdom . 20 Finally, we should note that the quantity of remains of garments and their variety, currently focused on two more recurrent types (Fig . 10), suggest a considerable number of human subjects (Fig . 11) possibly of both genders, in the ‘narrative’ that we are attempting to recover; this does not rule out the possibility that divine protagonists were present in the crowded world of the corpus of wooden carvings . At the current state of information and research on some of the larger groups of artefacts, it seems that in the programme of visual communication and in the ideological perspective of the wooden carvings, the mythical-epic world and the exhibition of consolidated kingship (in its sacredness) prevails over the divine sphere . Overall, this document thus seems to be a sort of manifesto of a founding epic of Eblaite kingship and its effects of stability and prosperity in times to come; heroes appear, in various guises (their strength and sculptural anatomy, their loincloths, hand-to-hand struggles) like the warriors of the Akkadian period, 21 protagonists in the ideological and visual programmes of the Akkadian sovereigns from the second generation onwards . I therefore ask myself if the display in the wooden carvings of themes hitherto unknown in the rest of the visual communication of Early Syrian Ebla (like heroes) or conceived in a different way (like kingship at its origins, with respect to the images on sealings) is aimed at a different construction of the tale of identity and legitimation of power, perhaps one of increasing importance in the final phase of life of the kingdom, under the growing prestige of the high fuctionaries who governed the political fortunes of the state and married into the royal family . 22 Bibliography Archi, A . 2010 Rank at the Court of Ebla . In: H . D . Baker and E . Robson (eds .), Your Praise is Sweet. A Memorial Volume for Jeremy Black from Students, Colleagues and Friends . London, 1–9 .

20 The few images of actions involving both humans and animals, with passing bulls held by people, already considered in my earlier studies (Dolce 2014a: 653, fig . 9b, c) do not belong to the epic or mythical sphere and may have been part of the sequence of these ceremonies. 21 Already Matthiae 1977: 90–91; Matthiae 1992: 241; Dolce 2006: 179–181 . for some issues and considerations on the Eblaite wooden production and the figurative culture of Akkad . 22 Cf . Dolce 2014c: 193, 200–204; among the powerful functionaries who assisted the en of Ebla, forming a sort of caste, an outstanding figure is the prime minister, Ibbi-Zikir, who played the role of military leader according to the Eblaite texts: cf . Matthiae 2008: 131 . He was honoured for his victories in the field, especially against the city’s great rival Mari, with rich gifts . He seems to have been, thanks to his leading role, the head of the institution of the lugal, who assisted the sovereign . The central and increasingly predominant role of high functionaries in the kingdom of Ebla and its government emerges clearly from the textual documentation: see Biga 2010: 41–43, and Archi 2010: 7–9 . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Biga, M . G . 2006 Some Thoughts on Fairs, Temples and Weights . In: M . E . Alberti, E . Ascalone and L . Peyronel (eds.), Weights in Context. Bronze Age Weighing Systems of the Eastern Mediterranean. Chronology, Typology, Material and Archaeological Context, Proceedings of the International Colloquium, Rome 22nd–24th November 2004 . Studi e Materiali 13 . Rome, 341–45 . 2010

War and Peace in the Kingdom of Ebla (24th Century BC) in the First Years of Vizier Ibbi-zikir under the Reign of the Last King Išar-damu . In: M . G . Biga and M . Liverani (eds .), Ana turri gimilli, Studi dedicati al Padre Werner R. Mayer, S. J. da amici e allievi . Vicino Oriente 5 . Rome, 39–57 .

2011

La lana nei testi degli Archivi reali di Ebla . In: E . Ascalone and L . Peyronel (eds .), Studi Italiani di Metrologia ed Economia del Vicino Oriente Antico dedicati a Nicola Parise in occasione del suo settantesimo compleanno . Studia Asiana 7 . Rome, 77–92 .

Conti, G . 1997 Carri ed equipaggi nei testi di Ebla . Miscellanea Eblaitica 4. Quaderni di Semitistica 19 . Florence, 23–71 . Dolce, R . 2001 Ebla after “The Fall” . Some Preliminary Considerations on EB IVB City . Damaszener Mitteilungen 13, 11–28 . 2006

Ebla and Akkad: Clues of an Early Meeting . Another Look at the Artistic Culture of Palace G . In: F . Baffi, R . Dolce, S . Mazzoni, A . Enea and F . Pinnock (eds .), Ina Kibrāt Erbetti. Studi di archeologia orientale dedicati a Paolo Matthiae . Rome, 173–196 .

2008a Human Beings and Gods at Ebla in the Early and Old Syrian Periods: Some Suggestions . Orientalia 77, 145–172 . 2008b Ebla before the Achievement of Palace G Culture: An Evaluation of the Archaic Early Syrian Period . In: H . Kühne, R . M . Czichon and J . F . Kreppner (eds .), Proceedings of the 4th International Congress of the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East, 29 March–3 April 2004, Freie Universität Berlin, Volume 2 . Berlin, 65–80 . 2014a On the Wooden carvings from Ebla: Some Suggestions from Work in Progress . In: P . Bieliński, M . Gawlikowski, R . Koliński, D . Ławecka, A . Sołtysiak and Z . Wygnańska (eds .), Proceedings of the 8th International Congress on the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East, University of Warsaw, 30 April–4 May 2012, Volume 1. Plenary Sessions, Township and Villages, High and Low – The Minor Arts for the Elite and for the Populace . Wiesbaden, 649–665 . 2014b The Language of Kingship at Mari and Ebla in the Third Millennium BC: A Comparative Approach . In: P . Butterlin, J .-C . Margueron, B . Muller, M . Maqdissi, D . Beyer and A . Cavigneaux (eds .), Mari, ni Est ni Ouest. Actes du colloque tenu les 20–22 octobre 2010 à Damas, Syrie . Syria Supplement 2 . Beyrouth, 183–206 . 2014c The Ebla Families . In: L . Marti (ed .), La famille dans le Proche-Orient ancien: réalités, symbolismes, et images. Proceedings of the 55th Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale at Paris, 6–9 july 2009 . Winona Lake, 193–206 . 2015

Wooden Carvings of Ebla: Some Open Questions . In: A . Archi (ed .), Tradition and Innovation in the Ancient Near East. Proceedings of the 57th Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale at Rome, 4–8 July 2011 . Winona Lake, 121–134 .

Hansen, D . P . 1975 Frühsumerische und Frühdynastiche Flachbildkunst . In: W . Orthmann (ed .), Der Alte Orient . Propyläen Kunstgeschichte 14 . Berlin, 179–193 . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Krasnik, K . and Meyer, J .-W . 2001 Im Tod den Göttern nahe . Eine prunkvolle Bestattung in Tell Chuera, Nordsyrien . Antike Welt 32, 383–390 . McCown, D . E ., Haines, R . C . and Hansen, D . P . 1967 Nippur I . Oriental Institute Publications 78 . Chicago . Maino, G . and Biagi Maino, D . 2004 Indagini sulla caratterizzazione e la datazione di sculture lignee . In: G . Sapori and B . Toscano (eds .), La deposizione lignea in Europa . Milano, 677–711 . Matthiae, P . 1977 Ebla. Un impero ritrovato . Torino . 1980a Some Fragments of Early Syrian Sculpture from Royal Palace G of Tell Mardikh-Ebla . Journal of Near Easter Studies 30, 249–273 . 1980b Appunti di iconografia eblaita, II . Studi Eblaiti II/2–3, 41–47 . 1984

I tesori di Ebla . Bari .

1992

Figurative Themes and Literary Texts . In: P . Fronzaroli (ed .), Literature and Literary Language at Ebla . Firenze, 219–241 .

2008

Gli Archivi Reali di Ebla . Milano .

2009

The Standard of the maliktum of Ebla in the Royal Archives Period . Zeitschrift für Assyriologie und vorderasiatische Archäologie 99, 270–311 .

2010

Ebla La Città del Trono . Torino .

Moorey, P . R . S . 1994 Ancient Mesopotamian Materials and Industries . Oxford . Owen, D . I . 1992 Syrians in Sumerian Sources from the Ur III Period . In: M . Chavalas and J . L . Hayes (eds .), New Horizons in the Study of Ancient Syria . Bibliotheca Mesopotamica 25 . Malibu, 101–175 . Palanti, S . 2013 Durabilità del legno. Diagnosi del degradamento, trattamenti preventivi e curativi . Palermo . Pasquali, J . 2005 Il lessico dell’artigianato nei testi di Ebla . Firenze . Pinnock, F . 1997 Tipologia di un pugnale rituale del III millennio A .C . In: P . Matthiae (ed .), Studi in memoria di H. Frankfort (1897–1954) . Contributi e Materiali di Archeologia Orientale 7 . Rome, 463–493 . 2006

Ebla and Ur: Exchanges and contacts between two great capitals of the ancient Near East . Iraq 68, 85–97 .

2015

The King’s Standard from Ebla Palace G . Journal of Cuneiform Studies 67, 3–22 .

Powell, M . A . 1992 Timber production in Presargonic Lagaš . Bulletin in Sumerian Agriculture 6, 99–122 . Simpson, E . 2010 The Furniture from the Tumulus MM. The Gordion Wooden Objects, Volume I . Boston – Leiden . Woolley, C . L . 1934 Ur Excavations II. The Royal Cemetery . London – Philadelphia . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Fig . 1 Table from the Gordion Tumulus according to the most recent reconstruction (after Simpson 2010: fig . 21)

Fig . 2 Furniture from the Gordion Tumulus (after Simpson 2010: pls . 104, 105) © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Fig . 3 Wooden panel with male heads in relief . Ebla (Tell Mardikh), Royal Palace G, L .2764 (after Matthiae 1984: pl . 41a)

Fig . 5 Heroes fighting .TM .74 .G .1011, TM .74 .G .1028 (reconstructive hypothesis) . Ebla (Tell Mardikh), Royal Palace G, L .2601 (© MAIS)

Fig . 4 King with royal insignia .TM .74 .G .1000 . Ebla (Tell Mardikh), Royal Palace G, L .2601 (© MAIS)

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Fig . 6 Fight between a hero and a lion . TM .74 .G .1007+1008, 1009 . Ebla (Tell Mardikh), Royal Palace G, L .2601 (© MAIS)

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Fig . 7 Figures of court women . TM .74 .G .1016, TM .74 .G .400, TM .74 .G . 699 (reconstructive hypothesis) . Ebla (Tell Mardikh), Royal Palace G, L .2601 (© MAIS)

Fig . 8 Warriors wearing helmets with cheek pieces . TM .74 .G .1017, TM .74 .G .697, TM .74 .G .1027 . Ebla (Tell Mardikh), Royal Palace G, L .2601 (© MAIS)

Fig . 9 Characters with cups and bowls . TM .74 .G .370, TM .74 .G . 891 . Ebla (Tell Mardikh), Royal Palace G, L .2601 (© MAIS) © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Clothes

30% 70%

tufts with wavy lines tufts of triangular section Fig . 10 Diagram showing the percentages of two types of clothes

Fig . 11 Human subjects with remains of garments .TM .74 .G .767,TM .74 .G .359, TM .74 .G .835,TM .74 .G .360 .Ebla (Tell Mardikh), Royal Palace G, L .2601 (© MAIS)

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Approaching a Deity: Near Eastern Presentation Scenes and the Aegean Veronika Dubcová 1 Abstract The religious iconographical systems of the Bronze Age Aegean and of contemporary Near Eastern cultures were in many ways related . In contrast to the Near East, Aegean iconography and belief system remain largely confusing due to the missing relevant written sources . The so-called presentation scenes depicting the main divine or divinized figures receiving an audience hold a prominent position among the motifs in both regions . A closer look at the Near Eastern scenes, an analysis of their counterparts in the Aegean, and their mutual comparison testify to their relationship and to the indebtedness of the Aegean to its eastern neighbours . They provide some information about the approach of the Aegeans towards the foreign elements and shed some light on the process of the adoption and adaptation of the Near Eastern scenes by the Aegean artists . The study of all these features thus contributes to our understanding of these scenes as well as of the visual presentation of the Aegean belief system in general .

1. Introduction It is a widely acknowledged fact that Aegean Bronze Age iconography is indebted to the imagery of the Near East, an observation supported by rich evidence of mutual contacts with contemporary cultures (Crowley 1989; Aruz 2008; Aruz et al. 2013) . A vast number of foreign motifs occurring already in the Old Palace period (Aruz 2008: 82–112) together with the abrupt emergence of complex and elaborated religious scenes, lacking any clear predecessors and perceptible indigenous development in the older periods, suggest the possibility of an external inspiration (Blakolmer 2015: 207–211; Koehl 2013) . The visualisation of the Aegean belief system was very different from Near Eastern iconography, with selective choice of media, represented motifs, and the use of unique images in almost every case (Crowley 1989: 269–283) . Our knowledge of the Aegean religious belief system is very restricted and the interpretation of the scenes remains highly problematic due to lack of an eloquent written evidence and by the great variability of the depictions, without a clearly canonized presentation of divine figures and their attributes (Crowley 2008; Blakolmer 2010; Niemeier 1989: 164–167) . Nevertheless, the visual appearance of the figures, their activities and connected motifs, and the compositions as a whole, can be in many aspects compared with the actors of Near Eastern presentation scenes (Aruz 2008: 175) .

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Institut for Classical Archaeology, University of Vienna . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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2. Ancient Near Eastern presentation scenes The so-called presentation or audience scenes constitute one of the most characteristic themes in all of Near Eastern iconography . Occurring especially in glyptic art, they typically depict standing individuals who, with or without the mediation of a minor deity, confront a main seated or standing divine figure (Pittman 1987: 24–26) . In most cases, direct contact between the worshipper and the primary deity was limited and depended on the status of both figures; contact was mostly mediated through other participants in the scenes (Haussperger 1991; Keel and Schroer 2004: 40–41, 94–95) . It is assumed that the scenes depict actual rituals performed within the temple cult service (Haussperger 1991: 77) . Their depictions follow two main purposes . First, to obtain the favour and support of the deity and second, to allow human figures, often the main votaries and seal owners, to express their devotion to the cult and ideology (see esp . Winter 1986) . Worshippers and offering bearers begin to appear in the iconography during the Uruk/Jemdet Nasr period (c . 4000–2900 BC)2 either in the context of ritual ceremonies in the service to a deity (Fig . 1) (Amiet 1980b: 87–100, pls . 45–47, esp . nos . 44, 69) or in the more private context of banquets and of the funerary services for the deceased . The latter are probably related to Egyptian mortuary cult scenes (Kaelin 2006: 52–58) . The social hierarchy and roles of the figures appearing in banquet scenes were transferred to the depictions of the deities and their veneration on the later presentation scenes (Schroer 2008: 185–187; Amiet 1980b: 121–130, pls . 88–93; Collon 1987: 27–28) . These veneration scenes became even more popular within the Early Dynastic period (2900– 2350 BC) . It was, however, during the innovative Akkadian period (2350–2150 BC) with its newly emerging iconography illustrating the rich mythological world, when the participants – mostly various deities – become more clearly designated, reflecting their representation in monumental art (Figs . 2–5) (Boehmer 1965: 110–114; Moortgat 1966, 22–23; Keel-Leu and Teissier 2004: 49–50; Schroer and Keel 2005: 184–187) . This development reaches its peak in the Ur III period (2100–2000 BC) . The scenes were given a standardized scheme through distinctive depictions of figures and their compositions . In contrast to previous periods, now also the divinized king is shown as the seated receiver of the adoration or offering in the so-called royal introduction scenes (Winter 1986; Collon 1987: 36–39; Keel-Leu and Teissier 2004: 76–87) . In this new form, the motif became a foundation for further iconographic evolution within later periods in Mesopotamia and in other neighbouring regions . In addition to the Ur III style introduction scenes, another depiction common during the Old Babylonian period (2000–1600 BC) entailed two or three standing figures participating in adoration scenes with an increasing number of symbols, side scenes, minor deities and

2

The approximate absolute dates are taken from: ‘Mesopotamia, 8000–2000 BC’ and ‘Mesopotamia, 2000–1000 BC’ In: Heilbrunn, Timeline of Art History . The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000 . http://www .metmuseum .org/toah/ht/?period=02®ion=wam (last access 03 .08 .2016) New York . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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fantastic creatures (Figs . 6–7, 10) . Such depictions are also present in a more abbreviate form in the Kassite period (Moortgat 1966: 35–42; Al-Gailani Werr 1988: 6–8, 24–30; Matthews 1990: 27–60; Buchanan 1981: 278–279, 313) . Old Assyrian rulers adopted these scenes as well (Eppihimer 2013) and these representations have inspired also the Anatolian officials and merchants during the Old Assyrian Colony Period (1950–1750 BC) to represent themselves in a similar way (Fig . 8) (Collon 1987: 41–44; Keel-Leu and Teissier 2004: 249–266; Özgüç 2006: 33–36, 40–43) . The structure and elements of the scenes were mixed with local and other foreign motifs, resulting in vivid compositions . Syria and Palestine also contributed to this exchange of motifs, with their scenes inspired by Anatolian and Babylonian versions . On the Syrian seals, local rulers were depicted as the recipients of worship or as the worshippers of deities (Collon 1987: 52–55; Otto 2000: 223–233; Keel-Leu and Teissier 2004: 267–293) . Developing from the Syrian, Old Babylonian and Kassite traditions, Mitanni seals and Cypriot seals constituted the latest reworking of the scene (Teissier 1984: 94; Matthews 1990: 47–54) . This brief overview illustrates that from the late 3rd until the late 2nd millennium BC, the motif was used throughout the Near East, with both obvious similarities as well as local variations in theme and composition . The main actors of the scene are above all the receiving figure, represented by the primary deity or the mortal or deified ruler and the introducing or suppliant deity, most often the female Mesopotamian goddess Lama or the naked frontal goddesses (Figs . 3, 6, 7, 9–10) . These goddesses appear in the Old Babylonian, Syrian and Anatolian glyptic, together with numerous and often unspecified male deities or attendants . Further, there are sometimes one or more worshippers, human or divine, who adore the deity or carry offerings . Many other figures can also participate in the composition, providing context for the meaning of the scene or enhancing its effect and magical character through their powers . It is important to note that the deities are not always clearly defined and identifiable, the receiver of adoration or offering can be god as well as a ruler or official (Schroer 2008: 294–295), and minor deities can also appear in the role of worshipers in front of other deities or rulers (minor male deities in the Akkadian glyptic: Boehmer 1965: Taf . XLVI, nos . 536–539; Lamma in the Old Babylonian glyptic: Al-Gailani Werr 1988: pls . XI, XII; Syrian naked goddess: Otto 2000: Taf . 32, no . 397) . 3. Aegean scenes Similar figurative scenes, where at least one of the depicted individuals can be considered divine and/or somehow superior in relationship to other associated figures, constituted an important theme within Aegean iconography . They are found largely on seals and sealings (see also definition of the motif by: Crowley 2013: 63–65), wall-paintings, and small relief-decorated or painted objects . What makes the Aegean images and our understanding of them much more difficult in comparison to their Near Eastern counterparts is the lack of clear canonized prototypes of the individual figures . Although this phenomenon of lacking the canonization also appears often in the Near © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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East (Teissier 1984: 67, 77), in the Aegean, only very few images are duplicated . In most cases, we are not even able to distinguish between the human and divine, let alone identify the figures . Lacking clear attributes such as, for instance, the horned crown, divine figures must be identified by several diverse criteria (Galanakis 2005: 77–86; Crowley 2008; Niemeier 1989) . An analysis of their visual appearance and a comparison with the Near Eastern examples of participants in presentation scenes could help us estimate their characteristics, functions or status (as in Matthews 1990: 28) . Furthermore, this Near Eastern prism also opens up the possibility of identifying the associated subordinate figures as representing minor deities, priests or servants . A remarkable contrast between the Aegean and Near Eastern scenes is the number of female figures in the role of the main deity in the Aegean, depicted in positions usually taken by male figures in the Near East . The gender of the figures and their positions built thus one of the most important criteria by their analysis . Similarities between the Aegean and Near Eastern scenes are clearly visible in some of the compositions and associated iconographical elements . The most common Aegean scenes present a seated female receiving one or more female figures (Figs . 11–13) (e .g . CMS I, no . 17; I, no . 361; II .3, no . 103; II .6, no . 5; II .8, no . 268; XI, no . 30), a seated female receiving a male figure (Figs . 14, 16, 17) (CMS I, no . 101; V, no . 199; X, no . 261) and a seated female receiving mixed group of figures (e .g . Soles 2016) . Only occasionally, a standing female receives figures (e .g . CMS II .8, no . 256; fresco from Mycenae: Rehak 1992) and, in some cases, standing male and female figures are of equal size and position (Fig . 15) (CMS II .7, no . 5; II .8, no . 269; VI, no . 280; XI, no . 28) . Peculiar are scenes, where small scaled female or male standing figures appearing high, as if hovering in the air, seem to be the focus of adoration or greeting by another larger human figure (Figs . 12, 14, 16, 18) (CMS VI, no . 281, no . 278; I, no . 292) . Also common are scenes where a standing male figure receives an obviously male worshipper as on the Aegean cylinder seal (CMS IS, no . 113), on the so-called ‘Chieftain Cup’ from Agia Triada (Warren 1969: 37, P197) or on a painted vessel from Phylakopi (Poursat 2008: 270, fig . 387) . These are nevertheless understood to represent humans, since they lack other elements that would distinguish them as deities (Koehl 1986) . 4. The relationship of the participants and their identity By examining the scenes displaying a seated female figure receiving one or more females (Figs . 11–13), we can recognize that the visual rendering of both figures is actually very similar . They lack clear divine attributes except for the ritual dress, the flounced skirt or kilt, a feature being most probably of Near Eastern origin (Jones 2015: 155–217) and they perform somewhat similar gestures . The seated position is often the only element suggesting the higher and probably divine status of one of the figures . Among the other motifs enhancing the identification of the figure as divine are the offerings or objects carried by the suppliants (vessels, flowers, clothes: CMS II .8, no . 268; CMS I, no . 17); the main figure’s special seats, represented by a kind © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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of throne, architectural platform, rocky cairn or ground (Rehak 1995; Younger 1995: 188–193); and the presence of some animals or fantastic creatures such as monkey or griffin (CMS II .3, no . 103; fresco from Xeste 3: Betancourt 2007: fig . 6 .15) . Crucial with regard to their identification and interpretation of the scenes is the appearance of trees, denoting the setting for worship and rituals (Marinatos 1989) and especially the depiction of the so-called ‘tree shaking ritual’ (Fig . 12, 16) . The combination of this probable ritual performance (also together with the ‘leaning on baetyls’) with the appearance of the sometimes seated divine figures led to the widely acknowledged interpretation of the scenes as the real epiphany of deities or of an enacted epiphany . In the latter, the deity is substituted by a mortal figure, cult servant, priest, ruler, etc . (see: Hägg 1983; Warren 1988; Dimopoulou and Rethemiotakis 2004; Crooks 2013) . In Near Eastern cultures, the seated position is almost exclusively reserved for deities or deified rulers . Seated or enthroned female deities occur most often in Akkadian and Ur III iconography and represent various vegetation goddesses (Boehmer 1965: 94–97; Collon 1982: 99–101; Haussperger 1991: 128–130; Keel-Leu and Teissier 2004: 426, no . 99) or sometimes the war and love goddess Ishtar (Boehmer 1965: 65–69, pl . 32, nos . 383–388; Haussperger 1991: no . 32) (Figs . 2, 5) . Frequently, however, the gender of the seated figure is indeterminate (Collon 1982: 104) . Also during these periods we find rare scenes where one female or a group of female figures approach a seated female deity (Fig . 2) (Boehmer 1965: pl . XXXII, 384, 386; Buchanan 1966: pl . 29, no . 375; Buchanan 1981: 214–215, no . 561) . In most cases, the female figure approaching the deity with a gesture of greeting or adoration is leading other worshipers and is identified as the interceding or supplying goddess Lama or Lamassu (Figs . 3, 7) (Spycket 1960) . From other Near Eastern periods and regions, seated female figures are rather exceptional; they occur sometimes in Syrian and Anatolian glyptic (Otto 2000: no . 401; Özgüç 2006: no . CS 409) . In the Aegean, male figures approach seated females less frequently than in the Near Eastern examples and the scenes look slightly different (CMS I, no . 101; CMS V, no . 299; CMS X, no . 261; golden signet ring from Poros (further ‘Poros ring’): (Dimopoulou and Rethemiotakis 2000); ivory pyxis from Mochlos (further ‘Mochlos pyxis’): (Soles 2016: pl . LXXXIIa) . Only very rarely, they seem to take the role of cult servants, carrying what are probably cloth-offerings towards a standing female figure (CMS II .3, no . 145) . In the remaining seal images, they do not seem to represent ordinary worshipers (with some exceptions, e .g . Fig . 14) . The gestures of both the male figure and the female rather suggest a kind of closer contact or even mutual communication (Figs . 16, 17) (see: Koehl 2001: 239–240; or Marinatos 2010: 153–155) . Although in most cases the male figures appear to be smaller than the seated female, they are distinguished by other elements such as weapons, special headgear, floating objects, their placement on a platform, or a kind of victorious posture . As illustrated on the ‘Mochlos pyxis’ (similar also CMS VS3, no . 68), in some cases the approaching men are followed by a group of mixed figures, indicating that they are either leading the worshipers or are supported by them (Soles 2016: 250–251) . Comparably, standing directly in front of the goddess in Near Eastern images are © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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mortal male worshipers, often supported by suppliant deities (in Akkadian glyptic: Boehmer 1965: pl . XXXII, 383, pl . XLVI, no . 542; also Buchanan 1966: pl . 29, no . 380; in Syrian glyptic: Otto 2000: pl . 32, no . 401), however, more frequently these are the cult attendants and minor deities . Most popular was the figure termed as the ‘Man/King/God with mace’ or the ‘Victorious ruler’ in Old Babylonian iconography, often interpreted as a real or divinized ruler or so-called Shedu, a protective ghost almost always standing in front of the intermediary goddess Lama or other deities (Fig . 10) (Moortgat 1966: 37–44; Al-Gailani Werr 1988: 17, 39, 49; Keel and Schroer 2004: 102–103, nos . 54–55) . In Syrian iconography, the role of Shedu is taken over by the ruler in the fringed cloak (Otto 2000: 227–228; 231–232) . The close contact between the armed male and the female figure with her sexualized visual features, as recognizable on the Mycenae ring (Fig . 17) (CMS I, 101) for instance, reminds us of the relationship of the Syrian naked goddess and the Weather god in the Syrian and Anatolian glyptic (Fig . 9) (Schroer 2008: 49–50, 220–225, nos . 455–460) . Another connection between male and female participants on a number of Aegean seal images is depicted by figures of the same size, represented in the same position, even with the same physical posture . Different are depictions where a male figure of larger scale appears in front of, or behind one female or even more figures . The position of the males’ hands, as well as the fact that these male figures sometimes approach a deity or ritual place, supports the idea that these Aegean males play a leading and perhaps mediating role comparable to the Near Eastern examples (Fig . 15) (CMS II .7, no . 5; CMS II .8, no . 269; CMS VI, no . 280; CMS VS1B, no . 194, ‘Mochlos pyxis’; compare with Near Eastern examples: Buchanan 1981: Akkadian: 182–183, no . 470, Ur III: 220–221, no . 581, Old Babylonian: 276–277, no . 749) . Specific among the Aegean cult scenes are small scaled floating figures (Figs . 12, 14, 16, 18) (also termed as ‘appearing on high’ by Crowley 2013: 63) . They are often thought to represent the ‘deities in the far distance’ ascending from the heavens or the ‘alter ego’ of the deities depicted in the same scene and capturing another moment of the narrative sequence (Matz 1958: 11–15; Niemeier 1989: 169–170, fig . 2; Dimopoulou and Rethemiotakis 2000: 49–56; Cain 2001: 36–37; Soles 2016; for another explanation see Rehak 2000: 274–276) . Of particular note are their toes depicted pointing downwards and thus suggesting a hovering position . Appearing in the vicinity of mountains, trees, or shrines, they occupy the positions and gestures of deities and seem to be worshipped or saluted by the standing adorants . They are both male and female and their worshippers are figures of both genders in similar contexts (compare CMS II .8, no . 256 and VI, no . 281) . Most of all they appear in scenes where the female receives suppliants (CMS I, no . 17, ‘Poros ring’, ‘Mochlos pyxis’) and they often handle weapons (staff, bow and dagger in one case: CMS I, no . 17; CMS I, no . 292; CMS VI, no . 278) . They possess definite divine qualities and seem to be worshipped, nevertheless, they are also subordinated in comparison to other associated divine figures . This, together with their interchangeability, points to their possible mediating nature and functions . In Near Eastern iconography, small sized figures are very common, yet their incorporation into scenes is governed by distinct compositional rules characterized by multi© 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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ple scenes, registers, and filling motifs . They appear already in the Akkadian glyptic in the mythological, contest, or presentation scenes (Boehmer 1965: pl . VII, no . 67; pl . IX, no . 89; pl . XXXVII, no . 445) as servants and attendants of the (mostly vegetation) deities or their substitutions in form of statues (Fig . 3) (Boehmer 1965: pl . XLVI, no . 542) . The same positions of servitude are also attributed to small male and female figures in the Old Babylonian, Syrian, and Anatolian glyptic, representing different minor divine or magical figures (Fig . 6, 8, 9) (Collon 1986: pl . V, no . 12; Al-Gailani Werr 1988: pl . XII .1, pl . XXXIII .1–3; Otto 2000: pl . 12 .147–148; Özgüç 2006: nos . CS 258, 296, 636) . 5. Compositions and associated elements As is clear from these comparisons, the nature of the Near Eastern and Aegean scenes and their participants are in many respects similar . What suggests that the Aegean ones were at least partly inspired by the Near Eastern prototypes are some of their modes of composition and associated iconographic elements . The most striking parallels are the celestial signs such as crescent moon and the sun/star, Near Eastern motifs par excellence and an integral part of the presentation scenes (e .g . see Figs . 5–9) . These are also displayed on several Aegean signet rings (Figs . 12, 19) (CMS I, no . 17; I, no . 179; CMS V, no . 199; CMS XI, no . 28) . Whereas the ring from Thebes (CMS V, no . 199) shows a male figure approaching a female seated on an architectural platform, the ring from Tiryns (Fig . 19) (CMS I, no . 179) depicts a procession in front of a seated deity of the so-called Minoan Genii, an Aegean transformation of the Egyptian minor hippopotamus deity in the role of Near Eastern offering bearers (Aruz 2008: 84–85; Mellink 1987) . The deity holds a cup and wears a kind of flat cap, a representation reminiscent of the divinized rulers in Ur III presentation scenes . This mixture of fantastic creatures participating in a presentation scene calls to mind traits of the Anatolian style, where Mesopotamian prototypes were mixed with other foreign motifs as well as local elements in a similar way (Fig . 8) . That the whole compositional schema and some particular elements of the Near Eastern scenes were used as inspiration for an Aegean depiction is further proven by the Mycenaean Acropolis ring (Fig . 12) (CMS I, no . 17) . Comparing this exceptional golden signet ring with the illustrated Akkadian seal (Fig . 5) (Schroer and Keel 2005: 354–355, no . 260), where the worshiper is introduced to the presence of the seated goddess Ishtar, we can observe notable similarities between the depicted scenes . The main motifs of the Akkadian seal – namely, the arrangement with the seated female figure, two approaching figures, a tree with attendants, lions, the sceptre of Ishtar, and poppies or pomegranates in the goddess’s hand – all appear to be the inspiration for the Aegean scene . In the Aegean example, the nature of the depicted goddess often seems to be indicated by her seat, being the rocky ground on the Acropolis ring . Depicted sitting on a rocky ground or cairn (Rehak 1995: 105–106; e .g .: CMS II .6, no . 8; II .8, no . 239; V, no . 253; X, no . 261), or standing on scaled mountains (CMS II .8, no . 256; Davis and Stocker 2016: 643–645, fig . 11) are almost exclusively female figures . Both gen© 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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ders can lean on the oval stones interpreted as natural ritual objects, so-called baetyls (Crooks 2013) . As symbols of nature, of a fertile ground from which trees and plants grow and on which animals are fed with growing plants, mountains and mountain-rock thrones are a specific motif in the Near Eastern and above all in the Akkadian glyptic . The deities, particularly the sun god (Boehmer 1965: pls . XXXIII–XXXV; Buchanan 1966: pl . 27, nos . 345–347; Collon 1982: pl . XXIV, nos . 168–171, pl . XXV) or Ishtar (Boehmer 1965: pl . XXXII, nos . 377, 379) stand on them, representing aspects of the rising sun . They serve as thrones also for the different vegetation deities (Fig . 4), and sometimes also for the water god (Boehmer 1965: pl . XXVI, no . 299, pl . XLVII, no . 552; general to thrones: Metzger 1985: vol . 1, 142–144, 158, vol . 2, pls . 63 .554, 64 .556, pl . 73 .669–670) . Mountains are also the place where, during divine combats, a male deity is defeated while leaning or lying on or underneath the rocky mountain (Boehmer 1965: 52–56, pl . XXVI, nos . 300–305; Collon 1982: pl . XIX, nos . 135–136) or where the vegetation god dies and rests (Amiet 1980a: 46) . The most detailed depictions of the mountain with a particular scaled-pattern are represented by a sealing from Knossos (Fig . 14) (CMS II .8, no . 256) and by a signet ring from Pylos (Davis and Stocker 2016: fig . 11) . Their similarity with the Akkadian scale pattern suggests a direct inspiration from these sources . This mountain motif occurs only rarely with deities after the Akkadian period, mostly in the Syrian iconography, where it is an attribute of the Weather god (Fig . 9) (Otto 2000: 216–220) . Another type of throne is the architectural platform . The possibility that they reflect some Near Eastern throne constructions is best suggested by the reconstruction of a wall painting from Xeste 3 in Akrotiri (Fig . 13) (Betancourt 2007: fig . 6 .15) . Here, a female figure sits on a cushion-shaped seat placed on a tripartite architectural platform . We know of many similar installations in Aegean art (Rehak 1995: 104–105) that may be at least partly related to Near Eastern ‘temple façade’thrones (Günkel-Mashek 2016: 256–258) . Likewise, the rendering of the enthroned female in Akrotiri has striking parallels in seats depicted already in the Ur III period, and has even closer parallels to the Old Babylonian and Old Assyrian periods presentation scenes . On the Near Eastern cylinder seals, the scene is composed of a throne covered with three horizontal lines representing a flounced rug and placed upon dais, which is used exclusively for the divinized king (Figs . 6–7) (Metzger 1985: Ur III: vol . 1: 159–169, vol . 2: pl . 74–75, Old Babylonian: vol . 1: 173–174, vol . 2: pl . 80, Old Assyrian Colonies: vol . 1: 190–191, vol . 2: pl . 92 .881–882) . Not only the throne and approaching female figures carrying offerings allow us to identify the seated figure as a goddess, but also her association with fantastic animals, for instance, the monkey showing anthropomorphic features and the griffin behind her (Jones 2005: 714; Dubcová 2010: 107–109) . The presence and positions of both creatures in the presentation scene was a common feature also in the Old Babylonian, Old Assyrian and Anatolian pictures (Figs . 6, 7) (Özgüç 1965: pl . II .5, 7; Buchanan 1981: 218–219, no . 578; Teissier 1984: 136–137, no . 104; Collon 1986: pl . VIII, nos . 58–60, pl . IX, nos . 68–69) A kind of platform and animals associated with figures assumed to be deities connect the scene from Xeste 3 with an otherwise completely different scene on the © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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golden ‘Poros ring’ (Fig . 16) . Here, a centrally-placed male figure in a pointed cap stands on a small panelled dais with a so-called commanding gesture directed towards a seated female figure flanked by two birds . Behind the male figure, the typical Aegean motif of the tree shaking ritual, performed by another male figure is depicted . The small platform depicted in the Poros ring is different from the construction in Xeste 3 . However, it reminds us of another Old Babylonian motif, namely, small platforms that are emplacements for minor deities such as the frontally depicted naked goddess (Winter 1983: figs . 94–95) and cult attendants (Al-Gailani Werr 1988: 11; ‘kilted priests’ according to Collon 1986, 34), with the platform giving them a kind of statue-like appearance . These cult attendants were again the counterparts of the suppliant goddess and were depicted frequently as offering in front of other deities, often of the sun god (Al-Gailani Werr 1988: pl . XXIV .1 .VI: 4; pl . V .1–4) . A similar composition can be found on an Old Babylonian seal depicting a male figure on a two-tiered dais who is turned towards the suppliant goddess standing over two dogs (Fig . 6) . Whereas the ‘Poros ring’ is thought to depict the epiphany of the main divine couple invoked through the performance of the tree-shaking ritual, on the Old Babylonian seal we deal with a side scene where minor deities are depicted . 6. Conclusions This limited but eloquent evidence strongly suggests that the Aegean images were inspired by Near Eastern iconography in many ways . The Aegean representations seem to reflect the idea of presentation scenes, with main and subordinate deities or worshippers and some aspects of these figures, most of all their mediating functions . The lack of their attributes, their interchangeable positions and gestures present them as a kind of visualized aspect of divine figures rather than indicating their concrete identity . Based on the Near Eastern prototypes, individual motifs such as trees, rocky seats or weapons can be associated with the vegetation, fertility, solar, and weather aspects of the main deities . The other features (animals, thrones) or the whole compositions seem to be used to enhance the message of the images or the entire scenes . The recognizable inspiration of the Aegean artists from the Near Eastern iconography was accompanied by very selective use of the motifs . They combined elements from different regions and periods and transformed and adapted the iconographical elements according to their needs . The scope of transmitted ideology or mythology, clearly underlying the Near Eastern images, remains unclear in the Aegean . Most of the new ideas and elements from abroad reached Crete during the Neopalatial period (MM III/LM I, 1700–1450 BC) and, although there are far fewer presentation scenes in later periods, the flow of foreign inspiration probably did not stop after its end . It seems likely that the Mycenaeans adopted some motifs used in Minoan art, but the possibility cannot be excluded that they continued in the tradition of using foreign Near Eastern prototypes in their own designs (e .g . the Acropolis Ring and its origin, see in: Niemeier 1990: 166–169) . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Regarding the possible sources of the foreign motifs, their knowledge and availability is indicated by a number of imported Near Eastern seals found in the Aegean, bearing such presentation scenes (Porada 1981; Davaras and Soles 1995) . The examples of a sealing from Agia Triada with the impression of an originally Akkadian and re-cut Old Assyrian cylinder with the depiction of the Weather god – ascending within the presentation scenes (CMS II .6, no . 144) as well as of the imported Old Babylonian seal from Platanos (Fig . 10) (CMS II .1, no . 306) with the adoration scene with goddess Lama and the Victorious Ruler provide the evidence of the most influential periods and motifs . Out of all the periods discussed above, the Akkadian seals seem to provide the best source for a number of motifs of high quality . As evidence from other regions attests, they can be considered real artworks, collected, treasured and valued by their later owners (Collon 1987, 32, 138) . They seem to be used together with the Old Babylonian, Old Syrian, and Anatolian images, slightly older or partly contemporary with the Neopalatial period . The reasons for the incorporation of the presentation scenes into the Aegean iconographical repertoire seem to be similar to their reasons for spreading throughout the Near East . As symbols of power connected with kingship or cult, they were instruments through which ruling elites could represent themselves and demonstrate their control over both the earthly and the heavenly spheres (Crowley 1995: 481– 482) . As was the case of the Old Assyrian rulers, who used the model of the Ur III presentation scenes to emphasize their status and to profit from the connotations of status that accompanied the images (Eppihimer 2013: 43), similar motives and processes can be posited in the Aegean . Enhancing the value of the images by using foreign designs with their more international appearance, members of the palatial elite were attempting to display their power not only within their country, but also within the context of the whole Eastern Mediterranean . Bibliography Al-Gailani Werr, L . 1988 Studies in the Chronology and Regional Style of Old Babylonian Cylinder Seals . Bibliotheca Mesopotamica 23 . Malibu . Amiet, P . 1980a Cylinder seals of the Agade period . In: E . Porada (ed .), Ancient Art in Seals. Princeton, 35–59 . 1980b La glyptique mésopotamienne archaïque . Paris . Aruz, J . 2008 Marks of Distinction. Seals and Cultural Exchange Between the Aegean and the Orient . Corpus der minoischen und mykenischen Siegel, Beiheft 7 . Mainz/Rhein . Aruz, J ., Graff, S . B . and Rakic, Y . (eds .) 2013 Cultures in Contact: from Mesopotamia to the Mediterranean in the Second Millennium BC New York . Betancourt, P . P . 2007 Introduction to Aegean Art . Philadelphia . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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The Isopata ring and the question of narrative in Neopalatial glyptic . In: W . Müller and I . Pini (eds .), Minoisch-mykenische Glyptik: Stil, Ikonographie, Funktion. V. Internationales Siegel-Symposium Marburg, 23.–25. September 1999 . Corpus der minoischen und mykenischen Siegel, Beiheft 6 . Berlin, 269–276 .

Schroer, S . 2008 Die Mittelbronzezeit. Die Ikonographie Palästinas/Israels und der Alte Orient. Eine Religionsgeschichte in Bildern . Die Ikonographie Palästinas, Israels und der Alte Orient II . Fribourg . Schroer, S . and Keel, O . 2005 Vom ausgehenden Mesolithikum bis zur Frühbronzezeit. Die Ikonographie Palästinas/Israels und der Alte Orient. Eine Religionsgeschichte in Bildern . Die Ikonographie Palästinas, Israels und der Alte Orient I . Fribourg . Soles, S . J . 2016 Hero, goddess, priestess: New evidence for Minoan religion and social organization . In: E . Alram-Stern, F . Blakolmer, S . Deger-Jalkotzy, R . Laffineur and J . Weilhartner (eds .), Metaphysis. Ritual, Myth and Symbolism in the Aegean Bronze Age. Proceedings of the 15th International Aegean Conference, Vienna, Institute for Oriental and European Archaeology, Aegean and Anatolia Department, Austrian Academy of Sciences and Institute of Classical Archaeology, University of Vienna, 22–25 April 2014 . Leuven – Liège, 247–254 . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Spycket, A . 1960 La déesse Lama . Revue d’archéologie 54, 73–84 . Teissier, B . 1984 Ancient Near Eastern Cylinder Seals from the Marcopoli Collection . Berkeley . Warren, P . 1969 Minoan Stone Vases. Cambridge . 1988

Minoan Religion as Ritual Action . Studies in Mediterranean Archaeology and Literature, Pocketbook 72 . Partille .

Winter, I . J . 1986 The king and the cup: Iconography of the royal presentation scene on Ur III seals . In: M . Kelly-Buccellati (ed .), Insight Through Images. Studies in Honor of Edith Porada. Malibu, California, 253–268 . Winter, U . 1983 Frau und Göttin. Exegetische und ikonographische Studien zum weiblichen Gottesbild im alten Israel und in dessen Umwelt . Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis 53 . Fribourg . Younger, J . G . 1995 The iconography of rulership in the Aegean: a conspectus . In: P . Rehak (ed .), The Role of the Ruler in the Prehistoric Aegean. Proceedings of a Panel Discussion Presented at the Annual Meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America, New Orleans, Louisiana, 28 December 1992 . Aegaeum 11 . Liège – Austin, 151–211 .

Fig . 1 Cylinder seal impression, Uruk period (after Amiet 1980b: pl . 47, no . 69)

Fig . 3 Cylinder seal impression from Tello, Akkadian period (after Winter 1983: fig . 458)

Fig . 2 Cylinder seal impression, Akkadian period (after Winter 1983: fig . 487)

Fig . 4 Cylinder seal impression from Mari, Akkadian period (after Winter 1983: fig . 459)

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Fig . 5 Cylinder seal impression, Akkadian period (after Schroer and Keel 2008: no . 260)

Fig . 7 Cylinder seal impression, Old Babylonian period (after Al-Gailani Werr 1988: pl . III, no . 8[23])

Fig . 6 Cylinder seal impression, Old Babylonian period (after Al-Gailani Werr 1988: pl . XXIV, no . 1[167])

Fig . 8 Cylinder seal impression from Kültepe, Assyrian Colony period (after Winter 1983: fig . 268)

Fig . 9 Cylinder seal impression, Assyrian Colony period (after Winter 1983: fig . 269)

Fig . 10 Cylinder seal from Platanos, Old Babylonian period (after CMS II .1, no . 306) © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Fig . 11 Seal impression from Knossos (after CMS II .8, no . 268)

Fig . 12 Signet ring from Mycenae (after CMS I, no . 17)

Fig . 13 Reconstruction of a wall painting in Xeste 3, Akrotiri (drawing by R . Porter; after Betancourt 2007: fig . 6 .15) © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Fig . 14 Seal impression from Knossos (after CMS II .8, no . 256) Fig . 15 Seal impression from Kato Zakros (after CMS II .7, no . 5)

Fig . 16 Signet ring from Poros (after Dimopoulou and Rethemiotakis 2000, 43, fig . 4c)

Fig . 17 Signet ring from Mycenae (after CMS I, no . 101)

Fig . 18 Signet ring from Knossos (after CMS VI, no . 281)

Fig . 19 Signet ring from Tiryns (after CMS I, no . 179) © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Arcane Art: Some Thoughts on the Perception of the Magico-Religious Imagery of Lamaštu-Amulets Eva Götting 1 Abstract Lamaštu is known as a baby-snatching demon that attacks especially children and pregnant women but also men and cattle . Rituals and apotropaic amulets were used in Mesopotamia, Anatolia and the Levant to protect persons and animals from this malevolent demon . These amulets were canonized in Assyria during the 1st millennium BCE . As a result, elaborated amulets depicting Lamaštu herself and several Zwischenwesen (urigallū, ugallu and lulal, apkallu and Pazuzu), as well as the afflicted patient and the āšipu-priest were created . This paper aims to examine the congruency between iconographic narrative and performed ritual . Furthermore, the visual perception of the magico-religious imagery of the amulets will be examined by identifying the agents and recipients of the pictorial message . By untangling the levels of visual communication and embedding them into ritual context, some light is to be shed on one of the most intriguing subjects in the ‘Arcane Arts’ of Mesopotamia .

1. Introduction The arcane arts, practiced by few initiates in the Ancient Near East in form of divination, incantation and astrology, were looked upon as the keys to the secrets of the world, the arcana mundi (Luck 2006) . In this paper both meanings inherent to the term arcane art will be addressed, the ritualistic practices as well as the iconography . The aim is to establish a connection regarding the pictorial narrative of Lamaštuamulets (Farber 1983; Götting 2009; Götting and Panayotov forthcoming) and the ritual according to the Lamaštu-series (Farber 2014: 67–196) . Furthermore, the levels of communication of the depicted entities are to be investigated and the agents and recipients identified . While the term arcana mundi comes to us from European sources we also find the concept of ‘the secrets of heaven and earth’ (pirišiti šamêṣ u ersetim) in Mesopotamia (van Binsbergen and Wiggermann 1999: 24–25) . In mythology those secrets were shared by the god of wisdom, Ea, with the human sage Adapa (Piccioni 1981), an āšipu-priest . For those who had knowledge of the secrets of heaven and earth it was possible to take influence on the world and change the natural order of things . We would refer to it today as magic . Within the repertoire of the āšipu (incantationpriest), the asû (healer) and the baru (divination-priest) we find different techniques to help them practice their trade and take influence on their world and the creatures

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of other spheres (Ritter 1965) . Among their tools, we not only find materia magica (Haas 2003) such as ointment, phylacteries and fumigation mixtures, but also imagery . The secret knowledge of creating an image and putting it into a ritual context was looked upon as a powerful measure to achieve a desired goal and was documented in detail in cuneiform incantation series, such as the āšipūtu (Jean 2006: 62–72) . To gain a better understanding of the magico-religious imagery of Lamaštuamulets and their perception by the viewer, a brief introduction into the amulets and the nature of Lamaštu will be given . Lamaštu (Akk .; Sum . dDÌM[ .ME]) is known as a baby-snatching demon who attacks especially infants and pregnant women (Farber 1983) but is generally looked upon as a force of evil, that causes fever, miscarriage, and the sudden death of babies (Farber 2007) . To prevent the demon from attacking, amulets served as magical protection . As we know from ritual texts and grave contexts, they were worn around the neck, bound to the hands and feet, or placed at the bed head of one who was afflicted by Lamaštu or in danger of being attack by her (Dunham 1993) . To protect the house and its inhabitants, larger amulets were placed at doorways and windows . The reverse of the amulet bears either a pseudo-inscription, imitating cuneiform writing or a standard incantation against Lamaštu, which often derives from the Lamaštu series (Farber 2014; Myhrman 1902) . The first amulets date to the late 2nd millennium BCE and originated most likely from Babylonia . On the early amulets Lamaštu iconography is still shifting . This changes in the 1st millennium BCE, when Lamaštu’s iconography was canonized (Götting forthcoming; Wiggermann 2000: 219–224) . The amulets then spread into the Levant as well as Southeastern Anatolia (Götting 2011) . While in the 2nd millennium BCE Lamaštu is to be seen in context of popular belief, depictions of her from the 1st millennium BCE were mainly used by the scholarly circles . This paper is focused on the canonized amulets of the 1st millennium (Fig . 1) . In the canonized version Lamaštu is depicted with the head and legs of a lion and the feed of a bird of prey . Her chest is that of a woman and her arms and hands are human . The poisonous milk she is nursing her infant victims with is symbolized by a dog and a piglet, hanging at her breasts (Wiggermann 2010) . In the Ancient Near East pigs have a dirty and impure connotation, the same applies for dogs, unless they appear in context with the healing goddess Gula (Eichmann 1997) . The venom she is spattering “ . . . all over the place . . .” (Farber 2014: 155, l . 125) is symbolized by the snakes she is holding up in her hands, as well as the centipede (Farber 1987: 102–104; Farber 2014: 187, l . 7) and the scorpion, which is often depicted between her legs, possibly representing her perverted femininity . This is also implied by the objects depicted beside her, comb and spindle . These paraphernalia represent her travel kit, given to her to persuade her to leave the afflicted . Among those provisions, we also can find oil flasks, carpets, bread and sandals (Farber 1987) . On the canonized amulets, she is depicted in Knielauf stance or standing on a donkey, while crossing the Ulaya river on a boat (Farber 2014: 169, l . 46) . The canonized amulets can be separated into up to four registers . The upper register often © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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shows the symbols of the gods, the second a row of seven urigallū-demons, in the third register the patient-scene (Wiggermann 2007: 107–108) is depicted with the afflicted lying on a bed with the āšipu-priests and the apkallu behind them . In this scene, also the lion-demon ugallu and lulal can be shown, standing vis-à-vis in smiting position . They have a gatekeeper function and occasionally are depicted in the last register instead (for ugallu and lulal cf . Wiggermann 1992: 63–64) . Beneath it is the last row, the travelling scene, showing Lamaštu . To get a better idea about the meaning behind these images, it is necessary to compare image and ritual . Within the Lamaštu-series, a collection of several incantations and ritual instructions refers to the scenes depicted on the amulets . 2. Image and ritual In the first register, we find the symbols of the gods . Within the Lamaštu-series gods are addressed to conjure Lamaštu . Here we find the symbols of Anu, Šamaš, Sin and Ištar as mentioned in the incantation among other gods . 78 I herewith conjure you by Anu, the father of the great gods, 79 DITTO, by Enlil, the ‘Great Mountain’, 80 DITTO, by Ea, the king of the Apsu, creator of everything, supreme master, 81 DITTO, by Belet-ili, the great queen, who shaped (all) living beings, 82 DITTO, by Sin, the ‘Lord of the Crown’, who makes (all) decisions, reveals divine signs, 83 DITTO, by Šamaš, the light of regions above and below, the creator of the world, 84 DITTO, by Asallubi, the master of magical practice, 85 DITTO, by Ninurta, the ‘primus inter pares’ of the gods, 86 DITTO, by Ningirim, who is in charge of magic spell(s), 87 DITTO, by Ninkarrak, who keeps (all) temple(s) in order, 88 DITTO, by Ishtar, who rules (all) the lands! (Farber 2014: 153, Lam . I, Inc .4) In the second register, we have the seven urigallū-demons, which are shown with the heads of lion, dog, pig, ram, ibex, bird of prey, and snake . Pig, dog and snake are animals associated with Lamaštu (Wiggermann 2000: 247–248; Kaelin 2007, 373–374) . On other amulets they are shown as animal headed standards . There is evidence that the urigallū might have been part of the ritual in the form of reed bundles and put around the afflicted from an apotropaic magical enclosure (Wiggermann 1992: 71–73; Wiggermann 2000: 248) . The fact that there are seven urigallū evokes associations regarding the seven names of Lamaštu, which are often completely or partly mentioned in the beginning of the incantation . 1 SPELL: ‘Dimme, Child-of-An’ is her first name, 2 the second is ‘Sister of the Gods of the Streets,’ © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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3 the third is ‘Sword that Splits the Head,’ 4 the fourth is ‘She who Lights the Fire,’ 5 the fifth is ‘Goddess whose Face is Wild,’ 6 the sixth is ‘Entrusted One, Adopted Daughter of lrnina,’ 7 the seventh is ‘By the Spell of the Great Gods May You Be Bound .’ (Farber 2014: 145, l . 1–7) Since the number seven is widely used in religious texts as a magical number, the connection cannot be verified . In the third register, the afflicted is shown on a bed with the āšipu-priests standing beside him . In this scene, we usually find either a human or a fish-apkallu beside the bed, though sometimes both are found . It is still discussed if the fish-apkallu might be a priest dressed in a fish-skin (Wiggermann 2007: 107–108) . Since sometimes both are depicted with the fish-apkallu standing behind the priest, it was argued that the fish-apkallu is supporting the priest on the transcendental level (Wiggermann 2000: 248) . Behind the afflicted in few cases a dagger in a brazier is depicted (Thureau-Dangin 1921: 176–178) . This small detail occurs also in the incantation texts: 95 … You fill a (vessel of one) sutu (capacity) with ashes and 96 stick a dagger in it . For three days, you place it at the head of the afflicted . (Farber 2014: 155) . The entrance of the room is sometimes guarded by ugallu (Wiggermann 1992: 169–171) and lulal . In the actual ritual, the priest produced clay figurines and integrated them in the ritual process (Wiggermann 1992: 15) . The illumination of the room by the light of Nusku is symbolized by an oil lamp (Panayotov 2009: iii–iv) . In the last register, we see the expulsion of Lamaštu over the river Ulaya . In this scene, there is a great amount of detail and nearly all of it we find also described in the incantations . The travelling provisions and the animals associated with her are accounted for: 50 You give her a comb, a d[is]taff, (and) a half-sutu fla[sk] of oil . 51 With [gr]oats, malt, brewing mixture, roasted barley, (and) dried bread 52 you [fi]ll four [leather] b[ags]; then you make four [don]keys of clay . 53 You give them these (things) as travel provisions . (Farber 2014: 151) As well as the description of her journey on the boat and her binding: 44 I I will make for you a canvas boat, will let you board it . 45 I will let get on a board with you, four dogs, two white (and) two black . 46 I will make you sail over the Ulâ river, the ocean, the wide sea . 47 I will bind your feet to a freestanding tamarisk and a lone reed stalk . 48 I will surround you with a magic circle of flour . You are conjured! May you be bound by the spell! (Farber 2014: 169) What seems clear is that all scenes in the represented registers were part of the actual performed exorcism . The iconographic scenes appear in a fixed order on the © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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amulets . In the Lamaštu-series, however, we do not find the same order . The scenes appear in the ritual like modules that could be rearranged and appear either in the beginning, the middle or the end . Other actions described in the incantations on the other hand do not appear at all in the iconographic narrative . On some of the elaborated amulets we do find a strong correspondence between textual and iconographic content . The following observation can be made regarding the correspondence of image and ritual (Fig . 2): On the image, we have in the first register the symbols of the gods, which find their parallel in the ritualistic prayer . The urigallū possibly represents Lamaštu’s seven names by which she is conjured and were used during the preparation of the ritual space to form a magic enclosure . In the next register, the exorcism performed by the āšipu is depicted . While ugallu, lulal and apkallu are presented as actors in the scene, they are also included in the actual ritual (e .g . figurines) . In the last register, we have Lamaštu on a boat, symbolizing her final expulsion at the end of the exorcism . The result is a pictorial narrative presented in separate scenes . F . Wickhoff referred to this as ‘distinguishing style’ (Wickhoff 1912: 15–17) . 2 The narrative can be followed from the top to the bottom, just as a cuneiform tablet is read . N . Heeßel pointed out the significance of the tablet shape of the amulets and stated that the form not only has practical reasons for displaying the amulet . It served the purpose of visibility and indicated the presence of a magic text (Heeßel 2014: 73) . After having established the connection between ritual and image, the term ṣalmu shall be taken into consideration regarding the amulets . Ṣalmu can be translated as ‘statue’ 3 and, as argued by Z . Bahrani, it is not to be seen as a simple copy or image, but as part of a metasemiotic reality (Bahrani 2003: 127) . As such, it is also part of a pluridimensional chain of appearance systems . In contrast to a decorative image, a ṣalmu was embedded in ritual and thus was created as a substitute or doubling of the original . Mostly the image was inscribed . The combination of writing and image formed a simulacrum that had the ability to take the place of the actual individual . Given this definition and looking at the Lamaštu amulets, we see that this reflects quite nicely not only the characteristics of Lamaštu imagery but also that of the whole amulet . However, there is no textual source known to me where amulets are called ṣalmu . Normally, it would be expected that a ṣalmu represented one individual . For example the statue of a god, that underwent the mīs pî ritual (‘Mouth-washing’) and was animated in the process (Dick and Walker 2001) . In the case of the Lamaštu figurines that were also part of the ritual, this can be applied . None of them were found in archaeological contexts until now but the Lamaštu-series informs us

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that they were created by the āšipu priest and after being purified, dressed and sometimes provided with provisions, the figurine was ritually destroyed . 94 ITS RITUAL: You purify the clay pit, take clay from the pit, (and) make a figurine of Lamaštu . 95 You have her sit at the head of the patient . You fill a (vessel of one) sutu (capacity) with ashes and 96 stick a dagger in it . For three days, you place it at the head of the patient . 97 On the third day, in late afternoon, you take her outside and 98 strike her with the dagger . You bury her in a corner of the city wall . 99 You surround her with a magic circle (and return) without looking back . (Farber 2014: 155, Rit . 4) But what about the amulets? I would like to argue that not only should the figurines be seen as a ṣalmu but the amulets too . As shown, image and spell form a unity and there is evidence that not only the figurines but also some of the amulets were produced by the āšipu-priest himself before being used in the ritual . Therefore, the image does not only seem to me to be the canonized narrative of an exorcism, but rather it functioned as the autonomous simulacrum of an exorcistic ritual . The imagery of the canonized Lamaštu-amulets therefore should not be interpreted as mere decorative illustrations on an incantation tablet but as a compact iconographic version of an exorcism itself . 3. Image and communication Now the question remains: Who was to see the amulets? What was the perception of the imagery? To find some answers, first it must be established, who the agents and recipients were . In the past, animated images and their perception have been widely discussed by scholars such as Belting, Freedberg, Didi-Huberman, Mitchell, Warner, van Eck and others (Belting 1990; Freedberg 1989; Didi-Huberman 1994; Mitchell 2005; Warner 2006, van Eck 2015) . Bahrani’s contribution to the discussion is dedicated particularly to the imagery of the Ancient Near East . To analyze the perception of the amulets and the levels of communication, a model inspired by A . Gell’s theory of Art and Agency (Gell 1998) will be presented . In his theory, he examines “ . . . social relations that obtain in the neighborhood of works of art . . .” (Gell 1998: 26) . Object of observation is the interaction between visual object and audience . Gell considers iconographic objects as systems of actions that are produced to have an active impact on the viewer, leading to an emotional response, as if they were dealing with a living being . To analyze the social network the iconographic object is embedded in, Gell defines four terms (Gell 1998: 13–26): The material object, in this case the amulet, will be referred to as index . This object was commissioned by the patron, in this case the afflicted or a family member, and the artwork executed by the artist, who might have been the priest or a craftsman . The actual humans and transcendental entities behind the image are referred to © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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as prototypes . Those include all the protagonists seen so far (gods, urigallū, āšipu, afflicted, Lamaštu) . The recipients are those who see the amulet and receive the message, while the agents are the acting entities (Gell 1998: 27) . Gell’s theory concentrates on human behavior and does not distinguish between aesthetics and the religious experience of art (van Eck 2010: 648) . It is important to realize that on the amulets agents and recipients are present not only on one level but two: in the human (priest, afflicted, audience) and the transcendental realm (Lamaštu, gods, urigallū, apkallu, Pazuzu, ugallu and lulal) (Fig . 3) . In the eyes of the Mesopotamian believer the transcendental entities were just as real as the humans and were therefore considered as active or passive part of the iconographical communication . In the given model, they are therefore treated equally to humans . Of all those prototypes the āšipu-priest is the most active one . Not only does he act as human agency by producing the amulet or at least instructing artisans to produced it, but also in the iconographic narrative he can appear as an agent . On the transcendental level, he is supported by the fish-apkallu, who are closely connected to Ea, the god of wisdom, and by the urigallū, which are used against Lamaštu . But who are the recipients of the message the amulet is sending? As mentioned before, the gods are addressed directly in the incantation while the symbols of the gods, depicted on the first register, seem to serve as an iconographic prayer that was supposed to catch the eye of the gods . It is therefore safe to say that the gods were recipients on the transcendental level . They were addressed to exert their influence on Lamaštu . As a result, they also become an agent . Their agency is crucial regarding their impact on ugallu and lulal. As F . Wiggermann pointed out, the ugallu are manifestations of divine will, manifestations of the gods and their weapons . They can represent good days (u4- d ù g - g a), but divine discontent may turn them into days of war and destruction (Wiggermann 1992: 71) . The same applies for the fever demon Pazuzu (Heeßel 2002), who is attested in image and incantations . He is instrumentalized by the priest to chase Lamaštu away, since as the ‘king of the Lillu-demons’, he possesses power over other demons (Heeßel 2002: 66–68) . Another recipient is the afflicted, who is involved in the ritual but has a rather passive role and might find comfort in seeing the amulet that is supposed to end his suffering . There is little evidence that the afflicted was involved in the ritual by being asked to pray to the gods . On the amulets, he is depicted raising one hand, which can be interpreted as a praying gesture . This makes him not only the patron of the amulet, but also a sender and a recipient at the same time . Other bystanders that might see the amulet hanging by a doorway for example, were also reassured that the home was protected . Using images, the message was readable by literate, as well as illiterate people . However, it does not seem that they were the main target audience . Rather, the main recipient was the Lamaštu herself . The message being: Leave this afflicted and do not return! While the gods and Zwischenwesen received the message: Support me! Only the agency of the gods made it possible for the subordinated Zwischenwesen to comply and turn from recipients to agents, enforcing the divine will and the humans wish to drive Lamaštu away, visually manifested in the threatening stances of the creatures . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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4. Conclusion The amulets and their imagery must be seen and studied in their ritual-context . The composition of script and image and the human agency of the priest in ritual, who made the object effective, created the ṣalmu of an exorcism . The perception of the imagery of this amulet was multidimensional and did not only serve to calm down the afflicted, but was also supposed to address the gods and convince the demon through different channels to leave her victim . A model has been introduced, identifying the priest as main sender and Lamaštu as main recipient . The message is sent and passed on by the divinities in the first instance and by the other transcendental entities in the second . The afflicted is the patron, as well as the sender and receiver of the message . It seems evident, that the magico-religious trade of an āšipu-priest was an arcane art indeed and we are still far from having revealed all the secrets of heaven and earth concerning Lamaštu’s imagery . Bibliography Bahrani, Z . 2003 The Graven Image . Representation in Babylonia and Assyria . Philadelphia . Belting, H . 1990 Bild und Kult – eine Geschichte des Bildes vor dem Zeitalter der Kunst, München . van Binsbergen, W . and Wiggermann, F . A . M . 1999 Magic in history . A theoretical perspective, and its application to ancient Mesopotamia . In: T . Abusch and K . Van der Toorn (eds .), Mesopotamian Magic . Ancient Magic and Divination 1, Groningen . Dick, M . B . and Walker, C . B . F . 2001 The Induction of the Cult Image: The Mesopotamian Mīs Pî Ritual. The Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project. Winona Lake, Ind . Didi-Huberman, G . 1985 La peinture incarnée, Paris . Dunham, S . 1993 Beads for babies . Zeitschrift für Assyriologie 83, 237–257 . van Eck, C . 2010 Living statues: Alfred Gell’s art and agency, living presence response and the sublime, Art History 33/4, 662–680 . 2015

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Eichmann, R . 1997 Ein Hund, ein Schwein, ein Musikant . In: B . Pongratz-Leisten, H . Kühne and P . Xella (eds .), Ana šadê Labnāni lū allik. Beiträge zu altorientalischen und mittelmeerischen Kulturen. Festschrift für Wolfgang Röllig. Alter Orient und Altes Testament 247, Kevelaer – Neukirchen – Vluyn, 97–108 . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Farber, W . 1983 Art . Lamaštu, Reallexikon der Assyriologie und Vorderasiatischen Archäologie 6, 439–446 . 1987

Tamarisken, Fibeln, Skolopender . Zur philologischen Deutung der ‘Reiseszene’ auf neuassyrischen Lamaštu-Amuletten . In: F . Rochberg-Halton (ed .), Language, Literature, and History: Philological and Historical Studies Presented to Erica Reiner . American Oriental Society 67 . New Haven, 85–105 .

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Dämonen ohne Stammbaum . Zu einigen mesopotamischen Amuletten aus dem Kunsthandel . In: A . Leonard Jr . and B . B . Williams (eds .), Essays in Ancient Civilization Presented to Helene J. Kantor . Studies in Ancient Oriental Civilization 47 . Chicago, 93–108 .

1997

ištu api ilâmma ezēzu ezzet . Ein bedeutsames neues Lamaštu–Amulett . In: B . Pongratz-Leisten, H . Kühne and P . Xella (eds .), Ana šadê Labnāni lū allik. Beiträge zu altorientalischen und mittelmeerischen Kulturen. Festschrift für Wolfgang Röllig. Alter Orient und Altes Testament 247 . Kevelaer – Neukirchen – Vluyn, 115–128 .

2007

Lamaštu – agent of a specific disease or a generic destroyer of health? In: I . Finkel and M . Geller (eds .), Diseases in Babylonia . Cuneiform Monographs 36 . Leiden – Boston, 137–145 .

2014

Lamaštu. An Edition of the Canonical Series of Lamaštu Incantations and Rituals and Related Texts from the Second and First Millennia B.C. Mesopotamian Civilizations 17 . Winona Lake .

Freedberg, D . 1989 The Power of Images: Studies in the History and Theory of Response, Chicago – London . Gell, A . 1998 Art and Agency. An Anthropological Theory . Oxford . Götting, E . 2009 Lamaštu – Ikonographie einer altorientalischen Dämonin . MA thesis, Freie Univerität Berlin . Berlin . 2011

Exportschlager Dämon? Zur Verbreitung altorientalischer Lamaštu–Amulette, In: J . Göbel (ed .), Humboldts Studentische Konferenz der Altertumswissenschaften, Exportschlager, 2009 . Berlin, 437–456 .

forthcoming Art . Lamaštu, iconography of deities and demons . In: C . Uehlinger (ed .), Iconography of Deities and Demons in the Ancient Near East (IDD), Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis, forthcoming . Götting, E . and Panayotov, S . forthcoming Lamaštu and Hulbazizi Amulets – Iconography and Inscriptions. Ancient Medicine and Divination. Leiden . Haas, V . 2003 Materia magica et medica hethitica: ein Beitrag zur Heilkunde im alten Orient, Volume 1 . Berlin . Heeßel, N . P . 2002 Pazuzu. Archäologische und philologische Studien zu einem altorientalischen Dämon . Ancient Magic and Divination 4 . Leiden . 2014

Amulette und Amulettform: Zum Zusammenhang von Form, Funktion und Text von Amuletten im Alten Mesopotamien . In: J . F . Quack und D . C . Luft (eds .), Erscheinungsformen und Handhabungen heiliger Schriften . Materielle Textkulturen 5 . Berlin – München – Boston, 53–77 .

Jean, C . 2006 La magie néo-assyrienne en contexte: Recherches sur le métier d’exorciste et le concept d’ašiputu, State Archives of Assyria Studies 17 . Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project, Helsinki . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Kaelin, O . 2007 Pazuzu, Lamaschtu-Reliefs and Horus–Stelen . In: S . Bickel, S . Schroer, R . Schurte and C . Uehlinger (eds .), Bilder als Quellen. Images as Sources. Studies on Ancient Near Eastern Artifacts and the Bible Inspired by the Work of Othmar Keel, Fribourg – Göttingen, 365–378 . Luck, G . 2006 Magic and the Occult in the Greek and Roman Worlds: A Collection of Ancient Texts . Baltimore . Mitchell, W . 2005 What do Pictures Want? The Lives and Loves of Images . Chicago – London . Myhrman, D . W . 1902 Die Labartu-Texte, babylonische Beschwörungsformeln gegen die Dämonin Labartu, Zeitschrift für Assyriologie 16, 141–200 . Panayotov, S . 2009 Die Lampe am Krankenbett. Untersuchungen zu altorientalischen Gebeten an den Lichtgott Nuska . Cuneiform Digital Library Preprints 4, 2016 . Nanterre . Piccioni, S . A . 1981 Il Poemetto di Adapa . Budapest . Ritter, E . F . 1965 Magical-expert (āšipu) and physician (asû): Notes on two complementary professions in Babylonian medicine . In: H . G . Güterbock and T . Jacobsen (eds .), Studies in Honor of Benno Landsberger on his Seventy-fifth Birthday, April 21 1965, Assyriological Studies 16 . Chicago, 299–322 . Thureau-Dangin, F . 1921 Rituel et amulettes contre Labartu . Revue Assyriologique 18, 161–198 . Warner, M . 2006 Phantasmagoria. Spirit Visions, Metaphors and Media into the Twenty-First Century . Oxford . Watanabe, C . E . 2004 The ‘continuous style’ in the narrative scheme of Assurbanipal’s reliefs . Iraq 66, 103–114 . Wickhoff, F . 1912 Römische Kunst (Die Wiener Genesis), Berlin . Wiggermann, F . A . M . 1992 Mesopotamian Protective Spirits . Cuneiform Monographs 1 . Groningen . 2000

Lamaštu, daughter of Anu . A profile . In: M . Stol and F . A . M . Wiggermann (eds .), Birth in Babylonia and the Bible. Its Mediterranean Setting . Cuneiform Monographs 14 . Groningen, 217–252 .

2007

Some demons of time and their functions in Mesopotamian iconography . In: B . Groneberg and H . Spieckermann (eds .), Die Welt der Götterbilder . New York – Berlin.

2010

Dogs, pigs, Lamaštu, and the breast-feeding of animals by women . In: D . Shehata, F . Weierhäuser and K . V . Zand (eds .), Von Göttern und Menschen, Beiträge zu Literatur und Geschichte des Alten Orients. Festschrift für Brigitte Groneberg. Cuneiform Monographs 41 . Leiden – Boston, 407–412 .

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Fig . 1 Lamaštu plaque no . 1 . Neo-Assyrian (8th–7th century BCE) . Louvre, AO 22205, bought in Syria in 1879 . Size: 18 .4 × 3 .3 × 2 .5cm (© Rama)

Divine Symbols

Prayer

urigallū

Binding

Patient and Priest

Exorcism

Lamaštu

Expulsion

Fig . 2 Iconographic narrative corresponding to the ritual (© E . Götting) © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Fig . 3 Model of the levels of iconographic communication with the priest as main sender and Lamaštu as main recipient . The message is sent and passed on by the divinities in the first instance and by the other transcendental entities in the second . The afflicted acts as patron and is the sender and receiver of the message (© E . Götting)

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The Role of the Rosette Motif and Non-Verbal Communication as Embodied Elements of Warfare and Violence: Ancient Cyprus – a Unique Case? Cheryl Hart 1 Abstract In this paper, I intend to analyse the seemingly unique character of Cypriot visual imagery in respect to representations of violence and/or warfare . The art of war incorporates forms and images of violence that both support and justify wars, enabling as well as representing them . By focussing on the role of the rosette motif in visual images or representations of warfare from the Cypriot repertoire, including those of the warriors themselves and their associated weaponry and armour, I will consider these representations from the combined perspective of non-verbal communication and embodied experiences . By analysing the material gained from the Cypriot repertoire, together with comparative data from the wider Near East, I will demonstrate that Cyprus had a different ideology in respect to warfare than that of its close neighbours in Egypt and the Near East .

1. Introduction My PhD research examines and analyses the symbolism surrounding the use of the iconographic rosette motif across the Eastern Mediterranean region during the Bronze and Iron Ages in an attempt to provide a logical meaning or defined function for the motif . My research is underpinned primarily by semiotic theory through which I perceive the motif to act as a means of non-verbal communication . Having spent extended periods of research in Cyprus over the last few years, I have identified a unique use of the rosette motif within Cypriot iconography; namely, the use of the rosette motif in association with representative elements of warfare . Although this particular aspect of my research is ongoing, I am currently considering such visual representations from the combined perspective of non-verbal communication and embodied experiences . In this paper, I intend to provide a comparative overview of the Cypriot martial representations within the wider Near Eastern artistic repertoire, particularly that of the Iron Age; following a combination of three lines of enquiry – warfare, the body/embodiment, and visual representation of such elements in association with rosette imagery .

1

School of Archaeology, History and Anthropology, University of Wales . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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2. Theoretical perspective The ‘biography of the body’, as termed by Alphas and Zachariou-Kaila (2015: 193), comprises the perceptions, memories, and actions which are performed by the body and, as a result, becomes a ‘boundless source of meaning’ in regard to the ‘embodiment of lived experiences’ . Such meanings – indicated via allegories and metaphors – that is, modes of non-verbal communication – act to construct social identity and create an understanding of the world and the individual’s place in the world; the body being capable – through its ‘performative nature’ – of conveying meaning ‘more powerfully than verbal communication’ (Colburn and Heyn 2008: 1) . Bahrani (2008: 18) states that the semiotic code of the human body was crucial in ancient cultures to such understanding of the world . It should be stressed that archaeological analyses of embodied practices, particularly those of ancient cultures, are primarily based on visual representations of such practices, unlike anthropological perspectives, which are able to interrogate similar practices inherent through living subjects . This point will be taken as read in the ensuing discussion . Taking the specific example of warfare, it can be noted that representative images of such events in antiquity, together with their associated weaponry and armour, emerge from a tradition in which visual representation – in its widest sense – comprised a ‘multi-layered system of signification’ (Bahrani 2008: 65) . Images of war, as signs which could be read – that is, semiotic theory – were perceived as a natural phenomenon in the ancient world; the system of signification enabling the semiotics of the body and violence to be part of the mechanism of war (Bahrani 2008: 20) . Furthermore, Vandkilde (2006: 396) suggested that signification – as a mode of discourse – was a part of the ‘construction of warriorhood’ . Warfare, and to a similar extent hunting, are forms of organised violence and by certain cultures – the Mesopotamians for example – were perceived as aspects of civilised behaviour (Bahrani 2008: 9–10); that is, as noted above, as a natural phenomenon . Artistic representations of war incorporated violent acts that both supported and justified wars (Bahrani 2008: 12, 59) . By focussing on the role of the rosette motif in visual images or representations of warfare including those of the warriors themselves and their associated weaponry and armour, I will examine the belief that war allowed for non-normative behaviour (Bahrani 2008: 13); that conceptions of violence and power were inseparable from those of the body and how it was controlled (Bahrani 2008: 13); and further, the notion that the representation of violence against the body in visual art was possibly be perceived as an expression of sovereign power over life and death (Bahrani 2008: 18) . Although some scholars have studied representations of violence or warfare, the function of such material culture in antiquity remains – for the most part – ‘untheorised’ (Bahrani 2008: 12) . Bahrani goes on to suggest that it would be of value to undertake an analysis of iconography in images of heroism, victory, and explicit physical violence/torture (Bahrani 2008: 19); Papadopoulos (2012: 69), too, highlighting the importance of a study of ‘the imagery of martial subjects’ . In respect to © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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my own research, I intend to make the iconographic focus more specific and relate it to an analysis of the rosette motif in such imagery . 3. Case study Cypriot engagement with warfare was distinctive during the Iron Age . Various artefacts – figures, weapons, and armour – together with lack of large-scale depictions of overt violence from the ancient Cypriot artistic repertoire, suggest that Cyprus had a different ideology in respect to warfare than that of its close neighbours in Egypt and the Near East, in particular . Furthermore, the island’s use of the rosette motif in association with extant elements of the embodied warrior experience appears to differ significantly from that of the wider Eastern Mediterranean region . In order to assess the Cypriot evidence, I have been working on a comparative analysis of these particular elements from the wider regions of my PhD research; that is, the Aegean, Near East and Egypt . Both the ancient Near East and Egypt depicted scenes of warfare and violence on wall reliefs; the Near East prolifically so . The Assyrian palaces, for example, prominently featured scenes of extreme physical violence in both war scenes and those of the lion hunts . The hunting scenes in particular, prominently feature rosette motifs; similar examples, although less explicit, are also known in the Egyptian repertoire . Visual representation in the Aegean, however, predominantly known from vase painting – although to some extent graphic – tends not to feature such scenes of gratuitous violence, but rather appears to focus on ‘heroic encounters’ with rosette motifs featured in close association with the hero . It is noteworthy that in such images the rosettes often adorn the body of hero themselves; whereas in images of warriors the motif is applied to weapons, shields, or armour . One group of artefacts, which appear to be unique within the Aegean repertoire, are the aryballoi in the form of warrior heads, usually featuring rosettes on the faces or helmets of the warriors . These will be used at a later date as comparanda alongside warrior figures and terracotta armour – to which I refer below – that are similarly unique elements of Cypriot material culture . I intend to analyse the use of the rosette motif on the warrior figurines, which are commonly depicted holding a shield – important aspects of Cypriot Iron Age martial imagery – decorated with a rosette, and also the life-sized sets of terracotta armour (now mainly fragmentary) known from various sites on Cyprus, widely decorated with rosette motifs on the tunic and also the helmet . To enable the embodied experience or performance of warfare – the term ‘performance’ referring to behavioural actions or bodily practices that create a form of visual communication (Betancourt 2007: 148; Alphas and Zachariou-Kaila 2015: 69) – it was pre-supposed that warriors were appropriately dressed and equipped; that is, with armour and weaponry, such military paraphernalia being an integral part of the warrior’s status (Alphas and Zachariou-Kaila 2015: 158; Otto, Thrane and Vandkilde 2006: 15; Vandkilde 2015: 611) . It is noteworthy that, in the case of the figures, the © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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rosette motif on each of the shields is of different type, a point I will be looking at further when I start to analyse these representations in more depth . So, if we begin to look in more detail at visual imagery of warfare and violence, the vast majority of the evidence comes from the Neo-Assyrian reliefs which lined the palace walls of the 9th to 7th centuries BC, in which explicit torture is shown with extremes of physical violence (Bahrani 2008: 155) . It may be significant that such violence is carried out by Assyrian soldiers rather than the king (Bahrani 2008: 155, 204) . In fact, the king is rarely seen on the battle reliefs, yet it is supposed that the appearance of such scenes on the palace walls must have been sanctioned by the king – the king claiming in written texts to have actually taken take part in this violence (Bahrani 2008: 155, 204) . The Til-Tuba battle reliefs from the reign of Ashurbanipal, particularly feature ‘horrific subject matter’, according to Bahrani (2004: 115–116); the panels depicting a chaotic mass of bodies and randomly strewn weapons, which culminate in the severing and carrying off of the head of Teumman . Close examination and analysis of the use of the rosette motif in both battle and hunting scenes from the Assyrian palaces indicates that in battle scenes, in which – as indicated above – the king is rarely depicted, if at all, rosette depictions are few . However, where rosettes are shown, they tend to be associated almost exclusively with weaponry; whereas on the hunting reliefs which prominently feature the king, vast numbers of rosettes of many types are incorporated into the imagery (Fig . 1) . I suggest that this specific use of the motif in warfare or hunting scenes makes a significant contribution to what I believe is the role of the motif, and I’ll return to this point shortly . If we question the role of images of war and violence in antiquity – in particular the graphic examples depicted in Assyrian palaces – Bahrani (2008: 222) suggests that the king and his court derived a voyeuristic thrill from the relief scenes – viewing the violence for the sake of the spectacle . This was certainly the case later in the games of the Roman arena in which extreme forms of violence were displayed as entertainment . As referred to above, many images of violence and rituals of war – as organised and sanctioned violence – sought to rationalise such events as a just aggression (Bossen 2006: 91; Bahrani 2008: 13, 59) . However, in the case of the Assyrian reliefs in particular, they were only seen by the elite (Bahrani 2008: 204) . Admittedly, the reliefs would show the might or power of the Assyrian king to visitors to the palace, possibly as a means of dominating or intimidating them by the implied threat of violence – but it could be questioned whether in general they were simply justifying such violence amongst themselves . This, however, was not the case in Cyprus . Although Webb (2005: 178) claims that Cypriot elites drew on a ‘shared eastern Mediterranean symbolic system’ for their ‘status referents’, my research indicates that this did not appear to apply in relation to violence . In the Cypriot artistic repertoire, there were no explicit acts of violence to be seen . Papadopoulos (2010: 135) states that there were no representations of humans engaged in arm-to-arm combat, nor were there any iconographic depictions of battle scenes . For example, we saw the decapitation of Teumman on the Til Tuba relief, an act which was subsequently followed by the appearance of his © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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head as a ‘trophy’ in the garden of Ashurbanipal during a banquet – the act of taking enemy heads, according to Aldhouse-Green (2006: 300) combining aggression, triumph, and contempt . The closest Cypriot parallel to the scenes from Assyria can be found on a jug which depicts a couple of heads of decapitated soldiers hanging from chariot poles – the heads even appearing to be smiling (Fig . 2) . Furthermore, the closest warrior-combat depictions are those of warrior-versus-griffin – that is, of supernatural character rather than taken from reality – the best known example probably being an ivory mirror-handle from Enkomi (British Museum Inv .1897,0401 .872) . The combination of an exotic material for the depiction together with an Eastern mythological creature creates, according to Papadopoulos (2010: 135), “ . . . something authentically Cypriot . . .” . Both of these artefacts clearly incorporate rosette motifs into their imagery . More commonly found on Cyprus are the warrior figurines, referred to above, which – in my opinion – can in no way be described as aggressive (Figs . 3–5) . To a limited extent, these figures find parallels in warrior-head aryballoi – predominantly from Rhodes but found throughout the Aegean – that feature rosettes on their helmets (for example, MMA 56 .11 .7; Manchester Museum 37060; Archaeological Museum of Odessa 26737) . A further Cypriot artefact-type related to warfare that incorporates the rosette motif is that of terracotta armour from statuary – now, for the most part, fragmentary . At least two examples are held in the collection of Cyprus Museum (Figs . 6, 7), with further exemplar known elsewhere (for example, British Museum 1891,0806 .48–51) . It is thought that such armour was offered as ex voto to deities at sanctuaries . A warrior head found at Salamis (Toulouse 82 .2–1) is believed to have come from a local workshop as the decoration of the headdress – particularly that of the rosettes – parallels that of full-scale statues found at the site . Yon (2005: 35) claims that such ‘floral’ elements are typical of local workshops in the Cypro-Archaic Period . Yon (2005: 52) further suggests that the head may have originally belonged to a terracotta tunic – that referred to above, now in the British Museum – this example being in extremely fragmentary form but appearing to depict rosette motifs in its decoration . Kristiansen (1991: 31), based on evidence from a case study in early Iron Age Europe, states that wealth was channelled into ritual gear – including weaponry and armour . He claims that this may reflect a crisis of legitimation; the elite acting as mediators to the gods . I question whether this scenario could also be applied to Cypriot society in respect to the deposition of votive armour in local sanctuaries . Bahrani (2008: 189) states that, in some respects, weapons – such as bows, maces, and both swords and daggers – were seen as “ . . . instruments of divine purpose . . .”; rulers or heroes often associated with particularly powerful weapons (Bahrani 2008: 192) . What may have been assigned as ‘ceremonial’ weapons, tended to be more than simply personal decoration or modes of male adornment; the detailed elements of such weapons were laden with significance, particularly in their material and iconography (Bahrani 2008: 193); such iconography commonly incorporating rosette motifs . Furthermore, many functional weapons from across the Eastern Mediterranean region also © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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featured rosette motifs within their iconographic detail or, in the case of several known mace-heads for example, are actually in the shape of rosettes (a good example of such a mace-head being known in Limassol Archaeology Museum, Cyprus) . Similar values seem to have been ascribed to military equipment . Chariots or horse trappings, finials in particular, feature rosette-type elements – a chariot from Salamis (Tomb 79) being adorned with a bronze warrior figure with a large rosette motif on his helmet (Cyprus Museum, Nicosia), whilst horse trappings from horse burials at the same tomb clearly display rosettes (in situ) . Although the type of rosettes incorporated into the Cypriot horse trappings are unique, the use of the motif in such a context is not unique to Cyprus; rosette-adorned horse trappings being commonly depicted on Assyrian reliefs . Furthermore, large-scale bronze rosettes are known from Mesopotamia that were probably integral elements of physical horse harnesses, as well as horse pectorals bearing rosettes motifs from the Aegean . Earlier in this paper, I also raised the question of the role of images of war and violence in antiquity . The Assyrian kings, for example, chose to record the events of war, torture, and conquest in detailed visual imagery (Bahrani 2008: 14; Parpola 2010: 37); important from the perspective of my research . However, in such imagery, problematic aspects of the relationship between what is real and what is representation arise; that is, between the actual historical event, and the ideological message of justification, glory, and victory (Bahrani 2008: 14; Parpola 2010: 37) . The Iron Age, from which these images predominantly arose, was dominated by a mythology of war in which the hero was perceived politically as the mighty warrior; whilst the king was idealised as the mighty conqueror, cruelty and barbarism becoming a way of life (Baring and Cashford 1991: 286) . If we consider the imagery of warfare from this perspective; that is, in those cultures which have clearly defined patterns of kingship – such as Assyria and Egypt – as compared with those of which kings are largely unknown – the wider Aegean region, in this case mainly Cyprus and Rhodes – can we use this to explain the vast iconographic differences? It appears to be generally accepted that use of foreign goods and ideologies arises in cultures, which were undergoing rapid and disorienting change (Webb 2005: 181) . It is during the Late Bronze Age/Iron Age transitional period, that representations of warriors and other scenes of martial character were portrayed for the first time in the art of Cyprus (Papadopoulos 2010: 128; Papadopoulos 2011: 657) . That is, at the time period in which the warrior figures and terracotta armour appeared on Cyprus, Cypriot society had undergone, and was potentially still emerging from the dynamic period of transition between the Bronze and Iron Ages (Knapp 2012: 32) . Knapp states that the material culture of this period reflected an “… amalgamation of Cypriot and Aegean materialities …” (Knapp 2012: 32), and that the ‘transcultural entanglements’ formed the basis of new social identities emerging on Cyprus at this time (Knapp 2012: 32, 45) . If we view the images from this perspective, can it be questioned whether they hint at a period of uncertainty within local Cypriot society? Elites in Cyprus constructed an identity based on their connections with foreign lands, and legitimised their authority by means of ideological concepts drawn from © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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such sources (Webb 2005: 181) . Warriorhood – being a social identity closely connected to military actions – was also motivated stereotypically through myths and sagas of men and war (Otto, Thrane and Vandkilde 2006: 15; Vandkilde 2015: 608) . Material culture and personal appearance organise and maintain all kinds of identities, including those of warriors, as they existed in many prehistoric, historic, and ethnographic contexts . Weapons, protective armour, and body attitudes were used as means of creating and manipulating the image of the warrior within both warrior’s own group and between wider warrior groups, whilst simultaneously having an effect on the warrior himself by influencing how he perceived himself (Otto, Thrane and Vandkilde 2006: 15) . I suggested earlier that the specific way in which the rosette motif is used in warfare or hunting scenes significantly contributes to my interpretation of the message being communicated by the motif as an element of visual images . Extensive contextual analyses have indicated – as I have evidenced in numerous papers (for example, Hart 2016: 19–28; Hart 2017: 59–69; Hart forthcoming 2017, 2017–2018) and presentations – that the rosette acts to enhance or augment the symbolic value of the context in which it appears . That is, in the context of warfare, its appearance on weapons or armour symbolically increases the martial power or protection of such objects – shields, for example, having an apotropaic function – the addition of the rosette augmenting such functionality . Similarly, the motif’s association with depictions of the king in hunting scenes similarly enhances the perceived power of the king in his cosmological battle of control over the wild or, by extension, his enemies . In conclusion, in respect to Cypriot martial imagery, I have shown that there are no scenes of overt physical violence or torture as seen in Near Eastern iconography in particular . The predominant artefactual images associated with warfare are those of the warrior figures and terracotta armour – both widely depicting the rosette motif . The shield of the figures and the tunic and helmet of the armour are a means of protection or defence of both the individual – and ultimately the society – the shield in particular being what Rodriguez-Corral (2013: 297) calls a ‘moveable border’ separating oneself and the territory from the ‘Other’; in my opinion, the rosette motif enhancing the material metaphor of protection . As I noted at the beginning of this paper, this particular aspect of my research is ongoing so – in respect to the use of the rosette motif in Cypriot martial imagery – I will finish with the statement of Papadopoulos (2010: 140) that “ . . . it is evident that local tastes and customs combined to develop a distinct and unique Cypriot military iconography . . .” . Acknowledgements I would like to thank the Organising Committee of 10th ICAANE for allowing me the opportunity to present this paper in Vienna . Also London Centre for the Ancient Near East for help with funding my attendance at the conference . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Bibliography Aldhouse-Green, M . 2006 Semiologies of subjugation: The ritualisation of war-prisoners in later European antiquity . In: T . Otto, H . Thrane and H . Vandkilde (eds .), Warfare and Society. Archaeological and Social Anthropological Perspectives. Aarhus, 281–304 . Alphas, E . and Zachariou-Kaila, E . (eds .) 2015 The Body. Lived Experiences in Ancient Cyprus. Exhibition Held at Cyprus Museum 17 May 2014–17 February 2015 . Nicosia . Bahrani, Z . 2004 The King’s Head, Iraq 66, 115–119 . 2008

Rituals of War. The Body and Violence in Mesopotamia. New York .

Baring, A . and Cashford, J . 1991 The Myth of the Goddess: Evolution of an Image. London . Betancourt, P . P . 2007 Introduction to Aegean Art . Philadelphia . Bossen, C . 2006 War as practice, power, and processor: A framework for the analysis of war and social structural change . In: T . Otto, H . Thrane and H . Vandkilde (eds .), Warfare and Society. Archaeological and Social Anthropological Perspectives. Aarhus, 89–102 . Colburn, C . S . and Heyn, M . K . 2008 Introduction: bodily adornment and identity . In: C . S . Colburn and M . K . Heyn (eds .), Reading a Dynamic Canvas: Adornment in the Ancient Mediterranean World. Newcastle, 1–12 . Hart, C . 2016 Royal Flower Power? An Examination of the Rosette Motif on the Relief Scenes at Persepolis, Journal of the Archaeology of the Iranian World 1 .1, 19–28 . 2017

An examination and analysis of the role of the iconographic rosette motif in the Egyptian artistic repertoire: a case study . In: M . Tomorad and J . Popielska- Grzybowska (eds .), Egypt 2015: Perspectives of Research. Proceedings of the Seventh European Conference of Egyptologists., held at Zagreb, 2–7 June 2015. Oxford, 59–69 .

forthcoming 2017 An analysis of the rosette motif as a symbolic element of faience hippopotamus figurines in ancient Egyptian mortuary contexts . In: R . Kogalniceanu (ed .), Proceedings of the 5th International Symposium of Funerary Anthropology: Death and Animals from Prehistory to Middle Ages, held at Alba Iulia, Romania October 2015. Oxford . forthcoming 2017–2018 Crossing liminal spaces – boundaries, thresholds, gates, and doors: The role of the rosette motif . In: C . Hart (ed .), Liminal Spaces – Transitions between Land, Sea and Sky in the Ancient Near East. Oxford . Knapp, A .B . 2012 Matter of fact: transcultural contacts in the Late Bronze Age Eastern Mediterranean . In: J . Maran and P . Stockhammer (eds .), Materiality and Social Practice. Transformative Capacities of Intercultural Encounters. Oxford, 32–50 . Kristiansen, K . 1991 Chiefdoms, states, and systems of social evolution . In: T . Earle (ed .), Chiefdoms: Power, Economy and Ideology. Cambridge, 16–43 . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Otto, T ., Thrane, H . and Vandkilde, H . 2006 Warfare and society: archaeological and social anthropological perspectives . In: T . Otto, H . Thrane and H . Vandkilde (eds .), Warfare and Society. Archaeological and Social Anthropological Perspectives. Aarhus, 9–19 . Papadopoulos, A . 2010 Discussing Bronze Age Cypriot iconography: three case studies . In: S . Christodoulou and A . Satraki (eds .), POCA 2007: Postgraduate Cypriot Archaeology Conference. Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 127–144 . 2011

Abstract: So where’s the battle? The iconography of violence in Bronze Age Cyprus . In: A . Demetriou (ed .), Proceedings of the IV International Cyprological Congress, Lefkosia 29 April–3 May 2008. Volume 1 .2 Ancient Section . Lefkosia, 657 .

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Warriors, hunters and ships in the Late Helladic IIIC Aegean: changes in the iconography of warfare? In: C . Bachhuber and R . G . Roberts (eds .), Forces of Transformation. The End of the Bronze Age in the Mediterranean. Proceedings of an International Symposium held at St. John’s College, University of Oxford, 25–26 March 2006. Oxford, 69–77 .

Parpola, S . 2010 Neo-Assyrian concepts of kingship and their heritage in Mediterranean antiquity . In: G . B . Lanfranchi and R . Rollinger (eds .), Concepts of Kingship in Antiquity. Proceedings of the European Science Foundation Exploratory Workshop, Padova, November 28–December 1, 2007. Padova, 35–44 . Rodriguez-Corral, J . 2013 The empowerment of imagery: stone warriors in the borders, Cambridge Archaeological Journal 23 (2), 283–306 . Vandkilde, H . 2006 Warrior and warrior institutions in Copper Age Europe . In: T . Otto, H . Thrane and H . Vandkilde (eds .), Warfare and Society. Archaeological and Social Anthropological Perspectives. Aarhus, 393–422 . 2015

Conflict and war, archaeology of weapons and artefacts . In: J . D . Wright (ed .), International Encyclopaedia of the Social and Behavioural Sciences . Second Edition. Oxford, 607–613 .

Webb, J .M . 2005 Ideology, iconography and identity . The role of foreign goods and images in the establishment of social hierarchy in Late Bronze Age Cyprus . In: J . Clarke (ed .), Archaeological Perspectives on the Transmission and Transformation of Culture in the Eastern Mediterranean. Oxford, 176–182 . Yon, M . 2005 Peintres, potiers et coroplathes à Salamine, Cahiers du Centre d’Études Chypriotes 35, 35–54 .

All images are taken by the author as authorised by the relevant museums .

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Fig . 1 Detail of ‘Lion Hunt’ wall-relief from Palace of Ashurbanipal, Nineveh . (British Museum Inv . 124853–124854; photo: © Cheryl Hart)

Fig . 2 Detail of Bichrome IV jug from Larnaca, Cyprus (Neues Museum, Berlin Inv . Ant . 30356124854; photo: © Cheryl Hart) © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Fig . 3 Cypriot warrior figure (Cyprus Museum, Nicosia Inv . B40124854; (photo: © Cheryl Hart)

Fig . 4 Cypriot warrior figure (Cyprus Museum, Nicosia124854; photo: © Cheryl Hart)

Fig . 5 Cypriot warrior figure (Cyprus Museum, Nicosia . Inv . B63124854; photo: © Cheryl Hart) © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Fig . 6 Cypriot terracotta ‘armour’ (Cyprus Museum, Nicosia124854; photo: © Cheryl Hart)

Fig . 7 Cypriot terracotta ‘armour’ (Cyprus Museum, Nicosia124854; photo: © Cheryl Hart) © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Comparing Images: The Relief Programme in the Palace of Ashurnasirpal II and the Egyptian Mortuary Temple of Ramesses III Oskar Kaelin 1 Abstract Parallels in iconography and programme strongly suggest that the mortuary temple of Ramesses III in Medinet Habu most likely was the model for the relief programme in the NW-palace of Ashurnasirpal II in Nimrud . By adopting this specific imagery Ashurnasirpal II conveyed a clear political message: Like Ramesses III, he was a great king, a warder of Sea People, and of Libyans, who were the dynasts ruling Egypt in his time . These messages were propagated beyond the palace by the guests of the inauguration ceremony of his palace, many of them coming from the Western and Mediterranean regions between Assyria and Egypt, – the future area of conflict .

1. Introduction In the 9th century BC Ashurnasirpal II re-established the Assyrian empire within the borders of his Middle Assyrian predecessors . After two centuries he was the first Assyrian ruler to cross the Euphrates, and he also reached the Mediterranean Sea (Bagg 2011: 64–65) . He celebrated his successes by re-building Kalhu as his new capital, and a new palace (Kertai 2015a: 18–20; Novak 1999: 129–139) . The walls of this palace were decorated with painted reliefs commemorating his deeds, propagating his successes, and showing his bonds with the supernatural (cf . Ataç 2010: 14–38, 169–171; Russell 1998: 663, 670) . Ashurnasirpal II started the Neo-Assyrian tradition of palacebuildings exclusively dedicated to one king and his commemoration – buildings that were to become hallmarks of the remembrance of Assyrian kings and kingship . The origin of or the influence on this kind of visual programme, which seemingly emerges out of nowhere, has regularly been debated . Earlier Assyrian palaces are only scarcely known, but they seem to have been lavishly decorated, some with door colossi . Other monuments, as e .g ., the White Obelisk are evidence that images of the king at war, receiving tribute, or hunting were known in Late Middle Assyrian royal art, and could have been part of the decoration in the palaces (Pittman 1996; Kertai 2015a: 13–16) . The early Neo-Hittite kingdoms, which again partially stood in the tradition of the Hittite empire of the Late Bronze Age, were also considered as a stimulus for the Neo-Assyrian palace reliefs (e .g . Winter 2010: 528; Kolbe 1981: 152) . The com-

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monality here is to decorate walls with images on orthostats and the gates with animal and hybrid creatures . But in the imagery, there are almost no parallels in topics, quality and complexity of execution . Most of the topics depicted in the palace of Ashurnasirpal II – royal hunts, war, prisoners, tributes – go back to the Uruk period and were traditionally connected to Ancient Near Eastern (including Egyptian) kingship (cf . Braun-Holzinger 2007: 7–21) . Ashurnasirpal did not invent them, but was the first Assyrian king to mould them into an image programme within one building dedicated exclusively to one king . With this programme, many iconographic features that were new to Assyria, but were basic in the imagery of the Egyptian mortuary temples of the New Kingdom arrive to be attested in Assyria for the first time . Ancient Near Eastern interest in Egyptian iconography goes back to the 3rd and 2nd millennia BCE (e .g . Kaelin 2006; Teissier 1996) . Written records of contacts between Assyria and Egypt start in the Amarna period (e .g . Rainey 2015: 1347–1349 EA 15– 16) . The Tukultī-Ninurta-Epic, where the Assyrian victory over Babylon is celebrated, was fashioned after the Egyptian texts describing the battle of Qadesh (Kaelin 2016) . Middle Assyrian kings kept in touch with Egyptian kings via Phoenician cities (Frahm 2009: 28–32; Jakob 2009: 9) . Tiglath-pileser I received gifts from an Egyptian king and was possibly also the first Assyrian king to set up obelisks, a type of monument probably inspired by Egypt (Orlamünde 2011: 73–75) . There are other examples of Egyptian iconography influencing Neo-Assyrian imagery (e .g . Kaelin 1999; Kaelin 2007) . In consequence, the palace of Ashurnasirpal II being inspired by Egyptian ideas is just a further instance of exchange between the two cultures . 2. Eternal buildings for the kings Both, the Egyptian mortuary temples and the Neo-Assyrian palaces were built as memorials to one king, where texts and images record his accomplishments, and bonds with the divine . Decorated mortuary temples for the Egyptian king were built since the Old Kingdom . In the New Kingdom the mortuary temples had an individualized and complex architecture, and were lavishly decorated with polychrome images, texts, statues, and obelisks . Already in the lifetime of the king, they were part of religious and political life, a stage for festivals, a place for starting to and returning from military campaigns, for collecting and showing off spoils . A palace was integrated and served as a residency for the king in life and in afterlife . These mortuary temples were operated long after the king’s death, and called ‘houses of millions of years’, i .e . for eternity (Schröder 2010: 40–49; Arnold 2001: 121) . Like the mortuary temple of an Egyptian king, the palace of a Neo-Assyrian king was his most important monument and building project . The palace of Ashurnasirpal II covered an area larger than the temples in the city, and dominated the landscape . It was built on the residence terrace of the city, close to the temples of the gods and separated from the people (Novak 1999: 130, 139) . And, as Ashurnasirpal II © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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describes it, “… as my royal residence (and) for my lordly leisure for eternity …” (Grayson 1991: 252; cf . Reade 1979: 330) . Each Egyptian mortuary temple combines elements of older buildings with innovations of its own, thus sharing commonalities with its predecessors . By the time 9th century BCE some of the mortuary temples had already been (partially) dismantled or their area used for other purposes; at this point in time the mortuary temple of Ramesses III at Medinet Habu was the best-preserved (Murnane 1980: 2), other Egyptian mortuary temples with similar image programmes, however, could have, at least partially, inspired the palace programme of Ashurnasirpal II . The hunting scenes on temple walls are hitherto only known from Medinet Habu (O’Connor 2012: 269); they are a conspicuous iconographic feature of this building that make it the most likely model for the palace of Ashurnasirpal II . 3. Comparing the iconography Some general parallels between the programmes of the NW-Palace and the Egyptian mortuary temples are the narration and complexity of the images, and the interplay between image and texts . In the NW-palace the images showing the king at war are mostly concentrated in the throne room B, and few in the West Wing . The events are narrated in episodes on the themes of attack, subjection, and tribute, already apparent on the Middle Assyrian White Obelisk (Pittmann 1996) . Still, the complexity of the images is closer to Egyptian images than to earlier Near Eastern imagery . Egyptian kings of the New Kingdom were regularly pictured at war . The campaigns were narrated in episodes that showed receiving the order to go to war from the gods, leaving the temple, distributing weapons, marching to war, the combat (e .g . open battle, attacking towns, sea battles), the binding of prisoners, victory celebrations, and the return home (Heinz 2001: 21–23) . The detailed images differentiate enemies by clothing, headdress, head-gear, etc, depict battle with people falling from the walls, a variety of attack methods, and detailed drawing of cities and landscapes (Heinz 2001: 69–126) . Similar details are also present in the reliefs of Ashurnasirpal II (see below) . The representations of foreigners are not as subtle as in the reliefs of later Assyrian kings (Wäfler 1975: 10–11), reasons for this being either the absence of a visual language to further distinguish foreigners (as it is the first image programme of its kind), or, deliberate abstinence in order to allow the viewer to project any possible enemy onto the representations . Some adaptations had to be made because of the different formats and dimensions of the images . In Egypt the full wall size was used, thus allowing that within an image various scenes and moments of skirmish could be freely arranged (Heinz 2001: 203–205) . In Assyria the register format almost forced the Assyrian artists into arranging episodes sequentially . Other adjustments were made to accommodate differences in the ideologies of kingship . Innumerable images and texts stage the Egyptian king as a god . They show © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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him in close company of the gods, as a super-human being (sometimes as a hybrid), with super-human strength, in much bigger size than his troops, fighting alone against many . In Assyria the king was shown as a regular man: similar in size as his subjects, one of his troops . He did not mingle with the main gods, and was depicted in the company of ‘genies’, only (see below) . Another visually striking feature of the NW-place, especially of the throne room, is the lavish use of texts . Images and texts balance each other, with the texts sometimes as separate panels between the image panels, or simply written over the images thus interweaving with them . It seems to be an Assyrian version of the interplay between images and inscriptions that are omnipresent on Egyptians wall reliefs (cf . Reade 2002: 189) . 4. Hunting lions and bulls In the NW-Palace hunts on lions and bulls are shown twice: the well-known hunting scenes of throne room B (Layard 1853: pls . 10–11), and less well preserved in the West suite (Russell 1998: 669) . Though other Egyptian kings hunted, it is only at Medinet Habu that the king is depicted hunting lions (Epigraphic Survey 1930: pl . 35), bulls (Epigraphic Survey 1932: pl . 117, 130), and desert game (Epigraphic Survey 1932: pl . 116) on the walls of a temple . Both the Assyrian and the Egyptian lion hunts show the king standing in a chariot, armed and ready, turned backwards, aiming at an attacking lion (Fig . 1; Meuszyński 1981: pl . 1, B-19/20; Layard 1853: pl . 10; Epigraphic Survey 1930: pl . 35; see also Frankfort 1954) . In both another lion has already fallen and is being overrun by the chariot . The horses of the teams are represented in a similar way, their legs, heads and eyes stepped one behind the other . But unlike the Egyptian king, who stands alone in the chariot, the Assyrian ruler – more realistically – is accompanied by a chariot driver . 5. The protected king – birds and parasols A bird above the king spreading its wings in his protection is a regular feature in Egyptian representations . The birds are usually the vulture of Wadjet, the falcon of Horus, or both; they are gods and birds closely connected to Egyptian kingship . 2 Some reliefs in Medinet Habu show the Egyptian king accompanied by parasol bearers – a symbol of prestige, and a real protection (e .g . Epigraphic Survey 1930: pls .

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In Medinet Habu, e .g ., Epigraphic Survey 1930: pls . 9, 11, 13, 16–19, 26, 32–33, 44; Epigraphic Survey 1932: pls . 68, 70, 72–73, 77, 87–94, 99, 101–102, 105, 111, 114, 116, 120–122; Epigraphic Survey 1934: pls . 136, 144, 174–175; Epigraphic Survey 1940: pls . 200–201, 205–208, 210–212, 215–218, 220–222, 224, 226–227, 229, 231, 235, 241, 244–247; Epigraphic Survey 1957: pls . 251, 254, 260–269, 271–283, 286–287, 289–295 . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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22–24, 29, 31; Epigraphic Survey 1932: pls . 62, 96, 98; Epigraphic Survey 1940: pls . 237–240) . In the NW-palace several images show a bird with spread wings over the Assyrian king and/or his troops, and/or parasols . In the throne room the image B 5/4/3 (lower register, Meuszyński 1981: pl . 2) finds a striking parallel in the image of Ramesses III fending off the Sea People (Epigraphic Survey 1930: pls . 36–38) (Fig . 2) . Both scenes show the king with bow and arrow attacking enemies (B 5/4), with behind the king a courtier with a parasol, and above a bird with spread wings (B 5; in Egypt a vulture; for the Egyptian king with bird and parasol see also Epigraphic Survey 1932: pls . 74–76, 109, 123–124) . In both images there is the king’s empty chariot being attended to (B 3) . On B 4/3 (upper; Meuszyński 1981: pl . 2) the Assyrian king and his troops are attacking a defended town . Above the king a winged disc with torso, above the troops the bird with wings . One town defender is falling from the walls in a twisted posture, another is already surrendering . The elements of this image, and the simultaneous representation of different moments of one event are typical for Egyptian war reliefs . In Medinet Habu the best parallels are Epigraphic Survey 1932: pls . 70, 87–90, 94–95 . On B 11–8 (upper; Meuszyński 1981: pl . 2) Assyrian troops are riding on horseback and in chariots head-on into enemy lines . Some of the enemies are lying below the horses and chariots, others are slaughtered on foot; some are half averted trying to surrender . Over the scenes of combat are two kinds of birds with spread wings (B9/8): the Assyrian king is highlighted with a winged disc (B 11), whereas the birds with spread wings are above the troops . The scene corresponds to the images of Ramesses III in battle against the Libyans (Epigraphic Survey 1930: pls . 18–19) or against the Sea People (Epigraphic Survey 1930: pls . 32–34) . The one main adaptation made by the Assyrians is that the king and his troops are shown being the same size, whereas in Egypt the king stands out . But the Egyptian scenes too, have Egyptian troops in chariots with bow and arrow driving through and over fallen enemies; other enemies are half averted fleeing or surrendering . 6. Spoils, prisoners, tributes In the aftermath of a campaign, Egyptian and Assyrian images show prisoners being brought by officials before the king . Assyrian officials presenting captured men, women, and children to the king (B 5–8, lower; Meuszyński 1981: pl . 2) correspond to scenes in Medinet Habu (Epigraphic Survey 1930: pl . 42; Epigraphic Survey 1932: pls . 91, 96; see also Heinz 2001: 192–195) . Scenes of officials who present prisoners and booty to the Assyrian king (B 18/17, Meuszyński 1981: pl . 1) match the image of Ramesses III being presented prisoners and booty from the Libyan campaign (Epigraphic Survey 1932: pl . 75) . Foreigners bringing tributes are shown on the reliefs D 2–8 and E 1–4 in the palace of Ashurnasirpal II (Meuszyński 1981: pls . 5–6; Paley/Sobolewski 1992: © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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pl . 4) . In Medinet Habu, Egyptians carry offerings (Epigraphic Survey 1934: pls . 168–169), but there are no foreign tribute bringers . Still, tribute bringer scenes with foreigners are known from the mortuary temple of Seti I, and from New Kingdom private tombs (Heinz 2001: 243; Müller-Wollermann 1986: 764–766) . 7. The kings behind the king In the throne rooms of both buildings, the king – when on the throne pedestal –was flanked by images of two kings, and a winged disc above him (Fig . 3) . The scene, known from Medinet Habu, was in the throne room of the First Palace . A double false door behind the throne served as an entrance from the beyond, when the king was deceased . Here, the two Egyptian kings flank a hieroglyphic inscription with an Egyptian winged disc above them . A similar double false door was probably set behind the throne of the Second Palace, though nothing has been preserved (Hölscher 1941: 48–52 fig . 28, pls . 6, 7, 37) . In the two representations of the Assyrian (throne) room B, B 23 and B 13, the kings flank a ‘tree of life’ and the winged disc is pictured with an anthropomorphic figure (Meuszyński 1981: pls . 1–2; Layard 1853: pl . 25 = B 23) . 8. Hybrid creatures and the king The greatest number of images in both buildings shows the encounter of the king with entities of the divine sphere (Fig . 4) . In Egyptian (mortuary) temples, they are the various deities, many of them pictured as hybrid creatures, often interacting with the king . In the NW-palace most rooms and images show apkallu-type demons – anthropomorphic or hybrid ‘genies’ or ‘demons’ with human bodies, wings, and human or avian heads, sometimes interacting with the king . Of all Assyrian palaces, it is the one of Ashurnasirpal II that pictures the greatest variety of demons (12 of 20 types, Kolbe 1981: 14–30, 152) . Roughly, two categories of encounters may be distinguished: 1 . The king presenting a bowl . 2 . The king (and his weapons) receiving by being ‘touched’ with a cone, as acts of purification and fertilization (Ataç 2010: 159–166) . These images of human-headed and avian-headed demons and their constant repetition (cf . Table 1) imitate the innumerable ritual scenes in Egyptian temples (pictured in almost all courtyards, rooms, on walls and columns), showing the king’s interactions with deities . Many of the Egyptian gods, and some of the most important ones, are represented as hybrids, some with avian heads (e .g . Horus, Monthu, Thoth; Epigraphic Survey 1934: pl . 177; Epigraphic Survey 1940: pl . 234; Epigraphic Survey 1957: pls . 284, 309; Epigraphic Survey 1963: pl . 457) . Among the variegated offerings presented by the king feature regularly bowls or small vessels with wine or incense (e .g ., Epigraphic Survey 1934: 172, 175, 180; Epigraphic Survey 1940: pls . 244–247; Epigraphic Survey 1957: 256, 258, 260–283, 288, 292, 294, 298, 305, 311–312, 342–343; Epigraphic Survey 1963: 365, 368–369, 371, 373–376, 387, 426, 428, 432, 434–436, © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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439, 442, 450, 459, 468, 472, 475) . As a counter-gift, the deities enlivened and purified the king with an ankh-sign (Epigraphic Survey 1934: pl . 177; Epigraphic Survey 1940: pls . 244, 246; Epigraphic Survey 1957: pls . 313, 347; Epigraphic Survey 1963: pls . 425, 455; Derchain 1975: 269), or by water (Epigraphic Survey 1957: pl . 296) . The representations of encounters between king and supernatural entities (presenting vs . receiving), their presence in his house, the type of beings (hybrid creatures with human and avian features), the emphasis on acts of purification, as well as the constant repetition of these scenes throughout the buildings, are obvious commonalities between the Egyptian and Assyrian programmes . At first there seems to be a difference between Egyptian ‘deities’, and Assyrian ‘demons’ . But the re-interpretation and re-invention of the scenes by the Assyrians was based on several factors . 1 . In the Ancient Near East, hybrid entities usually show demons . Using (Assyrian) demons instead of (Egyptian) gods, therefore, was an obvious choice when trying to stay close to the overall image and impression of the model . 2 . In Assyria, the kings could not permanently represent or install the main gods in their palaces, as these buildings were not consecrated; but the gods could visit (Grayson 1991: 45, lls . 77–89; cf . also Grayson and Novotny 2012: 124) . It seems that to the Assyrian mind the royal palace with its secular activities and function, its attendants, as well its (foreign) guests, was not befitting for the gods . They would have been too close to humans, and too easily desecrated by human activities; to accidentally disturb and enrage the gods was not a risk the kings and humans were willing to take . A direct confrontation between humans and deities was generally avoided, their encounters usually buffered by symbols or mediators (Ornan 2005: 176–178) . Representing gods in an Assyrian palace was not an option; ‘demons’, however, were the next best thing, and conveniently also hybrids, as this allowed to stay close to the Egyptian model . When compared to later Assyrian palaces the palace of Ashurnasirpal II stands out with his extensive picturing of supernatural entities, as other palace programmes only seldom show these kinds of scenes . But this extensive picturing of avian- or human-headed hybrids does not stand out when compared to Egyptian mortuary temples of the New Kingdom . Here, the number of representations of the king interacting with gods surpasses the ones with campaign-connected topics . It is another argument for the palace of Ashurnasirpal II having been influenced by an Egyptian model, as when an innovation is adopted for the first time, it usually is the closest to the original model . When perpetuated, features may be further adapted or even discontinued, when recognised as not essential (cf . Rogers 2003: 189–192) . One further observation: When entering the Eastern suite of the palace of Ashurnasirpal II from the main courtyard Y the sequence of the rooms G–H–I/L leads from the human to a divine sphere . In room G the king and officials present bowls in the company of demons . In room H the king alone presents bowls while the room is mainly decorated with demons . Rooms I and L are completely decorated with demons only; no king is represented . The latter two rooms were (in divine terms) the most ‘protected’ rooms of the palace with over 120 demons (flanking trees) in two registers in room I, and over 30 in full height in room L . This seems exaggerated for protecting merely the king’s booty, © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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cultic implement, royal accessories, or even the king himself (cf . Kertai 2015b: 60–61; Russell 1998: 697) . Therefore, I suggest that rooms I and L were the rooms where the statues of the gods were parked when they visited (see above), and where they had a private place securely surrounded by teams of demons . The rooms between them and the ‘public’ courtyard (G and H) formed a ‘cleaning’ tunnel, where the number of the authorized audience was reduced, but the magical cleansing by demons increased . 9. Different audiences, different messages The banquet stele of Ashurnasirpal II lists the guests invited to the inauguration of his palace, and offers a clear idea who the audience of the palace decoration was . 47,074 persons were from ‘his land’, i .e . extended Assyria, 16,000 from the capital Calah, and 1,500 zarīqū-officials of his palace . Of interest are the 5,000 dignitaries from foreign lands, as most of them were from the West of Assyria, including the Phoenician cities (Grayson 1991: 293) – regions traditionally well connected to Egypt . Depending on provenance, knowledge of various traditions and histories, the relief programme of the palace of Ashurnasirpal and its closeness to the one of Ramesses III was certainly perceived differently by the different groups . The most basic message, that Ashurnasirpal II was a strong and successful king (war, tribute, hunts) who was closely connected to the supernatural world, was acknowledgeable by everyone that knew about the images, from their planners and creators, to their beholders, but also to people that knew them from hearsay and description . By aligning himself to the great kings of the Late Bronze Age, Ashurnasirpal II sent a message of imperial ambition and self-confidence . He built a new capital, like Tukulti-Ninurta I and other kings of the period (cf . Novak 1999: 85–90, 120–128, 130), integrated elements of Hittite tradition in his palace (e .g . hybrids flanking the doors), and an image programme inspired by New Kingdom Egypt, especially Ramesses III, the last ‘hero’ and successful Great King of the Late Bronze Age (cf . Cline and O’Connor 2012) . With his references to Ramesses III and other Late Bronze Age kings Ashurnasirpal II propagated that he had picked up where they (and their tradition) had left off . Ramesses III was also the king who had fended off and vanquished the Sea People – a victory immortalised in Medinet Habu (Epigraphic Survey 1930: pls . 30–44) . Their descendants lived roughly along the Mediterranean coast of the Levant and Anatolia (Cline 2014: 154–160) . Ramesses III also led several campaigns against Syrians and Hittites (Epigraphic Survey 1932: pls . 87–98) . By alluding to images of their former defeats, Ashurnasirpal II signals to these regions to beware of Assyria . Indeed, later, Shalmaneser III attacked and conquered the region (Grayson 1996: 23) . A further warning was targeted at the Libyan rulers of Egypt . In the time of Ashurnasirpal II Egypt was not a great empire anymore . The kings of the 21st and 22nd dynasty of Egypt were of Libyan descent . Upper and Lower Egypt were controlled by separate administrators, Nubia and most of the Near Eastern regions were no longer part of the state . But the formerly great Egypt of the New Kingdom was still an ideal . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Several Libyan kings based their self-representation on the Egyptian New Kingdom tradition . They bore titles and names of New Kingdom kings, especially of the Ramessides (Kitchen 1995: §§ 68, 213, 220, 271) . The kings of the 22nd Dynasty had become active in the Levant: Shoshenq I in Byblos and Israel (Kitchen 1995: §§ 250, 252–258), Osorkon I in Byblos and may be in Judah (Kitchen 1995: § 267–268) . Osorkon II, took the same Horus name as Ramesses II, and a prenomen “… reminiscent of many kings from Ramesses II to Amenope …”, though he used-up materials of some monuments of Ramesses II (Kitchen 1995: §§ 271, 277); his foreign activities led again to Byblos and probably Israel (Kitchen 1995: §§ 283–284; cf . in general also Dodson 2012: chapter 3) . In their time the temple of Ramesses III at Medinet Habu was still active as an administrative centre (Murnane 1980: 2) . When Ashurnasirpal II reached the Mediterranean coast, he received tributes from Tyros, Sidon, and Byblos (Grayson 1991: 218), the latter a traditional partner of Egypt and in communication with its Libyan rulers . Obviously, the interests of Assyria and Egypt were bound to collide, which they did under his successor Shalmanasser III, when Egyptians supported their Levantine allies against Assyria (Grayson 1996: 23) . In this historical constellation the references of Ashurnasirpal II to Ramesses III triggered further associations . Ramesses III was the Egyptian king who had repeatedly fought off the Libyans when they tried to invade Egypt . These victories are extensively represented at Medinet Habu: receiving the divine order, decamping, fighting them off, killing their chieftain, bringing in their captives and spoils (Epigraphic Survey 1930: pls . 12–26, 43; Epigraphic Survey 1932: pls . 67–79) . Some of the images in the palace of Ashurnasirpal II are based on these representations (see above) . By alluding to this imagery Ashurnasirpal II staged himself as a potential smiter of Libyans thus sending a warning to his Libyan-Egyptian competitors for the Levant . The message was propagated via the guests of Ashurnasirpal’s palace banquet, which came mainly from the Western and Mediterranean regions, which was a zone of interest and conflict for Assyria and Egypt . It was also an area where the people had since the Middle Bronze Age become used to visual ideas from or influences by Egypt (cf . Teissier 1996) . Ashurnasirpal II’s appropriation of elements of the New Kingdom Egyptian tradition may have also led later Egyptian dynasties and opponents of Assyria to have more intense recourse to even older Egyptian traditions . In the 8th century BCE, when the Assyrian already controlled much of the Levant and Palestine, the Kushite rulers (25th Dynasty) expanded into Egypt, and started to usurp systematically Egyptian traditions of staging kingship, using ideas and image traditions reaching as far back as the Old Kingdom (Török 2002: 43–45, 55–57, 65–59, 80–82, 92–94) . In the 7th century BCE the foreign pressure on Egypt shortly faded, and Egypt was again ruled by an Egyptian dynasty . The competition of foreign rulers like the Libyans, Assyrians, and Kushites, to appropriate Egyptian pharaonic traditions, or as the Assyrian under Esarhaddon and Assurbanipal to erase them (e .g . by renaming towns in the Delta, or destroying Thebes; cf . Kahn 2006), formed within Egypt a new perspective on their own traditions, which in the 26th Dynasty led to the ‘Egyptian renaissance’ when Old Kingdom Egyptian imagery was revived (Josephson 2001: 111; Spalinger 2001: 274; Brunner 1975: 388–395) . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Bibliography Arnold, D . 2001 Architecture . In: D . B . Redford (ed .), The Oxford Encyclopaedia of Ancient Egypt, Volume 1 . Oxford, 113–125 . Atac, M .-A . 2006 Visual formula and meaning in Neo-Assyrian Relief Sculpture . The Art Bulletin, March, 2006, 69–101 . 2010

The Mythology of Kingship in Neo-Assyrian Art . Cambridge .

Bagg, A .M . 2011 Die Assyrer und das Westland. Studien zur historischen Geographie und Herrschaftspraxis in der Levante im 1. Jt. v. u. Z. Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta 216 . Leuven . Braun-Holzinger, E . A . 2007 Das Herrscherbild in Mesopotamien und Elam: spätes 4. bis frühes 2. Jt. v. Chr. Alter Orient und Altes Testament 342 . Münster . Brunner, H . 1975 Archaismus . In: W . Helck and W . Westendorf (eds .), Lexikon der Ägyptologie, Volume 1 . Wiesbaden, 386–395 . Cline, E . H . 2014 1177 B .C . The Year Civilization Collapsed . Princeton . Cline, E . H . and O’Connor, D . (eds .) 2012 Ramesses III: the Life and Times of Egypt’s Last Hero. Ann Arbor . Derchain, Ph . 1975 Anchzeichen . In: W . Helck and W . Westendorf (eds .), Lexikon der Ägyptologie, Volume 1. Wiesbaden, 268–269 . Dodson, A . 2012 Afterglow of Empire. Egypt from the Fall of the New Kingdom to the Saite Renaissance . Cairo . Epigraphic Survey 1930 Medinet Habu 1. Earlier Historical Records of Ramses III . Oriental Institute Publications 8 . Chicago . 1932

Medinet Habu 2. Later Historical Records of Ramses III . Oriental Institute Publications 9 . Chicago .

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Medinet Habu 3. The Calendar, the ‘Slaughterhouse’, and Minor Records of Ramses III . Oriental Institute Publications 23 . Chicago .

1940

Medinet Habu 4. Festival scenes of Ramses III . Oriental Institute Publications 51 . Chicago .

1957

Medinet Habu 5: The Temple Proper, Part 1: the Portico, the Treasury, and Chapels adjoining the First Hypostyle Hall with Marginal Material from the Forecourts . Oriental Institute Publications 83 . Chicago .

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Medinet Habu 6. The Temple Proper, Part 2: The Re Chapel, the Royal Mortuary Complex, and adjacent rooms with Miscellaneous Material from the Pylons, the Forecourts, and the First Hypostyle Hall . Oriental Institute Publications 84 . Chicago . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Frahm, E . 2009 Historische und historisch-literarische Texte Keilschrifttexte aus Assur literarischen Inhalts 3 . Wissenschaftliche Veröffentlichungen der Deutschen Orient-Gesellschaft 121 . Wiesbaden . Frankfort, H . 1954 Egyptian and Assyrian reliefs . Nederlands Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek 5, 1–10 . Grayson, A .K . 1991 Assyrian Rulers of the Early First Millennium BC (1114–859 BC). The Royal Inscriptions of Mesopotamia . Assyrian Periods 2 . Toronto . 1996

Assyrian Rulers of the Early First Millennium BC (858–745 BC) . The Royal Inscriptions of Mesopotamia . Assyrian Periods 3 . Toronto .

Grayson, A . K . and Novotny, J . 2012 The Royal Inscriptions of Sennacherib, King of Assyria (704–681 BC). Part 1 . The Royal Inscriptions of the Neo-Assyrian Period 3 . Winona Lake, Ind . Heinz, S . C . 2001 Die Feldzugsdarstellungen des Neuen Reiches. Eine Bildanalyse, Untersuchungen der Zweigstelle Kairo des Österreichischen archäologischen Institutes 17 . Vienna . Hölscher, U . 1941 The Mortuary Temple of Ramses III, Part 1. The Excavation of Medinet Habu 3 . Oriental Institute Publications 54 . Chicago . Jakob, S . 2009 Die mittelassyrischen Texte aus Tell Chuēra in Nordost-Syrien . Ausgrabungen in Tell Chuēra in Nordost-Syrien 3 . Vorderasiatische Forschungen der Max Freiherr von Oppenheim-Stiftung 2 . Wiesbaden . Josephson, J . A . 2001 Archaism . In: D . B . Redford (ed .), The Oxford Encyclopaedia of Ancient Egypt, Volume 1. Oxford, 109–113 . Kaelin, O . 1999 Ein assyrisches Bildexperiment nach ägyptischem Vorbild. Zu Planung und Ausführung der ‘Schlacht am Ulai’ . Alter Orient und Altes Testament 266 . Münster . 2006

Modell Ägypten: Adoption von Innovationen im Mesopotamien des 3. Jahrtausends v. Chr. Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis Series Archaeologica 26 . Fribourg .

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Das Tukultī-Ninurta-Epos und das ägyptische Qadeš-Schlacht-Poem . Ideentransfer in der Inszenierung eines assyrischen Herrschers . H . Jenni and M . Saur (eds .), Nächstenliebe und Gottesfurcht. Beiträge aus alttestamentlicher, semitistischer und altorientalistischer Wissenschaft für Hans-Peter Mathys zum 65. Geburtstag . Alter Orient und Altes Testament 439 . Münster, 177–202 .

Kahn, D . 2006 The Assyrian invasions of Egypt (673–663 B .C .) and the final expulsion of the Kushites . Studien zur Altägyptischen Kultur 34, 251–267 . Kertai, D . 2015a The Architecture of Late Assyrian Royal Palaces . Oxford . 2015b The original context of a winged genie . Arte da Mesopotâmia. Atas do Colóquio. 24 e 25 de maio de 2013 . Lisbonne, 44–63 . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Kitchen, K . A . 1995 The Third Intermediate Period in Egypt (1100–650 B.C.)(2nd ed .) . Warminster . Kolbe, D . 1981 Die Reliefprogramme religiös-mythologischen Charakters in neu-assyrischen Palästen. Die Figurentypen, ihre Benennung und Bedeutung . Frankfurt – Bern . Layard, A . H . 1853 Monuments of Nineveh . London . Meuszyński, J . 1981 Die Rekonstruktion der Reliefdarstellungen und ihrer Anordung im Nordwestpalast von Kalḫu (Nimrud) (Räume: B.C.D.E.F.G.L.N.P) . Bagdader Forschungen 2 . Mainz . Müller-Wollermann, R . 1986 Tributbringer . In: W . Helck and W . Westendorf (eds .), Lexikon der Ägyptologie, Volume 6. Wiesbaden, 764–766 . Murnane, W . J . 1980 United with Eternity: a Concise Guide to the Monuments of Medinet Habu . Chicago . Novák, M . 1999 Herrschaftsform und Stadtbaukunst: Programmatik im mesopotamischen Residenzstadtbau von Agade bis Surra man ra’ā . Schriften zur vorderasiatischen Archäologie 7 . Saarbrücken . O‘Connor, D . B . 2012 The mortuary temple of Ramesses III at Medinet Habu, In: E . H . Cline and D . B . O’Connor (eds .), Ramesses III: the Life and Times of Egypt’s Last Hero . Ann Arbor, 209–270 . Orlamünde, J . 2011 Die Obeliskenfragmente aus Assur . Wissenschaftliche Veröffentlichungen der Deutschen Orientgesellschaft 135 . Wiesbaden . Ornan, T . 2005 The Triumph of the Symbol. Pictorial Representation of Deities in Mesopotamia and the Biblical Image Ban . Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis 213 . Fribourg . Paley, S . M . and Sobolewski, R . P . 1987 The Reconstruction of the Relief Representations and Their Positions in the Northwest Palace at Kalḫu (Nimrud) II . Baghdader Forschungen 10 . 1992

The Reconstruction of the Relief Representations and Their Positions in the Northwest-Palace at Kalḫu (Nimrud) III. Baghdader Forschungen 14 .

Pittman, H . 1996 The white obelisk and the problem of historical narrative in the art of Assyria, The Art Bulletin 78 .2, 334–355 . Rainey, A . F . 2015 The El-Amarna Correspondence . Handbook of Oriental Studies . Section 1, The Near and Middle East 110 . Leiden . Reade, J .E . 1979 Ideology and propaganda in Assyrian art, In: M . T . Larsen (ed .), Power and Propaganda. A Symposium on Ancient Empires . Mesopotamia 7 . Copenhagen, 329–343 . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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The ziggurat and temples of Nimrud . Iraq 64, 135–216 .

Rogers, E . M . 2004 Diffusion of Innovations. 5th ed . New York . Russell, J . M . 1998 The program of the palace of Assurnasirpal II at Nimrud: issues in the research and presentation of Assyrian art, American Journal of Archaeology 102 .4, 655–715 . Schröder, S . 2010 Millionenjahrhaus: zur Konzeption des Raumes der Ewigkeit im konstellativen Königtum in Sprache, Architektur und Theologie. Wiesbaden . Spalinger, A . J . 2001 Late Period . In: D . B . Redford (ed .), The Oxford Encyclopaedia of Ancient Egypt . 3 vols . Oxford, 267–274 . Teissier, B . 1996 Egyptian Iconography on Syro-Palestinian Cylinder Seals of the Middle Bronze Age. Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis Series Archaeologica 11 . Fribourg . Török, L . 2002 The Image of the Ordered World in Ancient Nubian Art. The Construction of the Kushite Mind. 800 BC–300 AD . Probleme der Ägyptologie 18 . Wäfler, M . 1975 Nicht-Assyrer neuassyrischer Darstellungen . Alter Orient und Altes Testament 1975 . Winter, I . J . 2010 On Art in the Ancient Near East 1. Of the First Millenium B.C.E . Culture and History of the Ancient Near East 34 .1 . Leiden .

Room

Programme

F

Avian headed hybrids with cone and bucket flank trees or entrances and, in one case, the Assyrian king (F 3/4) (Russell 1998: 709; Paley and Sobolewski 1987: pls . 6–7) .

G

On some reliefs, human headed demons flank the seated king presenting a bowl, accompanied by his officials holding bows, arrows, and other objects (G 1–4), or the king with bow and arrow (G 6/7, 11/12, 14/15, 23/24, 30/31) . Human and avian-headed winged demons stand next to entrances (G 18–19, 21–22, 27) (Russell 1998: 676; Meuszyński 1981: pls . 8–10) .

H

Human headed demons flank the king with a bow presenting a bowl; no officials are shown . Avianheaded demons flank trees . Both scenes are repeated several times (Russell 1998: 679; Meuszyński 1981: pls . 11–13) .

I

Avian or human-headed demons flank trees; the scenes are repeated dozens of times in two registers . No image of the king (Russell 1998: 680) .

Table 1 Rooms of the NW-palace of Ashurnasirpal II decorated mainly with demons © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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L

Avian or human-headed demons flank trees, as full height images . No image of the king . (Russell 1998: 681; Meuszyński 1981: pls . 14–16) .

N

Human headed demons flank trees, and once the king with bow receiving cones (N 5–8) (Russell 1998: 678; Meuszyński 1981: pls . 16–17) .

S

Human or avian-headed demons flank trees . On one wall the king with a staff stands between officials and trees (Russell 1998: 700–701; Paley and Sobolewski 1987: pls . 2–3) .

T

Human headed demons and trees . (Russell 1998: 702) .

P

Human headed demons (Russell 1998: 677; Meuszyński 1981: pl . 17) .

Z

Corridor . Human headed demons (Russell 1998: 703; Paley and Sobolewski 1987: pl . 4)

West Suite

The surviving slabs of the west suite show images of war, hunting scenes, and demons (Russell 1998: 669) .

Table 1 continued Rooms of the NW-palace of Ashurnasirpal II decorated mainly with demons

Fig . 1 The king hunting lions (Epigraphic Survey 1930: pl . 35; Layard 1853: pl . 10) featuring Ramesses III and Ashurnasirpal II © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Fig . 2 The king with bow and arrow, a courtier with a parasol, a bird with spread wings, the empty chariot featuring Ramesses III (Epigraphic Survey 1930: pl . 37) and Ashurnasirpal (Meuszyński 1981: pl . 2, detail from Layard 1853: pl . 20)

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Fig . 3 Kings and winged disc framing the kings throne in Egypt (Hölscher 1941: 49 fig . 28 and pl . 7) and Assyria (Layard 1853: pl . 25)

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Fig . 4 The king presenting (Epigraphic Survey 1940: pl . 244; Meuszyński 1981: pl . 11 H1/2) and receiving (Epigraphic Survey 1934: pl . 177; Meuszyński 1981: F 3/4) featuring Ramesses III and Ashurnasirpal II

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Exerting Patronage at Home and Beyond: Art and Power in Asia Minor in the Sixth and the Fourth Centuries BC Alessandro Poggio 1 Abstract In the analysis of agency dynamics, patrons are among the main actors . Their role impacts on the artistic production according to the political and social contexts . Asia Minor in the sixth and the fourth centuries BC offers an interesting case study . As suggested by literary and material evidence, high-ranking patrons were active in displaying their wealth and power through dedications and building activities . This paper examines some cases of Western Anatolian rulers, trying to pinpoint possible long-standing tendencies throughout the centuries .

1. Introduction Asia Minor was the cradle of important empires and kingdoms from the Bronze Age onwards, being also the aim of the expansion of external political entities . The period between the sixth and fourth centuries BC is a particularly good example of the relevant historical and artistic phenomena that took place there . Asia Minor was the setting of cultural dynamics that involved multiple horizons . After the Persian Empire managed to include Asia Minor in its territories in the mid-sixth century BC, the rich and peculiar artistic production included local, Greek and Persian elements . Among the main features, there was the marked presence of individuality and self-representation of rulers, which had important consenquences on artistic production . 2. Patronage The representation of rulers in visual art points to the theme of patronage . Medieval and Modern art provide the best examples for detecting the role of patrons in the production of artworks and architecture (Settis 2010) . The patron’s name could be displayed in a prominent position, as in the monumental inscription designed by Leon Battista Alberti for the façade of Santa Maria

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Novella in Florence (1470; Mardersteig 1959: 294–295) . In this case, the inscription both clarified the identity of the patron, Giovanni Rucellai, and suggested his marked self-consciousness within the community the sponsored work was addressed to . Moreover, artists could be asked to include the patron’s image in the artworks themselves . In fifteenth-century Florence, it is worth mentioning also the case of Giovanni Sassetti, member of the local ‘opulent mercantile aristocracy’ (Warburg 1999: 189), who was sponsor of the Sassetti chapel in the church of Santa Trinita . This funerary chapel, decorated in the first half of the 1480s by two such prominent artists as Domenico Ghirlandaio and Giuliano da Sangallo, displays several of Sassetti’s images in different contexts and media, in order to magnify his devotion and social role . Moreover, the patron’s name recurs since it is inscribed several times in different formats, and is echoed by Saint Francis’s presence in the frescoes (for the chapel, Rohlmann 2004 with bibliography) . Art historians have analysed a number of cases in which patrons played a significant role influencing the final result with their requests and expectations . Michael Baxandall defined the role of patrons with these words: “A fifteenth-century painting is the deposit of a social relationship . On one side there was a painter who made the picture, or at least supervised its making . On the other side there was somebody else who asked him to make it, provided funds for him to make it and, after he had made it, reckoned on using it in some way or other . […] The man who asked for, paid for, and found a use for the painting might be called the patron […] . This second party is an active, determining and not necessarily benevolent agent in the transaction of which the painting is the result […]” (Baxandall 1988: 1) . The patron emerges as ‘agent’ also in Alfred Gell’s analysis . In the broader framework called ‘art nexus’, the patron is the provider of the commission, therefore the artwork would not have come into existence if s/he had not commissioned it (Gell 1998: 33–34) . At the same time, however, Gell attributed to the patron also the role of ‘patient’, since after commissioning the artwork the patron undergoes a reaction before the result (Gell 1998: 47–48) . Such interests for art theory reinforced the scholarly debate on agency and the social role of images also in Antiquity (Hölscher 2015), and recently overviews of ancient art and architecture have been undertaken from the perspective of patronage (Varner 2015; Wescoat 2015, with bibliography) . 3. Patronage in Asia Minor Patrons thus played a specific role in the creation of artistic works and architecture according to the political and social contexts . Significant patronage dynamics are documented in Asia Minor as well, and their analysis – alongside the examination of other agents and recipients – appears as an important key-theme for better understanding the history of the area . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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3 .1 Sixth century BC The Lydian King Croesus, the last representative of the Mermnad dynasty, ruled ca . between 560 and 547 BC . He was one of the most important rulers in pre-Persian Western Anatolia (Marek 2016: 111–117; Cahill 2010) . Renowned for his wealth, according to the historian Herodotus he was very active as a patron on a wide geographical range, both in Asia Minor and in Greece . At that time, sanctuaries were the most important stages for the ambition of those patrons who were able to display their wealth with prestigious objects or buildings (Kaplan 2006) . In Asia Minor the Lydian king contributed to the building of the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, an imposing dipteros temple entirely in marble that was among the most important architectural endeavours in the area (Ohnesorg 2007; Bammer 2008: 88–89) . According to Herodotus, Croesus paid for most of the columns (τῶν κιόνων αἱ πολλαί) of the Ephesus Artemision (Hdt . 1 .92) . On one hand, the Lydian presence in the Artemision seems to be suggested by the fragmentary inscription in Lydian (Pryce 1928: 62 no . B 136), and on the other, on the basis of Herodotus’s passage, scholars have interpreted the inscribed fragments in Greek of the base moldings of the marble column drums of the temple as parts of inscriptions all declaring βα[σιλεὺς] Κρ[οῖσος] ἀν[έ]θηκεν (‘King Croesus dedicated’; see Guarducci 1967: 264–265; Jeffery 1990: 339; Umholtz 2002: 264–265) . If this interpretation is correct, the use of the royal title in connection with the personal name would be important evidence for the assertion of patron’s role and power . As it is well known, Croesus planned to attack the Persians . After testing several oracles he acknowledged the reliability of those of Delphi and Amphiaraus (on the latter, see now Thonemann 2016) . Therefore, according to Herodotus, some Lydians were sent by the king with rich gifts in order to ask these oracles about a possible attack by Croesus against the Persians . The quality of the offerings – especially those sent to Delphi – had a strong impact over a long period (Hdt . 1 .51): When these offerings were fully made, Croesus sent them to Delphi, with other gifts besides, namely, two very great bowls, one of gold and one of silver . The golden bowl stood to the right, the silvern to the left, of the temple entrance . These too were removed about the time of the temple’s burning, and now the golden bowl, which weighs eight talents and a half, and twelve minae, lies in the treasury of the Clazomenians, and the silver bowl at the corner of the forecourt of the temple . This bowl holds six hundred nine-gallon measures: for the Delphians use it for a mixing-bowl at the feast of the Divine Appearance . It is said by the Delphians to be the work of Theodorus of Samos, and I believe them, for it seems to me to be of no common workmanship (transl . by Godley 1946) . It turns out that one century after his rule, when Herodotus wrote his work, Croesus’s name was still well connected with the sanctuary of Delphi . Moreover, his offerings had been recovered because of their value, a value that could be traced back to the patron’s identity and to the craftmanship (see Bassi 2014 for an interpretation © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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of the fate of Croesus’s offerings) . Indeed, the Delphians and Herodotus himself attributed Croesus’s silver bowl to one of the most important artists of that period, Theodorus of Samos, who – according to the literary sources – was a versatile artist of the Archaic period, since he was architect, sculptor and metalworker working in Ionia and in Samos . This indicates that one of Croesus’s goals – the transmission of a clear message of power and wealth – was achieved . But Croesus’s immediate purpose – to exert his power over the sacerdotal elites – failed in his own view . The consulted oracles replied to the Lydians that in case of attack against the Persians Croesus would destroy a great power . Interpreting these responses as approvals, Croesus attacked the Persian army but he was finally defeated by Cyrus, paving the way to the inclusion of Anatolia in the Persian Empire . Therefore, Croesus was very disappointed considering the gods to be ungrateful, since he had been inspired to such a disastrous action in spite of the fabulous offerings he had made to them . As sacerdotal elites controlling oracles were among the most important recipients of the offerings sent to the sanctuary, the Lydian king’s reaction was determined by the awareness of being a generous donor, who had believed that rich offerings would bring favorable responses . Afterwards, the Delphian Pythia explained to Lydians that Croesus actually had misunderstood the response: attacking the Persians he would have destroyed his own power, not Cyrus’s . Croesus was certainly the most striking case of powerful patron in Asia Minor in this period . However, there were other examples of such personalities . Among the statues dedicated along the Sacred Way that connected Miletus with the sanctuary of Apollo at Didyma, there was a seated greater-than-life sized marble sculpture bearing a bustrophedic inscription on the front leg of the seat (Greaves 2002: 117–120 and fig . 3 .16) . Through the inscription the sculpture claims to represent Chares, who was ἀρχός – ruler – of Teichioussa, a center of the Milesian territory, probably in the same period of Croesus (Guarducci 1969: 132–134; Jeffery 1990: 332 no . 29; Keesling 2003: 19) . The case of Chares, therefore, is an exceptional example among the few cases of extant ‘Greek-speaking’ statues (or statue groups) dating back to the Archaic period (sixth–fifth century BC), all of them coming from the Ionian world (Keesling 2003: 19; Ampolo and Bresciani 1988) . Chares’s statue, indeed, appears as one of the first examples of the assertion of individuality in the Greek world (Ampolo 1990: 220), since there is full identity between the entity speaking through the inscription and the statue . This mechanism is called ‘conjunctive representation’ (Keesling 2003: 16–19) . If the features of Chares’s statue appear astonishing from the Classicist’s perspective, Anatolia itself provides a long-standing tradition of visual and written ideology of power . For instance, on the basis of the extant evidence, it is possible to attribute to Katuwas, the Syro-Anatolian ruler of Karkemish (tenth or early ninth century BC), an important innovation in the visual display of royal ideology . An orthostat from the King’s Gate area, a monumental urban context, displays Katuwas’s fulllength depiction presenting his own inscription (Hawkins 2000: 115–116 and pls . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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24–25) . Interistingly, probably for the first time, the ruler is depicted in the attitude of speaking with the gesture of the Hieroglyphic Luwian sign EGO (amu, ‘I am’), which normally opened the royal inscriptions . This means that here the epigraphic sign is at the same time an iconic feature marking the royal figure (Bunnens 2005: 22; Mazzoni 2012: 19–21; Gilibert 2015: 147) . Of course, this case of Anatolian ‘conjunctive representation’ cannot be indicated as a direct antecedent of Chares’s statue, but it could suggest a long-standing royal ideology – in visual and written evidence – that emerged later in Western Anatolia . 3 .2 Fourth century BC As I said, the defeat of Croesus paved the way for the conquest of Western Anatolia by the Persians and their presence on the Eastern Mediterranean shores until Alexander the Great’s arrival . Did the Persian conquest influence patronage dynamics in Western Anatolia? On the one hand, the Persians were a constant presence, since the main administrative units of the Achaemenid empire – the satrapies – were ruled by the Persian elite . On the other hand, as is well known, the satrapies did not supplant the system of local government (Wiesehöfer 2010: 59–62) . It was precisely under the Persian domination that local ruling elites of Western Anatolian regions such as Lycia and Caria developed a marked self-confidence in displaying their role of patrons . Fourth century BC represented a new phase in the ideology of power, since it seems that the increasing use of Hellenized formulae in visual arts and architecture innovated the dynastic communication . In Lycia, this is demonstrated by the Nereid Monument in Xanthos, which was a real innovation as to location, architecture, materials and decoration (Poggio 2016) . Other major funerary monuments in this region were the Heroon of Trysa and the Heroon of Limyra, which were characterised by Hellenic features in architectural typology and/or decoration . In the fourth century BC, the Hecatomnid family was prominent in neighbouring Caria . The Hecatomnids are a significant case of Western Anatolian dynasty under Persian rule, since they displayed a wide range of symbols of power in the most confident way . In particular, the architectural activity of this ruling house was intense and innovative . In the second quarter of the fourth century BC, the capital was moved from Mylasa, inland, to Halicarnassus, on the coast, a very meaningful decision indeed . For this settlement, which occupied a sort of natural theatre (Vitr ., De arch. 2 .8 .11–13), a regular urban layout was used (Caliò 2005: 53–59; Hoepfner 2013: 50, fig . 23) . In such a cityscape two important markers emerged, the palace and the Mausoleum . For his own residence Mausolus probably chose a prominent and visible place, the Zephyrion Peninsula, since it was to be, primarily, one of the most important signs of power for his subjects, and also for foreigners, such as ambassadors or traders approaching the city from the sea (Pedersen 2009; Hoepfner 2013: 56–58 prefers © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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a different location) . Therefore, it is no coincidence what ancient sources recount about this palace (Plin ., HN 36 .47): The art of cutting marble into thin slabs may possibly have been invented in Caria . The earliest instance, so far as I can discover, is that of the palace of Mausolus at Halicarnassus, the brick walls of which were decorated with marble from the island of Marmara (transl . by Eichholz 1962) . The costly technical innovation of cutting marble into thin slabs, paired with the use of a marble from a long-distance source, is fully consistent with the economic and logistic efforts carried out by the ruling house for the new capital . This picture is confirmed by the second major marker in the cityscape of Halicarnassus, the Mausoleum, the monumental tomb of Mausolus and Artemisia with a complex architectural superstructure lavishly decorated with sculpture (Jenkins 2006: 209–227, esp . 214 for different reconstructions of the monument) . As underlined by Jeremy Tanner (2013: 70–74), the impressive dimensions, materials, and the renowned Greek artists involved in the decoration are important agents of the impact exerted by this funerary building and – consequently – by its patrons . The Carian sanctuary of Labraunda, 14km north of Mylasa, was enlarged and monumentalised by the Hecatomnids in the mid-fourth century BC (Hellström 2007; Williamson 2014) . The presence of the ruling house in this renovated sanctuary was made visible by the appearance of the names of two patrons – Mausolus and his brother Idrieus – in the architraval dedicatory inscriptions of various buildings (Umholtz 2002: 273–276; on the chronology of dedications, Hellström 2011) . The monumental positioning of the rulers’s names in such a visible place appears to be a real turning point in ancient architecture, a practice that is detectable also in the Carian sanctuary at Amyzon (Hellström 2009: 276, with bibliography) . Thus, this architectural feature is significant for the patrons’s awareness in displaying their power and presence . Among the most outstanding buildings of the sanctuary were the two andrones, which were highly innovative . On the one hand, they represent an unusual typology of banquet halls (Poggio forthcoming, with bibliography), and on the other, the Doric and Ionic orders were mixed up here (Held 2011, with bibliography) . This sanctuary, therefore, stands out as an innovative architectural complex that bears the explicit stamp of powerful patronage . Finally, the Hecatomnids’s patronage was exerted also in mainland Greece . In the Peloponnesian sanctuary of Athena Alea at Tegea, a relief was dedicated representing Zeus Labraundos, the divinity of the Carian sanctuary, flanked by Idrieus and Ada, the Carian dynastic couple who succeeded Mausolus and Artemisia (Waywell 1993: 79, fig . 1) . The identification of the figures is undoubtable due to the presence of their names inscribed . Geoffrey Waywell (1993) interpreted this relief as part of a stele the inscription of which – now lost – probably expressed gratitude for a Carian donation of money used to build the temple, while Ian Jenkins (2006: 225–226) suggested that it was commissioned by the Hecatomnids as a sign of their piety . Tegea, indeed, seems to present a specific connection with the © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Carian ruling house: Scopas, who was involved in the decoration of the Mausoleum according to the literary sources, worked at the temple of Athena Alea both as architect and sculptor (Paus . 8 .45 .5; 8 .47 .1) . This shows that the combination patron-artist can be a relevant key-issue for understanding interconnections in the fourth-century BC Aegean world . Moreover, it can also provide a pattern for interpreting long-distance contacts in other periods . 4. Conclusions This analysis reveals some important points of interest . First of all, the presence of high-ranking patrons with a marked self-consciousness is a long-lasting tendency in Asia Minor . The sculpted depiction of Chares of Teichioussa and the probable inscribed dedication by Croesus in the Artemision of Ephesus seem to be continued by the dynastic images on the Lycian funerary monuments and the Hecatomnid architraval dedications . Such marked royal ideology appears to have been long-rooted in the Anatolian tradition of regional kingdoms and broader empires . Sanctuaries and capital cities offered the favoured settings of dynastic patronage, where the patron’s messages could reach different layers of society . Moreover, sanctuaries could be divided in two categories: home sanctuaries, included in the areas under the rulers’s influence, and foreign sanctuaries, notably Greek sanctuaries, which allowed the rulers to extend their patronage beyond their possessions . Achaemenid domination apparently did not affect this tendency . To be sure, the appearance and consolidation of the Persian presence in Western Anatolia added a new actor, but in their home territories local dynasts appeared as the uncontested rulers . The broader political framework represented by the Achaemenid Empire was the premise for the strengthening of local powers with well defined ideologies: the patronage of these dynasts, through expensive materials and prestigious artists, stimulated competition and generated significant innovations in art and architecture . Undoubtedly, this dynamic constituted an important basis for the Hellenistic period, the era of royal patronage par excellence . Bibliography Hdt .

Herodotus

Paus .

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Plin ., HN Pliny (the Elder), Naturalis historia Vitr ., De arch. Vitruvius, De architectura Ampolo, C . 1990 Inventare una biografia . Note sulla biografia greca ed i suoi precedenti alla luce di un nuovo documento epigrafico . Quaderni Storici 73, 213–224 .

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Ampolo, C . and Bresciani, E . 1988 Psammetico re d’Egitto e il mercenario Pedon . Egitto e Vicino Oriente 11, 237–253 . Bammer, A . 2008 Vom Peripteros zum Dipteros . In: W . Seipel (ed .), Das Artemision von Ephesos. Heiliger Platz einer Göttin, Exhibition Catalogue (Istanbul, 2008) . Vienna, 75–91 . Bassi, K . 2014 Croesus’ offerings and the value of the past in Herodotus’ Histories . In: J . Ker and C . Pieper (eds .), Valuing the past in the Greco-Roman world. Proceedings from the Penn Leiden Colloquia on Ancient Values VII . Leiden, 173–196 . Baxandall, M . 1988 Painting and Experience in Fifteenth Century Italy. A Primer in the Social History of Pictorial Style . 2nd ed . Oxford . Bunnens, G . 2005 From Carchemish to Nimrud . Between visual writing and textual illustration . In: P . Talon and V . Van der Stede (eds .), Si un homme... Textes offerts en hommage à André Finet . Subartu 16 . Turnhout, 21–24 . Cahill, N . D . (ed .) 2010 Lidyalılar ve dünyaları / The Lydians and Their World . Exhibition Catalogue (Istanbul, 2010) . Istanbul . Caliò, L . M . 2005 Theatri curvaturae similis . Note sull’urbanistica delle città a forma di teatro . Archeologia Classica 56, 49–130 . Eichholz, D . E . (ed .) 1962 Pliny. Natural History, 10 . Libri 36–37 . London – Cambridge . Gell, A . 1998 Art and Agency. An Anthropological Theory . Oxford . Gilibert, A . A . 2015 Religion and propaganda under the Great Kings of Karkemiš . In: A . D’Agostino, V . Orsi and G . Torri (eds .), Sacred Landscapes of Hittites and Luwians. Proceedings of the International Conference in Honour of Franca Pecchioli Daddi (Florence, February 6th–8th 2014) . Studia Asiana 9 . Firenze, 137–155 . Godley, A . D . (ed .) 1946 Herodotus . Books I and II . London – Cambridge . Greaves, A . M . 2002 Miletos. A History . London – New York . Guarducci, M . 1967 Epigrafia greca, 1 . Caratteri e storia della disciplina. La scrittura greca dalle origini all’età imperiale . Rome . 1969

Epigrafia greca, 2 . Epigrafi di carattere pubblico . Rome .

Hawkins, J . D . 2000 Corpus of Hieroglyphic Luwian Inscriptions, 1 . Inscriptions of the Iron Age, pt . 1 . Berlin – New York . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Held, W . 2011 Mischordnungen in Labraunda als Repräsentationsform persischer Satrapen . In: L . Summerer, A . Ivantchik and A . von Kienlin (eds .), Kelainai – Apameia Kibotos: Développement urbain dans le contexte anatolien / Stadtentwicklung im anatolischen Kontext. Actes du colloque international / Akten des internationalen Kolloquiums (Munich / München, 2009) . Kelainai 1 . Bordeaux, 383–390 . Hellström, P . 2007 Labraunda . A Guide to the Karian Sanctuary of Zeus Labraundos . Istanbul . 2009

Sacred architecture and Karian identity . In: Rumscheid 2009, 267–290 .

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Feasting at Labraunda and the chronology of the Andrones . In: L . Karlsson and S . Carlsson (eds .), Labraunda and Karia. Proceedings of the Symposium (Stockholm, 2008) . Boreas . Uppsala Studies in Ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern Civilisations 32 . Uppsala, 149–157 .

Hölscher, T . 2015 Semiotics to agency . In: Marconi 2015, 662–686 . Hoepfner, W . 2013 Halikarnassos und das Maussolleion. Die modernste Stadtanlage der späten Klassik und der als Weltwunder gefeierte Grabtempel des karischen Königs Maussollos . Mainz . Jeffery, L . H . 1990 The Local Scripts of Archaic Greece. A Study of the Origin of the Greek Alphabet and its Development from the Eighth to the Fifth Centuries B.C. Revised edition with a supplement by A . W . Johnston . Oxford . Jenkins, I . 2006 Greek Architecture and Its Sculpture . Cambridge, Mass . . Kaplan, P . 2006 Dedications to Greek sanctuaries by foreign kings in the eighth through sixth centuries BCE, Historia 55, 129–152 . Keesling, C . M . 2003 The Votive Statues of the Athenian Acropolis . Cambridge . Marconi, C . (ed .) 2015 The Oxford Handbook of Greek and Roman Art and Architecture . Oxford . Mardersteig, G . 1959 Leon Battista Alberti e la rinascita del carattere lapidario romano nel Quattrocento . Italia Medioevale e Umanistica 2, 285–307 . Marek, C . 2016 In the Land of a Thousand Gods. A History of Asia Minor in the Ancient World, in collaboration with Peter Frei . Princeton and Oxford (Geschichte Kleinasiens in der Antike, unter Mitarbeit von Peter Frei, München 2010) . Mazzoni, S . 2012 Il re e la comunicazione del potere nell’arte siro-ittita (XI–X sec . a .C .) . In: M . Castiglione and A . Poggio (eds .), Arte – Potere. Forme artistiche, istituzioni, paradigmi interpretativi. Atti del convegno di studio tenuto a Pisa, Scuola Normale Superiore, 25–27 novembre 2010 . Milano, 11–31 . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Ohnesorg, A . 2007 Der Kroisos-Tempel: neue Forschungen zum archaischen Dipteros der Artemis von Ephesos . Forschungen in Ephesos 12/4 . Vienna . Pedersen, P . 2009 The palace of Maussollos in Halikarnassos and some thoughts on its Karian and international context . In: Rumscheid 2009, 315–348 . Poggio, A . 2016 Which language for the dynastic message? The role of the Hellenic culture in 4th-century Lycia . In: R . A . Stucky, O . Kaelin and H .-P . Mathys (eds .), Proceedings of the 9th International Congress on the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East (University of Basel, June 9–13, 2014), Volume 2. Wiesbaden, 209–220 . forthcoming Banqueting in Western Anatolia: dynastic lifestyle under the Persian rule . In: L . Şenocak (ed .), Of Vines and Wines: The Production and Consumption of Wine in Anatolian Civilizations Through the Ages. Proceedings. Leuven . Pryce, F . N . 1928 Catalogue of Sculpture in the Department of Greek and Roman Antiquities of the British Museum, 1 .1 . Prehellenic and Early Greek . London . Rohlmann, M . 2004 Bildernetzwerk: die Verflechtung von Familienschicksal und Heilsgeschichte in Ghirlandaios Sassetti-Kapelle . In: M . Rohlmann (ed .), Domenico Ghirlandaio. Künstlerische Konstruktion von Identität im Florenz der Renaissance . Weimar, 165–243 . Rumscheid, F . (ed .) 2009 Die Karer und die Anderen. Internationales Kolloquium (Berlin, 2005) . Bonn . Settis, S . 2010 Artisti e committenti fra Quattro e Cinquecento . Torino . Tanner, J . 2013 Figuring out death: Sculpture and agency at the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus and the tomb of the first emperor of China . In: L . Chua and M . Elliott (eds .), Distributed Objects: Meaning and Mattering after Alfred Gell . New York – Oxford, 58–87 . Thonemann, P . 2016 Croesus and the oracles . Journal of Hellenic Studies 136, 152–167 . Umholtz, G . 2002 Architraval arrogance? Dedicatory inscriptions in Greek architecture of the Classical period . Hesperia 71, 261–293 . Varner, E . R . 2015 The patronage of Greek and Roman art . In: Marconi 2015, 152–202 . Warburg, A . 1999 The art of portraiture and the Florentine burgeoisie . Domenico Ghirlandaio in Santa Trinita: the portraits of Lorenzo de’ Medici and his household . In: A . Warburg, The Renewal of Pagan Antiquity: Contributions to the Cultural History of the European Renaissance . Los Angeles , 185–221 . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Waywell, G . B . 1993 The Ada, Zeus and Idrieus relief from Tegea in the British Museum . In: O . Palagia and W . Coulson (eds .), Sculpture from Arcadia and Laconia: Proceedings of an International Conference Held at the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, April 10–14, 1992 . Oxford, 79–86 . Wescoat, B . D . 2015 The patronage of Greek and Roman architecture . In: Marconi 2015, 176–202 . Wiesehöfer, J . 2010 Ancient Persia from 550 BC to 650 AD . 2nd ed . London – New York . Williamson, C . 2014 Power of place: ruler, landscape and ritual space at the sanctuaries of Labraunda and Mamurt Kale in Asia Minor . In: C . Moser and C . Feldman (eds .), Locating the Sacred. Theoretical Approaches to the Emplacement of Religion . Oxford – Oakville, 87–110 .

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The Contribution of Old Assyrian Cylinder Seals to the Elaboration of a Local Style in Anatolia at the Beginning of the 2nd Millennium BCE Melissa Ricetti 1 Abstract 2 After Assyrian traders settled in Kaneš at the beginning of the 2nd millennium BCE, cylinder-shaped seals started to be widely used in Anatolia . For sealing their documents, Assyrians exclusively adopted cylinders, which in a short time emerged as popular sealing media within the local community as well . Anatolian artisans were able to absorb and re-elaborate a tool which did not belong to their own tradition . Their effort resulted in an outstanding hybrid style which combined foreign and indigenous motifs and was appreciated not only by locals, but also by many Assyrian traders residing in Anatolia . This paper focuses on the variation of iconographies within the Anatolian style in relation to the use of different sealing media . In particular, it points out the changes in local seal compositions, after the introduction of cylinder seals and cuneiform writing, and it discusses the purposes behind the use of particular renderings and motifs in both stamp and cylinder seals .

1. Introduction Seal impressions from Kültepe constitute one of the largest repertoires in 2nd millennium BCE Near Eastern glyptic art . Styles and iconographies reflect the international nature of the trade that developed between Anatolia and Mesopotamia between the 20th and the 18th centuries BCE . People and goods moved along the routes of the wide trading network established by Old Assyrian merchants who settled their main kārum in Kültepe/Kaneš . 3 Assyrians introduced two fundamental innovations to Anatolia: cuneiform writing and the cylinder-shaped seal .

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Ankara Üniversitesi . References to seals are indicated according to Teissier’s catalogue number (Teissier 1994: Te) and with the CS and St . numbers introduced by N . Özgüç, i .e ., Özgüç and Tunca 2001 and Özgüç 2006, respectively . Research for this paper was conducted at Ankara Üniversitesi within the TÜBİTAK 2216 Research Fellowship Programme for International Researchers . For the many aspects related to the Old Assyrian period inside and outside Anatolia, see Larsen 2015 and its bibliography . For further publications on texts, seals and other archaeological evidence, see Michel 2003 updated in: Michel 2006 and Michel 2011 . Other recent publications resulted from conferences on Kültepe studies: Atici et al . 2014; Kulakoğlu and Michel 2015; Kulakoğlu and Barjamovic 2017 . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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This paper aims to reveal how the adoption of these technologies, which are closely connected to each other, 4 affected the local Anatolian glyptic style and contributed to the elaboration of new motifs and compositions . The investigation follows the considerations pointed out by Denise Schmandt-Besserat on the mutual exchange that occurred between writing and art in the ancient Near East since the late 4th millennium BCE: “… Before the invention of writing compositions typically consisted of geometric or animal motifs that were juxtaposed, dovetailed together, or placed in rotating arrangements that symbolized an idea or evoked a story …” . Whereas, after writing was introduced: “[…] Near Eastern art became linear and thus could tell a story . Parallel lines, used as an organizing principle in a scene, caused the figures within the scene to be arranged in the same upright position upon a ground line . The ground line meant that the individuals pictured shared the same space at the same time . Accordingly, their relative size, location, position, order, and direction could be used to signify hierarchy, rank, intention, action, and interaction …” (Schmandt-Besserat 2007: 1–2) . In particular, Schmandt-Besserat devotes an entire chapter of her recent book to glyptic art and to the way the invention of writing affected seal compositions and designs (Schmandt-Besserat 2007: Ch . 2) . Though related to a different time and space, the model developed by Schmandt-Besserat on the basis of the changes taking place in late 4th–early 3rd millennium BCE Mesopotamian glyptic art has been applied to local Anatolian early 2nd millennium BCE seals . The results reveal that writing and cylinder seals technologies affected local art design . They stimulated the elaboration of new glyptic compositions and the development of a rich mythological repertoire and visual vocabulary . 5 2. Stamp seals with decorative compositions At the end of the Early Bronze Age, Anatolia was apparently still inhabited by preliterate communities . No written evidence or signs of a literate system are known from this time . As for the preliterate glyptic stage described by Schmandt-Besserat in Tepe Gawra (5500–4000 BCE), stamps were the local Anatolian shape for seals (Schmandt-Besserat 2006: 184–187; 2007: 30–33) . Findings from Çatalhöyük (Türkcan 2006; Türkcan 2007; Türkcan 2013) and Arslantepe (Frangipane and Palmieri 1983: 414–448) offer an admirable assemblage of

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For further discussion on the relationship between writing and seals, see in particular Schmandt-Besserat 1982, 1992, 2007 . Due to editorial reasons, information on the archival context of the impressions and their owners has not been included in this article . For some considerations on these subjects see Lassen 2012: Ch . 6; Larsen and Lassen 2014: 183–187; Ricetti 2014: 316–319 . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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seals and sealings that provide invaluable insights into the way seals were conceived and used in Anatolia from the Neolithic up to the Bronze Age periods . A few cylinder seal impressions are already attested at Arslantepe during the proto-urban period (Frangipane and Palmieri 1983: 417–420, figs . 67–68; Frangipane and Pittman 2007) . However, only after the Assyrians settled in the region at the beginning of the 2nd millennium BCE, did cylinder seals start to be commonly produced in Anatolia . Despite the massive importation of cylinder seals from Syria and Mesopotamia, the local production of stamps in Anatolia did not stop during the Old Assyrian period; rather it was intensified by the higher demand of seals required by the trading activity and by the new local custom of issuing documents (Alexander 1979: 579; Teissier 1994: 51–65) . Though a few Anatolians started to adopt cylinders, 6 stamps remained the most appreciated sealing media among locals . Stamp seals and stamp seal impressions from Kaneš level 2 display a variety of decorative compositions . Motifs generally consist of geometric and floral patterns, animals and anthropoid figures, which may appear as single images, the same size as the field (the most common show circles: e .g . Te 437, 451 and animals, such as birds, scorpions, hares, stags and other quadrupeds: e .g . Te 443, 445; St . 91–92), or arranged in composite abstract images (bird heads on long necks tied together in radial compositions are very common: e .g . Te 462; St . 36, 111), or in compositions of figures fitted together like in a puzzle with multiple focal points (e .g . Özgüç1965: n . 98; Te 442, 465; St . 54, 58, 87, 93) (Figs . 1a–c) . Stamp seal surfaces are generally circular or, in fewer cases, square-shaped (e .g . Te 456, 461; St . 91–92, 97) . Some seals are shaped according to the motifs they are expected to produce once impressed . Impressions in the shape of floral elements (e .g . St . 90), animals (e .g . St . 52) and animal paws (e .g . Te 446, 448) occur occasionally . Seals displaying the coarse features of a human mask follow the same principle, since their shape recalls the outline of a face (e .g . Te 441, 460; St . 63, 81, 84, 95–96) (Fig . 1d) . Following the considerations made by Schmandt-Besserat (2006: 184–187; 2007: 30–33), we can point out a few remarks on how the arrangement of the figures in these seals affects the perception of the whole composition . 1 . Generally the main focus of the scene cannot be established because the prevailing circular arrangement of the elements does not offer a privileged direction . Single icon animals and the few heraldic compositions denote the presence of an imaginary ground line . However, most of the stamp seal compositions have different focuses according to the orientation of the figure considered .

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E .g . Te 223, Besini/Mesini; Te 324, Šarmana; Te 327, Enišarum; Te 333, Šuppi-ahšu; Te 384, Haraštum; Te 396, Halkiašu; CS 50, Peruwa s . Nakiahšan; CS 255, Šezur; CS 261, Hištahšu s . Šimnušan; CS 269, Tamuria; CS 272, Atali s . Hanariri; CS 285 = 313, Hašui s . Šuppi-ibra . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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2 . Figures are shown on a similar scale and without status markers, so that none of them emerges more or less significant than the other . 3 . Elements generally do not interact with each other, but are merely juxtaposed . The only exception is the motif of the human figure mastering animals (e .g . St . 106), which, however, aimed at covering the entire surface of the seal with a heraldic symmetric composition rather than attempting to show interaction . Such patterns clearly denote an interest in decoration rather than narration . Designs are conceived for filling the surface of the seal as much as possible, rather than for recounting an event of some kind . 3. Cylinder seals with narrative compositions Along with the stamp seals tradition and thanks to the impetus provided by the Assyrians, a rich production of local cylinder seals flourished in the region . During the period, that archaeologically coincides with Kültepe lower town level 2, cylinders almost ousted stamp seals whose use, however, was never abandoned and regained popularity during level 1b period (Özgüç 1968: 42–46; Larsen and Lassen 2014: 179) . The locally-made cylinders show some very distinct traits that allow grouping them within a discrete glyptic style named Anatolian style (Özgüç and Özgüç 1953: 227–228, 236–242; Özgüç 1965; Tosun 1965: 186–187; Alexander 1979; Özgüç 1988; Leinwand 1992: 142–150; Teissier 1994: 54–57; Özgüç 2006: 24–30; Larsen and Lassen 2014: 183–187) . The Anatolian glyptic style differs from the contemporary Mesopotamian styles in terms of the engraving technique, the arrangement of the elements, and the iconography of the figures . The carving shows extensive use of parallel striations for modelling and detailing figures and animals . Faces are characterized by rounded eye sockets with large pupils and pronounced triangular noses (e .g . Te 303, 334–350; CS 50, 149, 257, 310–311, 590, 613, and many others) . There are irregularities in the proportional relationship of the elements represented and, as it was common for stamp seals, engravers tended to fill up all the space available creating a sort of horror vacui that makes scenes dense and rich with motifs and fillers (Özgüç 1965: 47; Alexander 1979: 577) . Motifs are occasionally placed in superposed registers (e .g . Te 353; CS 160, 296, 345, 348, 538) . Offering and libation scenes are very popular, though compositions partly recall the typical arrangement displayed by Ur III and Old Assyrian presentation scenes, where a seated deity or king is worshipped by a human figure led by one or more interceding goddesses (on this subject see, Winter 1986 and Haussperger 1991) . Anatolian imagery is expressed by combining traditional Mesopotamian subjects with local iconographic standards (Özgüç 1965: 59) . Deities, though frequently acting like their Mesopotamian counterparts, appear in their Anatolian attire (i .e . wearing the conical hat, standing on their animal-emblem and holding their symbolic weapon) . Animals, such as bulls, caprids, birds, lions, and animal heads are largely used as filling motifs, as well as small figures, altars, and other ritual objects (e .g Te 349, 354; CS 832) . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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The spreading of Mesopotamian seals displaying narrative scenes stimulated the emergence of a local taste for compositions of the same kind . However, the elaboration of local narrative compositions (besides the never abandoned decorative motifs that populated stamp seals) was not only due to the different seal format adopted (i .e . the cylinder seal) . Old Assyrian literate practices contributed to the development of a new attitude towards images . 7 Compositions began to be conceived as sequences of elements that – when combined in a certain order – were able to express action, like cuneiform symbols did in a text . After grasping the nature of the cylinder seal and mastering its design problems, local engravers took over the linear reading mode and the ‘syntax’ of writing, whose semantic potential had been exploited by Mesopotamian seal carvers for a long time . The visual principles that again were defined by Schmandt-Besserat (2006: 189–192; 2007: 33–39) as the turning points that marked the transition from the preliterate to the literate glyptic art can be seen also here: 1 . The composition has a single point of view and figures are organized in the same upright position on an imaginary ground line (figures move in a common space) . 2 . The order of the figures in the composition becomes semantic . Position and direction on the ground line determine different meanings (figures take part in the same event) . 3 . Gestures, attributes, spacing and physical characteristics of the figures convey specific messages according to the context . For example, the group formed by the worshipper and the interceding deity that advances stepping toward the seated deity indicates an introduction scene (Fig . 2) . The orientation and the gestures of the standing figures (both the worshipper and the interceding deity raise their arms) suggest their full devotion toward the seated deity who, for his part, is shown in a dominant position, though in a welcoming attitude holding his cup . 4. The elaboration of new narrative compositions Anatolian seal carvers did not limit themselves to the adoption of an already established model (namely the linear model promoted by cylinder seals) but, starting from that, explored new ways of arranging elements . Their fervent experimentation resulted in the elaboration of new compositions which aimed at satisfying seal carvers’ sense of aesthetic as well as ideological needs . Though before the Assyrians’ arrival there are no traces of a local literacy practice, one can imagine that the rich repertoire of visual narrative scenes that is dis-

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On the development of the cylinder seal and the purposes behind its use, see Nissen 1977; Gorelick and Gwinnett 1990: 45–50 . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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played by local cylinder seals is the visual translation of a vivid mythological tradition of which we have no traces in written documents . It is difficult to explain the sudden appearance of such a number of new characters and motifs without admitting a long term evolution from Mesopotamian and Syrian models . Levels 3 and 4 in the lower town of Kültepe, though only scantily excavated, do not show any possible harbingers . Connections with Syria and Mesopotamia have been long suggested . Although cylinder seals spread only after the Assyrians settled in the region, some hints seem to show that Anatolian craftsmen might have been aware of earlier Mesopotamian glyptic traditions, at least since the late Early Bronze Age . Typical Akkadian features and motifs, such as the hero holding the flowing vase, Ea and Usmu (e .g . Te 346–351; CS 590), and the abundance of mythological subjects that barely appear on Old Assyrian seals indicate the knowledge of the previous Akkadian tradition (Özgüç 1965: 47) . How and when this knowledge was assimilated is still not completely clear . The collection of more than 1000 bullae that have been recently found in a monumental mudbrick complex in the Early Bronze Age III levels of the Kültepe mound (Kulakoğlu and Öztürk 2015) will hopefully shed new light on the contacts between Anatolia, Syria and Mesopotamia during the Akkadian period, as also accounted by later legendary sources such as the šar tamhari and the tale of Narām-Sīn defeating a coalition of Anatolian kings (on this subject see, in particular, Westenholz 1998) . Thanks to their expertise, local engravers became able to tell complex stories by pushing the ground of convention to new degrees of sophistication . The strict visual verticality and the paratactic rhythm that characterized figures in Mesopotamian seals are abandoned (Larsen and Lassen 2014: 184) . Mesopotamian seal compositions have to be read usually from left to right, as a written text . Their focus is placed at the right terminal of the scene which generally coincides with a seated deity or king or a worshipped object, such as the bull-altar (Fig . 3a) . Conversely Anatolian style narrative cylinders do not always have a single point of view, but can display two juxtaposed groups of images, each with its own focus and direction . Within the same composition, motifs can extend from left to right and from right to left (Fig . 3b) . Scenes can be placed on superposed registers and elements combined in various levels around different focal points, as if they are not taking part in the same event . A basic realism characterizes actions and details . However, some fillers are arranged in such a way that impressions must be rotated in order to be understood . This attitude clearly derives from the native stamp seal tradition with which the seal carver was probably familiar (Alexander 1979: 581) . It appears rather clear that different formats of seals were used for different kinds of compositions . The bounded field of stamp seals (the most common sealing media before the advent of writing) was more suitable for non-linear iconic or heraldic compositions which were conceived not as a means for narration, but for merely evoking ideas . On the other hand narrative scenes (developed thanks to the advent of writing) were more suitable for the never-ending length of rolled cylinder seals, where motifs could be appreciated analytically rather than globally (Schmandt-Besserat 2006: 192; Schmandt-Besserat 2007: 39–40, 101–103; Larsen and Lassen 2014: 185) . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7 .

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5. Cylinder seals with decorative compositions Two groups of locally made seals diverge from this general trend showing again the pioneering attitude of local engravers . Both types combine in the same artefact the typical features of both cylinder and stamp seals . The first is a large group of cylinder seals that, instead of displaying the common narrative arrangement of cylinders, shows some decorative compositions typical of contemporary stamps (Fig . 4a, b) . Subjects are limited to a number of indigenous motifs, such as animal patterns (constantly recurring on stamps) that are arranged in hunting and farming scenes (e .g . CS 255, 265, 269, 272, 275, 339, 766) . Contest scenes are also rather common . Their arrangement recalls some Akkadian compositions, though the carving style is clearly Anatolian (e .g . Te 394, 398–399; CS 541, 660) . Elements are compounded in a very intricate way: the same horror vacui that also affected local contemporary stamps and narrative cylinders is visible . Though figures fill a space that extends horizontally, the linearity of the frieze is frequently broken by their topsy-turvy arrangement . The massing of elements produces multiple centres of attention, where no clear beginning and end can be detected . The few actions displayed are not linked to each other . Rather, motifs appear as if they are plunged into an inconsistent space without gravity (Alexander 1979: 607–609) . Here again, the application of models typically designed for stamps to cylinder seals clearly derives from the decorative concern of engravers who used to work on stamps . 6. Stamp seals with narrative compositions A second group, which differs from the general trend according to which decoration goes with stamps and narration with cylinders, is formed by a number of stamps that display on their small surface designs which are usually carved on cylinders (Fig . 5a, b) . Such linear compositions become common only in later times . They are rather frequent in Acemhöyük in the level contemporary to Kültepe lower town level 1b (Özgüç 1971: 20–26, fig . 4; Özgüç 1980: 71–77, figs . 23–39; Özgüç 1983: figs . 1a, 2; Özgüç 1993: figs . 1, 3–4; see also Özgüç 1947: 237–240, fig . 2; Özgüç 1989: 382–383, pls . 116–117, 1 – St . 35; Özgüç 1996: figs . 1d, 2g, 3d) . Few examples have been also found in the corresponding level of Konya-Karahöyük (Alp 1968: 165–170, figs . 43, 48, 50–52), though the first developments of these models can already be seen in a few stamps from Kültepe lower town level 2 (i .e . St . 8, 26, 69) . Compositions generally show libation scenes where a goddess sitting on a crouched animal or a stool is approached by a small worshiper who stands on the same line and may carry a pitcher . The same motif is occasionally displayed on cylinders, as part of larger scenery, either in primary position, juxtaposed to patterns of animals, fantastic creatures and © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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ritual objects (in these cases the seated figure may be a god wearing the traditional conical hat and bearing a cup or a weapon: e .g . Te 326, CS 325) (Fig . 6a), or in secondary position, as an additional motif in a procession of gods, surrounded again by animals and receiving attendants (e .g . Te 353; Özgüç 1965: n . 71) (Fig . 6b) . 8 Though they do not show the equivalent narrative strength of their cylindrical counterparts, narrative stamp seals try to depict single or composite actions by adopting the principles that regulated scenes in Mesopotamian cylinder seal compositions . The imaginary ground line on which figures stand, the shared focus which establishes the direction of the composition and the interaction between images are all aspects that can be observed also here . The linear effect that is derived from these visual expedients does not match with the limits imposed by the generally circular shape of the stamp seal . The verticality of the figures and their sequential arrangement appear constrained within the small surface of stamps . Scenes can be either plain, with a generous spacing and paucity of fillers, or can display secondary elements which cover the entire available space . Fillers may follow different directions counterbalancing the linear effect produced by central motifs, so that in the same composition linear and circular arrangements appear juxtaposed . Though they generally describe isolated moments, these seals do not only evoke the domain of the deity represented . Rather, they genuinely account for the actions through which the human veneration was conceived . Scenes were therefore the result of a visual narration and not only a distribution of elements aiming at recalling a mere idea to the beholder’s mind . 7. Conclusion The comparison between Anatolian seals before and after the introduction of writing has proven particularly meaningful . Thanks to the linear mode derived from writing, local glyptic art underwent a change which was totally similar to the one detected by Schmandt-Besserat for late 4th–early 3rd millennium Mesopotamian seals . Nevertheless, glyptic trends in early 2nd millennium Anatolia do not represent different phases of a diachronic process (as can be seen for Tepe Gawra seals and sealings), but synchronic customs that depended on the eclectic artistic industry existing in Anatolia at that time . The cylinder seal was not the result of a process correlated to the adoption of writing . Rather, it was an imported ready-to-use technology at the carvers’ disposal . The encounter between the Anatolian non-literate and the Assyrian literate traditions first resulted in the adoption by locals of the pictorial language of the Assyrians . Once the mastery on borrowed motifs and techniques was achieved, local engravers reinvented their own conception of both cylinder and stamp seals as artistic media .

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About this motif, see in particular Özgüç 1965: 69–70; Özgüç 1979 . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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From the combination of local Anatolian features with cylinders and writing, three new compositional models appeared: A . narrative cylinder seal compositions with multiple directions and focal points; B . decorative cylinder seal compositions; C . and narrative stamp seal compositions . The number of motifs and characters displayed by seals constitutes the richest mythological repertory for that time . Some figures and features are clearly of Akkadian origin though translated into the Anatolian visual language . Contemporary written sources hardly give any information about divine attributes and hierarchical ranks within the Anatolian pantheon (Özgüç 1965: 63) . Assuming that Old Anatolian deities survived in the Hittite pantheon, the later Hittite sources may appear potentially fruitful in terms of comparison . Hittite mythology finds, however, other expressive means (e .g . rock reliefs and relief-decorated vases), providing glyptic art with other models and subjects (see for example Beran 1967; Boehmer and Güterbock 1987: 33–35) . Bibliography Alexander, R . L . 1979 Native Group Cylinder Seal Engravers of Karum Kanish Level II . Belleten 43, 573–618 . Alp, S . 1968 Zylinder- und Stempelsiegel aus Karahöyük bei Konya . Türk Tarih Kurumu Yayinlarinda 5/26 . Ankara . Atici, L ., Kulakoğlu, F ., Barjamovic, G . and Fairbairn, A . (eds .) 2014 Current Research at Kültepe-Kanesh: An Interdisciplinary and Integrative Approach to Trade Networks, Internationalism, and Identity Journal of Cuneiform Studies Supplemental Series 4 . Atlanta . Beran, T . 1967 Die hethitische Glyptik von Boğazköy 1. Die Siegel und Siegelabdrücke der vor- und althethitischen Perioden und die Siegel der hethitischen Grosskönige . Wissenschaftliche Veröffentlichungen der Deutschen Orientgesellschaft 76, Boğazköy-Ḫattuša 5 . Berlin . Boehmer, R .M . and Güterbock, H .G . 1987 Glyptik aus dem Stadtgebiet von Boğazköy . Berlin . Frangipane, M . and Palmieri, A . 1983 A protourban centre of the late Uruk period . Origini 12, 287–454 . Frangipane, M . and Pittman, H . 2007 The fourth millennium glyptics at Arslantepe . In: M . Frangipane (ed .), Arslantepe Cretulae. An Early Centralised Administrative System Before Writing . Arslantepe V . Rome, 175–354 . Gorelick, L . and Gwinnett, J . 1990 The Ancient Near Eastern cylinder seal as social emblem and status symbol . Journal of Near Eastern Studies 49, 45–56 . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Haussperger, M . 1991 Die Einführungsszene. Entwicklung eines mesopotamischen Motivs von der altakkadischen bis zum Ende der altbabylonischen Zeit . Münchener vorderasiatische Studien 11 . Munich . Kulakoğlu, F . and Barjamovic, G . (eds .) 2017 Movement, Resources, Interaction. Proceedings of the 2nd Kültepe International Meeting. Kültepe, 26–30 July 2015. Studies Dedicated to Klaas Veenhof. Kültepe International Meeting 2 . Subartu 39 . Turnhout . Kulakoğlu, F . and Michel, C . (eds) 2015 Proceedings of the 1st Kültepe International Meeting. Kültepe, September 19–23, 2013. Studies Dedicated to Kutlu Emre. Kültepe International Meeting 1 . Subartu 35 . Turnhout . Kulakoğlu, F . and Öztürk, G . 2015 New evidence for international trade in Bronze Age central Anatolia: recently discovered bullae at Kültepe-Kanesh . Antiquity 343, February 2015 . (last access 8 .1 .2018) . Larsen, M . T . 2015 Ancient Kanesh. A Merchant Colony in Bronze Age Anatolia . Cambridge . Larsen, M . T . and Lassen, A . W . 2014 Cultural exchange at Kültepe . In: M . Kozuh, W . F . M . Henkelman, C . E . Jones and C . Woods (eds .), Extraction & Control. Studies in Honor of Matthew W. Stolper . Studies in Ancient Oriental Civilisation 68 . Chicago, 171–188 . Lassen, A . W . 2012 Glyptic Encounters: A stylistic and Prosopographical Study of Seals in the Old Assyrian Period – Chronology, Ownership and Identity . PhD Thesis, University of Copenhagen . Leinwand, N . 1992 Regional characteristics in the styles and iconography of the seal impressions of level II at Kültepe, Journal of Ancient Near Eastern Society 21, 141–172 . Michel, C . 2003 Old Assyrian Bibliography of Cuneiform Texts, Bullae, Seals and the Results of the Excavations at Aššur, Kültepe, Acemhöyük, Alişar and Boğazköy . Old Assyrian Archives Studies 1 . Leiden . 2006

Old Assyrian bibliography 1 (February 2003–July 2006) . Archiv für Orientforschung 51, 436–449 .

2011

Old Assyrian bibliography 2 (July 2006–April 2009) . Archiv für Orientforschung 52, 396–417 .

Nissen, H . J . 1977 Aspects of the Development of Early Cylinder Seals . In: M . Gibson and R . D . Biggs (eds .), Seals and Sealing in the Ancient Near East . Bibliotheca Mesopotamica 6 . Malibu, 15–23 . Özgüç, N . 1947 Two Hittite seals . Artibus Asiae 10, 234–240 . 1959

Seals from Kültepe . Anadolu 4, 43–53 .

1965

The Anatolian Group of Cylinder Seal Impressions from Kültepe . Türk Tarih Kurumu Yayinlarinda 5/22 . Ankara .

1968

Seals and Seal Impressions of Level Ib from Karum Kanish . Türk Tarih Kurumu Yayinlarinda 5/25 . Ankara . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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1971

A stamp seal from Niğde region and four seal impressions found in Acemhöyük . Anadolu 15, 17–26 .

1979

Gods and goddesses with identical attributes suring the period of Old Assyrian trade colonies . In: Florilegium Anatolicum. Mélanges offerts à Emmanuel Laroche . Paris, 277–289 .

1980

Seal impressions from the palaces at Acemhöyük . In: E . Porada (ed .), Ancient Art in Seals . Princeton, 61–99 .

1983

Sealings from Acemhöyük in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York . In: R . M . Boehmer and H . Hauptmann (eds .), Beiträge zur Altertumskunde Kleinasiens: Festschrift für Kurt Bittel . Mainz / Rhein, 413–420 .

1988

Anatolian cylinder seals and impressions from Kültepe and Acemhöyük in the second millennium BC . In: T . Mikasa (ed .), Essays on Anatolian Studies in the Second Millennium BC . Bulletin of the Middle Eastern Culture Center in Japan 3 . Wiesbaden, 22–34 .

1989

Bullae from Kültepe . In: K . Emre, M . Mellink, B . Hrouda and N . Özgüç (eds .), Anatolia and the Ancient Near East. Studies in Honor of Tahsın Özgüç . Ankara, 377–406 .

1993

Identical aspects of the cylinder and stamp seal representations of level Ib period . Istanbuler Mitteilungen 43, 175–178 .

1996

Seal impressions on Kültepe documents notarized by native rulers . In: H . Gasche and B . Hrouda (eds .), Collectanea Orientalia: Histoire, Arts de l’espace et Industrie de la terre. Etudes offertes en hommage à Agnes Spycket . Civilisations du Proche-Orient: Séries 1, Archéologie et Environment 3 . 267–278 .

2006

Kültepe-Kaniš / Neša. Seal Impressions on the Clay Envelopes from the Archives of the Native Peruwa and Assyrian Trader Uṣur-ša-Ištar son of Aššur-imittī . Türk Tarih Kurumu Yayinlarinda 5/50 . Ankara .

Özgüç, N . and Tunca, Ö . 2001 Kültepe-Kaniš. Sealed and Inscribed Clay Bullae . Türk Tarih Kurumu Yayinlarinda 5/48 . Ankara . Özgüç, T . and Özgüç, N . 1953 Ausgrabungen in Kültepe. Bericht über die im Auftrage der Türkischen Historischen Gesellschaft, 1949 Durchgeführten Ausgrabungen . Türk Tarih Kurumu Yayinlarinda 5/12 . Ankara . Ricetti, M . 2014 Testi e impronte di sigillo provenienti dal livello II del kārum Kaniš: uno studio comparato . PhD Thesis, “Sapienza”, Università di Roma . Schmandt-Besserat, D . 1982 How writing came about . Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 47, 1–5 . 1992

Before Writing. Volume 1: From Counting to Cuneiform, Austin .

2006

The interface between writing and art . The seals of Tepe Gawra . Syria 83 (Hommage à Henri de Contenson), 183–193 .

2007

When Writing Met Art. From Symbol to Story, Austin .

Teissier, B . 1994 Sealing and Seals on Texts from Kültepe Kārum Level 2 . Publications de l’institut historique et archeologique neerlandais de Stamboul 70 . Istanbul . Tosun, M . 1965 Styles in Kültepe seal engraving as expressions of various cultural influences . In: H . G . Güterbock and T . Jacobsen (eds .), Studies in Honor of B. Landsberger in His Seventy-Fifth Birthday . Assyriological Studies 16 . Chicago, 183–187 . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Türkcan, A . U . 2006 Some remarks on Çatal Höyük stamp seals . In: I . Hodder (ed .), Changing Materialities at Çatalhöyük; Reports from 1995–1999 seasons. Volume 5. Cambridge, 175–185 . 2007

Is it goddess or bear? The role of Çatalhöyük animal seals on early Neolithic symbolism . Documenta Praehistorica 34, 257–267 .

2013

Çatalhöyük stamp seals from 2000–2008 . In: I . Hodder (ed .), Substantive Technologies at Çatalhöyük: Reports from the 2000–2008 Seasons. Çatalhöyük 9, British Institute at Ankara Monograph 48, Monumenta Archaeologica 31 . London and Los Angeles, 235–246 .

Westenholz, J . G . 1998 Relations between Mesopotamia and Anatolia in the age of the Sargonic kings . In: H . Erkanal, V . Donbaz and A . Uğuroğlu (eds .), Proceedings of the 34th Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale. Istanbul Turkey, 6–21 July 1987 . Compte Rendu de la Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale 34 . Ankara, 5–22 . Winter, I . J . 1986 The king and the cup: Iconography of the royal presentation scene on Ur III seals . In: M . Kelly-Buccellati (ed .), Insight Through Images: Studies in Honor of Edith Porada . Bibliotheca Mesopotamica 21 . Malibu, 253–268 .

a)

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Fig . 1 Stamp seal impressions from Kültepe/Kaneš (drawings by the author; after a – Özgüç and Tunca 2001: St . 22; b – Özgüç 2006: St . 111; c – Özgüç and Tunca 2001: St . 58; d – Özgüç 2006: St . 95) © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Fig . 2 Drawing of the seal of Mennānum (Özgüç 2006: CS 403) . Anatolian style . Introduction scene (drawing by the author)

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Fig . 3 Cylinder seal impressions (drawings by the author; after a – Old Assyrian style, Özgüç 2006: CS 330; b – Anatolian style, Özgüç 1965: n . 39)

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b) Fig . 4 Decorative cylinder seal compositions . Anatolian style (drawings by the author; after a – Özgüç 2006: CS 275; b – Özgüç 2006: CS 255) © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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a)

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Fig . 5 Narrative stamp seal compositions (drawings by the author; after a – Özgüç 1959: pl . VIIIb; b – Özgüç 1980: pl . III .37)

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b) Fig . 6 Cylinder seal impressions (drawings by the author; after a – Özgüç 2006: CS 325; b – Özgüç 1965: n . 71)

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Refiguring the Body: From Terracotta Figurines to Plaques in Early Second Millennium Mesopotamia Elisa Roßberger 1 Abstract The late third and early second millennium BCE saw the rise of the terracotta plaque production and the (temporary) end of figurines in southern Mesopotamia . This media-based transformation is usually considered a mere technological advance but we have to acknowledge that it coincides with new ways of visualizing the human form . I argue that profound differences in the perception and conceptualization of images lie at the heart of these changes . During this process depictions of male/female bodies moved from visual references to persons into generic representations of symbolic concepts . Keywords: terracotta figurines, terracotta plaques, gender, body visualization, artistic genre change, Ur III, Isin-Larsa, Old Babylonian .

1. Introduction 2 Thousands of images in clay have come down to us from late third and early second millennium Mesopotamia (Barrelet 1968; Legrain 1930; Opificius 1961; van Buren 1930; Wrede 2003) . Many of them have been discussed for more than a century and a selected group of these images is frequently used to illustrate topics like ‘daily life’, ‘popular religion’ or ‘sex and eroticism’ in the Ancient Near East . Nevertheless, we still have difficulties in understanding their overall pictorial structure, their status as an artistic medium and the contextual realms they related to . Figurative clay objects have a long history in the ancient Near East and elsewhere . They can be produced on an ad hoc basis from a lump of clay and are found in all kinds of archaeological contexts, almost inevitably broken . While the simplicity and cheapness of figurine making would suggest great diversity and individual rendering, figurines of most periods follow circumscribed conventions, indicating widely accepted norms for their appropriate making and appearance, if not institutional production .

1 2

Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, Institute for Near Eastern Archaeology . This research was made possible through a post-doctoral fellowship from the Bayerische Gleichstellungsförderung (2015–2016) at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, and a travel grant from the Fritz-Thyssen-Foundation (2015), which allowed me to directly investigate terracotta plaques at the Oriental Institute Museum of the University of Chicago, the British Museum, and the Ashmolean Museum . I wish to thank M . Luciani for sending me an unpublished manuscript of her forthcoming article (Luciani in press), and K . Kaniuth for corrections and comments on an earlier version of this paper . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Research questions concerning terracottas usually tackle chronological, iconographical, functional or technological issues (e .g . Dales 1960; Opificius 1961; Barrelet 1968) . Excavation reports and synthetic treatments group and discuss them in broadly defined motif groups (e .g . Klengel-Brandt and Cholidis 2006; Meyer and Pruß 1994; Wrede 2003; Pruß 2010), but leave little room for recognition of diversity and artistic change . 3 Visual culture studies informed research that seeks to understand pictorial variability within and between typological groupings in comparison to other artistic media and in relation to the artworks’ function in specific cultural settings and social structures, remains rare . Furthermore, the range of haptic perceptions offered by the objects under investigation is often neglected . 4 This paper discusses various trajectories for the transition from female and male figurines into terracotta plaques at late third and early second millennium BCE sites in southern Mesopotamia . I will argue that this is not only a technological or random stylistic change, 5 but part of a profound, culturally embedded re-conceptualization of figurative artworks in general and visualizations of the human body in particular . To substantiate my point, I will use archaeological evidence from two large and reasonably well documented corpora of figurative terracotta objects excavated at Isin and in the Lower Diyala region (Tab . 1) . The site of Tell Asmar (ancient Ešnunna) is particularly important since it allows us to follow up developments from Ur III to Isin-Larsa levels . The figurines and plaques from Iščali provide us with a large number of terracottas found in two well-stratified religious buildings from a circumscribed time-span lasting from the earlier 19th century to the mid18th century BCE . Tell Agrab and Khafajeh yielded mostly figurines from Early Dynastic to Akkadian levels and relatively few terracotta plaques . 6 For Isin, most terracotta figurines and plaques come from Ur III to Old Babylonian contexts or can be dated to these periods on stylistic grounds . 7 While a fine-tuning of chronological placement from Ur III to Old Babylonian levels would be highly desirable and surely an asset for all future research, it is hard to achieve on the ground of the existing documentation . The situation is further complicated by the fact that well-fired terracotta figurines and plaques come more often than other objects from

3 4 5 6 7

For a similar critique see Langin-Hooper 2014: vii . But see the study of A . Garcia Ventura and M . López-Bertran (2010) on Tell Asmar figurines venturing into this direction . The transition from figurines to plaques is generally considered a technological ‘evolution’ following the necessities of increased demand (Spycket 1986: 80; Barrelet 1968: 86–95) . An unpublished Ph .D . thesis by Elise Auerbach (1994) brings together all plaques from the Diyala sites but leaves out the figurines . First millennium terracottas from Isin include nine ‘Persian rider figurines’ (IB-3, -17, -628, -1027, -1406, -1265, -636, -372, -1974) and four plaques (IB-100, -130, -1001, -1034) . For terracottas from Isin, see the contributions by B . Hrouda and A . Spycket in the preliminary excavations reports (Hrouda 1977; Spycket 1981, 1987, 1992a) . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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so-called ‘secondary context’ (fill, garbage deposits etc .), or surface collections . While these limitations should not restrain us from doing in-depth studies of what we have, they reduce our chances to arrive at clear-cut conclusions . 2. Visualizing the human body – representing individuals, types or symbols Humans, and to a lesser degree animals, are the prime subjects of terracotta art; thus, the much discussed topics of the human body and its materialization in the visual arts come into focus . 8 It is generally assumed that habitual engagement with representations of the human form has strong repercussions on actual perception and knowledge of the body (e .g . Kohring 2014: 249) . The idea is, that pictures of the body do not tell us what ancient people looked like, but take a stance on culture-specific ideals or their counterparts by shaping categories and defining what is appropriate and essential about the body within certain socio-cultural contexts . While they do not mimic reality, they translate habitual activities and body techniques related to specific situations into pictorial schemes and thus into just another layer of cultural semantics . Accordingly, we might investigate the role of corporeal iconography in the creation, dissemination and negotiation of social norms and ontological structures of past societies (cf . Kohring 2014: 249) . We should be aware that not only changes in visual but also in haptic qualities of the objects under investigation might be essential for their meaning and function (Bailey 2014) . Such general reasoning sounds attractive for terracotta studies: First, because bodies figure so prominently, and second, because proximity between makers and consumers was close and therefore mutual repercussions were arguably more immediate than in other artistic media . However, a closer look reveals that we cannot speak of just one way of rendering the human body or of one trajectory of artistic development in late third and early second millennium terracotta production, but that we have to acknowledge the existence of different forms and combinations of schematization, stylization, and naturalism . 9 Moreover, iconographic and stylistic homogeneity within distinct motif groups varies greatly, with some groups being rather homogenous, others highly heterogeneous . This indicates that style, understood as a specific way of rendering, was less a matter of artistic ability but of necessity inherent in the figurative object’s intended status and function . Stylistic homo-/heterogeneity mattered in two different ways: On the one hand to set visual themes apart, and on the other, to either highlight or balance differences within

8 9

See contributions in Borić and Robb 2008 for the current discourse on these topics . For general thoughts on “… design features and social effects of schematic, stylized and naturalistic representations of bodies …” see Robb 2015: 174–176 with tab . 12 .3 . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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a group . I argue that it is exactly these often overlooked differences that are indicative for the material images’ place in cultural practice and social configuration . 3. The female body in clay: from figurines to plaques In southern Mesopotamia terracotta production had almost ceased during Uruk and Early Dynastic times and restarted in significant numbers only in the Akkadian period (Pruß 2011–2013: 604, 606) . The Ur III period saw an increase in figurines and this is also the time when terracotta plaques begin to appear (Barrelet 1968: 86– 91) . 10 In these early contexts, the ratio of figurines against plaques was still around 4:1 or higher (Tab . 1) . Although the number of figurines slowly diminished, most Isin-Larsa contexts, like the Kitītum-Temple at Iščali, the houses below the Southern Building or the Snake Shrine at Tell Asmar, still produced considerable amounts of figurines – unfortunately many of them omitted from publication . 11 As against common opinion, the ratio between female and male figurines is rather balanced at most sites and contexts (Tab . 1) . 12 Hair-styles, body forms and attributes allow for clear-cut gender-attributions, the remaining lacunae derive from fragmentary states of preservation . While gender-specific differences are not pronounced in Akkadian figurines, they become the main focal point in Ur III and Isin-Larsa female figurines with their voluminous striated hair bundles, wide hips (often with hip belts), huge pubic triangles and hands holding the breasts (Fig . 1a–c) . Clay pellets or bands were usually added for eyes and hair-do, and sometimes for necklaces, breasts and the belly button . Incisions further emphasize hair, neck-ornamentation and pubic hair . While some figurines have arms ending in stumps, similar to their predecessors in the Early Dynastic period, arms and hands are most often held in front of the body and close to the breasts . Occasionally, the backs are plastically modelled (e .g . Isin IB-1589; Spycket 1987: 51, Taf . 22), sometimes an incised line marks the spine but neither in an anatomically correct nor in an elaborate way . Overall, the production of such a figurine must have been a multi-stage, sensual process pronouncing its most relevant features through additions and incisions . Douglass Bailey (2014) recently pointed out the strong ‘cheirotic’ aspects of pre-

10 The earliest examples of terracotta plaques come already from Akkadian levels at Tell al-Wilayah and from Late Akkadian/Ur III transitional levels at Khafajeh and Tell Asmar (Auerbach 1994: 74–76; Moorey 2001: 92) . 11 All numbers derive from records in the Diyala Archaeological Database (DiyArDa) of the Oriental Institute, University of Chicago ( last accessed: 20 .09 .2016) . The field records available at this invaluable online resource include sketches for most objects, allowing for an at least approximate typological identification where no photographs exist . 12 At Uruk 11 female and 13 male figurines can be attributed to the Ur III to Old Babylonian period (Wrede 2003: 257, 303) . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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historic figurines, their potential appeal to the human sense of touch and not necessarily vision . Drawing on insights from Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Jacques Derrida and others, he argues that touch, – the making, grasping and holding such a smallscale object, – creates an ‘immediacy of relationship’ exceeding other forms of experience and, at points, transcending the limit between body and world (Bailey 2014: 32–33) . Tactile knowledge makes for a more proximal understanding of the world; a person assessing the properties of an object manually (e .g . blind people) will first seek to apprehend the different properties of an object and then combine them into a whole (Bailey 2014: 34) . Turning to our late third/early second millennium Mesopotamian female figurines, the lower parts of their bodies with closely converging legs and miniature or non-existent feet attract envelopment by the hand; added and incised features at specific areas on the upper parts of the body invite exploration of details with the fingers . This way of holding and handling may explain best their usual point of breakage at the waistline . While the overall features of female figurines are rendered similarly over a wide geographic area and time-frame, their details are rarely identical, indicating that there was an unequivocal understanding of necessary features but no need to adhere precisely to a specific prototype or ideal . Even though we cannot reconstruct their exact place in ritual practice, we are probably right in following Nicholas Postgate’s understanding of such figurines as the ‘effigy of a human’, the effigy of a specific anthropomorphic entity/individual, termed ṣalmu in Akkadian (Postgate 1994: 179–180) . Turning to the newly introduced medium of terracotta plaques, we observe two different strands of transformation for the ‘nude female’ . The first one adheres closely to the figurine tradition with an emphasis on the curvy body outline with extremely narrow feet, voluptuous hair-do and ornamentation, enlarged pubic triangles and occasionally applications for eyes and belly-buttons (Fig . 2a–c) . The hands are either holding the breasts or are folded below . In some cases, the negative moulds for the plaques were pressed from positives with applied pellets, bands and incisions making them true derivates of the figurines . While there is no doubt about their unifying elements, stylistic variation in details remains as large as with the figurines . However, another strand in the nude female terracotta plaque production appears already in the early plaque phase (i .e . Late Akkadian/Ur III contexts), and becomes more and more dominant in the second half of the 19th century BCE (Fig . 3a–c) . Its youthful, ‘barbie-doll’-like appearance with slim hips, minimally indicated primary sexual organs (without nipples or pubic hair), little ornamentation (simple rings around the neck) and a uniform mid-length hairstyle/hair tied up backwards (without curls or claps) set against a wide empty background follows a fixed prototype for the female body . The whole group is rather homogeneous, leaving little room for additions or modifications . We observe only slight stylistic variations in otherwise identical replications of a visual ideal for the naturally proportioned female physiognomy without any exaggerating features . The closely aligned feet are usually set on a small platform – stressing the stationary, objecti© 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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fied quality of the depicted . 13 The ovoid shape and convex back characterizing the female nude-plaques make the whole object well suited to be held in a hand . Tactile investigation of the depicted figure grasps the body as a whole, without much differentiation of specific properties or marked details – making these objects obviously more appealing to sight than to touch . 4. Men holding curved staffs as figurines and plaques Male figurines are characterized by large beards and brimmed or pointed hats, often decorated with small pellets (Fig . 4a–c) . Their hands and fingers are prominently visible, sometimes enlarged . They hold things: either an animal/kid (a), or: one or two curved staffs (b) . The lower body is frequently missing, but if preserved, consists of a roughly cylindrical, substantive base maybe indicating a long dress, but essentially indecisive and similar to the shape of Akkadian figurines of both sexes . As with the female figurines, male figurines are modelled similarly all across Mesopotamia; nevertheless, each figurine is unique and interesting to touch, due to its multi-stage manufacture with added pellets, bands and incisions . How did these figurines transform into plaques? There are surprisingly few direct translations of this popular motif, especially in the Diyala region where the figurines were frequent . The limited number of plaques depicting men holding kids (‘animal/ offering bearers’) come mainly from sites further to the south like Isin, Tello and Ur (Auerbach 1994: 211–213; Opificius 1961: 149–154); they are stylistically far removed from the figurines and form part of the official iconography depicting the ruler/worshipper in front of a deity, well known from contemporary cylinder seals . I suggest that typical pictorial features of the male figurines holding curved staffs continued in a more direct manner in form of the popular motif of the so-called ‘bulleared’ or ‘shrouded god’ (Moorey 2001: 94, 116; Opificius 1961: 90–100) with pairs of axes, maces or lion-headed scimitars (Fig . 5a–c) . Communalities are the large, rounded eyes, the awkwardly attached beards, the angular forms of the shoulders and the hands with distinct fingers held in front of the body . While the horned cap and large bull-ears characterize the plaques alone, we also find knobs or circular impressions resembling the pellet or impressed decoration on many of the figurines’ hats (e .g . Fig . 5a, b), making it clear that they were still close to the compound nature of the figurine tradition . The male body itself seems irrelevant in these representations; instead, the focus lies on what they hold or are equipped with . There are barely any indications of anatomical modelling or musculature; the lower body is never visible and in the case of the bull-eared gods encaged into a casket-like tube, that sometimes ends in a narrow

13 For a particularly clear representation of the plinth see Moorey 2001: 112, no . 114 . ‘Nude females’ depicted on cylinder seals also regularly stand on a plinth (Blocher 1987: 100–104) . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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socket or naked feet standing on a narrow pedestal – similar to the one of the nude females mentioned earlier . This might be a way of rendering the depicted immobile, marking it as the depiction of an object not an animate being . But there are two other trajectories of plaque development for the ‘man with curved staff(s)’ figurines . The first is the so-called ‘hunter’ – a bearded man with a bent weapon over one shoulder carrying prey (dead birds?) (Fig . 6a, b; Auerbach 1994: 82–83; cat . 135–138) . The ‘hunter’ is among the earliest plaque motifs from Tell Asmar (Ur III contexts, Fig . 6a) . Modified Isin-Larsa versions with a bow replacing the curved weapon come from Iščali (Fig . 6b) and Khafajeh, as well as from Ur (Diqdiqqeh; BM 116817, BM 1168821, Penn 32-40-28, Penn 31-43-447), Tello (Barrelet 1968: no . 252), and Fara (Heinrich 1931: F . 2267, pl . 76c) . A second group of plaques depicting ‘men with curved staffs’ are the so-called ‘dancing combatants’ (Fig . 7a–b) . These are two men, usually wearing distinctive ‘feathered’ cylindrical headdresses, 14 combined with short kilts and a (threefold) belt, facing each other with their bent weapons . A frontal version of the motif is already known from mid-third millennium Mari in the form of a small double-statuette from the Ištar temple (h . 23 cm; Louvre AO 17568), 15 and reoccurs several centuries later on terracotta plaques from Ur and Tell Asmar (Fig . 7a; see also i .a . Ur/Diqdiqqeh: BM 127477, Penn 33-35-14) . 16 Examples of the more common, and only slightly later, 17 profile version were discovered at several early second millennium sites including Tell Asmar, Iščali, Tell Harmal, Isin, Assur and Susa (Fig . 7b; Opificius 1961: 156–159; Auerbach 1994: 113–114; cf . Moorey 2001: 104); sometimes the two men flank a pole-like lama-goddess(-statue) set up on a small plinth (e .g . Opificius 1961: Nr . 392 and 393 from Khafajeh and Tell Harmal) . Unlike the ‘bull-eared gods’, the ‘hunter’ and ‘dancing combatants’-plaques (at least in their profile version) display bodies in motion . The pictorial emphasis lies on naturalistic representations of well-formed physical and facial features, with delicately rendered hands and hairdos; special attention is paid to anatomical perfection and bodily smoothness, as well as to tendons and muscles . While we might refer to contemporary stone relief sculpture as prototypes, we still have to explain this discrete artistic development within the terracotta genre . Thematically, the ‘dancing combatants’ form part of a larger group of terracottas depicting musicians and danc-

14 Annubanini’s first captive in the Sar-i Pol rock relief (II) wears a similar headdress (Börker-Klähn 1982: 139, Nr . 31) . 15 M . Williamson interpreted their curved staffs as harps (Williamson 1969) . 16 At Susa, several plaques depict a nude, bearded men holding one or two curved staffs in frontal or profile view (Spycket 1992b: 81–83, cat . 418–429) . Similar plaques are known from Fara (Heinrich 1931: Taf . 75f) and Uruk (Wrede 2003: Nr . 1184–1189) . 17 For instance, plaque As . 31:608 comes from an early Isin-Larsa level at the Palace of the Rulers at Tell Asmar (Ur-NinMAR .KI, ca . mid 20th century BCE), Is . 34:41 from the Kitītum-temple at Iščali, late Isin-Larsa levels III–IV, 19th to mid-18th centuries BCE (see last access 16 .05 .2017) . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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ers probably performing at festive occasions . The ‘hunter’ (in his profile version), continues into the famous ‘figure with a mace’ (Porada) or ‘Gottkönig als Krieger’ (Moortgat), identified by Frans Wiggermann (1987: 26–27) as the protective spirit šēdu . The rendering of this figure is typologically so closely constrained that the whole group appears extremely homogenous, similar to depictions of the supernatural heroes kusarikku and laḫmu . 5. Conclusions Terracotta plaque production of the late third and early second millennium is not as uniform as it is often assumed, especially when considering the varying treatments of the body: 1) Handmade figurines of nude women developed from visually overloaded and ornamented forms with exaggerated but nevertheless abbreviated physical features into similar plaques, on the one hand, and into much finer modelled, naturally proportioned and extremely homogenous representations, on the other (‘barbie-doll style’) . The latter no longer highlight specific body components/additions but the overall form of the smooth figure set against a blank background . They are more interesting to look at than to make or to touch . 2) Handmade figurines of men do not show much body details but concentrate on headdress, beards and curved staff(s) held in front of the body – a visual focus that continues with the plaque motif of the ‘bull-eared gods’ . So-called ‘hunter’- and ‘dancing combatants’-plaques equally perpetuate the visual topos of the man with the curved staff but transfer it into motion with increasing emphasis on the seminude, muscular body . It finds its ultimate form in the ‘figure with the mace’-motif, whose pictorial rendering is extremely closely constrained . How can we explain these differences and developments? It should be clear by now, that I view style not as mere coincidence or matter of taste but as crucial factor for converting a culturally important subject into meaningful imagery . Changes in artistic ‘Zeitgeist’ (or period style) or claims for ‘stylistic maturation’ are not ends in themselves but result from changing social and cultural practices, norms and ideas that embed the artworks . Moreover, using arguments of technical inaptitude vs . artistic mastery distracts us from the observation of formal and stylistic differences that characterize a whole motif group and not just individual examples . Due to the universal availability of clay and the relative technological simplicity of production, terracottas are a particularly dynamic field of artistic production, reacting faster to changes in socio-cultural configurations . That is an important point if we want to argue that it is ultimately the consumers’ not the producers’ side that matters when explaining pictorial change . I suggest, that differences in referentiality lie at the heart of the perceived changes: Male and female figurines referenced individuals (cf . Postgate 1994: 179–180), represented in stereotyped form but with additional features and none of them exactly alike, © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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making their production and handling a truly unique experience . We might understand them as material correlates of specific situations/practices that were part of essential social or supernatural encounters . Thus, they are conceptually related but miniaturized and economized forms of the so-called ‘Beterstatuetten’ (stone votive statuary) . On the contrary, typical and highly standardized plaque (and later on seal) motives like the ‘nude female’ or the ‘figure with the mace’ were generic representations of concepts established or at least universally promoted all over southern Mesopotamia by the end of the 3rd millennium BCE . 18 We might deduce further that the increasingly symbolic character of the perfect and beautiful female/male body caused the cultural need for exact replications and made them the main objective of Mesopotamian image production . 19 The end of the hand-made figurines and the beginning of the plaque era is more than a technological advance . It reflects profound conceptual changes in image consumption that caused the short-lived and unparalleled variety of the Isin-Larsa terracotta production . Bibliography Auerbach, E . 1994 Terra Cotta Plaques from the Diyala and Their Archaeological and Cultural Contexts . Ph .D . thesis, University of Chicago, Ann Arbor . Bailey, D . W . 2014 Touch and the cheirotic apprehension of prehistoric figurines . In: P . Dent (ed .): Sculpture and Touch . Farnham, 27–43 . Barrelet, M .-T . 1968 Figurines et reliefs en terre cuite de la Mésopotamie antique. Potiers, termes de métier, procédés de fabrication et production. Bibliothèque archéologique et historique, Institut Francais d’Archéologie de Beyrouth 85 . Paris . Blocher, F . 1987 Untersuchungen zum Motiv der nackten Frau in der altbabylonischen Zeit. Münchner vorderasiatische Studien 4 . München . Börker-Klähn, J . 1982 Altvorderasiatische Bildstelen und vergleichbare Felsreliefs . Baghdader Forschungen 4 . Mainz/ Rhein .

18 This argument needs elaboration and substantiation . A comprehensive study on changing patterns of artistic use and rendering of the human form in third and early second millennium Mesopotamia is currently underway (Roßberger in preparation; see also Roßberger in press) . This study will focus particularly on terracotta objects but will take other artistic media as well as textual sources into account . 19 We may refer again to Postgate (1994: 183), who concludes that “… the standardization of the apotropaic figurines is a clear reflection of the concern for ritual correctness which is itself expressed in the care with which the exorcist’s instructions are written down, lest an error be made . The good match is there because it was an end in itself .” © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Borić, D . and Robb, J . E . (eds .) 2008 Past Bodies. Body-Centered Research in Archaeology. Oxford . Dales, G . F . 1960 Mesopotamian and Related Female Figurines. Their Chronology, Diffusion, and Cultural Functions . Ph .D . thesis, University of Pennsylvania, Ann Arbor . Frankfort, H ., Lloyd, S . and Jacobsen, T . 1940 The Gimilsin Temple and the Palace of the Rulers at Tell Asmar. Oriental Institute Publications 43 . Chicago . Garcia-Ventura, A . and López-Bertran, M . 2010 Embodying some Tell Asmar figurines . In: P . Matthiae, F . Pinnock, L . Nigro and N . Marchetti (eds .), Proceedings of the 6th International Congress on the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East. Wiesbaden, 739–749 . Heinrich, E . and Andrae, W . 1931 Fara, Ergebnisse der Ausgrabungen der Deutschen Orient-Gesellschaft in Fara und Abu Hatab. Berlin . Hrouda, B . 1977 Isin – Išān Bahrīyāt I, München . Klengel-Brandt, E . and Cholidis, N . 2006 Die Terrakotten von Babylon im Vorderasiatischen Museum von Berlin, Teil 1: Die anthropomorphen Figuren . Wissenschaftliche Veröffentlichungen der Deutschen Orientgesellschaft 115 . Saarwellingen . Kohring, S . 2011 Bodily skill and the aesthetics of miniaturisation . Pallas 86, 31–50 . Langin-Hooper, S . M . 2014 Introduction . In: S . M . Langin-Hooper (ed .): Figuring out the Figurines of the Ancient Near East . Occasional Papers in Coroplastic Studies 1 . Lille, vii–xiii . Legrain, L . 1930 Terra-Cottas from Nippur. Philadelphia . Luciani, M . in press On women made of clay . Enquiries on the meaning of an Ancient Near Eastern non-elite (?) production . In: G J . Selz and K . Wagensonner (eds .), Orientalische Kunstgeschichte(n): Festschrift für Erika Bleibtreu, Wiener Offene Orientalistik 13 . Vienna . Meyer, J .-W . and Pruß, A . 1994 Anthropomorphe Terrakotten . In: J .-W . Meyer (ed .): Die Kleinfunde von Tell Halawa A, Schriften zur Vorderasiatischen Archäologie 6 . Saarbrücken, 13–110 . Moorey, P . R . S . 2001 Ancient Near Eastern Terracottas in the Ashmolean Museum, 3. Mesopotamia and Iran, c. 3000–350 B.C., II. Akkadian to Old Babylonian Periods in Babylonia (c. 2350–1650 B.C.) (last access 26 .09 .2016) . Opificius, R . 1961 Das altbabylonische Terrakottarelief. Untersuchungen zur Assyriologie und Vorderasiatischen Archäologie 2 . Berlin . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Postgate, J . N . 1997 Text and figure in ancient Mesopotamia: match and mismatch . In: C . Renfrew (ed .): The Ancient Mind. Elements of Cognitive Archaeology . Cambridge, 176–184 . Pruß, A . 2010 Die Amuq-Terrakotten. Untersuchungen zu den Terrakotta-Figuren des 2. und 1. Jahrtausends v. Chr. aus den Grabungen des Oriental Institute Chicago in der Amuq-Ebene. Subartu 26, Turnhout . 2011–2013 Terrakotten . In: M . P . Streck (ed .): Reallexikon der Assyriologie und Vorderasiatischen Archäologie 13, Berlin – Boston, 603–611 . Robb, J . E . 2015 Burial and human body representations in the Mediterranean Neolithic . In: C . Fowler, J . Harding and D . Hofmann (eds .): The Oxford Handbook of Neolithic Europe, Oxford . Roßberger, E . in preparation The Human Form in Clay . Anthropomorphic Terracottas from Early Mesopotamia in Intermedial Perspective . in press The Nude at the Entrance . Contextualizing Male and Female Nudity in Early Mesopotamian Art . In: S .L . Budin, M . Cifarelli, A . Garcia-Ventura, and A . Millet Albà (eds .): Gender, Methodology and the Ancient Near East . Proceedings of the Second Workshop held in Barcelona, February 1–3 2017, Barcelona . Spycket, A . 1981 Figurines de terre cuite du chantier Sud-est (Südostabschnitt) . In: B . Hrouda (ed .): Isin – Išān Bahrīyāt II, München, 71–75 . 1986

Transposition du modelage au moulage . In: L . de Meyer (ed .): Fragmenta historiae elamicae. Mélanges offerts à M. J. Steve . Paris, 79–82 .

1987

Les figurines de terre cuite 1983–84 (7e–8e campagnes) . In: Hrouda, B . (ed .): Isin – Išān Bahrīyāt III . München, 49–60 .

1992a Les figurines de terre cuite 1986, 1988–89 (9e–11e campagnes) . In: Hrouda, B . (ed .): Isin – Išān Bahrīyāt IV . München, 56–73 . 1992b Les figurines de Suse. Ville royale de Suse 6, Mémoires de la Délégation archéologique en Iran 52 . Paris . van Buren, E . D . 1930 Clay Figurines of Babylonia and Assyria. New Haven . Williamson, M . C . 1969 Les harpes sculptées du temple d’Ishtar à Mari . Syria 46 (3), 209–224 . Wiggermann, F . A . M . 1987 The Staff of Ninšubura . Studies in Babylonian Demonology, II . Jaarbericht van het Vooraziatsch-Egyptisch Genootschap Ex Oriente Lux 29, 3–34 . Wrede, N . 2003 Uruk. Terrakotten I. Von der ‘Ubaid bis zur altbabylonischen Zeit. Ausgrabungen in Uruk Warka Endberichte 25 . Main/Rhein .

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Period

Tell Asmar

Anthrop . figurines (female/ male/untermined gender)

Terracotta plaques

174 (79/57/38)

74

Abu temple

ED I–III

6 (1/2/3)

0

Houses, stratum V

Early Akkadian

5 (3/0/2)

3

Houses, stratum IV

Late Akkadian

14 (7/5/2)

4

Houses, strata III–II

Ur III

5 (3/1/1)

3

Houses below Southern Building

Early Isin-Larsa

13 (3/10/0)

2

Southern Building

Early Isin-Larsa

4 (4/0/0)

1

Northern Palace, Earlier and Main Level

Akkadian

4 (3/0/1)

0

Northern Palace, Ur III and Isin Larsa

Ur III to Isin-Larsa

2 (2/0/0)

5

Palace of the Rulers, Ur III

Ur III

8 (6/1/1)

5

Palace of the Rulers, Isin Larsa levels

Early Isin-Larsa

19 (13/5/1)

3

Palace of the Rulers, unstrat ./top layer

Isin-Larsa

40 (17/16/7)

8

Trench A

Early Isin-Larsa

4 (2/2/0)

8

Snake Shrine

Early Isin-Larsa

2 (0/2/0)

4

Iščali

77 (28/45/4)

214

Kititum temple

Isin-Larsa

30 (11/19/0)

71

‘Gate temple’

Isin-Larsa

6 (2/3/1)

21

13 (6/6/1)

17

5 (1/3/1)

9

27 (13/2/12)

32

Tell Agrab Šara Temple/Mound A, unstratified

Isin-Larsa

Khafajeh Houses

ED IIIa to early Akk. 11 (4/1/6)

0

Akkadian Foundations

Akkadian

1 (1/0/0)

1

Mound C

Isin-Larsa/Old Bab.

2 (0/1/1)

8

Mound D

Isin-Larsa/Old Bab.

1 (0/0/1)

22

Isin

55 (29/16/10)

144

Gula temple

Isin-Larsa/Old Bab.

6 (1/1/4)

30

Gula North

Isin-Larsa/Old Bab.

1 (1/0/0)

17

Area ‘Südost I’

Isin-Larsa/Old Bab.

5 (3/2/0)

15

Area ‘Süd I’

Ur III

27 (17/5/5)

12

Table 1 Numbers of anthropomorphic figurines (classified by gender into male/female/undetermined) vs . plaques discovered in selected contexts in the Lower Diyala region and at Isin . All numbers based on Diyala Archaeological Database, Oriental Institute, Chicago (corrected by author) and LMU Isin Archive (courtesy of Kai Kaniuth) © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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a) b) c) Fig . 1 Terracotta female figurines from: a – Isin (Ur III; IB-0285; © Isin Archive LMU Munich); b –Tell Asmar (Ur III; h . 11 .3cm; As . 33:598, Frankfort/Lloyd/Jacobsen 1940: fig . 109c); c – As: 31 .612 (late Akkadian; Diyala Archaeological Database) (b and c: courtesy of the Oriental Institute Museum of the University of Chicago)

a) b) c) Fig . 2 Terracotta plaques with individually rendered, figurine-like depictions of the nude female from Tell Asmar: a – As . 31 .672b (Ur III or early Isin-Larsa; h . 13cm; Diyala Archaeological Database); b – Kh . IV .34 (late Akkadian; h . 11cm; Diyala Archaeological Database); c – As . 31:213 (early IsinLarsa; H . 8 .5cm; Frankfort et al. 1940: fig . 125b (All courtesy of the Oriental Institute Museum of the University of Chicago)

a)

b)

c)

Fig . 3 Terracotta plaques with homogenously rendered depictions of nude females from: a – Tell Asmar (early Isin Larsa; As . 35:32; photos: author); b – Iščali (late Isin-Larsa; Ish . 35:62; photo: author); c – Isin (IB-1251; © Isin Archive LMU Munich) (a and b courtesy of the Oriental Institute Museum of the University of Chicago) © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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c) Fig . 4 Terracotta male figurines holding curved staff(s) or a kid from: a – Isin (IB-1914; © Isin Archive LMU Munich); b – Iščali (early Isin Larsa?; Ish . 35:213; photo: author); c – Tell Asmar (early IsinLarsa; As . 30:57a; Frankfort et al. 1940: fig . 116a) (b and c: courtesy of the Oriental Institute Museum of the University of Chicago)

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Fig . 5 Plaques depicting ‘bull-eared gods’ holding weapons from Iščali all from Isin-Larsa contexts: a – Ish . 34:208; b – Ish . 34:5; c – Ish . 34:100 (all photos by the author and courtesy of the Oriental Institute Museum of the University of Chicago) © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Fig . 6 Plaques depicting a ‘hunter’ from: a – Tell Asmar (Ur III; As . 32:525; Diyala Archaological Database); b – probably from Iščali (purchased 1930; OIM A 9336; photo: author) (both courtesy of the Oriental Institute Museum of the University of Chicago)

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a) Fig . 7 Plaques depicting ‘dancing combatants’ with curved staffs: a – in frontal view from Tell Asmar (As . 34:78; photo: author); b – in profile view probably from Iščali (purchased 1930; OIM A 9346; photo: author) (both courtesy of the Oriental Institute Museum of the University of Chicago) © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Persepolis – Fantastic Site, and don’t Forget the Tent City 1 Annelies Van de Ven 2 Abstract The Achaemenid city of Persepolis is an immense archaeological site with a rich historical value and a key role within Iranian identity . However, the ancient remains are not the only attraction within this celebrated site . A more modern set of ruins has worked its way into the spotlight: the structural remains of the tent city of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi Shah’s 2500-year anniversary of the Persian Empire . Constructed for an event that both celebrated and criticised Iranian modernity, the tent city was controversial from the start, made more so in the aftermath of the 1979 revolution . This paper will tease out the inspirations for and effects of this construction, and how it could be reconciled with modern Iranian history .

When visiting the site of Persepolis at the foot of the Kuh-e Rahmat, one is immediately struck by the grandeur of the Achaemenid Era architecture, the density of its palatial structures and the craftsmanship of its carved decorations . It is easy to get caught up in these elements and to forget that the site had a life beyond its use as a ceremonial capital . Also known as Parsa and Takht-e Jamshid the site does not carry a singular narrative, but many . It can be identified as a royal city of the ancient Achaemenid Empire, but also as the Persian palaces set aflame by Alexander the Great in 330 BCE, the cause of death of Sassanian King Shapur, 3 a source of inspiration for the artist Cornelis de Bruijn, an episode within the adventures of famous explorer Carsten Niebuhr, and the site excavated by Ernst Herzfeld, Erich Schmidt and the University of Chicago’s Oriental institute in the 1930s . More recently, another layer has been added to the site’s legacy in the emergence of a new set of ruins, an elaborate tent city that became an international stage for celebrations in Mohammed Reza Pahlavi Shah’s 2500-year anniversary of the Persian Empire in 1971 . The Shah’s celebrations were held from the 14th to the 15th of October 1971 . A remnant of the event that cost the Iranian state 20 million USD, the tent city is a contested item . Originally, it stood as a symbol for the power and wealth of the regime, a reference to the great Achaemenid kings of old . Today its remains stand as a testament to the immensity of the event, but are also a reminder of its decadence, and the revolution that followed . Most recently it has become a tourist destination, and a possible renovation project . This paper will analyse shifting interpretations of the camp by its various audiences, local and international, political and touristic, moving from the tents of nomadic tribes of ancient Iran, to the global use of tents to symbolise power, and ulti-

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A comment by user JLC-1972 from Hellerup in Denmark on Tripadvisor (JLC-1972 2014) . PhD Candidate, School of Historical and Philosophical Studies, University of Melbourne . See Al-Tabari 1999: 8 . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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mately the events of 1971 and their impact on the revolutionary and post-revolutionary treatment of Achaemenid history . Finally, I will delve into the possible futures of the tent city by discussing means of rehabilitation, conservation and recollection . Settlements made up of tents were part of nomadic life in Iran long before the rise of the Achaemenid Empire, and they continued to exist long after monumental capitals emerged within the area . During the period of the ‘sedentary’ Achaemenids Herodotus describes a number of nomadic tribes in existence (ex . Hdt . Hist. I .125) . The most extensively described were the Scythians or Sakas, a nomadic horse-riding people of the Eurasian steppes, about whom he states: “each lives under a tree, covering it … with a white felt cloth” (Hdt . Hist. IV .23) . If this tree is reinterpreted as a wooden substructure creating a conical form, then this Scythian structure becomes a type of proto-yurt (Kuz’mina and Mallory 2007: 65) . A combination of literary analysis with archaeological excavation and modern ethnography reveals a complex environment during the Achaemenid period with extensive trade and cultural exchange as well as gradual and scattered settlement change across a diversity of multi-ethnic peoples dependent on social and climatic conditions (Harmatta 1994: 20; Potts 2014: 88–89) . Within the vastness of the Persian Empire – one only loosely defined in terms of ethnic, cultural and religious identity – the ruler’s political, economic and military power equally had to be upheld through a regular pattern of travel . 4 Thus, the integration of sedentary and nomadic lifestyles applies not only to the general population of ancient Persia, but also to the kings and their courts . The Persepolis Fortification Tablets, found during the Oriental Institute’s excavations at Persepolis in the 1930s, and particularly the J series, which incorporates texts relating to “royal provisions” across the Empire, indicated the mobility of the court (Hallock 1969: 24; Briant 2012: 190) . The effective administration reflected in these tablets is reiterated in Xenophon’s description of the swiftness of construction and deconstruction: “… in how orderly a manner his [Cyrus the Younger’s] train packed up, large though it was, and how quickly they reached the place where they were due . For wherever the great king encamps, all his retinue follow him to the field with their tents, whether in summer or in winter .” (Xen . Cyr . VIII .5 .2) This regular event would have required a great amount of resources and logistical planning considering the magnitude of people and goods being relocated during each move . The resulting imperial system, termed “un royaume itinerant” by Pierre Briant (1988; 2014) or a ‚movable court’ by Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones (2013), also necessitated the creation of symbols of kingship that could be maintained while travelling across the various territories of the Empire . The camp was a key element of this symbolism

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This travel was facilitated by the royal roads system which incorporated imperial capitals Sardis, Susa, Babylon, Persepolis and Ecbatana as well as other areas of the Empire (Kia 2016: 127–128) . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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as it was created as a reconstruction of the material and administrative structures of the imperial capitals: a sea of tents set up to reflect the hierarchy of the court with the Great King’s tent at the centre (Xen . Cyr . VIII .5 .3 & 8) . This royal tent would have been lavish, more like a multi-part pavilion than the chador’s described above (Miller 1997: 50–51) . We can gain a glimpse of what this tent may have looked like by reading Herodotus who describes Mardonius’ tent as displaying “gold and silver and gaily coloured tapestry” (Hdt . Hist. IX .82 .1) . The king would have needed a “collapsible throne room”, a space that allowed him to carry out the same activities as he would in his palaces: hold audience, host elaborate banquets and organise his personal and public affairs (Llewellyn-Jones 2013: 89) . This Persian camp is often described as part of greater narratives, transforming the royal within it from real place to an elaborate set for the enactment of luxury and royal power . In Arrian’s description of Alexander’s conquest the entry into the royal tent was a sign of his appropriation of the Persian throne (Arr . Ana . II .11–12) . In Firdawsi’s Book of Kings, the wicked ruler Sohrab coming within “striking distance of the royal tent signals near defeat” (Robinson 2002: 35) . By this token we see that the symbolism of the royal tent as well as its place within the regular peripatetic pattern of court movement was not unique to the Persian court . It was a common theme throughout a variety of empires including those of Alexander and the Sassanid rulers, but also of Hulagu Khan and Charlemagne and descriptions of such grand tents are to be found in a series of accounts ranging from illustrated histories like those of Rashīd al-Dīn Hamadānī (1430) to the correspondences of European ambassadors like Ruy Gonzales de Clavijo (1859) . As physical and movable possessions, tents could be gifted, traded and conquered . The precedent for this was set in Ancient Persia (Athen . Deipno. II .48), but documentation for this practice becomes even more apparent under later rulers . Abbasid ruler Harun al-Rashid, for example, had more than 4000 ceremonial tents throughout his reign, one of which he sent to Charlemagne as a gift in 802 (Ibn al-Zubayr 1996: 207–208 n . 302; Einhard ARF 807) . The importance of these luxurious royal tents was augmented once more during the rule of the semi-nomadic Turks and Mongols, and passed on to the early modern empires of Western Asia (Avcioğlu 2011; Durand-Guédy 2013) . For at least one of these successors, the Ottoman Empire, we even have examples of officer’s tents that the victors of the 1683 Battle of Vienna preserved as war booty (Fig . 1; Miller 1997: 51) . Ceremonial tents quickly became desirable commodities for the global elites, not as habitations or gifts, but as orientalist decorations . By the 18th century this need could no longer be met with souvenirs brought back from Asia and the Middle East, and local production of tents was on the rise . These tents often did not reflect any existing tents, or even an existing regional style . Instead they brought together a mish-mash of romantic Eastern stereotypes and local fashions . However, these mock-oriental tents still carried an element of symbolic overlap with their predecessors namely in their indication of wealth and status . It is within this long line of royal tents and tent cities that we must analyse Mohammad Reza Pahlavi Shah’s own tent city of 1971 . This city was built beside the ruins of Persepolis to accommodate his sumptuous celebration of 2500 years of Persian Em© 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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pire . However, this was not the intention from the start, and 10 years of planning preceded the decision to use tents for the event . The initial concept suggested by Iranian scholar Shojaeddin Shafa in 1960 was a vibrant national celebration held at Persepolis and planned for 1962 . According to former Iranian statesman Mr Abdolreza Ansari the plans were delayed by more pressing matters of national development (Kadivar 2002) . The plans were given a new life in the joint Italian-Iranian initiative for the conservation of the site of Persepolis which began in 1964 (Mousavi 2012: 202) . When the proposal was revisited again in 1969, Persepolis was still not ready for an international spectacle, and location, transportation and accommodation became major issues . The choice of Persepolis was final, as the Shah had grown fond of the idea of all his eminent foreign guests camping outside the Achaemenid capital as the allies and foes of the ancient Persian kings had done (Grigor 2009) . However, constructing something on such short notice that would not damage the site, but would be large enough to accommodate some 64 Heads of State was a difficult task . Ultimately a solution was found with the help of Pierre Delbée and Pierre Deshays of Maison Jansen, in the form of a tent city, modelling the Field of the Cloth of Gold where Henry VIII and Francois II discussed peace in 1520 (Fig . 2; Mehle 1971) . The local population was moved, the ground was levelled and rid of any unsavoury wildlife, soil was flown in, as were the trees that would separate the tent city from the site (Ristvet 2015: 5) . Finally, the tents themselves were transported, fully-formed and at great cost (Hess 1971: 36) . The resulting site spanned 160 ha with a Tent of Honour, a Grand Banqueting Tent, the Iranian monarch’s tents and 54 yellow and royal blue silk-lined tents for the guests in a star-shaped formation (Abbott 2006: 257–258) . The guest tents were all air-conditioned and carpeted, and each was decorated according to a specific era (Abbott 2006: 258; Clark 2008: 23) . The banqueting tent was a 74 by 24m structure decked out in blue faille, pink silk and red velvet (Abbott 2006: 257) . It was lit with crystal chandeliers in order to house elaborate dinners in a style that according to the Times of India reporter “… matched the splendour of the Arabian Nights…” (UPI 1971: 9) . Though the site tied the celebrations to the Achaemenid Empire and elements of Iran’s Islamic history were embedded in some events, the inspiration for the tent city was still drawn from an Anglo-French tradition, rather than any Persian camp . Even the city of Persepolis was hardly visited, despite having just been inscribed within UNESCO’s world heritage list . In a sense, the Shah had circumvented a distinct Persian tradition in order to demonstrate Persian greatness through a Western lens . What must be remembered is that these tents never served a historical purpose per se, but rather a propagandistic one, providing a symbol for Mohammad Reza Shah’s own monarchical power and the continuity of rule from the Persian golden age of Persepolis to the present . He further highlighted his own monarchic power by creating a strict hierarchy of guests within the festivities in which royalty were separated from the second- and third-class people (Quinn 1971a: B2) . Mohammad Reza Pahlavi Shah was after all the son of Iranian general Reza Shah who deposed the last monarchy in 1925, founding his own dynasty . After English and American forces deposed his father for failing to join allied forces during the war, Mohammad Reza © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Pahlavi Shah was instated by foreign powers without any consultation of the wider population . His legitimation as ruler was shaky at best . His solution to this alternated between violent oppression and cultural justifications . His celebration of 2500 years of the Persian Empire was an example of the latter . Within this pageant, history was not significant in itself, but only as a tool, a citation, in the legitimising narrative of the monarch’s rule . Mohammad Reza Shah transformed and moulded himself into the great King of Kings through his material discursive practices (Scheiwiller 2014: 1) . In this sense, the tent city is used as a stage set for the Shah’s enactment of an imperial leader both distinctly Persian and Westernised . Talin Grigor calls this practice “mimicry-as-camouflage” stating that Mohammad Reza Shah was attempting to be “playing-a-role” creating a Fanon-like “black skin/white masks” effect (Grigor 2009) . This role was not the ancient Achaemenid King of old, but rather the Persian monarch as reconstructed through and for Western eyes . Few if any Iranians were even invited and the local population was limited to viewing the celebrations on a screen or reading about it in the paper (McWhirter 1971: 22) . Those that were invited, the Ayatollah Khomeini labelled “traitors to Islam and the Iranian Nation” (Mackey 1996: 237) . The accusations of fraudulence that Khomeini and his followers placed against the Shah by the end of his reign, thus also became associated with his inauthentic and Western-centric reconstructions . Persian or no, the party had cost the Iranian state millions of dollars, and even those with no objection to the foreign take on Iranian history still criticised the extent of the Shah’s expenditure (Kadivar 2002) . While the original plan to sell the tents to Club Méditerranée would have seen some of the costs returned after the celebrations, issues with the facilities meant that the tent city would have to stay where it was, and the event ended up costing far more than intended (Quinn 1971a: B1) . This meant that during the revolution, when the Shah’s (over-) confidence came back to haunt him, the tent city was available as a stage of discontent . 5 It had come to stand as a symbol of modernity interrupted, of the meddling Western states who denied Iran its autonomy, and of the vanity of a wasteful autocratic Shah who undervalued the nation’s Islamic identity (Grigor 2009) . Furthermore, its pre-Islamic origins conflicted with the regime’s strong focus on Iran as an Islamic nation (Mousavi 2012: 215) . It was during this period that the Ayatollah stated “It is the kings of Iran that have constantly ordered massacres of their own people and had pyramids built with their skulls …” (Llewellyn-Jones 2013: 12) . These ‘pyramids’, may well have included the tent city, a monumental symbol of kingship constructed at the public’s expense, but not to their benefit . However, in this case, the new regime did not demolish the criticised construction, but rather they preserved it as a physical reminder of the Shah’s egregious violations of Iranian Shi’a culture (Fig . 3; Grigor 2009) . Upon

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The BBC4 feature on the event, “Decadence and Downfall: The Shah of Iran’s Ultimate Party” that aired on February 14, 2016, would even suggest that the festivities were the direct cause of the revolution . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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the commencement of the war with Iraq, the government used the site as a military training ground, with the bulletproof tent of the Shah as target practice (Apple 1982; MacFarquhar 2001) . They even put up a sign warning visitors to “Examine what your predecessors did and learn a lesson …” (Burke 2001) . It was only at the turn of the millennium, when the revolution had settled somewhat, that public and governmental interest in the tent city was rekindled . Visiting Persepolis became fashionable again at this time, with plans steadily underway for archaeological collaboration on site . In an ironic twist of fate, the tent city became a viable option for the enhancement of Persepolis’ tourism potential . On at least two separate occasions, in September 2001 (MacFarquhar; Burke) and 2005 (Tait), there were suggestions to rehabilitate the tent city as housing for wealthy tourists . By this point the tents were hardly recognisable, with much of their materials looted during the period of revolutionary fervour or removed in a preservation effort by the Iranian Cultural Organisation (MacFarquhar 2001) . The proposed redevelopment was meant to enhance the economic capacity of the site as well as removing the shadow of the Shah’s party from the site by transforming the structures that evoked it . The director of the Cultural Heritage Organization in Fars, Muhammad Bahrololomi, clearly stated that he did not want to revive the celebrations, he only wanted to re-use its facilities and change their cultural affiliations to being more Iranian (Burke 2001; MacFarquhar 2001) . The difficult balancing act this would require in order to avoid creating anything that could enshrine the old regime may be the primary reason no changes have been made . The growing tension between traditionalism and modernisation, could once again be sparked by these structures . An example being the somewhat controversial admiration of the design of the tents by an Iranian tourist stating to a reporter from The Guardian that Iran hasn’t “… even been able to build a proper door in the past 20 years …” (MacFarquhar 2001) . Internationally, Michael Stevenson expressed the difficulty of this dichotomy through constructing his own version of the dilapidated guest tent for Art Basel 38 in 2007 and by publishing a book in which he included musings on the structural engineering of the tents and their potential for collapse if subjected to a revolutionary force (Stevenson 2008: 10–15) . His commentary on the tent city and its place in constructing the pivotal moment of Pahlavi collapse reminds us of the continuing instability of the concepts of progress and modernity . This controversy mirrors the struggles around the Victory Arch in Baghdad, a monument moulded from the arms of Iraq’s former dictator Saddam Hussein . The coalition and Iraqi government have oscillated between demolition and museification since 2003, unable to make a decision on how to heal the scars of dictatorship and move forward, without resorting to rampant destruction (Myers 2011) . After all, abrasive as it is, the monument still marks a significant period of Iraqi history, much like the tent city for Iran . The tent city’s contested nature is not the only hurdle to its rehabilitation, there is also the concern of its material preservation . Tents are primarily temporary structures, ephemeral and replaceable, not the kind of structure that is preserved readily or easily . While the tent city was actually meant to endure, its designers did not anticipate that it would stay at the site of Persepolis, or that it would be subjected to de© 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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facement . The tarps were actually quite hardy, able to withstand the extreme climates of the desert, but by the time conservation had become an issue, many of them had been looted along with the plywood that made up the rooms . Even if the tarps had remained, the tent city would have been hard to conserve in situ, especially if it was intended to be used as a hotel . The kitchens from the celebrations, with their permanent facilities, were easily convertible to a hostel, the tent city on the other hand had a plumbing system that could hardly deal with a three-day event (Alizadeh 2004: 2; Quinn 1971a: B1) . The steel pipes, exposed to the salinity of the desert sands, were also at greater risk of corrosion (Fig . 4) . The option to replace tents with new tents would be problematic, as it would not only be re-enacting the events of the Shah’s celebrations, but it would cost the state a great deal of money . Deconstructing the tents and moving them to another location where they could be better looked after could be an option, but then they would be torn from their context . There is also the practical issue of finding space for a 160 ha site, or choosing what is to be preserved and what is not . However, with recent technological advances there are ways to reconstruct the site virtually, rather than physically . By laser and photo scanning the site in its current dilapidated form and stitching images from the celebration, it is possible to create a record of both periods of the site, a record that can be accessed within its original context or externally . A virtual reality platform would allow the visitor to see the site, walk through it and learn about its various phases and the people involved with it . This could be an immersive experience for the visitor, one that could convey the nuance of the tent city as a site of revelry, performance, pride, revolution, destruction and resistance . Since 2004, the Lonely Planet guide for the site reads: “Outside the entrance to Persepolis, through the pine tree behind the toilets, are the remains of a luxurious tent city built by Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi …” (Burke and Elliott 2008: 283) . This is reminiscent of a lost civilisation, a hidden treasure waiting to be rediscovered . Its visitation by the public highlights its role as not just a historic, but also in a sense a rebellious monument, gaining a new life in the waning of Islamic revolutionary extremism . Simultaneously foreign and familiar, the tents evoke nostalgic sentiments, a return to the greatness and wealth of Persia, a trend that eerily mirrored the warnings of the Emperor Selassie of Ethiopia against resorting to history as an “… indulgent nostalgia for yesteryears …” or “… to escape the challenges of the day …” (Quinn 1971b: B2) . There is also the continuing anxiety of combining this history with modern governmental and cultural structures that maintain an aggressive stance against anything that might glorify the nation’s 20th century monarchy . Persepolis can still be visited and celebrated as an ancient Persian site . The tent city, however, is a purpose built monumental complex from the time of the Shah . There is no way of circumventing this connection, and thus the site remains problematic . It is no longer a site of celebration, heralding a modern prosperous age for Iran, but is rather a tragic reminder of the missteps of an out of touch ruler, and its touristic appeal feeds off these ambiguities . The fate of the site remains undecided, a challenge to the possibilities of the future . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Miller, M . C . 1997 Athens and Persia in the Fifth Century BC: A Study in Cultural Receptivity . Cambridge . Mousavi, A . 2012 Persepolis: Discovery and Afterlife of a World Wonder . Berlin . Myers, S . L . 2011 Iraq restores monument symbolizing Hussein era . New York Times Feb 5 . http://www .nytimes . com/2011/02/06/world/middleeast/06iraq .html?_r=1 (accessed 20/7/16) Potts, D . T . 2014 Nomadism in Iran: From Antiquity to the Modern Era . Oxford . Quinn, S . 1971a A sumptuous party of parties by the King of Kings . The Washington Post Oct 11 . 1971b A tent full of Royalty . The Washington Post Oct 15 . Rashid al-Din 1430 Ğāmi‛ al-Tavārīḫ . In: Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Département des Manuscrits (source), Supplément Persan 1113 . ark:/12148/btv1b8427170s (accessed 18/7/16) Ristvet, L . 2015 Ritual, Performance, and Politics in the Ancient Near East . Cambridge . Robinson, B . W . 2002 The Persian Book of Kings: An Epitome of the Shahnama of Firdawsi. New York, NY . Scheiwiller, S . G . (ed .) 2014 Performing the Iranian State: Visual Culture and Representations of Iranian Identity . London . Stevenson, M . (ed .) 2008 Celebration at Persepolis . Zurich . Tait, R . 2005 Iran to rebuild spectacular tent city at Persepolis . The Guardian Sept 22 . UPI 1971

Persian banquet brings back Arabian nights . The Times of India Oct 15 .

Xenophon, tr . Miller, W . 1914 Cyropedia, Vol. II . Cambridge, MA .

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Fig . 1 17th Century Ottoman tent in the Wawel Castle Museum, Krakow (reproduced with permission © 1991 Walter Denny)

Fig . 2 Model for the proposed Tent City for the Shah of Iran’s 2500–year anniversary of the founding of Persia, 1971 (reproduced with permission © 2006 James Archer Abbott) © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Fig . 3 The Tent City before the full removal of all tarps (reproduced with permission © 2000 Talinn Grigor)

Fig . 4 Skeletal remains of the Tent City (© 2015 Annelies Van de Ven)

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Conceptions of Gender and Body Images in the Aegean World and East Mediterranean Societies in the Late Bronze Age Melissa Vetters 1 – Jörg Weilhartner 2 Abstract This paper 3 focuses on sex differentiation in the iconography of the Aegean Late Bronze Age and on the naked body specifically . A short overview of renderings of human and animal bodies at different points during the Late Bronze Age forms a general background for a detailed analysis of three fragments of a unique ithyphallic terracotta figure from Mycenaean Tiryns, which has no close comparanda in Aegean iconography . The discussion includes its find spot, former use-context and potential Levantine influences in the conception of the figure’s iconography that can be traced to the very end of the Mycenaean palatial period in Tiryns .

The depiction of primary sexual characteristics did not attract much interest in the Late Bronze Age [LBA] Aegean . Although this period saw the apogee of Aegean pictorial arts with detailed figural compositions in wall paintings, relief art and glyptics, representations of nakedness are mostly confined to the upper body (e .g . Kyriakidis 1997) . In Neopalatial Minoan art (18th/17th–15th centuries BC), this holds true for both men, who regularly wear a kilt or a belt with codpiece (thus drawing attention to but also hiding the penis from clear view), and women, who regularly wear a flounced skirt with an open bodice exposing the breasts (German 2000: 98–104; Chapin 2012; Hitchcock and Nikolaidou 2013: 510–511) . During the Mycenaean palatial period (14th–13th centuries BC), one can even observe a tendency to cover the chest as well: men are regularly shown with a short or long tunic, women tend to wear long tunics (Rehak 1998: 194) . Depictions of the naked breast (Morris 2009: 243–249) are largely confined then to women wearing Minoan-style robes or female terracotta figures, a substantial number of which have the breasts accentuated by ornamental painting . Unlike Neolithic and Early Bronze Age [EBA] Greece, EBA and Middle Bronze Age [MBA] Crete and most other societies in the ancient Mediterranean (e .g . Asher-Greve and Sweeney 2006; Hitchcock and Nikolaidou 2013: 503–510; Budin

1 2 3

Fachbereich Altertumswissenschaften, Klassische und Frühägäische Archäologie, Paris-Lodron Universität Salzburg . Institute for Oriental und European Archaeology (OREA), Austrian Academy of Sciences . Acknowledgements: We express our gratitude to Joseph Maran for permission to use images of the Tiryns excavation project and publication series in our illustrations . MV would like to thank Polymnia Muhly for providing a copy of her unpublished manuscript . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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2015), representation of frontal nudity with clear renditions of genitals is almost absent in Aegean LBA imagery (German 2000) . Notable exceptions are representations of male children or juveniles, who are regularly shown naked (Rehak 1998: 192–193; Rutter 2003: 37–46) and the depiction of dead men, if the nakedness of the drowning man on the miniature frieze decorating Room 5 of the West House at Akrotiri, Thera is typical (Chapin 2012: 299) . Even if one takes into account images of various scales and in different media during the 16th–12th centuries BC from an area covering Crete, the Greek mainland, the Cyclades, Rhodes and Cyprus, the number of representations clearly displaying the genital area of adults is remarkably low . Examples of female (1–3) and male (4–6) figures whose genitals are depicted include (1) a female bronze figurine from Makrygialos, Crete dated to Late Minoan [LM] IB (16th century BC), which seems to feature a central opening of the skirt that uncovers the vulva with a protruding clitoris (Mantzourani 2012: 105–112), (2) a crude outline of a woman en face without arms on a pilgrim flask from Rhodes dated to Late Helladic [LH] IIIB (13th century BC), with breasts, nipples and the pubic area indicated by paint, although she wears a robe (Vermeule and Karageorghis 1982: 155, 227, pl . XII .18), (3) an anthropomorphic terracotta vase from Gournia, Crete dated to LM IIIC (12th century BC), which represents a crouched female figure with a swollen vulva, interpreted as a parturient woman (Rethemiotakis 2001: 24–25, fig . 27), (4) a man of small size identified as a groom on a Mycenaean krater from Klavdhia, Cyprus, dated to LH IIIA (14th century BC), who is generally viewed as naked from the waist down, although he wears a dotted tunic on his upper body (Vermeule and Karageorghis 1982: 30, 198, pl . IV .18), (5) a small, plain male figurine with its genitalia apparently broken off found in a LM IIIA2–LM IIIB Early layer in Poros-Katsambas near Knossos (Rethemiotakis 1998: 163, pl . 84α–γ) and (6) at least five handmade terracotta figures from the West Shrine of Phylakopi, Melos dated to LH IIIC (12th century BC), featuring male genitals despite their painted clothes (French 1985: 223–230, figs . 6 .11–6 .14; Renfrew 1985b: 420–424) . Other male figurines such as the one with traces of red-brown paint and arms in front of the chest, found in a LM IIIC context in Ayia Triada (Rethemiotakis 1998: 34, pl . 57β), perhaps feature a penis, but this may well be the Minoan codpiece with its accompanying painted belt not visible anymore . Some Minoan bronze statuettes, mostly from the Psychro cave, may not wear the typical codpiece (sometimes a clear distinction between codpiece or phallus is impossible) . Verlinden (1984: pls . 65 .145, 67 .154, 68 .156, 70 .163–167) dates such items to the Cretan post-palatial period on stylistic grounds . Significantly, illustrations of the pubic triangle with genitalia do not appear on frescoes, metal signet rings, seal-stones, relief vessels, boxes or chests, which are generally deemed to convey elitist or palatial ideologies . It is striking that none of the male figures features an ithyphallic penis . Correspondingly, renditions of phalloi, whether as part of ithyphallic male figures or figurines, as phallic-shaped necks with heads, or in the form of votive clay phalloi, are almost entirely missing in Aegean LBA material culture, although clearly attested in previous periods (Mantzourani 2012: 110; Hitchcock and Nikolaidou 2013: 506–510) . If a fully © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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erected penis is shown, it is in representations of animals . Clear examples are provided by glyptic imagery, which document bulls (e .g . CMS II .7 no . 39), rams (e .g . CMS I no . 221), billy goats (e .g . CMS II .7 no . 23), stallions (e .g . CMS I no . 15), dogs (e .g . CMS II .6 no . 75), boars (e .g . CMS I no . 227), stags (e .g . CMS I no . 15) and wild goats (e .g . CMS II .6 no . 70) in ithyphallic pose . This phenomenon of restricting a pictorial motive or scene to animal life can also be observed in the context of sexual intercourse, as clear-cut depictions are limited to the representation of a pair of mating (wild) goats . Although such copulation scenes are rare, they are attested in a variety of media including a gold signet ring (CMS VII no . 68) and two early seals (CMS II .1 no . 369, II .2 no . 306a) from Crete, two vases from Lefkandi, Euboea (Vermeule and Karageorghis 1982: 143, pl . XI .85; Rutter 2014: 198–199, figs . 21 .2–21 .3) and a miniature terracotta figurine from Crete (Rehak 2009: 15, pl . IIg) . The noticeable absence of explicit human sex scenes in the Aegean LBA, whether of heterosexual or homosexual nature, is remarkable in comparison with the acceptance of this theme in contemporary ancient Near Eastern [NE] art as well as in later periods of ancient Greece . If at all, sexual intercourse must have been illustrated rather symbolically: References to kissing or fondling among humans are virtually absent (Rehak 1998: 193) . In wall painting, close contact between the sexes is exceptional, and one observes a tendency of showing women and men performing their activities in separate groups (Marinatos 1987: 23–34) . Some LBA glyptic attest to a more direct interaction between the sexes, either in scenes referred to as Sacred Marriage (Koehl 2001: 239–241) or in scenes of processions and presentations of offerings respectively (Wedde 2004) . In none of these representations are the human actors clearly shown naked . This lack of interest in completely naked bodies in the figurative arts of the Aegean LBA pertains to both women and men . If a clear differentiation between women and men was desired, a wide range of iconographic features were at the disposal of LBA artists . These include gender-distinct skin colour, costumes, adornment, hairstyles, gestures, posture and activities (Rehak 1998; Alberti 2002) . Thus, male and female genitalia are not among those characteristics used for gender-specific depictions . This contrasts with numerous images of the naked body in Egyptian and NE art, where nudity is primarily associated with sexuality or fertility (e .g . Asher-Greve and Sweeney 2006; Budin 2015); at times it also signifies humiliation and deprivation (Asher-Greve and Sweeney 2006: 113–114) . If visual representation is a reliable guide to understanding Aegean LBA concepts of the human body, the fact that the depiction of sex-based distinctions by means of primary sexual characteristics is avoided may point to a sexual ideology of a rather balanced and complementary nature between Aegean women and men . The lack of scenes of human sexual intercourse, which are generally viewed as a phenomenon of male dominated societies (e .g . Cadogan 2009: 229), may point in the same direction . Besides iconography, the logograms of the Mycenaean Linear B script attest to a differentiation between women and men, which is not based on observable biological characteristics but on socio-culturally constructed values: The representation of a standing, passive figure clad in a long costume serves to construct female gender . A © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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walking, active figure, with emphasis on broad shoulders and no indication of clothing, serves as a symbol for men (Weilhartner 2012) . As in Aegean LBA iconography, the representation of primary sexual characteristics is clearly avoided . Set against this background, the existence of an ithyphallic figure in, as it is argued, a Mycenaean palatial setting is all the more surprising . Three fragments of a unique large, wheel-made terracotta figure, male and ithyphallic (French 1985: 223, 224 fig . 6 .10, pl . 37e–h; Voigtländer 2003: 130 T41, pl . 94) were found in the Epichosis (Voigtländer 2003) of Tiryns in the Argolid (Fig . 1) . The Epichosis is a dump of material from the Upper Citadel, the area of the palace, outside the western fortification wall of the citadel . The terracotta fragments (Figs . 2, 3a) constitute a hollow wheel-made phallus with the fingers of the right hand modelled in the pubic area at the root of the penis and a central hole/spout in front (Vetters 2009: DB-no . 2679); two additional fragments (Vetters 2009: DB-nos . 2680–2681), apparently parts of extremities, almost certainly derive from the same figure, although they do not join . The discussion of these three fragments will focus on date, parallels and function . They were interpreted as part of a centaur figure and dated to LH IIIC (12th century BC) by Voigtländer (2003: 229–231), who was the first to publish them in detail . Yet the shape of the two fragmentary extremities seems to challenge Voigtländer’s interpretation as parts of centaur’s legs: the second fragment exhibits a curvature that – as a leg fragment – would not provide a sufficiently stable base for the whole figure . The swelling in the centre of both fragments, highlighted by a stripe of red paint, suggests these fragments are parts of arms . These stripes may be bangles worn around the upper arm or bracelets: such adornments are often worn by men in Minoan-Mycenaean iconography (Effinger 1996: 61–62, 78–79) . The reconstructed size of the figure is considerable – the length of the phallus measures ca . 11cm, the height including the hand-part more than 8cm . The other two fragments are 10–11cm long: one probably represents part of an upper arm, the other of a lower arm . If the original is reconstructed as a standing human figure, its maximum height may have reached 60cm . A reconstruction as a standing (Schofield 2007: 157–158) or seated male figure seems to be most plausible at the moment . Of obvious assistance in the search for parallels would be a precise dating . A post-palatial assignment (Voigtländer 2003: 130) is at odds with the date of the Epichosis deposit mainly based on the pottery: the latest ceramic assessment by Kardamaki (2015a: 94) provides convincing arguments to put the bulk of the pottery in LH IIIB Developed/Final (second half of the 13th century BC) . Stylistic comparison of small handmade terracotta figurines from the Epichosis (Voigtländer 2003: 122–130, 223–231, pls . 90–94) with those in well-stratified areas in the Lower Citadel (LH IIIB Developed/Final) and Lower Town Northwest (LH IIIC Early) also suggests that the majority of the Epichosis’ figurines conforms to types of the late palatial period, i .e . before 1200 BC (Vetters 2015: 74 nn . 71–72) . It thus seems more convincing to date the figure to the end of the palatial period . In search of parallel motifs of the Epichosis figure, LBA Aegean terracotta figurines or bronze statuettes with exposed genitalia are scarce and mainly found on Crete, as discussed above . In the wider East Mediterranean, approximate icono© 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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graphic parallels are widely scattered in space and time . Thus two small terracotta figurines found in MBA strata of Beycesultan (Level IV) in western-central Anatolia (Mellaart and Murray 1995: 119 nos . 166–167, 164 fig . O14) . Both are probably ithyphallic: one clearly has its hand by the phallus (no . 167), though the arms and phallus of the other are broken off (no . 166) . The parallels most often cited are the terracotta figures from the West Shrine of Phylakopi, Melos . Metaxa-Muhly (n .d .) was the first to discuss NE influences in these post-palatial figures . She pointed to features such as the accentuated – but not ithyphallic – genitalia and the outstretched arms that end in hands that are flattened and rolled up to represent fists, as well as the rather flat bodies of three (French 1985: 226–229, fig . 6 .12–14, pls . 35, 36b, d, 37a, b, d), which is uncommon for Mycenaean figures . The modelling and the unusual shaping of the arms recall bronze rather than terracotta figurines as prototypes: such flattening of the arms and the rolling up of their ends is a mannerism especially seen in Levantine bronze statuettes of the Smiting God-type (Metaxa-Muhly n .d .) . Significantly, the sanctuary features two imported NE bronze statuettes of Smiting Gods (Renfrew and Cherry 1985: 303–310, pls . 67–70) and a small face-mask made of sheet gold (Renfrew and Cherry 1985: 302–303, fig . 8 .2, pl . 59) . The last was in all probability attached to the face of such a Levantine statuette (Maran 2011), as is indicated by a statuette with a separately modelled mask of precious metal from Byblos (Seeden 1980: pl . 85 no . 1506) . The majority of Levantine bronze statuettes come from Byblos – mainly from sanctuary hoards of the first half of the 2nd millennium BC (Seeden 1980: 95) – or Ugarit, where they are more common in the second half of the 2nd millennium BC and much rarer than in Byblos (Seeden 1980: 3 n . 13) . In the typological development of Seeden, ithyphallic types are succeeded by male statuettes with kilts (between EBA and LBA), though a revival of naked, ithyphallic bronze statuettes is noted shortly before the socio-political and economic collapse of East Mediterranean centres such as Ugarit c . 1200 BC (Seeden 1980: 154) . On the LBA Greek mainland a bronze Smiting God statuette was excavated by Schliemann on the Upper Citadel of Tiryns (Schliemann 1878: 16 no . 12; Seeden 1980: 127–128 no . 1816) (Fig . 3c) . The dating of this statuette either to the palatial or post-palatial period is debated, but a similar Smiting God statuette found in Mycenae definitely belongs to the palatial period (Iakovidis 2006: 4) . Moreover, fragments of two Mycenaean fish rhyta (Voigtländer 2003: 130, 230–231, pl . 94 .R1, R3) (Fig . 3d) found in the Epichosis and rare finds on the Greek mainland constitute another indication of shared material culture between Tiryns and the Northern Levant, since such are especially numerous in Ras Šamra/Ugarit (Leonard 1994: map 24; Koehl 2006: 345–348) . Together with a conical rhyton of pictorial style depicting a robed, probably male figure (Slenczka 1974: 44 no . 87, pl . 7 .1) (Fig . 3b), the fish rhyta provide evidence for an emphasis on libation practices in the Epichosis material . To summarise, LBA Aegean iconography is generally devoid of images of naked humans and/or primary sexual organs . However, novelties in iconography appear at the end of the Mycenaean palatial period . The northern Levant offers evidence © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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for a developed iconography of male figures, some of which advertise ithyphallic genitals and are contemporary with the late palatial Mycenaean mainland . Recent research has demonstrated that Tiryns maintained intense relations with the Levant and Cyprus in the late palatial period (e .g . Maran 2015: 282–283), adding weight to our hypothesis that the ithyphallic figure was used in a palatial ambience, rather than by a small collective of elite members in the post-palatial period . It is thus probably acceptable to assign NE iconography a decisive part in the formation of the imagery evidenced by the Tiryns male figure . Last but not least, turning to the interpretation of the figure, one wonders if the idiosyncratic selection of NE iconographic traits also entailed a transfer of concepts and functions associated with NE representations of male deities? Despite the predominance of female images in Mycenaean religious settings (female figures and figurines dominate the Mycenaean coroplastic corpus; frescoes feature females more frequently than males in religiously connoted scenes), names of male deities of the later historic period already attested in the Linear B tablets clearly provide evidence for the importance of male deities (Rougemont 2005) . Additionally, the material remains in Room A of the LH IIIA/B sanctuary in Ayios Konstantinos, Methana and in the LH IIIC West Shrine of Phylakopi strongly favour an interpretation of rituals geared towards male deities in these contexts . The male figures, the frequency of hollow wheel-made bull figures, the chariot models, and the two bronze Smiting Gods in the West Shrine of the sanctuary of Phylakopi (French 1985: 280 table 6 .2; Renfrew 1985b: 420) were taken as arguments for the veneration of a male deity . The same is postulated for the sanctuary of Ayios Konstantinos, because female figurines are almost completely absent, whereas the assemblage in Room A consists mainly of bovid terracottas, oxcart-models, chariot groups, rider figurines and taureadors in numbers that exceed by far other sanctuary deposits (Konsolaki-Giannopoulou 2003: 375–376, 383) . Based on the interpretation of the Smiting God statuettes in later Phylakopi as ‘active’ participants of enacted rituals (Maran 2011), the Tiryns’ Smiting God statuette most probably acted as a small cult image rather than a votive one . Its find spot on the Upper Citadel of Tiryns suggests a connection with palatial rites at the end of the palatial period – especially when viewed against the background of intense relationships of Tiryns with Cyprus and the Northern Levant then . Idiosyncratic adaptations of enacted ritual practices and of NE cult images of male deities by higher echelons of Mycenaean society and a male component in cult practices on the Tirynthian Upper Citadel (cf . Maran and Stavrianopoulou 2007 for the eminent role of the wanax in Mycenaean social hierarchies and cult practices) seem therefore very plausible . Mounting evidence implies that in LH IIIB the Mycenaean mainland witnessed the first images of male figures that contextually or iconographically may be interpreted as cult statues, e .g . the ivory head of a male composite statuette in the Room of the Frescoes from the Cult Centre, Mycenae (Krzyszkowska 2007: 16–20, pls . 1–2) or the wheel-made head of a male warrior figure from Kontopigado, Athens (Kardamaki 2015b: 69, fig . 13) . Pointing in the same direction is the suggestion that © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Mycenaean figures were used in enactment rituals, in poses resembling NE Smiting Gods (Whittaker 2009: 103, 104 fig . 5) . Some of the monochrome, type B-figures from the Cult Centre in Mycenae may have been clad in helmets and brandishing weapons . In conclusion, a functional characterisation of the Tiryns male figure as a libation vessel only concerns one aspect of it . Since this figure is exceptional in size and type, an interpretation as a cult image appears to be more apt than viewing it as a protective image or a ritual device simply used in cult practices . Depicted in the act of masturbation, this three-dimensional model of a human male literally spouts forth semen; in a context of ritual libations it probably featured in a fertility rite . Although open to discussion, the figure may warrant the conclusion that it was not only connected to an assemblage which emphasised libation rituals, male iconography and local appropriations of NE images (Fig . 3), but also was part of former ‘cult furniture’ of the palace on the Upper Citadel of Tiryns . 4 Bibliography Alberti, B . 2002 Gender and the figurative art of Late Bronze Age Knossos . In: Y . Hamilakis (ed .), Labyrinth Revisited. Rethinking ‘Minoan’ Archaeology . Oxford, 97–117 . Asher-Greve, J . and Sweeney, D . 2006 On nakedness, nudity, and gender in Egyptian and Mesopotamian art . In: S . Schroer (ed .), Images and Gender: Contributions to the Hermeneutics of Reading Ancient Art . Fribourg, 111–162 . Budin, S . 2015 The nude female in the southern Levant: A mixing of Syro-Mesopotamian and Egyptian iconographies . Baal Hors-Série X, 315–336 . Cadogan, G . 2009 Gender metaphors of social stratigraphy in pre-Linear B Crete or is ‘Minoan gynaecocracy’ (still) credible? In: Kopaka 2009, 225–232 . Chapin, A . P . 2012 Do clothes make the man (or woman)? Sex, gender, costume, and the Aegean color convention . In: Nosch and Laffineur 2012, 297–304 . CMS 1965–2009 Matz, F . and Pini, I . (eds .), Corpus der minoischen und mykenischen Siegel I–XIII . Berlin . Effinger, M . 1996 Minoischer Schmuck . Oxford .

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Due to space limits we had to restrict the discussion of the male figure from Tiryns to certain aspects . A more detailed examination is published elsewhere (Vetters and Weilhartner 2017) . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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French, E . 1985 The figures and figurines . In: Renfrew 1985a, 209–280 . German, S . C . 2000 The human form in the Late Bronze Age Aegean . In: A . E . Rautman (ed .), Reading the Body. Representations and Remains in the Archaeological Record . Philadelphia, 95–123 . Hitchcock, L . and Nikolaidou, M . 2013 Gender in Greek and Aegean prehistory . In: D . Bolger (ed .), A Companion to Gender Prehistory . Chichester, 502–525 . Iakovidis, S . E . 2006 Ανασκαφές Μυκηνών Ι: Η βορειοδυτική Συνοικία . Athens . Kardamaki, E . 2015a Conclusions from the new deposit at the western staircase terrace in Tiryns . In: Schallin and Tournavitou 2015, 79–97 . 2015b A new group of figures and rare figurines from a Mycenaean workshop installation at Kontopigado, Alimos (Athens) . Athener Mitteilungen 127–128 (2012/13), 47–90 . Koehl, R . 2001 The ‘Sacred Marriage’ in Minoan religion and ritual . In: R . Laffineur and R . Hägg (eds .), POTNIA. Deities and Religion in the Aegean Bronze Age. Proceedings of the 8th International Aegean Conference, Göteborg, 12–15 April 2000 . Liège, 237–243 . 2006

Aegean Bronze Age Rhyta . Philadelphia .

Konsolaki-Giannopoulou, E . 2003 Τα μυκηναϊκά ειδώλια από τον Άγιο Κωνσταντίνο Μεθάνων . In: E . Konsolaki-Giannopoulou (ed .), ARGOSARONIKOS. 1st International Conference on the History and Archaeology of the Argo-Saronic Gulf . Athens, 375–406 . Kopaka, K . (ed .) 2009 FYLO. Engendering Prehistoric ‘Stratigraphies’ in the Aegean and the Mediterranean. Proceedings of an International Conference, Rethymno, 2–5 June 2005 . Liège . Krzyszkowska, O . H . 2007 The Ivories and Objects of Bone, Antler and Boar’s Tusk . Well Built Mycenae 24 . Oxford . Kyriakidis, E . 1997 Nudity in Late Minoan I seal iconography . Kadmos 36, 119–126 . Leonard, A . 1994 An Index to the Late Bronze Age Aegean Pottery from Syria-Palestine . Jonsered . Mantzourani, E . 2012 Sexuality or fertility symbol? The Bronze Age figurine from Makrygialos . In: E . Mantzourani and P . P . Betancourt (eds .), Philistor. Studies in Honor of Costis Davaras . Philadelphia, 105–112 . Maran, J . 2011 Evidence for Levantine religious practice in the Late Bronze Age sanctuary of Phylakopi on Melos? Eretz-Israel 30, 65–73 . 2015

Tiryns and the Argolid in Mycenaean times – new clues and interpretations . In: Schallin and Tournavitou 2015, 277–293 . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Maran, J . and Stavrianopoulou, E . 2007 Πότνιος ᾽Ανήρ – Reflections on the ideology of Mycenaean kingship . In: E . Alram-Stern and G . Nightingale (eds .), Keimelion. Elitenbildung und elitärer Konsum von der mykenischen Palastzeit zur homerischen Epoche. Akten des internationalen Kongresses vom 3. bis 5. Februar 2005 in Salzburg . Vienna, 285–298 . Marinatos, N . 1987 Role and sex divisions in ritual scenes in Aegean art . Journal of Prehistoric Religion 1, 23–34 . Mellaart, J . and Murray, A . 1995 Beycesultan III, 2: Late Bronze Age and Phrygian Pottery and Middle and Late Bronze Age Small Objects . London . Metaxa-Muhly, P . n .d . The male terracotta figurines from Phylakopi . In: The Prehistoric Aegean and Its Relations to Adjacent Areas . 6th International Colloquium on Aegean Prehistory, Athens 30.08.–05.09.1987 (unpublished manuscript) . Morris, C . 2009 The iconography of the bared breast in Aegean Bronze Age art . In: Kopaka 2009, 243–249 . Nosch, M .-L . and Laffineur, R . (eds .) 2012 KOSMOS. Jewellery, Adornment and Textiles in the Aegean Bronze Age. Proceedings of the 13th International Aegean Conference, Copenhagen, 21–26 April 2010 . Liége . Rehak, P . 1998 The construction of gender in Late Bronze Age Aegean art: a prolegomenon . In: M . Casey, D . Donlon, J . Hope and S . Wellfare (eds .), Redefining Archaeology: Feminist Perspectives . Canberra, 191–198 . 2009

Some unpublished studies by Paul Rehak on gender in Aegean art . In: Kopaka 2009, 11–17 .

Renfrew, C . (ed .) 1985a The Archaeology of Cult. The Sanctuary at Phylakopi . London . Renfrew, C . 1985b The Phylakopi sanctuary and cult practice in the Aegean . In: Renfrew 1985a, 393–444 . Renfrew, C . and Cherry, J . F . 1985 The finds . In: Renfrew 1985a, 299–359 . Rethemiotakis, G . 1998 Ανθρωπομορφική πηλοπλαστική στην Κρήτη. Από τη νεοανακτορική έως την υπομινωϊκή περίοδο . Athens . 2001

Μινωϊκά πήλινα ειδώλια . Athens .

Rougemont, F . 2005 Les noms des dieux dans les tablettes inscrites en linéaire B . In: N . Belayche, P . Brulé, G . Freyburger, Y . Lehmann, L . Pernot and F . Prost (eds .), Nommer les Dieux. Théonymes, epithètes, épiclèses dans l’Antiquité . Turnhout, 325–388 . Rutter, J . B . 2003 Children in Aegean prehistory . In: J . Neils and J . H . Oakley (eds .), Coming of Age in Ancient Greece: Images of Childhood from the Classical Past . New Haven, 30–57 . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Melissa Vetters – Jörg Weilhartner Reading post-palatial Mycenaean iconography: some lessons from Lefkandi . In: Y . Galanakis, T . Wilkinson and J . Bennet (eds .), ΑΘΥΡΜΑΤΑ. Critical Essays on the Archaeology of the Eastern Mediterranean in Honour of E. Susan Sherratt . Oxford, 197–205 .

Schallin, A .-L . and Tournavitou, I . (eds .) 2015 Mycenaeans up to Date. The Archaeology of the Northeastern Peloponnese – Current Concepts and New Directions . Stockholm . Schliemann, H . 1878 Mykenae. Bericht über meine Forschungen und Entdeckungen in Mykenae und Tiryns . Leipzig . Schofield, L . 2007 The Mycenaeans . Los Angeles . Seeden, H . 1980 The Standing Armed Figurines in the Levant . Munich . Slenczka, E . 1974 Figürlich bemalte mykenische Keramik aus Tiryns . Tiryns VII . Mainz . Verlinden, C . 1984 Les statuettes anthropomorphes crétoises en bronze et en plomb, du IIIe millénaire au VIIe siecle av. J.-C. Louvain-la-Neuve . Vermeule, E . and Karageorghis, V . 1982 Mycenaean Pictorial Vase Painting . Cambridge, MA . Vetters, M . 2009 Die spätbronzezeitlichen Terrakotta-Figurinen aus Tiryns – Überlegungen zu religiös motiviertem Ritualverhalten in mykenischer Zeit anhand von Kontextanalysen ausgewählter Siedlungsbefunde . PhD thesis, University of Heidelberg . 2015

Private and communal ritual in postpalatial Tiryns . In: S . Bocher and P . Pakkanen (eds .), Cult Material – From Archaeological Deposits to Interpretation of Early Greek Religion. Helsinki, 65–106 .

Vetters, M . and Weilhartner, J . 2017 A nude man is hard to find: Tracing the development of Mycenaean Late Palatial iconography for a male deity? Athener Mitteilungen 131–132 (2016/17), 31–78 . . Voigtländer, W . 2003 Die Palaststilkeramik . Tiryns X . Mainz . Wedde, M . 2004 On the road to the godhead: Aegean Bronze Age glyptic procession scenes . In: M . Wedde (ed .), Celebrations. Selected Papers and Discussions from the Tenth Anniversary Symposium of the Norwegian Institute at Athens, 12–16 May 1999 . Bergen, 151–186 . Weilhartner, J . 2012 Gender dimorphism in the Linear A and Linear B tablets . In: Nosch and Laffineur 2012, 287–296 . Whittaker, H . 2009 The cultic function of Mycenaean anthropomorphic terracotta figures . In: A .-L . Schallin and P . Pakkanen (eds .), Encounters with Mycenaean Figures and Figurines. Papers Presented at a Seminar at the Swedish Institute at Athens, 27.–29.04.2001 . Stockholm, 99–111 . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

Fig . 1 Map of the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean with sites mentioned in the text (map: courtesy of Anavasi editions/H . Birk, with additions) inset: map of Tiryns with area of Epichosis indicated in grey (map: Tiryns-archive, with additions)

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Fig . 2 Wheel-made terracotta fragments from the Epichosis/Tiryns (drawings: E . Besi, R . Docsan)

Fig . 3 Finds from the Epichosis indicating a focus on libations and male iconography; not to scale; a – male terracotta figure (photo: M . Vetters); b – conical rhyton with male figures (photo: Slenczka 1974: pl . 7 .1); c – bronze Smiting God statuette from the Upper Citadel of Tiryns (photo: National Archaeological Museum, Athens (inv . no . 1582); courtesy of Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports/Archaeological Receipts Fund); d – fish rhyta fragments from the Epichosis (photo: Voigtländer 2003: pl . 94 .R3) © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Visualizing and Evoking the Emotion Fear in and through Neo-Assyrian Orthostat Reliefs Elisabeth Wagner-Durand 1 Abstract While the cruelties displayed in Neo-Assyrian Orthostat reliefs have effect even in a postmodern world of the dissolution of media and indifference, the issue of emotion has rarely been treated explicitly . This paper deals with the culturally specific display, perception and production of fear in and through these reliefs, which use fear as a propagandistic and ideological tool .

Emotions drive our actions, govern our decisions, and form a crucial part of our personality and self (cf . Damasio 1999) . Despite their undeniable impact, the subject of emotions has not been commonly accepted or often discussed in archaeology and in ancient Near Eastern studies (e .g . Tarlow 2000; Kipfer in press) . Fears, however, have appeared in material culture – in architecture, graves and artifacts in general, as well as in images in particular . Among these emotional substrates, images probably show the most direct display of emotions . These images both portray and evoke emotions (Kruse 2003: 42) . Yet they are also easily ideologically modified or conventionalized . Likewise, we are mistaken to believe that our fears would be identical with those of the Assyrians . Except for basal stimuli such as the fear of death, we must consider significant variations . Emotions are at least partly socioculturally determined (cf . Lutz 1988) with respect to their stimuli, perception and display . What provokes fear has changed over the centuries and differs across cultures, gender and age . 1. The emotion fear Whoever experiences emotions may believe that one would naturally know what defines emotions (Reisenzein and Müller 2012: 12) . But scholars across disciplines have not come to a consensus on the definition of emotions (e .g . Kleinginna and Kleinginna 1981; Izard 2010), and some actually reject any attempt at definition as too restrictive (Tarlow 2000: 713; Harré and Parrott 1996: 4; Meyer et al. 2001: esp . 23) . Turning this diversity into an advantage, Carroll Izard condensed all the basic aspects into a single statement: “Emotion consists of neural circuits (that are at least partially dedicated), response systems, and a feeling state/process that motivates and organizes

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Vorderasiatische Archäologie, IAW, Albert-Ludwigs-Universität, Freiburg i . Brsg . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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cognition and action . Emotion also provides information to the person experiencing it, and may include antecedent cognitive appraisals and ongoing cognition including an interpretation of its feeling state, expressions or social-communicative signals, and may motivate approach or avoidant behavior, exercise control/regulation of responses, and be social or relational in nature” (Izard 2010: 367) . Though it does not consider the issue of time (e .g . Meyer et al. 2001: 24–36), this paraphrase definition reflects important features such as appraisals, responses, expressions and social aspects . Fear itself is a basic emotion (Ekman 2010: esp . 82) . It is often object oriented, taking a finite time span (cf . Hock and Kohlmann 2009: esp . 623–624) . A distinct stimulus induces several bodily symptoms (e .g . LeDoux 1996 and 2002) . The appraisal of the stimulus as threatening can be innate or learned by socialization, experience and conditioning (see below) . Direct and pristine responses to the feeling of fear include arousal, fight, flight or freezing (Kozlowska et al. 2015) . Mesopotamian written sources mention certain pristine and physical responses such as the combination of fear and trembling, as can be seen with the Akkadian term galātu, to twitch, to quiver, to be or become frightened, to fear (CAD G 11–14, s .v . galātu) . Texts also show a relation between fear and being paralyzed: Fear not! You are paralysed, but in the midst of woe I will rise and sit down (beside you) / la ta-pa-làḫ at-ta ina ŠÀ-bi mu-gi a-na-ku ina ŠÀ-bi u8-u-a a-ta-ab-bi ú-šab (Parpola 1997: 5: no . 1: I 24’ ff .) In the Assyrian understanding, fear often came from sources outside the body such as gods, ghosts and kings, war and pain . It overwhelmed the one who was in the threatening situation and evoked distinct responses such as taking flight or hiding . he, the criminal, saw the cloud of dust (kicked up) by my campaign(ing) troops) from afar and was overcome with fear / šû ēpiš menēti akamu girrija ana rūqēti ēmurma imqussu ḫattu’ (Luckenbill 1924: 51, line 26, cited after CAD A1 259, s .v . akāmu) The body, mainly the libbu, was filled with fear as in the phrase muruṣ libbi, a state of worry and preoccupation (CAD M2 224–227, s .v . murṣu: 227) . This may be related to the actual feeling of fear, such as the elevation of the heart rate or the reaction of the intestines . 2. Social aspects of emotion Emotions such as fear appear to be mainly natural . But as Michelle Rosaldo stated: “… Feelings are not substances to be discovered in our blood but social practices organized by stories that we both enact and tell …” (1984: 143) . Fear can be learned and © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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conditioned . Apart from classical conditioning (e .g . Pavlov 2010; Meyer et al. 2001: 79–86), there is the less discussed but more common social conditioning . By learning, having individual experiences and incorporating worldviews from early childhood on, stimuli can be habituated (e .g . Olsson and Phelps 2007, esp . 1095) . Emotions combine both biological and sociocultural aspects based on family, society, politics and religion . Social aspects also include how an emotion is felt, socially appraised and validated . Thus, Robert Levy created the concept of ‘hypercognized’ – socioculturally relevant; and ‘hypocognized’ – socio-culturally irrelevant or subdued emotions (1984: esp . 400–401) . Hence, fear is mainly displayed if hypercognized . If subdued, it doesn’t appear in the visual culture . The same is true for the lexicon societies develop to express feelings . Written sources may help to decode images with respect to emotions . They also provide information about contexts and forms of emotional display . Nevertheless, texts should also be understood as socially and ideologically conventionalized sources . 3. The display of emotion In the 1960s, Paul Ekman returned to Charles Darwin’s assumption (1872) that emotional facial expressions are transcultural and innate . Such facial expressions were considered to be one of the defining aspects of the basic emotions . Their universality, however, is again debated . What formerly seemed to be universal across time, culture and gender is far from uniform (Engelen et al. 2009: 27) . While facial expressions of fear seem to be nonexistent or unrecognizable in the visual culture of Assyria (Zwickel 2012 and in press; Bonatz in press; Wagner-Durand in press), fear display and evocation are potentials of the orthostat reliefs . Ekman and Friesen argue for culturally specific bodily expressions called emblems . These signs of non-verbal communication are movements that “… have a set of precise meanings which are understood by all members of a culture or subculture …” (Ekman 2004: 39, cf . Ekman and Friesen 1972: 357) . Emblems are broad in what they encode and in how they encode it: “Emblems may repeat a word as it is said, preface a word in a flow of speech, provide a separate comment related to the words spoken or occur as a sole reply . Emblems may be iconic…or arbitrarily coded . . . .” (Ekman 2004: 40) . Ekman’s and Friesen’s distinction between emblems and illustrators, namely movements that illustrate speech (Ekman 2004: 41) will not be utilized here; instead, the term emblem will be used for all gestures, postures and body movements able to express feelings or feeling related actions . Since they lack universal validity (Zwickel 2012), the emblems in Assyrian reliefs will be studied and analyzed with respect to their potential display of fear and the background of Mesopotamian culture . Besides the potential display of fear in emblems or on faces, either socially conventionalized or basally prescribed, there are further possibilities . Dominik Bonatz (in press) remarked that emotions could also be expressed by the overall situation, © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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such as by a festivity or a ritual . Another way of depicting a threat or a fearful situation is the display of chaos, an angst-inducing state that Mesopotamians avoided . Other methods to enhance emotional display include the use of color . Colors have a certain meaning and thus can evoke and transmit emotions, e .g . creating a distinct atmosphere . The same applies to spatial and sensory arrangements . Light and shadow influence perception, as do scents and music . 4. The written sources In colloquial language, verbs such as to fear and to be afraid, scared or frightened are synonyms . These terms, however, were originally distinct . This also applies to Assyrian fear-related terms – only thorough diachronic analysis of times of use (e .g . Jaques 2006), contexts, agents, stimuli, social appraisals and consequences can reveal their potential differences in Assyrian . In this paper, however, selected and tentative statements about the Akkadian lexicon of fear must suffice, since it focuses on royal sources to get an insight into the Assyrian discourse of fear . Other sources such as Namburbi rituals or private letters are better suited to give impressions of daily fears . Lists (e .g . šumma izbu) and series (e .g . maqlu) show that at some point, terms such as gilittu (fright/terror), pirittu (fear/terror) und ḫattu (panic/fear) became virtually interchangeable (CAD G 71–72, s .v . gilittu 72; CAD P 402, s .v . pirittu; CAD Ḫ 150–151, s .v . ḫattu) . The series maqlu, though, reveals differences despite semantic affiliation: ašuštu arurtu ḫūṣ ḫīp libbi gilittu pirittu u adirti yâši taškunāni Distress, trembling, depression, terror, fear, and apprehension you inflicted on me myself . ašuštu arurtu ḫūṣ ḫīp libbi gilittu pirittu u adirtu ana kâšuni liššaknakkunūši(sic) May distress, trembling, depression, terror, fear, (and) apprehension be inflicted on you yourselves (maqlu V, 71–72: Abusch, 2015: 106–107) . The emic meaning of these differences, however, is still open to discussion . The Akkadian term palāḫu, to be afraid, to fear, to be worried (about) (CAD P 37–49 s .v . palāḫu) is a common term used in relation to fear . In royal sources, the ones who fear are the enemy as well as the king and officials . In the oracles of encouragement, Ashurbanipal is addressed with the phrase la tapalaḫ, don’t fear (Parpola 1997: 4–11: no . 1: e .g . I 24’, II 16’, III 30’, see above) . Frightening objects and agents include the king, gods, war, soldiers, and weapons (see below) . Similarly, adāru (B), to fear (CAD A1 108–110, s .v . adāru B) is also often used in relation to battles, emphasizing the connection between war and fear . It further illustrates the suppression of fear . Thus, some kings called themselves the shepherd who fears no battle: rē’û tabrâte la adiru tuqmāti (CAD A1 108–110, s .v . adāru B: 109) . Yet the verbs palāḫu and adāru (B) also mean to respect or to awe (CAD P 37–49, s .v . palāḫu: 37; CAD A1 108–110, s .v . adāru B: 108) . These translations avoid the © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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phrases ‘being afraid’ or ‘being fearful’, but rely on how nowadays we interpret certain situations, often related to the gods, the king, or the ancestors . They might not appear frightening to us; in the ancient Near Eastern lifeworld, however, they could have evoked fear, releasing reactions of respect, awe and veneration . Referring to the enemy, written sources clearly reveal another reaction elicited by the experience of fear in war-related situations – taking flight: They took fright in the face of my royal radiance and abandoned their cities (and) walls . To save their lives they climbed up Mount Matnu, a mighty mountain . / TA IGI me-lam-me MAN-ti-a ip-la-ḫu-ma URU .DIDLI-šú-nu BÀD .MEŠ-ni-šú-nu ú-še-ru ana šu-zu-ub Zi .MEŠ-šú-nu ana KUR ma-at-ni KUR dan-ni (Grayson 1991: 211, A .0 .101 .1: 113) Not only flight but also hiding is attested in the written sources: he (the king of the Manneans) left the city, and out of fear stayed in a remote and inaccessible mountain region / āluššu uṣṣima ina puzrāt šadî marṣi adiriš ušib (cited after CAD A1 126, s .v . adīriš) . Some terms also give the overall impression of being physical . While palaḫu could have had physical consequences, such as taking flight, its physical quality was not predominant . Galātu (LUḪ .(LUḪ)), to fear and to quiver (CAD G 11–14, s .v . galātu), in contrast, reveals a connection to fear, shivering and trembling, a link already known from Sumerian sources (Jaques 2006: 202ff) . Therefore, galātu may initially have been connected to the bodily sensation of fear or anxiety . The term ḫa’attu (CAD Ḫ 1, s.v. ḫa’attu), the mortal fear/terror, relates to physical symptoms and designates states of strong fear with pathological characteristics . Thus, the term itself is often used in medical texts: If a ghost takes possession of a man and he gets hot and cold…his terror is present, he has no rest day and night / šumma amēlu eṭimmu iṣbatsuma īmim ikaṣṣ(i) . . . hātašu qerbet ūma u mūša la inâḫ (AMT 88,4 r . 4 + 96,8:8, cited after CAD Ḫ 1, s .v . ḫa’attu) . Terms such as ḫattu A, fear, panic, or ḫa’attu (see above) relate to *ḫâ’u, and are therefore connected to the realm of mostly pathological disorders . Thus, the CAD states that ḫattu “does not reach into the domain of devotion, piety and respect, as puluḫtu does” (CAD Ḫ 150–151, s .v . ḫattu A: 151) . This in turn suggests that pathological fear should not be confused with fear that leads to devotion, respect or veneration . Hence, the written sources have enormous potential to (in)directly tell us about fearful situations, their agents and stimuli, reactions to them and their (social) appraisals . Finally, we turn to selected aspects of the visualization and arousal of fear by images . We shall take a look at (pseudo-)historical accounts that depict and potentially elicit fear, and at the visualization of fear by emblems . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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5. Narrative or pseudo-narrative visualizations transmitting fear ‘Did you see the one who was killed in battle?’ ‘I s[aw (him .] His father and mother honor his memory (lit . hold his head), and his wife [weeps] over him) .]’ (The Epic of Gilgamesh, Tablet XII, George 2003: 735: 148–149) An obvious situation in which human lives are at threat is war . While death in battle was not the worst fate in Mesopotamia, many aspects connected to warfare especially evoke fear . Some have social components, implying socially conditioned fear stimuli . Others could be valid for all humans, including hunger, pain and death; they release certain basic responses of fight and flight whose visualizations can be analyzed . The fight response, ever-present in Neo-Assyrian reliefs, is easily identified but not so easily understood with respect to emotion – it depends on who started the fight (the threatening stimulus) in the first place and thus who is experiencing and displaying fear . Generally, however, the depiction of war is physiologically the visualization of fear and a fearful state . Undoubtedly the threat of pain and death was an effective basic fear stimulus . Thus, various and frightening ways of destruction, mutilation, torture, and killing are exhibited in visual and written Assyrian accounts . Notorious among these stimuli is the impalement of enemies (cf . Bleibtreu 1991) . It was mentioned in written sources (e .g . Grayson 1991: 217, 210, A .0 .101 .1) and seen in visual art (e .g . BM 115634: Barnett and Falkner 1962: pls . 37–40) . The Assyrians were conscious about the fear they created . The impalements, publicly executed, were painful beyond imagination and meant to be an explicit warning to those who did not obey . The production of fear was the reason why they were done in public and shown in art . The discarding of bodies combines both natural and socially conditioned stimuli of fear with respect to war images . A decent burial was of utmost importance in Mesopotamia, and the treatment of dead bodies in Assyrian reliefs was arbitrary . ‘Did you see the one whose corpse was left lying in the open countryside’ ‘I saw (him) . His ghost does not lie at rest in the Netherworld’ (The Epic of Gilgamesh, Tablet XII, George 2003: 735: 151) . Throwing the enemies’ bodies into water may have elicited numerous fears: threat to subsistence, danger of becoming a restless ghost and being haunted by these ghosts . Depictions of floating bodies (e .g . BM 124932: Barnett 1976: pl . 17; BM 124802: Barnett et al. 1998: esp . pl . 308–9) (Fig . 1) exceed physical cruelty and imply fear beyond death and pain . The same applies to the burning of cities in siege and battle scenes (e .g . Albenda 1986: pl . 112) (Fig . 2) . Death by fire led to the end of all existence . Bilgamesh and the Netherworld says of him “… who was burnt to death …” that “… His ghost is not there, his smoke went up to the heavens .” (George 2003: 776) . Ashurnaṣirpal II used this socialized fear to his advantage: “… I razed, destroyed, (and) turned into ruin hills the city . I burnt their adolescent boys (and) girls …” (Grayson 1991: 210, A .0 .101 .1) . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Not only the body can be hurt, the spiritual life can also be threatened . The abduction of gods is an intriguing example of a socialized fear stimulus . God-knapping was most often verbalized (cf . Holloway 2002), yet there are few visual examples (e .g . Barnett and Falkner 1962: pl . 92; pl . 7; Barnett et al. 1998: pl . 450–451) (Fig . 3) . The cult statues, being the gods themselves, were brought to Assyria to establish Assur’s power over their enemies and to show that they had lost their gods and their favor . Similarly, the desecration of sanctuaries, such as the plundering of the Haldi temple of Muṣaṣir (cf . Albenda 1986: pl . 133), showed that the god had withdrawn from his people and that even deep and long ongoing relations did not protect them from the anger of the Assyrian king . Despite the lack of physical brutality, these images must have elicited great fear in those affected . Thus, there was a plurality of things that could happen during war, whose consequences went beyond death and pain . These consequences were feared because they were learned, not because they were innate . In contrast to fighting, the flight response seems to be completely suppressed among the Assyrians . Most likely this reveals not reality but socialization and self-image . Fleeing or hiding was inconsistent with the civilized māt aššur . For the enemy, however, flight is shown by hiding (e .g . BM 124774: Barnett et al. 1998: pl . 234ff .) (Fig . 4) . Narratives expose the helplessness of the enemy soldiers who fail to protect their families . This enhanced the Assyrians’ supremacy, defaming the Chaldeans as cowards unwilling to fight . Thus, in their visual accounts flight entirely belonged to the world of the enemy . This act of visual hypocognition, along with the depiction of the fleeing enemy in contrast to the brave Assyrians, enhanced their own fearlessness and served as a tool of propaganda . 6. Emblems Since the meaning of body language is mostly culturally assigned, understanding it is not automatic . To identify emblems in the visual world, one can turn to texts for help . Emblems may have been described in texts and therefore may be definable and identifiable by them . Emblems and gestures may also be identified first by looking at basal threatening situations such as battles and death experiences . They can be identified and described and thus also be recognized in other contexts whose emotional nature is uncertain . Furthermore, frightening situations could be identified with the help of the written sources . By identifying these in the visual account, the emblems in question can be analyzed and attributed to a certain emotion . Methodological problems herein are manifold: Emblems and gestures could be polysemous, meaning different things in different contexts . Further, reliefs are two-dimensional reductions of four-dimensional movements . Additionally, styles and meanings could have changed throughout the Neo-Assyrian period . Thus, without an extensive diachronic database of texts and emblems, the following observations remain tentative . One war-related posture is when the enemy fighter turns around and looks back at his Assyrian aggressor (e .g . BM 124774) (Fig . 4) . Turning in a moment of fear is © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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not confined to human agents . Demons such as the Anzu and lions or other hunted animals do so as well (BM 124571: Layard 1853: pl . 5; VAM 959: Albenda 1972: fig . 2; BM 124876: Barnett 1976: pl . 47) . Hypothetically, this posture was attributed to the ṣeru, embodying the contrast between the fearful wilds of the steppe and the civilized world of the Assyrians . Though looking back is often associated with battles and attributed to enemies, it also occurs in deportation/capture scenes, especially when the prisoner or deportee is facing violent treatment (Barnett et al. 1998: pl . 55) or when he or she seeks affirmation (e .g . BM 124928: Barnett 1976: pl . 36) . In scenes involving women, children often enhance the feeling of helplessness and exposure (e .g . AO 19904+7: Barnett 1976: pl . 47+68, BM 124552: Meuszyński 1981: pl . 1; cf . Bahrani 2001: 127 with respect to women) (Figs . 5–6) . The context of the images suggests an immediate relation of the emblem to threat, fear, terror and surrender . The visual analysis alone, however, remains tentative . Looking back is also combined with different gestures of hand raising . These gestures are varied and are not exactly synonymous . Thus, we find one (or both) hand(s) raised, palm opened away from the body, often turned towards the aggressor (e .g . BM 124774; BM 124926: Barnett 1976: pl . 33) (Fig . 4); one hand raised to the height of the shoulder or slightly higher, the palm opened towards the person’s own body or to the side (e .g . BM 124928; AO 19907) (Fig . 5); one (or both) hand(s) raised to the head, palm opened towards the person’s own face or forehead (e .g . BM 124926+8; BM 124552) (Fig . 6); or both hands raised to breast height, palm opened towards heaven (e .g . BM 124547: Meuszyński 1981: pl . 1) (Fig . 6) . These gestures and their variants, likely also due to different enemies and settings (fight, deportation etc .), most often, but not exclusively, belong to contexts that relate to fear, despair and surrender . Because of their potential polysemy, it is difficult to read these visualized hand-raising movements conclusively . For example, in the case of relief 5 of throne-room B/NW palace (Fig . 6), Megan Cifarelli (1998: 220–221) argues for a representation of mourning . Yet the question remains whether it would be appropriate to express sadness when brought in front of the king . The scene could be both part of the review (the king shown in B7) and part of the siege and battle (visible in B3–B5) . Bahrani (2001: 125) interprets the women in relief B8 as mourning and wailing about the defeat of the city . Comparing reliefs B8 and B5 (Fig . 6), however, reveals a difference that needs to be resolved . Either one of the reliefs shows neither mourning nor general sadness, or both reveal different expression of sadness . If one reads the contexts differently, however, they could also reveal joy about the Assyrian victory, welcoming the king and his troops as ‘liberators’ (cf . May 2012: esp . 474–477: erāb āli) . This ambivalence is also exemplified by a scene of the Til Tuba battle in which captured women and children follow musicians as part of the royal triumph (BM 124802) (Fig . 1) . Most women raise two open hands (palm upwards) to their shoulder height; the first and the last women lift one hand up to their foreheads . Both gestures, surely not random, must have different implications, likely anxiety and sadness, giving the impression of surrender to and fear of the king . They could, however, also potentially express joyful movements . Again, this reveals both potential polysemy as well as the influence of context during the act interpretation . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Since gestures with raised open hand(s) are visually prominent, the written sources seem promising to enlighten possible meanings . Cifarelli (1998: 223–224) discussed the relation of the raised open hand to upnī petû, opening the fists (also to supplicate: Gruber 1980: 50–59, esp . 54, 59), often connected to the realm of begging and submission . In this vein, some of the gestures might be read in this sense . It is convenient to subsume the one mention of idī petû, open the hands /pray (Gruber: 60) under upnī petû since there is no possibility yet to differentiate the visualization of both gestures . Gruber also states that in upnī petû one opens the hand to receive . Such a gesture may be identified when, for example, prisoners are shown in camps, waiting for information or food and drink, sometimes receiving it (e .g . AO 19913, Barnett 1976, pl . 69) . This raises the question of what the enemy might have expected by doing upnī petû during the fight . Following Gruber’s assumption that upnī petû “… was a gesture of supplication […]” and means “… ‘supplicate’ beg, entreat’(!) … .” (Gruber 1980: 54), we might think of the fearful enemy during the fight or of the prisoner and deportee begging for his life . We further need to consider qāta/i našû, lift the hand(s) (Gruber 1980: 60–84) . According to Gruber, this gesture goes back to raising the hand to the sky/gods (Gruber 1980: 62) . It could therefore visually differ from upnī/idī petû. But, if qāta/i našû is used, the communication takes place between humans and gods since the gesture is always oriented towards deities . In battle, one could think of applying qāta/i našû to invoke the gods in the face of death . This accords with Gruber’s interpretation of this gesture as a form of entreaty (Gruber 1980: 63) . Upnī/idī petû, however, can be addressed to humans (Gruber 1980: 60–61, 64–65) . Therefore, this movement may express fear in battle and entreaty for mercy in the face of death . Thus, Cifarelli rightly notes that open palms “… reflect the intensified, urgent begging that is associated in the texts with the upnī petû gesture …” (Cifarelli 1998: 224) . These observations allow at least some related gestures in reliefs to be interpreted as movements of surrender and pleading, all performed in moments of fear . Many more emblems observed in texts and images could be discussed with respect to fear, but they go far beyond the range of this paper . These include the raised fist, the crouching posture (Ciferalli 1998: esp . 214–218), the phrases kanāšu and kamāšu (Gruber 1980: 171–180), and appa labānu, or ubāna tarāṣu, (Magen 1986: 45–64), as well as form of submissions like šēpē PN ṣabātu, šēpe PN našāqu/ nuššuqu, ina pān PN qaqqara nuššuqu (Gruber 1980: 257–285) . Without going into detail and despite the gestures’ differences with respect to their very specific content, they all relate to the display of and the demand for fear: the fear of the gods by the king and the fear of the king by subordinates . Clearly, visual culture, as well as any other material culture, can convey, provoke and transmit fear . The purpose for doing so is varied . In some cases, material culture diminishes or takes the fear from the affected person . In other cases, fear is shown, transmitted and released as an exercise of power to stabilize sovereignty . Thus, fear – both its production and display – was used to establish Assyrian authority and to protect Assyrian interests . It served as an illustration, protection and weapon . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Bibliography Abusch, I . T . 2015 The Anti-Witchcraft Series Maqlû: A Student Edition and Selected Commentary . Publications of the Foundation for Finnish Assyriological Research: Foundation for Finnish Assyriological Research 14 . Helsinki . Albenda, P . 1972 Ashurnaṣirpal II lion hunt relief BM 124534 . Journal of Near Eastern Studies 31, 167–178 . 1986

The Palace of Sargon, King of Assyria: Monumental Wall Reliefs at Dur-Sharrukin, from Original Drawings Made at the Time of their Discovery in 1843–1844 by Botta and Flandin . Paris .

AMT Thompson, R . C ., Assyrian Medical Texts . London 1923 . Bahrani, Z . 2001 Women of Babylon: Gender and Representation in Mesopotamia . London . Barnett, R . D . 1976 Sculptures from the North Palace of Ashurbanipal at Nineveh (668–627 B.C.) . London . Barnett, R . D ., Bleibtreu, E ., and Turner, G . 1998 Sculptures from the Southwest Palace of Sennacherib at Nineveh . London . Barnett, R . D . and Falkner, M . 1962 The Sculptures of Assur-Nasir-Apli II (883–859 B.C.), Tiglath-Pileser III (745–727 B.C.), Esarhaddon (681–669 B.C.) from the Central and South-West Palaces at Nimrud . London . Bleibtreu, E . 1991 Grisly Assyrian record of torture and death . Biblical Archaeology Review 17, 52–61 . Bonatz, D . in pressDer stumme Schrei . Kritische Überlegungen zu Emotionen als Untersuchungsfeld der altorientalischen Bildwissenschaft . In: Kipfer in press, 53–72 . CAD

Roth, M ., Biggs, R . D ., Brinkman, J . A ., Civil, M ., Farber, W ., Reiner, E ., Stolper, M . W ., The Assyrian Dictionary of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago (CAD) (1956–2010) .

Cifarelli, M . 1998 Gesture and alterity in the art of Ashurnasirpal II of Assyria . Art Bulletin 80/2, 210–228 . Damasio, A . R . 1999 The Feeling of What Happens: Body and Emotion in the Making of Consciousness . New York . Darwin, C . 1872 Der Ausdruck der Gemüthsbewegungen bei dem Menschen und den Thieren . Aus dem Engl . übers . von J . V . Carus, Stuttgart . Ekman, P . 2004 Emotional and conversational nonverbal signs . In: J . M . Larrazabal and L . A . P . Miranda (eds .), Language, Knowledge, and Representation . Dordrecht, 39–50 . 2010

Gefühle lesen: Wie Sie Emotionen erkennen und richtig interpretieren . Heidelberg .

Ekman, P . and Friesen, W . V . 1972 Hand movements . Journal of Communication 22/4, 353–374 . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Engelen, E .-M ., Markowitsch, H . J ., Scheve, C . von, Röttger-Rössler, B ., Stephan, A ., Holodynski, M . and Vandekerckhove, M . 2009 Emotions as bio-cultural processes: disciplinary debates and an interdisciplinary outlook . In: H . J . Markowitsch and B . Röttger-Rössler (eds .), Emotions as Bio-cultural Processes . New York, 23–53 . George, A . R . 2003 The Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic: Introduction, Critical Edition and Cuneiform Texts . Oxford . Grayson, A . K . 1991 Assyrian Rulers of the Early First Millennium BC (1114–859 BC): Volume I. The Royal Inscriptions of Mesopotamia II . Toronto . Gruber, M . I . 1980 Aspects of Nonverbal Communication in the Ancient Near East. Studia Pohl 12 . New York . Harré, R . and Parrott, W . G . (eds .) 1996 The Emotions: Social, Cultural and Biological Dimensions . London . Hock, M ., Kohlmann, C .-W ., 2009 Angst und Furcht / Anxiety and Fear . In: V . Brandstätter and J . H . Otto (eds .), Handbuch der Allgemeinen Psychologie – Motivation und Emotion. Göttingen 623–632 . Holloway, S . W . 2002 Aššur is King! Aššur is King! Religion in the Exercise of Power in the Neo-Assyrian Empire . Culture and History of the Ancient Near East 10 . Leiden . Izard, C . E . 2010 The many meanings/aspects of emotion: definitions, functions, activation, and regulation . Emotion Review 2/4, 363–370 . Jaques, M . 2006 Le Vocabulaire des Sentiments dans les Textes Sumériens: Recherches sur le Lexique Sumérien et Akkadien. Alter Orient Altes Testament 332 . Münster . Kipfer, S . (ed .) in press Visualizing Emotion in the Ancient Near East . Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis . Fribourg . Kleinginna, P . R . and Kleinginna, A . M . 1981 A categorized list of emotion definitions, with suggestions for a consensual definition . Motivation and Emotion 5/4, 345–379 . Kozlowska, K ., Walker, P ., McLean, L ., and Carrive, P . 2015 Fear and the defense cascade: clinical implications and management . Harvard Review of Psychiatry 23/4, 263–287 . Kruse, C . 2003 Wozu Menschen malen: Historische Begründungen eines Bildmediums . München . Layard, A . H . 1853 The Monuments of Ninive: A Second Series of the Monuments of Nineveh: from Drawings Made on the Spot, During a Second Expedition to Assyria . London . LeDoux, J . E . 1996 The Emotional Brain: The Mysterious Underpinnings of Emotional Life, New York . 2002

Synaptic Self: How Our Brains Become Who We Are, New York . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Levy, R .I . 1984 The emotions in comparative perspective . In: K . R . Scherer and P . Ekman (eds .), Approaches to Emotion . Hillsdale, N .J ., 397–412 . Luckenbill, D . 1924 The Annals of Sennacherib . Oriental Institute Publications 2 . Chicago . Lutz, C . A . 1988 Unnatural Emotions: Everyday Sentiments on a Micronesian Atoll and their Challenge to Western Theory . Chicago . Magen, U . 1986 Assyrische Königsdarstellungen, Aspekte der Herrschaft: Eine Typologie . Bagdhader Forschungen 9 . Mainz . May, N . N . 2012 Royal triumph as an aspect of the Neo-Assyrian decorative program . In: Gernot Wilhelm (ed .): Organization, Representation, and Symbols of Power in the Ancient Near East: Proceedings of the 54th Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale at Würzburg, 20–25 July 2008 . Winona Lake, 461–488 . Meuszyński, J . 1981 Die Rekonstruktion der Reliefdarstellungen und ihrer Anordnung im Nordwestpalast von Kalḫu (Nimrūd) . Bagdhader Forschungen 2 . Mainz . Meyer, W .-U ., Schützwohl, A ., and Reisenzein, R . 2001 Einführung in die Emotionspsychologie: Band I. Die Emotionenstheorien von Watson, James und Schachter. Bern2 . Olsson, A . and Phelps, E .A . 2007 Social Learning of Fear . Nature Neuroscience 10/9, 1095–1102 . Parpola, S . 1997 Assyrian Prophecies . State Archives of Assyria 9 . Helsinki . Pavlov, P . I . 2010 Conditioned reflexes: an investigation of the physiological activity of the cerebral cortex . Annals of Neurosciences 17/3, 136–141 (reprint). Reisenzein, R . and Müller, A . W . 2012 Emotionen – Natur und Funktion. Göttingen . Rosaldo, M . 1984 Towards an anthropology of self and feeling . In: R . A . Shweder (ed .), Culture Theory. Essays on Mind, Self, and Emotion . Cambridge, 13–157 . Tarlow, S . 2000 Emotion in archaeology . Current Anthropology 41/ 5, 713–746 . Wagner-Durand, E . in press The visualization of emotions – potentials and obstacles: a response to Dominik Bonatz . In: Kipfer in press, 73–91 . Zwickel, W . 2012 The iconography of emotions in the ancient Near East and in ancient Egypt . Deuterocanonical and Cognate Literature Yearbook 2011/1, 1–26 . in press The iconography of emotions in the ancient Near East and in ancient Egypt . In: Kipfer in press, 92–120 . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Fig . 1 Royal triumph after the battle of Ulai (after Barnett et al. 1998: pl . 308)

Fig . 2 The battle of Harhar (after Albenda 1986: pl . 112)

Fig . 3 God-knapping during the western campaign (after Barnett and Falkner 1962: pl . 92) © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Fig . 4 Chaldeans in Battle and Flight (after Barnett et al. 1998: pl . 236)

Fig . 5 Capture of Elamite women (after Barnett 1976: pl . 67)

Fig . 6 Throne room B: the reliefs 5–8, lower registers (after Meuszyński 1981: pl . 1) © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

ISLAMIC ARCHAEOLOGY edited by M. Ritter and M. Guidetti

© 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

© 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Qasṭal al-Balqāʾ Revisited (I) – The Qaṣr During the Umayyad Period: Plan, Vaulting and Phasing Ignacio Arce 1 Abstract This paper presents some hypotheses and a few conclusions resulting from the research conducted by the author on the Umayyad complex of Qasṭal al-Balqāʾ (Jordan), reached after the re-assessment of existing evidence and the review of the hypotheses produced by the mission headed by P . Carlier and F . Morin in 1983–1985 . Due to the limitation of space, we will deal only with the analysis of the qaṣr during the Umayyad period, presenting evidence that proves the existence of at least two construction phases during this period which can be traced in the building techniques used and in its plan . An alternative hypothesis regarding the original vaulting system of the entrance vestibule and for the reconstruction of the audience hall on its upper floor is presented as well . The paper ends with a preliminary discussion about the general phasing of the complex with a longue durée approach .

1. The qaṣr plan and its phasing Despite its current dilapidated condition, the qaṣr of Qasṭal al-Balqāʾ presents at first appearance the archetypical plan of a standard Umayyad qaṣr: externally it has round towers at the corners and alongside its perimeter wall (three on each side), plus a split one flanking the main entrance; internally, rooms are arranged around a central court with a perimeter portico, using the so-called Syrian bayt (pl . buyūt) as basic compositional unit, which consists of a main oblong room flanked by two lateral chambers on each side that are accessed through the main one . These buyūt and the other rooms are set against the perimeter wall and around the central courtyard grouped in four units . The eastern and western ones run from wall to wall, while the southern and northern ones only occupy the central area, in correspondence with the central courtyard, not touching the east and west units but leaving spaces in between them . These spaces define four ‘dead-end corridors’ which run north–south in correspondence with the east and west bays of the courtyard porticoes (in a sort of ‘H’ layout; Fig . 2) and which give

1

University of Copenhagen, Former Director of the Spanish Archaeological Mission to Jordan . Currently, Associate Professor, German-Jordanian University . This research has been conducted as part of the project entitled ‘Documentación y analisis de ténicas constructivas y tipologia arquitectónica en la transición de la tardo-antigüedad al periodo omeya’ funded by the Dirección General de Bienes culturales, Archivos y Bibliotecas del Ministerio de Cultura (programa de ayudas competitivas para proyectos arqueológicos en el exterior) . . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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access to the service rooms at the corners . 2 The north and south units were composed of a single Syrian bayt and some service rooms added to their western ends, while the east and west units, which run from wall to wall, were composed of two Syrian buyūt with service rooms at both ends . 3 The entrance to the qaṣr is through the entrance vestibule block, positioned in the east unit, which most probably hosted an audience hall on the upper floor, which we will analyze in detail in the second section of this paper . 1 .1 The irregularities in plan However, the apparent symmetry and regularity in the plan of the building gained prima facie is belied by the position of the vestibule entrance block which is not in axe with the building nor with its courtyard and by the different arrangement of the rooms to both sides of this entrance block: to the north of it, a complete Syrian bayt was built, while the one built to the south of the entrance block is not complete as it only has the two rooms from its south side, the symmetrical ones from the north side being missing (Fig . 1) . 4 As a result of this, access to the court from the entrance block is displaced and not in axe with it, losing the assumed regularity and symmetry of the plan . Thus, the eastern portico of the court had four arches to the north of the arch corresponding to the gateway (which was supported by double columns) while it had only two arches to the south of it . We will try to understand the reasons behind this lack of symmetry in an otherwise very regular plan which is noteworthy precisely because no apparent reason can be pointed out at first sight to explain it . In general, Umayyad quṣūr are quite regular, with an almost symmetrical layout . Actually, any irregularity in plan usually finds an explanation on pre-existences (such as in the case of Qaṣr al-Ḥayr al-Gharbī due to the incorporation into the qaṣr of the pre-existing monastic tower) or due to a compulsory orientation of the Qibla (such as at Khirbat al-Mafjar) or any other good reason which in this case is not evident at first sight . 1 .2 Building phasing According to the French mission headed by P . Carlier and F . Morin in 1983–1985, the Umayyad complex and each of its buildings would have been built in one single phase and using the same and sole building technique: “Le chateâu, la mosquèe, le

2 3 4

This is the same arrangement of circulation in plan that we can find at Khirbat al-Mafjar (Arce 2016 in press) and the urban palace at Anjar . The exact arrangement of the northwest corner is partly conjectural, although most probably correct, as it was inspected, albeit not fully excavated, by the French team before its demolition (Carlier and Morin 1987: fig . 9) . A small group of service rooms was built at both ends of this east block of rooms, which included latrines and probably a postern gate . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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barrage et le reservoir presentent des techniques de construction rigoreusement identiques …” (Carlier and Morin 1984: 344) . However, the analysis of the building techniques actually used in the qaṣr denies this assertion, as at least two Umayyad phases of construction with two different building techniques and materials can be identified in this building . The walls in the areas to the north of the entrance block (the Syrian bayt to the north of it and the service rooms at its northernmost end) display in their lower courses a different building technique to the one used in the upper sections of these same walls and the rest of the building (Figs . 2, 3) . The lower section of these walls is composed of five or six courses (on average), quite regular in height, using ashlars smaller but more regular in size than those of the upper section . The masonry work in the lower sections of these walls is also quite different: it does not present the combination of headers and stretchers that we find in the upper courses or the inclusion of any spolia or reused ashlars . The quality of the stone used in these lower courses is quite poor as it consists of a porous and friable limestone (clearly worse than the compact limestone from the upper courses) and, as a consequence, they present a higher degree of weathering and decay . The masonry in the upper courses uses a different building technique and material: the quality of the limestone used is much better, while the average size of the ashlars used is in general bigger than in the lower courses, although more irregular in shape and size; nor are the courses kept to a regular height either . In many courses, stretchers are alternated with headers that present a characteristic dove-tail and ‘T’-shape in plan, which are found in other Umayyad structures such as Amman, Mshatta, Minya, etc . (Arce 2007) . These headers link the stone facing with the core of the walls, also keeping in place the adjoining stretchers (Fig . 4a) . Abundant reused ashlars and spolia are found as well in this later phase, which in some cases correspond to huge blocks, probably former lintels, although they could also be blocks extracted on purpose from the quarry which were not cut down into smaller elements (Fig . 5) . This technique and this lime mortar is the same as that found in the rest of the building, where huge blocks of stone and numerous spolia fragments are inserted . Among the latter, we can mention the elements used in the staircase that gives access to the cistern in the court of the qaṣr: the curb-stones from a church chancel (Fig . 6a) are reused as a parapet around the opening of the staircase (a post of the chancel has also been retrieved from the rubble; Fig . 6b), while the head of a niche with classical scalloped decoration is reused as the lintel of its entrance door . Other noteworthy elements reused as spolia are two fragments of a split flat tabula ansata (Fig . 6c), and some unusual voussoirs in the shape of a double-hexagon, which present a classical form of decoration and apparently belonged to a barrel vault . 5

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One of the fragments of the tabula ansata is reused in a later wall in the SW area and the other one was found among the fallen rubble . These unusual double hexagonal voussoirs could belong to the Umayyad period . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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The lime mortars used in both sections of the wall are also different . Although both are used in the same way, filling the core of the wall following the emplecton technique, and both are composed of lime mixed with vegetal ashes, their relative appearance and characteristics are quite different: the mortar from the lower courses presents a whitish/light grey background, against which the small fragments of black vegetal ashes (a by-product resulting from the production process; Arce 2003) and those of crushed bricks intended as hydraulic agent form a contrast . The mortar from the upper course appears more compact and homogeneous and is poured more generously into the core of the wall (while in the lower section a larger amount of small fragments of broken stones were inserted into the core of the wall) . It presents a mid-dark greyish background spotted with tiny fragments of white lime and a few others of black ashes, although no traces of crushed bricks are found in the matrix . The respective methods for the production of the lime used probably did not differ too much but the final result of the mortar itself is clearly different, due to its mixing and different additives (Arce 2003) . These pieces of evidence demonstrate beyond any doubt the existence of two different Umayyad phases of construction 6 which had not been identified nor differentiated before, and which contradict the conclusions of Carlier and Morin . The distribution/location within the qaṣr of the masonry of this unnoticed first building phase and its characteristic techniques is also very relevant as it was used in the lower courses of the complete Syrian bayt and the service rooms built to the north of the entrance vestibule block (the northeast quarter of the building; Fig . 7b), including apparently the corresponding section of the perimeter wall . No traces of this earlier masonry have been found in the ‘incomplete’ Syrian bayt built to the south of the entrance block or in the rest of the building . This distribution of the different techniques (and related building phases) would indicate that the first phase of construction of the qaṣr was started from this northeast corner and was soon interrupted, being resumed afterwards with relevant changes in its building techniques and probably also in its plan . At this point, we must consider which the related changes in plan were that certainly occurred after the resumption of construction and that explain the irregularities of the complex layout . Two different hypotheses could be put forward regarding the original plan of the first Umayyad qasr, the construction of which was interrupted and later resumed with the availability of more economic resources . According to the first hypothesis, the original plan that was not fully implemented would have incorporated in its design the same entrance block that was finally built, which would have been placed symmetrically in the middle of the east section of a

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The reuse of spolia from Roman and Christian buildings would also reinforce the hypothesis of the existence of pre-Islamic structures in the area which at a certain point were demolished and looted . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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slightly bigger and symmetrical qasr . After construction was resumed, it would have been decided to reduce slightly the originally foreseen size in the plan and to use a different building technique and better materials . This would explain the aforementioned asymmetry in the location of the entrance block, but also the ‘incomplete Syrian’ bayt built to the south of it . According to this first hypothesis, if we re-draw the plan of the qasr with a ‘complete’ Syrian bayt to the south of the entrance block, we would regain a symmetrical setting for this entrance block in the plan, located in axe with the court (Fig . 7a) . This would provide, as a result, a larger but regular plan, with an average side length of 77 .5 meters in comparison with the 67 .8 meters of the qaṣr actually built . 7 The arrangement of the other groups of rooms in the north and south units would also regain a symmetric arrangement with this hypothesised ‘original’ layout by flanking both sides of their respective single Syrian buyūt with service rooms . Thus, these buyūt would have had their respective central room (iwān) located in axe with the court as well . Similarly, the arrangement of the west unit would allow the placing of a central Syrian bayt in axe with the entrance gate and the court . In this case, this new central bayt would share the small lateral rooms with the two flanking buyūt (as occurs in the plan of Qasr Kharana; Arce 2016) . All this would allow the regaining of a regular and symmetrical plan which might have corresponded to an original plan that was not fully implemented . A second hypothesis can be put forward regarding the original appearance in plan of this ‘first’ Umayyad qaṣr, the construction of which was interrupted and not completed as originally planned, as a result providing the aforementioned irregularities . This hypothesis would imply an original symmetrical plan as well, but in this case with the same perimeter and size of the current building (closer to the ‘standard’ dimensions) . It would have had a simpler and narrower vestibule, consisting of a simple corridor with just benches on both sides (Fig . 8a), instead of the complex and articulated entrance block with two lateral flights of steps leading to the upper floor which was finally implemented . 8 This original entrance corridor placed in the centre/axe of the building would have allowed the existence of two complete Syrian buyūt flanking it, in a completely regular and symmetrical plan . This original vestibule would have been similar to the standard Umayyad entrance corridors that

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However, this resulting dimension (77 .5m) exceeds the average ones found in other Umayyad quṣūr . They share several features although not always exactly the same size which vary within a certain range; (the dimensions in meters collected here are from Creswell and Allan 1989) . Khirbat al-Mafjar: 65 × 65; Minya: 67 × 73; Jabal Says 67 × 67; Muwaqqar: 65 × 39; Qaṣr Kharana: 36 .5 × 35 .5 (72/2 × 72/2); Qaṣr al- Ḥayr al-Gharbī: 71 .5 × 73 (average); Qaṣr al-Ḥayr al-Sharqī (lesser enclosure): 68 × 67 × 71 .5 × 74; Ruṣāfat Hishām 72 × 72; Qaṣr Bayir (length of remaining W wall): 70 m approx .; Qaṣr al-Ṭūba: 140 .5 × 72 .85 (a double square of 72 .8 × 72); Mshatta: 144 × 144 (internally) [72 × 2] × [72 × 2] and 147 .4 × 147 .4 (externally) . In this first phase, the staircases might have been planned to be placed in the ‘dead ended’ service corridors that separate the main blocks of rooms, such as at Khirbat al-Mafjar . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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can be found at Khirbat al-Mafjar, Qaṣr al-Ḥayr al-Gharbī, Qaṣr Kharana, Shqeira al-Gharbiyyeh, etc . The internal distribution of the originally planned qaṣr would have been thus very similar to, if not the same as, the one finally implemented because the foundations were probably already laid in the first phase, being reused, with the exception of the southeastern area where the inclusion of the new and wider entrance block would have altered that symmetrical plan, creating the irregularities described . This second hypothesis would also be more coherent with the elicited scenario of improvement in the economic context that characterized the second building phase, which implied the availability of more financial resources and the use of better quality materials in its construction: It would be more logical that this lavish and very elaborated vaulted entrance block would have been added to the modest original plan during this new and prosperous economic context, keeping the original dimensions in plan of the first qaṣr, instead of reducing it in size as hypothesized in the first option (a strange change for a wealthy period, but also because it would have made the plan asymmetrical on purpose) . We have also to take into account that we cannot find traces of the type of masonry used during the first phase in this entrance block, with the exception of the north face of the wall shared with the Syrian bayt located to the north of it (a wall which seems to have been doubled southwards for the construction of the staircase) . As mentioned, the foundations of the perimeter and partition walls for the rest of the building were most probably already laid during the first building phase and later reused . As a result, the new walls built in this second phase would have followed closely, if not identically, the original plan except in the east section where the new entrance block was incorporated . The addition of this new lavish entrance block, more complex in elevation and plan, without modifying the original perimeter of the qaṣr, implied a reduction in size of the south Syrian bayt, eliminating the two northern rooms . This would have also resulted in the asymmetry in plan of the building finally built, for which this hypothesis would provide a logical and fully satisfactory explanation, which we adopt as the most convincing one . 2. The entrance vestibule block and the upper audience hall The second section of the paper deals specifically with the analysis and the related hypothesis of reconstruction of the original appearance of the gateway and the vestibule entrance block, its elevation, and the vaulting systems which covered its lower and upper rooms . This entrance or vestibule block, which we have concluded would belong to the second building phase of the qaṣr, is composed of two almost square bays 9 that

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The two lateral walls taper slightly . This makes the bays slightly irregular . Thus the transversal sides of the ‚square‘ bays vary between 5 .16 and 5 .36 meters . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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define a corridor giving access from the exterior to the court . The plan of the vestibule is articulated by pilasters dividing both square bays and from which sprang the arches that divided the vaulting into two square sections as well . These pilasters also divide into two sections the elevation of the lateral walls of this vestibule, each of which has a semi-circular profile which proves that these two square bays were vaulted (Figs . 9, 10) . In principle, these material remains indicate that this vestibule could have been covered by two groin (cross) vaults, two sail vaults or a couple of domes on pendentives . 10 This corridor was flanked by two symmetrical flights of stairs leading to the upper floor, and which were accessed from two lateral doors of the lower floor first bay, in an arrangement not seen in any other Umayyad qaṣr . Thresholds with pivot-holes were located not only in the main external gateway, but also dividing these two consecutive square bays . This would grant access to the reception hall on the upper floor via the two lateral flights of steps 11 while keeping closed the access to the courtyard and the residential areas in the lower one . The two small rooms under the staircases (accessed from the second square bay) were most probably used as guard rooms . Against the lateral walls are placed the typical waiting benches found in most Umayyad quṣūr. 2 .1 The vaulting hypothesis for the lower vestibule The hypothesis put forward by Carlier and Morin implies that the two square bays of the lower floor vestibule were covered by two domes on pendentives . This is based on the aforementioned semi-circular profile of the lateral walls and the survival of some domical voussoirs (Carlier and Morin 1984: 348) . The rest of the rooms of the qaṣr are drawn by them as roofed with flat ceilings using beams and rafters . In my opinion, and due to the span of the rooms, they would have been roofed with barrel vaults as is the case in most of the Umayyad quṣūr (Amman, Qaṣr Kharāna, Mshatta, Ṭūba, Qaṣr al-Ḥayr al-Sharqī, etc .) . These vaults would have been supported by the thick walls and they would have also counteracted the lateral thrust of the vaulting from the entrance block . 2 .2 The floor levels, plan and vaulting of the audience hall on the upper floor According to the hypothetical scheme put forward by Carlier and Morin, the resulting height of the audience hall on the upper floor would be 8 .55 meters above the lower floor level . This height is excessive and creates insurmountable problems in the recon-

10 Creswell supposed the entrance was covered by two cross vaults (Creswell and Allan 1989: 173) but gives the wrong dimensions for the qaṣr (“… approximately 59 m square, excluding the towers …”) . 11 Door jambs were built at the beginning of the main flight of steps (close to the first landing) to insert doors which would close off the access to the upper floor . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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struction proposed . The remains of the original flights of steps prove that they would have not been enough to reach the resulting floor level of the audience hall on the upper floor, placed on top of these two domes on pendentives . Just to reach the floor level of the upper portico, it would be necessary to devise a single flight of more than 30 steps in a single row with a slope of almost 40 degrees (Fig . 10b) . This also forces the floor level in the lateral arms of the audience hall to be raised even further, to allow positioning of the staircases running underneath them . Despite this disproportionate and unlikely flight of steps, the staircases would still not have reached up to the floor level of the audience hall, which remains at a higher level than that of the upper portico: It would be necessary to add an extra flight of steps, placed inside the audience hall itself (Fig . 10b) . If the floor level of the upper portico were set at the same level as the floor of the audience hall, it could not be reached by these steps and would also provide as a result a disproportionate height for the elevation of the lower portico of the court as well (Figs . 10) . To disguise these evident problems in their reconstruction drawings, the floor level of the upper portico is drawn more than one and a half meters below the floor level of the upper audience hall (in correspondence with the maximum height that could be reached by the flights of steps), but without a direct access between them (Fig . 10a) . The access between both floor levels is not satisfactorily nor convincingly solved either: the main opening that should have been a door connecting them, giving access to the audience hall from the upper corridor, becomes a sort of window which overlooks the upper portico but does not offer access between them . According to their proposal, to reach the audience hall from the lateral flights of steps leading to the upper portico corridor, it is necessary to place in the western arm of the audience hall plan a supplementary flight of steps, set transversally with the extra ones required (Figs . 10a, 11a) . All these problems make this hypothesis neither feasible nor convincing as it does not make sense to design ex-novo such a lavish double staircase that does not properly fulfil its main purpose . 2 .3 The ‘triconch hall’ The hypothesis put forward by Carlier and Morin becomes structurally inconsistent and even more unlikely when the existence of a ‘triconch hall’ is suggested on the upper floor, on top of the double-square plan of the lower vestibule and surmounted by a huge dome on pendentives of 6 .30m of diameter (Carlier and Morin 1984: 348–349) . This upper dome would be placed not above one of the lower square bays but astride in between the two lower domes on pendentives . As a matter of fact, the hypothesized plan is not an actual triconch, but a sort of Greek-cross plan, with a central square area with two oblong lateral arms, instead of semi-circular apses and with small domes in the resulting corner spaces (Fig . 11a) . 12

12 The plan suggested might be better described as an incomplete quincunx, i .e ., a cruciform plan with a central dome and four more in the corners defined by the arms of the cross, similar to that of © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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The issue of the floor levels becomes even more complex and confusing because according to Carlier and Morin’s solution, the floor level of these lateral arms should be higher than the one of the central hall itself, to allow the staircases (which run underneath the lateral arms) to reach the floor level of the upper portico (Fig . 10b) . Thus, the floor level of the portico would remain, as we have pointed out, one and a half meters below the resulting floor level of the audience hall and almost two meters below the floor level of these lateral arms (Fig . 10b) . However, the main problem with this solution results from the fact that the hypothesized dome on pendentives of this upper ‘triconch’ audience hall, instead of being placed in correspondence with one of the two square bays that articulate the lower space, would be placed astride between them, something that structurally does not make any sense (Fig . 10a) . With this solution this huge dome would not be properly supported, as its weight would be resting on the weakest points of the lower floor structure . The pendentives which receive the weight of a dome concentrate the thrust at the four corners, where it should be received by the piers beneath . The problem is that, according to their reconstruction, the weight would be resting not on the lower floor piers but on the fragile crowns of the twin domes on pendentives, which they hypothesize roofed the lower floor vestibule . This demonstrates that this upper domed hall, as presented, has neither structural support nor a coherent spatial relationship with the area over which it is set . On top of this, when this hypothetical reconstruction is analysed in more detail, it can be noticed that the section (Fig . 11c) suggested for this upper ‘triconch’ audience hall actually replicates the longitudinal section of the bawh or diwān at Khirbat alMafjar (Fig . 11d, Hamilton 1959: fig . 25), while the plan (Fig . 11a) is an adaptation of the one from the entrance hall of the Umayyad palace at Amman Citadel (Fig . 11b) . The resulting combined structure is inserted arbitrarily without any spatial or structural logic on top of the entrance gate and vestibule of our qaṣr, straddling the two lower bays, in a sort of ‘architectural collage’ . As a result, the whole solution becomes inconsistent and unconvincing . We can thus conclude that this hypothesis should be discarded as it does not have enough evidence to be supported and it is neither spatially nor structurally coherent, nor is it compatible with the remains found still in situ . 2 .4 Alternative vaulting hypothesis The detailed and thorough analysis of these architectural material remains has led to an alternative hypothesis, still based on them but following the architectural and structural coherence required which would sort out the problems, inconsistencies and incongruences identified . According to this proposal, the two square sections of

the al-Mundhir ‘pretorium’ in al-Ruṣāfa (or to the vestibule at Amman Citadel as they themselves claim) . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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the lower vestibule would not be covered by two domes on pendentives but by two sail vaults (Figs . 13, 14) . We do not consider the choice of a couple of cross or groin vaults, as suggested by Creswell, 13 because no single trace of the groins or lines of intersection of the cross vaults have been found, while we have a huge number of domical voussoirs which would belong to the sail vaults . This solution would reduce noticeably the resulting height of the floor level of the upper audience hall while keeping the coherence with the remaining evidence of the lower supporting infrastructure and the domical voussoirs found . This hypothesis would also allow the regaining of adequate proportions and heights for the whole structure, including the porticoes of the courtyard: Instead of +8 .55m, the upper floor level would be just +6 .04m above the lower floor level (as we will demonstrate below) . This would also allow the floor of the upper portico and that of all the upper rooms (including the audience hall) to be set at the same height, which would be easily and comfortably reached by the two lateral flights of steps . The domical voussoirs found in the rubble, which Carlier and Morin thought belonged to a huge dome in the upper floor, would belong to these sail vaults roofing the lower floor . We have to take into account that the pendentives supporting a dome are actually the remaining surface of a sail vault that has been horizontally cut to obtain a circular base on which the semi-spherical dome is set (Fig . 14) . 14 The circular base of this dome has thus the same diameter as the pendentive upper circumference, which corresponds to the circumference inscribed in the square on which the dome is set in plan (which in its turn, is inscribed in the equatorial circumference of the hemisphere corresponding to the related pendentive and/or sail vault (Fig . 14) . Thus the relationship between the radius of the pendentive’s spherical surface (R) and that of the supported dome’s hemisphere (r) is the square root of 2 (R = r√2), while the diameter of the supported dome equals the side of the square in plan on which it is set and built (Fig . 13b) . Accordingly, the total height (from the springing line) of the crown of a dome on pendentives equals the diameter of the supported semi-spherical dome (twice its radius = 2 × r), while the height of the crown of the corresponding sail vault would be just the radius of the hemispherical dome multiplied by the square root of 2 (r√2 = 1,4142 × r), almost a third less than the previous one (Fig . 13) . Thus, if the resulting height of the upper floor of the audience hall supported by the twin domes on pendentives was +8 .55m above the lower floor level, the resulting

13 Creswell and Allan 1989: 173 . 14 The sail vault and the pendentives are both spherical surfaces resulting from cutting away sections of the same semi-sphere: In the case of the sail vault the semi-sphere is cut by four vertical planes corresponding to the square inscribed in the equatorial circumference; in the case of the pendentives, this spherical resulting surface (the sail vault) is further cut by an horizontal plane on which the actual dome will be set . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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height if it would have been supported by the twin sail vaults would be of just +6 .04 m above the lower floor level . This dimension of the radius of the semi-sphere of the sail vault corresponds to that of the big voussoirs found in the site which would belong to these sail vaults in the vestibule entrance and not to the huge semi-dome that Carlier and Morin hypothesized for roofing the upper floor . 2 .5 Parallels and antecedents We have numerous samples of antecedents for the use of sail vaults in the region from the Roman epoch and throughout the Byzantine and Umayyad period (Arce 2006; Arce 2007): In the south baths at Jerash (Jordan, Fig . 12a) and in the funerary mausoleum in Nuayyis (Amman, Jordan), both dated to the 2nd century CE, or at the theatre of Shahba-Philippopolis (S . Syria), dated to the 3rd century CE (Fig . 12b), at Qaṣr ibn al-Wardān (N . Syria), 6th c . CE (Fig . 12c), or in Jerusalem, at the Double (Fig . 12d) and Golden Gates in the al-Ḥaram al-Sharīf . The latter ones represent the antecedent of a recurrent use of sail vaults in Islamic period gateways which would become almost customary in later periods, such as at the Fatimid period gates of Cairo of Bāb al-Futūḥ and Bāb al-Zuwayla (Creswell 1978) . 2 .6 The vaulting of the audience hall on the upper floor The space distribution and vaulting of the hypothesized audience hall of the upper floor, 15 as we have seen, should follow and be coherent with the structure existing on the lower floor . Accordingly, we suggest that the two square bays should be replicated on the upper floor exactly above the lower ones . One of these bays (probably the easternmost one) would have been roofed by a dome on pendentives (perhaps with an intermediate drum pierced with windows), while the other bay could have been covered by one sail vault (or even by a barrel vault placed in axe, E–W, and connected with the dome’s pendentives . In order to keep the maximal structural coherence, we have chosen and drawn the solution with the sail vault which would have the same dimensions and radius as the lower ones (and of the upper floor pendentives) . 3. The dating of the qaṣr According to the hypothesis put forward by Carlier and Morin, the qaṣr and the whole Umayyad complex would have been built in a sole single phase, and at quite an early date . Their early dating is in part based on their hypothetical reconstruction

15 We would assume the existence of an audience hall taking into account the general design and the existing antecedents and parallels at Qaṣr Kharāna, Qaṣr Minya, Qaṣr al-Ḥayr al-Gharbī, Khirbat al-Mafjar, etc . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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of the upper domed chamber as a ‘triconch hall’, claimed as evidence of ‘archaism’ 16 of its design’, while the single phasing was based on the supposed existence of a sole and single building technique used throughout the entire complex, hypotheses which we have demonstrated are both wrong . Their dating would be also based on the hypothetical early qibla towards Jerusalem that they claim was used and they would have identified at the site (Carlier and Morin 1987: 242–244) . 17 Actually, this hypothetical qibla towards Jerusalem was inferred from the general orientation of the buildings of the complex, the walls of which are set in parallel to the compass directions (E–W and N–S) . Most Umayyad quṣūr built ex novo follow, however, this standard orientation (even if this results in some minor deviation from the proper alignment of the qibla towards Mecca) . 18 The claim of the use of this qibla towards Jerusalem would also be incompatible with the assertion that the whole complex (including the mosque) would have been built in one sole phase because the mosque is not oriented towards Jerusalem, but due south, following the same ‘cardinal’ orientation of the qaṣr . This idea of an early qibla towards Jerusalem would also be supported by the discovery claimed by Carlier and Morin of some ‘Islamic tombs’ in the cemetery oriented according to this qibla . Due to the inconsistency of the other alleged evidence, we might consider the possibility that this ‘weird’ orientation for Muslim tombs could be explained by the fact that they might be not Muslim tombs, but preIslamic and Christian ones belonging to an earlier settlement, which certainly existed in the vicinity of the Umayyad qasr as the written sources and the material evidence (spolia) prove . Carlier and Morin mention the finding at Tell Zabayir al-Qasṭal, 800 meters to the southwest of the Umayyad complex, of remains of a Late Antique (preIslamic) settlement, by a Roman road . This dating and phasing of the complex (and the area) should thus be thoroughly reviewed: firstly, because as we have proven, the qaṣr was built in two phases with the inclusion in the second one of pre-Islamic spolia (the Mosque might have been built as part of a third building phase or during the second one); secondly, because

16 “L’etude typologique des sailes d’audience umayyades montre égalment l’archaisme des dispositions du triconque de Qastal …” (Carlier and Morin 1984: 244) . Our research points, on the contrary, to the conclusion that the entrance block would have been part of the second phase of construction of the complex, with a different structural and spatial solution . 17 According to the tradition, the qibla originally faced al-Ḥaram al-Sharīf in Jerusalem . This qibla was used for over 13 years, from 610 CE until 623 CE, till Prophet Muhammad changed it towards Mecca . This qibla towards Jerusalem would have been re-instated as a result of the war between ʿAbd al-Malik and Ibn Zubayr, who had seized Mecca . During this period it was not possible to perform the Ḥajj to Mecca (it was even banned by ʿAbd al-Malik to prevent the propagandistic influence) . This would have been the reason for ʿAbd al-Malik to change temporarily the qibla from Mecca back to Jerusalem even to develop a new pilgrimage centre (Carlier and Morin 1984: 245) . 18 Arce 2015 . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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the dating claimed on the basis of the archaism of the building type of the ‘triconch’ audience hall cannot be taken into account because it is impossible that the audience hall would have had such a shape; and thirdly, because the orientation of the complex according to an early qibla oriented towards Jerusalem does not seem to be proven . 3 .1 Alternative phasing of the complex: Continuity of occupation and the longue durée logic of the ‘genius loci’ According to our hypothesis, the first structure built on the site would have corresponded to a Roman fort or similar military installation, completely looted, which would have given the name to the site (Castellum > Qasṭal), and was probably located at Tell Zabayir al-Qasṭal . This would have belonged to a chain of forts from the limes Arabicus linked by a secondary road (a via militaris) 19 running north–south from Amman in parallel and to the east of the Via Nova Trajana, and with a major stop at Ziza, where the huge cistern and traces of the Roman fort, dismantled to built several and successive military posts (the latest one dating from the British mandate still re-uses Roman spolia), still survive . The existence of this ‘outer road’ between Amman and Udhruḥ that bypassed the wādī systems to the west (which forced the Via Nova to sort out the deep canyons of wādī Arnon and wādī Hasa) is accepted by both Benjamin Isaac and Thomas Parker (Fig . 15a, b) . There is extensive evidence of the abandonment of Roman forts from the limes Arabicus in the region during the 5th century CE, many of which were re-occupied by monastic communities . This would have been the case at Qasṭal as well . References to a Dayr al-Qasṭal (the monastery of Qasṭal) are found in different written sources: A verse of the Umayyad poet Jarīr, in an elegy on the caliph al-Walīd I, news of whose death in 715 CE reached the poet while he was at Qasṭal, speaks of Dayr al-Qasṭal (Jarīr, Dīwān, ed . N . M . Ṭāhā, Cairo: Dār al-maʿārif 1969: 242/33; Shahīd 2002: 188) . This monastery would also be mentioned in the List of Ḥamza and the Letter of the Archimandrites (Shahīd 2002: 188) . 3 .2 Umayyad Qasṭal This monastery could have been one of those seized by the Umayyad elite, such as was the case in Haliarama, which became Qaṣr al-Ḥayr al-Gharbī, or the one at Qaṣr al-Hallābāt, which occupied together with a palace, the premises of the former Roman fort during the 6th century CE (Arce 2015) . The new Umayyad qaṣr of Qasṭal would have been built close to this previous building or buildings, probably while it was still

19 B . Isaac has acutely observed that the road system is the raison d’être for the forts, not the reverse (Isaac 1988) . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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used as a monastery or after its seizure, following a parallactic 20 model of settlement, and adopting the toponomy . This might explain the use of the term Qasṭalayn (‘the two Qasṭals’) by Kuthayyir ‘Azza to describe the site . 21 Later, in coincidence with the second building phase of the Umayyad qaṣr that we have identified, this pre-Umayyad building (probably a fort transformed into a monastery) would have been dismantled and part of its material reused as spolia in the works of the second phase of the Umayyad qaṣr, at a time when more resources were available . Different scholars have pointed out that the term qasṭalayn (‘the two Qasṭals’) here may refer to al-Qasṭal and al-Muwaqqar just as ‘al-ʾIrāqayn’ (‘the two Iraqs’) refer to Kufa and Basra, or ‘al-Qaryatayn’ to Mecca and Medina’ (Bisheh 2000) . The association between Qastal and Muwwaqar has been made due to another poem by Kuthayyir ‘Azza which relates them to the same owner . But this term could make reference instead to the existence side by side of two different settlements or structures at Qasṭal itself: One pre-Islamic (probably a Roman fort which could have been transformed into a monastery after its abandonment in the 5th century CE, and later looted), and another one built ex-novo by the Umayyad elite beside or in the vicinity of the previous one . This hypothesis would be coherent with the parallactic model of settlement adopted very early on by Muslim settlers . The cases of Raqqa and al-Rāfiqa (Raqqatayn, ‘the two Raqqas’) set successively beside the Roman Callinicum or those of Fuṣṭāṭ founded ex-novo besides the Roman fort and settlement of Babylon on the Nile or Jabiyya outside Damascus would be clear parallels of this procedure . Closer and more similar to our case would be the settlement founded by Hishām south of al-Ruṣāfa-Sergiopolis, or Qaṣr al-Ḥayr al-Gharbī, founded on the premises of a monastery (Haliarama) patronized by the Ghassanids and seized by the Umayyads . The question posed now is if we can associate these phases to any precise patron . Written sources associate Qasṭal al-Balqāʾ firstly with the Ghassanid phylarch Jabala ibn Ḥārith (al-Iṣfahānī in his Annals), 22 and later with the Umayyad caliphs al-Walīd

20 Parallactic model (as opposed to palimpsest model) makes reference to the construction of a new structure or a city beside an existing one and not on top of the pre-existing one or growing concentrically . This term to describe this characteristic of many new Islamic urban settings was already used by Paolo Cuneo in Storia dell’urbanistica. Il Mondo Islamico, Rome 1986: 92 . See also Patrizio A . Cimino, G . Matteo Mai and Vito Redaelli, Dizionario di storia urbana . Santarcangelo di Romagna 2010: 129 . 21 In a panegyric verse addressed to Yazīd, the poet Kuthayyir ‘Azza (who died in 105/723) mentions al-Muwaqqar and al-Qasṭal in a context which indicates that both belonged to the same patron: “May God bless the quarter (family) whose abode is in Muwaqqar (and extends) to Qasṭal alBalqāʾ of the elevated maḥārīb” or “where the maḥārīb are” (Qutayyir ‘Azza, Dīwān, éd . H . Pérès, II, 133) . In another poem composed by the same poet in praise of Yazīd, mention is made of the two Qasṭals (bi-l-qasṭalayn): “May God reward a quarter in Muwaqqar with pleasant life, and may the thunder clouds let fall copious rains with the abounding clouds and pouring showers, he was bestowed in the ‘two Qasṭals’ with abundant boon” . 22 ‘Jabala ibn Ḥārith, king of the Ghassanids, order to build Adraj (Udruḥ), Canathir (Umm alWalīd) and Qasṭal’, Ḥamza al-Iṣfahānī: Annales, Petropoli, 1844, vol . I: 117; vol . II: VII, 92 . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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ibn ʿAbd al-Malik (65–86/685–705), Yazīd ibn ʿAbd al-Malik (101–105/720–24) and al-Walīd ibn Yazīd (125–26/743–44) . 23 The association of these patrons with any structure, surviving or demolished, can be only conjectural and is based on these few surviving texts (and their meagre information) and on the material evidence retrieved . 3 .3 A third phase patronized by al-Walīd ibn Yazīd? Despite the destruction inflicted on the qaṣr in 1984, it was possible for the French team to explore the remains of the north area where some floor mosaics were miraculously found . A clear difference was noted between the richness and complex patterns found in the floor mosaics from this north portico and its apartment (using tiny and richly coloured glass tesserae) and the simpler patterns and lower quality observed in the mosaics from the eastern and southern porticoes (with a simple pattern of circles and squares alternated, using coarse, big-sized stone tesserae) . The peculiar pattern of this richer mosaic floor from the northern portico (Fig . 17b) consisted of a double superimposed net of entangled circles executed with small glass tesserae with a rich combination of hues . This pattern and the size and material used are exactly the same as those found in the mosaic floor from one of the lateral alcoves at Quṣayr ʿAmra (Fig . 17a) . The latter can be dated as coeval with the mural painting decoration, which has been recently proven to have been implemented under al-Walīd ibn Yazīd . 24 This distinctive decoration of the north apartments at Qasṭal could have been carried out by the same artisans and commissioned by the same patron of Quṣayr ʿAmra . The use of identical patterns in both mosaics, combined with the use of the same kind and size of glass tesserae in the north block at Qasṭal and in the lateral alcove at Quṣayr ʿAmra, would indicate that both floors are coeval, and quite late in date (both would date from the al-Walīd II epoch), in contrast with the older and coarser mosaic floors from the other areas of Qasṭal which present simpler patterns and stone tesserae of much bigger and coarser size . This would reinforce the idea of a more complex sequence of construction and/ or execution of its decoration (which in this north section might belong to a third phase) . This hypothetical latest Umayyad phase (including these later and richer mosaics) could be thus coeval with that of the decoration of Quṣayr ʿAmra, i .e . corresponding to the caliphate of al-Walīd ibn Yazīd .

23 Jārir, Dīwān, ed . N . M . Ṭāhā (Le Caire: Dār al-maʿārif 1969): 242/33; Kuthayyir ʿAzza, Dīwān, ed . I . ʿAbbās (Beirut: Dār al-Thaqāfa 1971): 340, 349; al-Ṭabarī, Tāʾrīkh II: 1784 . 24 The hypothetical coeval dating of the paintings and the mosaics in ʿAmra would be confirmed by the discovery of large amounts of freshly cut mosaic tesserae, ready to be applied on the semidomes of the caldarium which have been recently discovered in a service room excavated by the author at Quṣayr ʿAmra . This would indicate that the decoration scheme of the bath house (at least the wall mosaics) was not finished, probably due to the death of Walīd II in 744 CE . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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4. Conclusions All this evidence leads to the conclusion that the Umayyad qaṣr at Qasṭal was built in at least two phases (maybe even three, not taking into account later medieval transformations), corresponding probably to two different economic and political contexts during the Umayyad period, with a clear improvement in the prosperity and availability of resources for its construction in the latter phase . The first phase would have foreseen the construction of a qaṣr, completely symmetrical and regular in plan, with a simple corridor as vestibule, which was not completed . Its construction was undertaken using cheap materials and a simple building technique, not usual in other Umayyad buildings . 25 This first qaṣr was started from its northeast corner, with the external perimeter wall and the internal partition walls apparently being built at the same time .26 The construction of this ‘first’ qaṣr was interrupted at a certain point, being resumed later 27 with relevant changes, which included the addition of an elaborate and complex entrance hall to the south of the only remaining bayt built in the first phase and the general improvement of the quality of the building materials used in this second phase . The new entrance vestibule, composed of two square bays, was flanked by two symmetrical staircases and roofed on its lower floor most probably with two sail vaults . The upper floor of this entrance block would have hosted an audience hall, divided also in two sections, one of them covered by a dome on pendentives and the other one by a barrel or sail vault . This second phase is also characterized by the systematic use of spolia from Roman and Christian buildings (chancels of a church and other Classical elements such as the niche head or the big plain tabula ansata) . This indicates it was built during a different socio-politic and more prosperous economic context, with the availability of more economic resources and the possibility for the new Umayyad patrons to dismantle and reuse spolia from pre-Islamic structures existing in the vicinity . A further third phase could be hypothesized which would involve the addition of rich decorated glass-mosaic floors in the north portico and its corresponding bayt .

25 A similar technique can be found in the eastern façade of the Umayyad palace of Shqeira al-Gharbiyye . 26 This fact is unusual, as it would contradict the normal procedure of construction which we can identify in many other Umayyad quṣūr (Khirbat al-Mafjar, Mshatta, etc .) . According to this standard procedure (of Roman military origin), the perimeter wall was built first . Later, all the internal partition walls were built against it (usually bonded to protruding stones left on purpose projecting out of the perimeter wall to link the partition walls to it (Arce 2016) . An explanation for this unusual situation found at Qasṭal would be that the remaining sections of the perimeter wall (if any) built in the first phase with such a poor material were dismantled and rebuilt a fundamentis . 27 It is not possible to know if this interruption and change of plan was a small lapse of time or a long period, although the higher level and the pattern of weathering of the first phase masonry could have been not only the result of the worse quality of the stone used, but also because of a long exposure to the elements during the interruption, before the works were resumed and completed . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Our hypothesis would also help to clarify the discussion on the existence of a Roman fort in the area which would have given its name to the site (and the Umayyad palace itself: Castellum > Qasṭal) . It would explain also the presence in the area of a palace and a monastery patronized by the Ghassanid phylarchs (Dayr al-Qasṭal) recorded in the List of Hamza of Ghassanid-supported monasteries (Shahīd 2002: 187), 28 and recorded in the Letter of the Archimandrites as well . According to these sources, Qasṭal would have been built (or refurbished) by Jabala ibn al-Ḥārith (Shahīd 2002: 326) . The niche, the chancel base and the post reused by the Umayyads in the access to the subterranean cistern in the court might have come from the monastic church, while the tabula ansata might have come from the Roman military installation (possibly reused as a palatine/monastic venue, as at al-Ḥallābāt) .29 In this case we would have at Qasṭal al-Balqāʾ another sample of the sequence we have identified in other Umayyad sites, where abandoned Roman forts were re-occupied and refurbished as monasteries (and in some cases also as palaces) before being transformed into Umayyad quṣūr (Arce 2012; Arce 2015) . In our case the Roman fort, which might have been transformed into a monastery (Dayr al-Qasṭal in the written sources), was probably dismantled and its material used as spolia . It was located probably near the current qaṣr at Tell Zabayir al-Qasṭal (identified as the ‘ancient settlement’; Carlier and Morin 1987: 222 and fig . 1) where pre-Umayyad remains and a cemetery were found, in an area located by the Roman road that runs southwards to the Roman fort of Zizia . The strategic location, the hydraulic infrastructures available and the advantageous conditions of Qasṭal in many other aspects explain why the site, occupied at least from Roman times, would be continuously inhabited after the fall of the Umayyads, during the Abbasid, AyyubidMamluk, Ottoman and the Mandate period till present times . Bibliography Arce, I . 2003 Early Islamic lime kilns from the Near East . The cases from Amman citadel . In: S . Huerta (ed .), Proceedings of the First International Congress on Construction History. Madrid, 213–224 . 2006

Umayyad arches, vaults and domes: merging and re-creation . Contributions to early Islamic construction history . In: M . Dunkeld, J . Campbell, H . Louw, M . Tutton, B . Addis and R . Thorne (eds .), Proceedings of the Second International Congress on Construction History. Queens’ College Cambridge University, 29th March–2nd April 2006 . Cambridge, 195–220 .

28 A verse of the Umayyad poet Jarīr, in an elegy on the caliph al-Walīd I, news of whose death in 715 CE reached the poet while he was at Qasṭal, speaks of Dayr al-Qasṭal (Shahīd 2002:188) . 29 Ḥamza in his Chronicle or Tāʾrīkh (paragraph 77, quoted in Shahīd 2002: 326) states that Jabala ibn al-Ḥārith “… built (bāna) al-Qanātir, and Adruḥ and al Qasṭal” . The three of these are in present-day Jordan: Qanātir would be Umm al-Walīd, Adruḥ would be the former Roman camp of Udruḥ and Qasṭal would make reference to our site . Shahīd quotes Noldeke pointing out that the term bāna used by Ḥamza could make reference to the refurbishment of pre-existing structures (Shahīd 2002: 327), something that would make sense in the case of reusing pre-existing Roman installations from the limes, as at Udruḥ and Qasṭal itself . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Umayyad building techniques and the merging of Roman-Byzantine and Parto-Sasanian traditions: continuity and change . In: I . Jacobs, A . Sarantis and E . Zanini (eds .), Technology in Transition: AD 300–650. Late Antique Archaeology 4/1 . Leiden, 491–537 .

2009

Hallabat: castellum, coenobium, praetorium, qasr . The construction of a palatine architecture under the Umayyads (I) . In: K . Bartl and A . Moaz (eds .), Residences, Castles, Settlements. Transformation Processes from Late Antiquity to Early Islam in Bilad al-Sham. Orient Archaeologie, 24 . Rahden/Westf, 153–182 .

2009b Qasr al-Hallabat (Jordan): transformation of a limes Arabicus fort into a monastic and palatine complex . In: A . Morillo, N . Hanel and E . Martín (eds .), Limes XX: XXth International Congress of Roman Frontier Studies. Anejos de Gladius 13. Volume 1. Madrid, 21–46 . 2012

Romans, Ghassanids and Umayyads . The transformation of the limes Arabicus: from coercive and deterrent diplomacy towards religious proselytism and political clientelarism . In: G . Vannini and M . Nucciotti (eds .), Limina/Limites: Archaeologies, Histories, Islands and Borders in the Mediterranean (365–1556) 1. British Archaeological Reports, International Series, 2386 . Oxford, 53–72 .

2015

Severan Castra, Tetrarchic Quadriburgia, Justinian Coenobia, and Ghassanid Diyarat: patterns of transformation of limes lrabicus forts during late Antiquity . In: R . Collins, M . Symonds and M . Weber (eds .), Roman Military Architecture on the Frontiers . Oxford, 98–122 .

Bisheh, G . 2000 A short note on the minaret at Qastal . Liber Annuus 10: 499–501 . Carlier, P . and Morin, F . 1984 Recherche archéologique au château de al-Qastal . Annual of the Department of Antiquities of Jordan 28, 343–382 . 1987

Archaeological Researches at Qastal, Second Mission, 1985 . Annual of the Department of Antiquities of Jordan 31, 221–246 .

Creswell, K . A . C . 1978 The Muslim Architecture of Egypt, Vol . I . New York . Creswell, K . A . C . and Allan, J . W . 1989 A Short Account of Early Muslim Architecture . Aldershot . Cuneo, P . 1986 Storia dell’urbanistica. Il mondo islamico . Roma . Gaube, H . 1977 ʿAmmān, Ḫarāne und Qasṭal: Vier frühislamische Bauwerke in Mitteljordanien . Zeitschrift des Deutschen Palästina-Vereins 93, 52–86 . Hamilton, R . W . 1959 Khirbat al-Mafjar, An Arabian Mansion in the Jordan Valley . Oxford Isaac, B . 1988 The meaning of limes and limitanei in ancient sources . Journal of Roman Studies 78, 125–147 . Shahīd, I . 2002 Byzantium and the Arabs in the Sixth Century. Volume 2, Part 1: Toponymy, Monuments, Historical Geography and Frontier Studies . Washington .

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Fig . 1 Qasṭal . Reconstructed plan as built (modified from Carlier and Morin 1984: fig . 69)

Fig . 2 Qasṭal . Umayyad wall from the bayt to the north of the entrance vestibule

Fig . 3 Qasṭal . Umayyad walls from the southern apartments of the bayt built to the north of the entrance vestibule block

Fig . 4 a (left) – Qasṭal . Header with dove-tail ‘T’-shape . Its ‘head’ is anchored in the core of the masonry, while the dove-tail ‘foot’ keeps in place the adjoining stretchers . b (right) – Mshatta . External perimeter wall

Fig . 5 Qasṭal . Wall facing the court corresponding to the second Umayyad phase © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Fig . 6 Qasṭal . Roman and late Antique spolia reused in the qaṣr; a – base of chancel and head of niche reused in the access to the court cistern; b – one of the posts of the reused chancel; c – plain tabula ansata, re-carved Fig . 7 Qasṭal . a – Hypothetical original plan (1st hypothesis) of the qaṣr as originally intended (larger in size, completely symmetrical and with the same vestibule and entrance block) confronted with the final version actually built (b, right) . The walls from the area in dark grey correspond to those which present in their lower courses the oldest building technique identified (from the earliest building phase) . In light grey the ‘incomplete Syrian bayt’ Fig . 8 Qasṭal . a – Hypothetical original plan (2nd/definitive hypothesis) of the qaṣr as originally designed (same size and internal distribution, but with a simple corridor as entrance vestibule instead of the complex entrance block, in a thus symmetrical plan), confronted with the final version actually built (b, right) . Notice how due to the inclusion of the wider entrance block the southeastern bayt becomes ‘incomplete’, and the general plan of the qaṣr asymmetrical

Fig . 9 Qasṭal . The entrance corridor or vestibule of the qaṣr; a – plan (Carlier and Morin 1984: fig . 54); b – E–W section across the vestibule looking towards south © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Fig . 10 Qasṭal . a – Entrance Vestibule and upper audience hall . Reconstruction hypothesis by Carlier and Morin roofing the vestibule entrance corridor with two domes on pendentives, and placing in the upper floor a ‘triconch hall’ surmounted by a huge dome on pendentives placed in between the two lower domes; b – Section trough the staircase showing the awkward difference of floor levels between the upper portico (thick line) and the audience hall (Carlier and Morin 1984: figs . 59, 64)

Fig . 11 a – Qasṭal . Plan of the upper audience hall as hypothesised by Carlier and Morin (1984: fig . 55); b – Amman Citadel . Plan of the monumental vestibule (Arce 2009), notice the similarity to the plan of 11a; c – Qasṭal . Section of the entrance block as hypothesised by Carlier and Morin (1984: fig . 59), notice the domes on pendentives covering the lower vestibule, and the ‘triconch’ hall awkwardly located astride in between the two lower domes; d – Khirbat al-Mafjar . Section of the diwan or bawh (Hamilton 1959: fig . 25), compare with 11c

Fig . 12 Antique and Lateantique Sail vaults from the Levant . a – South baths at Jerash (Jordan), 2nd c . CE; b – Theatre of ShahbaPhilippopolis, 3rd c . CE; c – Qasr ibn-Wardan (Syria) 6th c . CE; d – al-Ḥaram al-Sharīf, Jerusalem . Double gate, 7th c .? CE

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Fig . 13 . Qasṭal . Proposal of reconstruction of the entrance block . The lower vestibule is covered by two sail vaults, while the solution for the upper audience hall is domed following the spatial and structural constrictions fixed by the existing elements: It is covered with a dome on pendentives and a sail vault, placed above and in correspondence with the two square bays of the lower entrance floor (compare with Fig . 10)

Fig . 14 Formation of a pendentive (E . Viollet-le-Duc 1856)

Fig . 15 Qasṭal . Umayyad qaṣr . Entrance vestibule reconstruction hypothesis . a – present condition of the remaining elements; b – composite view with the infographic reconstruction of the two sail vaults

Fig . 17 a – Quṣayr ‘Amra, alcove floor mosaic; b – Qasṭal, mosaic floor from the north portico with the same pattern consisting in a double superimposed net of entangled circles (Carlier and Morin 1987: pl . XL .2) Fig . 16 Plan of the via militaris linking forts to the east of the Via nova Trajana © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

Archaeological Evidence of a Powerful Earthquake in Ramla, Israel

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Archaeological Evidence of a Powerful Earthquake in Ramla, Israel, during the Early Islamic Period 1 Abstract

Amir Gorzalczany 2 – Amos Salamon 3

Ramla was established by the Umayyad governor of the Jund and later caliph Sulāyman b . abd el-Malek in the early eighth century CE as the capital of Jund Filastin . Its construction was a planned enterprise that included the mosque, the palace and markets . The extensive salvage excavations that were conducted lately by the IAA at the site of Ramla (South) brought again into live the significance of that city at the time . Archaeological studies became an invaluable source of information for the early days of Ramla and provide a case study on the early Islamic urbanism . An important discovery is the clear evidence, noted here for the first time in the history of Ramla, of a powerful earthquake that affected the city during the mid-eighth century CE, dated by firm ceramic evidence . Several known seismic events, namely the 749 and 756 CE, referred to in both Christian and Islamic literary sources, can be related to the uncovered damaged remains . However, the occurrence of other tremors during the same period in the southern Levant of which no historical evidence is known, cannot be disregarded .

1. Introduction Ramla was established during the beginning of the 8th century CE by Sulaymān b . ʿAbd al-Malik, governor of Jund Filasṭīn, as the capital of the Jund (military district) during the Umayyad caliphate . The early days of the city were described in several historical sources, mostly travelers and geographers (e .g . al-Balādhurī 1866: 170; Nāser-e Khosraw 1986: 20; Al-Muqaddasī 2001: 139) . According to these sources, Sulaymān (who was later to become caliph) constructed a palace and a mosque (al-Balādhurī 1866: 170), assured the economic viability of the new city by creating industrial installations such as the House of Dyers (Dār al-Sabbaghīn) (al-Balādhurī 1866: 170), and made available a fresh water supply by means of a sophisticated aqueduct that conveyed water from the Gezer area to the city (Gorzalczany 2011; 2014a and references therein) .4

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2 3 4

The Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) personnel provided generous assistance during all stages of excavations, including surveying, mapping, photography, pottery restoration and drawings, as well as workers and area supervisors . All the finds were treated in the IAA Conservation Department laboratories . We are indebted to all . All the graphic materials in this paper are by courtesy of the IAA . The authors wish to express their gratitude to the staff of the Geological Survey of Israel who kindly provided valuable professional input during the excavations and in later conversations . We thank Moti Zohar for helpful comments in linking earthquakes to historical sources . Israel Antiquities Authority . Geological Survey of Israel . However, we stress that these sources post-date the inception of the city, thus possible anachronism must be taken into consideration . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Amir Gorzalczany – Amos Salamon

2. Historical and archaeological exploration of Ramla Archaeological research regarding various aspects of the city was systematically carried out by the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) and research institutions (for a detailed list of the archaeological excavations, mostly salvage projects until August 2013 – 208 excavations in all – see Gorzalczany 2014b: 203–209; appendixes 1–3) . Suffice it to name just a few aspects, such as history (Elad 1978; 1982; Sourdel 1981; Gat 2003; 2007; 2008), geography (Luz 1996; 1997), pottery (Cytryn-Silverman 2010), historic buildings (Petersen 1995), geophysical surveys (Petersen and Wardill 2001), minarets (Cytryn-Silverman 2008), metallurgy (Gorzalczany 2014: 97–98), jewelry (Hasson 1987: 100–105; Lester 2008), glass industry (Tal et al. 2008a; Tal et al. 2008b; Gorin-Rosen 2010), flax manufacturing (Tal and Taxel 2008a: 123– 124), chemistry and alchemy (Gorzalczany and Rosen 2010) and others . Among the pioneering archaeological excavations, noteworthy are those of Kaplan (1958), Rosen-Ayalon and Eitan (1968; 1970) and Ben-Dov (1984) . During the last decades, Ramla and its surroundings have undergone an accelerated process of development, which spurred an urgent need for salvage excavations . Among the new excavations in the city, of particular note is the IAA’s major undertaking from 2004 to 2008 south of the city, on which the present research is focused . 3. The IAA excavations in Ramla (south), 2004–2008 The site of Ramla (South) is located about half a kilometer south of the modern city of Ramla, between Road 40 (in its Ramla-Bilu junction section) and the northern fringes of Moshav Mazliah (Fig . 1) . It was discovered during development surveys prior to the construction of Highway 431 (Shmueli and Kanias 2007) and excavated thoroughly (Gorzalczany 2006; Gorzalczany 2008a; Gorzalczany 2008b; Gorzalczany 2009a; Gorzalczany 2009b; Gorzalczany and Spivak 2008; Tal and Taxel 2008b; Gorzalczany and ʿAd 2010; Gorzalczany and Marcus 2010; Gorzalczany et al. 2010, Oren et al . 2010) . The excavations, covering more than 700 squares, uncovered a large industrial zone . Among the most noteworthy discoveries are several impressive and unique effects of ground and structural damage, which may have occurred simultaneously and thus suggest that a powerful earthquake struck the site sometime during the mid-8th century CE . The indicators of a possible tremor observed in the field include perceptible cracks along installations, repair and mending of damaged installations, building stones of walls that had collapsed in a clear, ‘orderly’ pattern found in situ, new buildings that replaced damaged ones, clear fractures along building walls and prominent features that had sunk several meters into the ground, thus creating a characteristic, obvious, terraced-like fracture pattern in the soil and sand layers that surrounded them (Gorzalczany 2009b: figs . 7–10) . Due to the limited scope of the present paper, we chose to focus on the most conspicuous evidence; comprehensive research will be published elsewhere . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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4. The damage effects – did they originate in an earthquake? In Area Q the corner of a building attributed to Stratum IIIb was unearthed . One of its walls seems to have been seriously damaged – ruptured into two segments, offset slightly, each segment shifted to its right . This deformation certainly rendered the building useless . Without any perceptible chronological gap, a new building, dated to Stratum IIIa, swiftly replaced the damaged one, keeping the general layout but placed somewhat to the east of the previous structure . Such a sudden disruption in architectural continuity, along with immediate reconstruction, can be interpreted as an indicator of a major catastrophe and an urgent need to get back to normal life . However, we found no trace of a geological fault under this building and local geological maps give no indication of faults there . We related this failure to ground deformation or settlement, or even lateral movement but we could not verify whether it was due to seismic shaking rather than a poor foundation, sudden flood, or some other static failure of the soil . In Areas K-1 and J-3 we discovered several collapsed rows of dressed building stones of excellent quality . The stones uncovered had maintained the alignment in which they were originally arranged in the walls, prior to the collapse (Fig . 2), and seem to have been covered purposely by a thick layer of soil . Such an ‘orderly’ collapse is a well-known damage effect due to the impact of strong seismic shaking (e .g . Marco 2008; Wechsler et al . 2009; Rodríguez-Pascua et al. 2011) . Was this also the case here, and does the deliberate covering of the stone debris reflect an urgent reconstruction process? Further interesting indicators were observed in Area K-1 . Several neatly superimposed layers of sand and ḥamra (a brown-red sandy soil) were found in a vertical section broken abruptly by a vertical rupture (Fig . 3), in a manner that resembles a geological fault . Farther to the west, an occupation layer (a plastered floor) was discovered atop this layered sequence . The floor had collapsed and sunk some 150cm, together with some architectural items located on it (Fig . 4) . It subsequently became evident that the sand layers were actually artificial fill belonging to a foundation trench dug to set up an antilia (sāqiya)-type water well (Avitsur 1976: 60–63; Ayalon 2000) . The entire antilia installation – the pit and the lifting superstructure device together with the layers of fill and the occupation layer abutting them – also collapsed and sank several meters (Fig . 5) . Careful observation of the damage in the surrounding areas suggests that the pit constituted the central axis of the fall . The sand layers around the antilia appear broken in a stepped formation that encompassed the entire pit . Such a failure is typical of liquefaction, which is “ . . . the transformation of a granular soil from a solid state to a liquefied state as a consequence of increased pore water pressure and reduced effective stress . . .” (Youd 2003) . This is a well-known earthquake-related effect in which granular material such as friable sand that is fully saturated with shallow groundwater behaves like mud due to powerful shaking (e .g . Salamon et al. 2007, and references therein) . Liquefaction may cause considerable damage to manmade structures, mainly due to soil failure; © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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for example, heavy objects may sink into the ‘mud’ during the shaking, and light objects may float upward . The location of the antilia reveals the presence of relatively shallow groundwater in this location; the sandy ground around the shaft, both natural and artificial, would make it vulnerable to liquefaction if struck by strong motion . Unfortunately, we did not reach the very bottom of the antilia during the excavations . The area is currently dry, at least to the depth of Highway 431, which is about 10 meters below the 8th-century ground level . Moreover, intensive pumping of underground water is underway . Thus it is not possible to determine the depth of the aquifer at this time . Taken separately, the findings described above are not unequivocal; some can be explained in other ways as well, such as by poor engineering or construction, and static soil failure . Nevertheless, the effects include damage to structural elements that is associated directly with soil failure below, and all of the effects seem to have occurred simultaneously . Thus the overall pattern of damage hints at the possibility of a major quake . 5. Dating the damaging event The simultaneous appearance of the above-described occurrences was proven on ceramic typology grounds . The best example appears in Areas J2–J3, where two noticeably different assemblages were unearthed . In a location identified as a warehouse or depot, dozens of smashed storage jars were found, all of which were apparently damaged during a single event (Fig . 6) . These vessels were found related to walls attributed to Stratum IIIb (first half of the 8th century CE, Gorzalczany 2014b: 127) (Fig . 7) . The vessels were not moved during the process of reconstruction; they were merely covered by a new layer, Stratum IIIa, the stratum of rebuilding . A second assemblage (Fig . 8) that was found and related to this stage was dated to the second half of the 8th century CE (Gorzalczany 2014b: 128–130) . It includes restorable and complete storage jars associated with walls that had clearly replaced the damaged ones . Altogether, the dating based on the ceramic evidence delimited the timing of the damage to between the first and second half of the 8th century CE . Consequently, it is not possible to determine whether a single event or several discrete shocks caused the damage across Ramla . It is also not possible to more accurately pinpoint the timing of the destructive event (or events) .

6. Discussion 6 .1 Was it or was it not an earthquake? It is intuitive and tempting to select a well-known destructive earthquake as the cause of the dramatic damage that was discovered in Ramla; however, one should bear in mind that other, less exciting, anthropogenic and natural hazards may also be the cause . For © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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example, as noted, poor engineering and poor construction may weaken a structure . Torrential rain may erode the soft soil and sand around and below poor foundations . Nevertheless, the simultaneous appearance of various types of failure in different places, both of the soil and the structures on top of it, and the rush to cover up the damage in the very same place, suggests a strong earthquake as the cause . Since we found no evidence for a surface rupture of a seismogenic fault across the city we suggest relating the damage to ground shaking and dynamic soil failure . The appearance of the failure around the antilia well (which in turn reflects the presence of groundwater in there) and the collapse of the occupation floor seem very much like the result of liquefaction . We thus tend to relate the damage in Ramla (South) to a strong earthquake . 6 .2 Is it a known earthquake? The best available limits on the time period of the supposed earthquake so far are determined by the ceramic evidence, which points toward the mid-8th century CE . By definition, these findings are not as conclusive as, e .g ., the numismatic findings at Beit She’an (Tsafrir and Foerster 1992) . But fortunately, the historical record makes it possible to single out the probable earthquakes that occurred during this period . Still, the historical earthquake record cannot provide a definite determination; it contains a significant amount of dubious information and careful screening is necessary before arriving at a conclusion (e .g . Karcz and Lom 1987; Ambraseys 2005; 2009; Guidoboni and Comastri 2005) . Such systematic investigation has just been completed for Israel by Zohar et al. 2017 . It shows that Ramla was affected five times by earthquakes – in December 1033, May 1068, January–February 1293, November 1458, and July 1927 – but with no explicit mention of an 8th-century event! The incomplete nature of the historical record is understandable, given that places were not inhabited continuously, damage may have not been reported at all, or may have been reported but gotten lost or has not yet been found . However, indirect information can be assumed in cases where Ramla was not mentioned but nearby locales were reported to have been affected . Such reasoning allows us to assume that the Ramla area may have also experienced intense shaking during the events of 749 and/or 756, 1546 and 1834 CE (Zohar et al. 2017, and references therein) . The mid-8th-century CE seismic events could have damaged Ramla, as they did Pella or Jerash (Turtledove 1982; Russell 1985: 49, 260; Mango and Scott 1997; Karcz 2004: 782–783) . The more likely candidates are the familiar quake of 749 CE, which affected numerous locations (Amiran et al. 1994: 266–267; Marco et al. 2003), and the seismic event of 756 CE . These dates are based on historical sources (summary in Zohar et al . 2016), mostly Church fathers (Georgius Cedrenus 1839, II; Denys de Tell-Mahré 1895: 42; Michel le Syrien 1901: 508–510; Severus ibn al-Muqaffaʿ 1910: 139–140; Eliae Nisibeni 1954: 82; Theophanes Confessor 1997: 589) . The Islamic sources also attest to several seismic events that damaged buildings in Jerusalem between 749 and 757 . Caliph Abū Jaʿfar al-Manṣūr visited Jerusalem in AH 141 (758–759 CE) and repaired the al-Aqṣā Mosque that had been dam© 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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aged by an earthquake . His son al-Mahdī arrived in Jerusalem after al-Manṣūr died, once again found ruins due to another quake that had occurred during his father’s reign, and repaired the damage (Elad 1992: 37; 1995: 40–43; forthcoming) . Still, as noted, we cannot rule out the occurrence of other seismic events that left no sign in the historical record (Zohar et al. 2016) . 6 .3 Where was the origin of this earthquake? The prevailing concept points toward the Dead Sea Transform system as the source of most of the damaging earthquakes in Israel and, indeed, a growing body of evidence supports this notion . Nevertheless, records of modern seismicity show some moderate activity along the inner plain of Israel, such as the ML=4 .2, November 23 2007, earthquake in the Ayalon Valley, not far from Ramla (Shamir and Amit 2009) . Unfortunately, the available archaeological information, especially the uncertainty of the dating (i .e ., dating that could associate the damage with a known event), does not permit us to determine the origin of a given earthquake, leaving this question open . Our interest in solving this puzzle is clear; powerful earthquakes originating along the inner plain of Israel may have a severe effect not only in Ramla but also on the greater urban area of central Israel . 7. Conclusions The overall nature of the archaeological evidence, structural damage as well as ground failure found in Ramla suggest for the first time that a powerful earthquake hit the city during the mid-8th century CE . The ceramic and textual findings are not detailed enough to delimit the chronological window of the seismic event; thus the wellknown 749 CE quake or even the smaller 756 CE event are both suitable candidates . However, other events that occurred during the same period in the Southern Levant of which no historical evidence is known cannot be excluded . Further research is needed to better restrict the exact dating of the earthquake in question, and it is hoped that this study will encourage future archaeologists to increase awareness of earthquake-damage indicators in archaeological excavations in Ramla and elsewhere . Bibliography al-Balādhurī Ahmad b . Yahiyā b . Jābir 1866 Futūḥ al-Buldān (Book of the Conquests of the Lands) . Leiden 1866 . al-Muqaddasī Shams al-Dīn Muḥammad b . Ahmad 2001 Aḥsan al-Taqāsīm fī Maʿrifat al-Aqālīm . Leiden 1906 . (The Best Divisions for Knowledge of the Regions) (trans . B . Collins and M . H . Alta‘i) . London . Denys de Tell-Mahré 1895 Chronique de Denys de Tell-Mahré. Quatrième Partie (publiée et traduite par J . B . Cabot) . Paris . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Eliae Nisibeni 1954 Eliae Metropolitae Nisibeni – Opus Chronologicum I. CSC Orientalium 62 – Scriptores Syri 21. Tomus 23 (Interpretatus est E.W. Brooks). Louvain . Georgius Cedrenus 1839 Compendium historiarum a mundo condito usque as Isaacium comnenum imperatorem . In: I . Bekker (ed .), Corpus Scriptorum Historiae Byzantinae II . Bonn . Michel le Syrien 1901 Chronique de Michael le Syrien; Patriarche Jacobite d’Antioche (1169–1199), Volume 2 (Livre XI, Chap . XXII) . (trans . J . B . Chabot) . Brussels . Nāser-e Khosraw 1896 Nāser-e Khosraw‘s Book of Travels (Safarnāma). Persian Heritage Series 36 (trans . W . M . Thackston Jr .) . New York . Severus ibn al-Muqaffā 1910 History of the patriarchs of the Coptic church of Alexandria III, Agathon to Michael I (766) . In: R . Graffin and F . Nau (eds .), Patrologia Orientalis 5 (trans . B . Evetts) . Paris . Theophanes Confessor 1997 The Chronicle of Theophanes Confessor – Byzantine and Near Eastern History AD 284–813 (trans . and ed . C . A . Mango and R . Scott) . Oxford . Ambraseys, N . N . 2005 Historical earthquakes in Jerusalem – a methodological discussion . Journal of Seismology 9, 329–340 . 2009

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forthcoming Al-Masjid al-Aqsā during the Umawī period: seven mihrābs with seven domes . Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam . Gat, S . 2003 The City of Ramla in the Middle Ages . Unpublished PhD thesis, Bar Ilan University, Ramat Gan [in Hebrew with English summary] . 2007

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The forgotten destruction of early Ramla . Qadmoniot 41/135, 64–69 [in Hebrew] .

Gorin-Rosen, Y . 2010 The Islamic glass vessels . In: O . Gutfeld . Ramla: Final Report of the Excavations North of the White Mosque. Qedem 51 . Jerusalem, 213–264 . Gorzalczany, A . 2006 Ramla South . Hadashot Arkheologiot. Excavations and Surveys in Israel 118, . (last access 20 .01 .09) . 2008a Ramla South . Hadashot Arkheologiot. Excavations and Surveys in Israel 120 . (last access 20 .01 .09) . 2008b Excavations in a residential and industrial zone of the early Islamic period at Mazliah . Qadmoniot 41/135, 30–35 [in Hebrew] . 2009a Ramla (South) . Hadashot Arkheologiot Excavations and Surveys in Israel 121 . (last access 08 .05 .16) . 2009b Ramla (South) . Hadashot Arkheologiot Excavations and Surveys in Israel 121 . (last access 08 .05 .16) . 2011

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2014a A section of the Gezer-Ramla aqueduct (Qanat Bint al-Kafir) and a Mamluk-Period cemetery near Moshav Yashresh . ‚Atiqot 79, 213–230 . 2014b Industry and Urban Planning in the City of Ramla and the Surroundings: Economy and Technology in Palestine during the Early Islamic Period (ca 634–1099 CE). Unpublished PhD thesis, Tel Aviv University [in Hebrew with English summary] . Gorzalczany A . and ʿAd, U . 2010 Ramla (South) . Hadashot Arkheologiot- Excavations and Surveys in Israel 122 . (last access 05 .05 .16) . Gorzalczany, A and Marcus, J . 2010 Ramla (South) . Hadashot Arkheologiot- Excavations and Surveys in Israel 122 . (last access 05 .05 .16) . Gorzalczany, A . and Rosen, B . 2010 A Possible Alchemist Apparatus from the Early Islamic Period Excavated at Ramla, Israel . Antiguo Oriente 8, 161–182 [with Spanish summary] . Gorzalczany, A . and Spivak, P . 2008 Ramla South . Hadashot Arkheologiot- Excavations and Surveys in Israel 120 . (last access 20 .01 .09) . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Gorzalczany, A ., Yehuda, L . and Torgë, H . 2010 . Ramla (South) . HA-ESI 122, 15/05/10 . http://www .hadashot-esi .org .il/report_detail_eng . aspx?id=1398&mag_id=117> (last access 05 .05 .16) . Guidoboni, E . and Comastri, A . 2005 Catalogue of Earthquakes and Tsunamis in the Mediterranean Area from the 11th to the 15th Century. Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia – Storia Geofisica Ambiente, Bologna . Hasson, R . 1987 Early Islamic Jewelry . Jerusalem . Kaplan, J . 1958 Excavations in the White Mosque in Ramla . ʽAtiqot 2, 96–103 [in Hebrew] . Karcz, I . 2004 Implications of some early Jewish sources for estimates of earthquake hazards in the Holy Land . Annals of Geophysics 47/2–3, 759–792 . Karcz, I . and Lom, P . 1987 Bibliographic Reliability of Catalogues of Historic Earthquakes in and around Israel: Methodology and Background. Geological Survey of Israel, Report GSI/9/87, Jerusalem . Lester, A . 2008 Fatimid period jewelry hoard from the excavations at Mazliah . Qadmoniot 41/135, 35–39 [in Hebrew] . Luz, N . 1996 Umayyad Ramleh: urban renewal in Palestine, geo-historical aspects . Cathedra 79, 22–52 [in Hebrew] . 1997

The construction of an Islamic city in Palestine; The case of Umayyad al-Ramla . Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 71, 27–55 .

Mango, C . A . and Scott, R . 1997 The Chronicle of Theophanes Confessor – Byzantine and Near Eastern History AD 284–813 . Oxford . Marco, S . 2008 Recognition of earthquake-related damage in archaeological sites: examples from the Dead Sea fault zone . Teconophysics 453, 148–156 . Marco, S ., Hartal, M ., Hazan, N ., Lev, L . and Stein, M . 2003 Archaeology, history, and geology of the AD 749 earthquake, Dead Sea transform . Geology 31/8, 665–668 . Oren, E ., Gorzalczany, A . and ʿAd, U . 2012 Ramla (South) . Hadashot Arkheologiot. Excavations and Surveys in Israel 124 . (last access 05 .05 .2016) . Petersen, A . D . 1995 Preliminary report on an architectural survey of historic buildings in Ramla . Levant 27, 75–103 . Petersen, A . and Wardill, R . 2001 Interim report on a geophysical and surface survey of Ramla . Levant 33, 1–6 . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Rodríguez-Pascua, M . A ., Pérez-López, R ., Giner-Robles, J . L ., Silva, P . G ., Garduño-Monroy, V . H . and Reicherter, K . 2011 A comprehensive classification of Earthquake Archaeological Effects (EAE) in archaeoseismology: Application to ancient remains of Roman and Mesoamerican cultures . Quaternary International 242/2011, 20–30 . Rosen-Ayalon, M . and Eitan, A . 1968 Excavations in Ramla . Qadmoniot 1/4, 138–140 [in Hebrew] . 1970 Excavations in Ramla, Finds from the 8th Century CE . Jerusalem [in Hebrew] . Russell, K . W . 1985 The earthquake chronology of Palestine and northwest Arabia from the 2nd through the mid-8th century AD . Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 260, 37–59 . Salamon, A ., Zviely, D . and Na’aman, I . 2007 Zones of required investigation for liquefaction hazard in the Western Zevulun plain, Israel . Israel Journal of Earth-Sciences 55, 141–157 . Shamir, G . and Amit, R . 2009 The Inner Plain Earthquake of 23.11.07: Identifying the Seismic Source. Geological Survey of Israel, Report GSI/14/2009 . Shmueli, O . and Kanias, T . 2007 Ramla, Survey in the Region . Hadashot Arkheologiot. Excavations and Surveys in Israel 119 . (last access 20 .01 .2009) . Sourdel, D . 1981 La fondation Ummayade d’Al-Ramla en Palestine . In: H . R . Roemer und A . Noth (eds .), Studien zur Geschichte und Kultur des Vorderen Orients: Festschrift für Bertold Spuler zum siebzigsten Geburtstag . Leiden, 387–395 . Tal, O ., Jackson-Tal, R .E . and Freestone, I . C . 2008a Glass from a Late Byzantine secondary workshop at Ramla (South), Israel . Journal of Glass Studies 50, 81–95 . 2008b A secondary glass workshop . In: O . Tal and I . Taxel, Ramla (South), an Early Islamic Industrial Site and Remains of Previous Periods . Salvage Excavation Reports 5 . Tel Aviv, 66–76 . Tal, O . and Taxel, I . 2008a An early Islamic period flax processing installation . Qadmoniot 41/135, 39–44 [in Hebrew] . 2008b Ramla (South), an Early Islamic Industrial Site and Remains of Previous Periods . Salvage Excavation Reports 5 . Tel Aviv . Tsafrir, Y . and Foerster, G . 1992 The dating of the ‘earthquake of the Sabbatical year’ of 749 CE in Palestine . Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 55/2, 231–235 . Turtledove, H . 1982 The Chronicle of Theophanes . Philadelphia . Youd, T . L . 2003 Liquefaction mechanisms and induced ground failure . In: W . H . K . Lee, H . Kanamori, P . C . Jennings, C . J . Kisslinger (eds .), International Handbook of Earthquake and Engineering Seismology, Part B. Amsterdam, 1159–1173 . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Wechsler, N ., Katz, O ., Dray, Y ., Gonen, I . and Marco, S . 2009 Estimating location and size of historical earthquake by combining archaeology and geology in Umm-El-Qanatir, Dead Sea transform . Natural Hazards 50, 27–43 . Zohar, M ., Salamon, A . and Rubin, R . 2016 Reappraised list of historical earthquakes in Israel and its close surroundings . Journal of Seismology . doi: 10 .1007/s10950-016-9575-7 . 2017

Earthquake damage history in Israel and its close surrounding - evaluation of spatial and temporal patterns . Tectonophysics 696–697, 1–13 . (last access 30 .12 .2017) .

Fig . 1 Location map of the site Ramla (South)

Fig . 2 Dressed stones uncovered in Area K1, which collapsed keeping the alignment in which they were originally arranged in the wall © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Fig . 3 Vertical section displaying superimposed layers of sand and hamra, abruptly broken by a vertical rupture

Fig . 4 Occupational layer with architectural items atop it that sank some 150cm © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Fig . 5 Antilia well, including the pit and remains of the lifting superstructure (on the right side) that sank several meters as a whole, thus creating a configuration of layers of stepped sand and hamra . The sudden soil failure was most probably caused by the phenomenon known as liquefaction

Fig . 6 Warehouse in Area J1-3, with dozens of smashed jars attributed to Stratum IIIb © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Fig . 7 Some of the jars found in Stratum IIIb and dated to the first half of the 8th century CE . These are the vessels that were found smashed and thus represent the damage caused by the earthquake

Fig . 8 Part of the assemblage retrieved in Stratum IIIa, attributed to the second half of the 8th century CE . These vessels were found intact and thus reflect the reconstruction phase © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

Resafa – Ruṣāfat Hishām, Syria

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Resafa – Ruṣāfat Hishām, Syria: New Insights Regarding the Caliphal Residence of Hishām b. ʿAbd al-Malik and Ghassanid Sedentarization Martin Gussone 1 Abstract It is scholarly consensus that the Marwanid Caliph Hishām b . ʿAbd al-Malik chose the ancient pilgrimage city Resafa-Sergiupolis as his residence and built several palaces there . Based on reports in Arabic written sources, archaeological evidence and surveys, various theories have been developed since the 1950s on this issue . Interdisciplinary research of the past decade provided new results, which made it necessary to develop a new concept regarding the layout of the settlement and the caliphal residence . These results indicate that the archaeological remains in the surroundings of Resafa belong not only to the Umayyad caliphal residence, but also to a multi-period settlement dating from the first half of the 6th century and lasting until the last third of the 13th century at least . By analyzing the results of various archaeological prospection methods (e .g . aerial photographs, satellite images, magnetic prospecting), a more accurate picture of the settlement that existed in the surrounding areas of Resafa during different time layers can now be drawn . The present paper presents a first summary of the combined interpretation of the results of several prospections undertaken in the surroundings of Resafa . The results are leading to a new concept of stratigraphic layers of the settlement remains, a new urbanistic concept of the caliphal residence and a new proposal for the location of the main palace of Hishām b . ʿAbd al-Malik in the surroundings of Resafa . Additionally the paper offers the proposal to identify the pre-Marwanid building structures south of the city as traces of the sedentarization process of the Ghassanids and their elites .

1. Location and historical overview Resafa lies 25km south of the Euphrates and 50km west of al-Raqqa in the semi-arid desert steppe . There are no perennial fresh water sources, but only wells with brackish water . The supply of drinking water is provided by the collection and storage of seasonal rainwater run off (Beckers and Schütt 2013; Sack et al. 2014) . The settlement was founded as a Roman military post in the middle of the 1st century CE (Konrad 2001) . Due to the veneration of the Christian martyr S . Sergius, a pilgrimage site evolved (Fowden 1999) . The settlement was developed with the support of the Byzantine emperors in the 5th and 6th centuries CE into a fortified pilgrimage city of international renown (Brands 2002: 212–235; Gussone and Sack 2017: 121–132), but the saint was especially venerated by the Arab tribes of the surrounding region (Fowden 2002) . Thus the city served as an important religious center, but also as a fortress to guard the

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Technische Universität Berlin, FG Historische Bauforschung und Baudenkmalpflege © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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border against the Sasanian Empire (Greatrex and Lieu 2002; Hof 2016) . The political as well as religious potential of the site may have been the reason for the Marwanid Caliph Hishām b . ʿAbd al-Malik (r . 724–743 CE) to establish his residence in Resafa and to expand the city with a large settlement in its surroundings (Sack 1996: 155–160; Sack et al. 2004) . Despite a decrease in importance and a reduction of the settled area after the end of Umayyad rule, the city and its surroundings were inhabited until the last third of the 13th century and its abandonment by the Mamluks after the repulsion of the Mongol Invasion (Ilisch 1996) . 2. Methodology The results presented here were generated working with the Resafa-Projects, led and supervised by D . Sack . I am obliged to the results of the other work groups and colleagues within this project, especially to D . Sack, M . Müller-Wiener, H . Becker, M . Stephani, G . Hell, U . Siegel, and Ch . Konrad . The main sources are the data of magnetic prospections (Caesium-Magnetometry, H . Becker et al.) in combination with digital terrain models as well as historical and modern aerial photos and satellite images (M . Stephani, G . Hell et al., ICONOS satellite image courtesy B . Beckers/TOPOI, s . Sack et al. 2004; cf . details in short reports, in: Sack and Gussone 2015) . The fundamental reference system derives from the first survey (Survey I) undertaken in 1977 by M . Mackensen, during which 310 find sites (Fundplätze/FP) were recorded by H . Tremel (unpublished, cf . Mackensen 1984) (cf . Fig . 1) . A second survey (Survey II) by D . Sack continued fieldwork in the southern surroundings since 1983 with a more detailed documentation of selected find sites (Sack 1996, Sack et al. 2004) . The interpretation of the magnetic prospection is supplemented by surface features (Siegel 2015) and the results of a third survey (Survey III), conducted in collaboration with M . Müller-Wiener (Gussone and Müller-Wiener 2012) . All known prospection data regarding the surroundings of Resafa were combined in a structured CAD-system, several overlays generated and the diverse results compared with each other (regarding the methodology, s . more extensive: Gussone 2016b) . 3. Previous concepts of the caliphal residence The settlement in Resafa during the first half of the 8th century consisted of the walled pilgrimage city and the settlement in the surroundings of Resafa . The pilgrimage city was inhabited by a still Christian population, the pilgrimage to S . Sergius continued and at least three churches were still in use (Basilica A and C, and probably the ‘Notkirche’ in the Tetraconch Church (cf . Sack et al. 2014) . The © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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cisterns and the city wall were repaired; new structures included Hishāms‘s Great Mosque and several suqs as well as the extensive enlargement of the settlement extra muros with the palaces of Caliph Hishām b . ʿAbd al-Malik and his court (Sack et al. 2004) . Previously two concepts for the caliphal residence extra muros were formulated: The caliphal residence of Resafa was first described as consisting of two main palaces with several adjoining buildings by K . Otto-Dorn in the 1950s based on historical sources and archeological soundings (Otto-Dorn 1957) . Then the concept of the caliphal residence with six palace complexes mainly situated to the south of the walled city, each comprising a main palace and several outbuildings, was developed by D . Sack, based on her fieldwork since the 1980s . It was assumed that the settlement extra muros was more or less single phase Umayyad and then abandoned at the turn of the 8th to the 9th century (Sack 1996; Sack et al. 2004) . 4. Results of the combined interpretation of prospection data – multi-period stratigraphies The results of Survey III revealed – in contrast to earlier assumptions – that the traces of the Marwanid phase were found not only south of the walled city, but also throughout the whole area with traces of settlement. This area stretches from ca . 1 km north of the city, 1km east and 2km south of the city, altogether covering some 9km² (cf . Gussone 2016a: 130) . Moreover, this survey confirmed the existence of an earlier settlement phase at the western edge, south of the walled city (larger than already described by Mackensen 1984), and proved for the first time the continuation of settlement until at least the 12th/13th centuries – especially in the area to the east and northeast of the city (Gussone and Müller-Wiener 2012) . Corresponding with this, the combined interpretation of prospection data by the author suggested a dense occupation record with overlapping layers of building structures in the eastern area of the southern surroundings . That is to say, that the examined area comprised multi-period find sites dating to at least until the 12th/13th centuries and not just the 8th century Umayyad single-phase outbuildings as previously assumed (Gussone 2014) . According to these findings the concepts regarding the settlement extra muros and the caliphal residence were reconsidered (Gussone 2016a) . 5. New insights provided by recent research – settlement development and the center of the caliphal residence The results of the combined interpretation of all available prospection data have lead to new insights regarding the historic building structures and the course of historic roads, the existence of multi-phase building structures also at the western edge of the southern surroundings as well as a revised model of the structure of the caliphal residence . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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5 .1 New findings regarding historic settlement-structures and roads The interpretation of historical aerial images revealed as yet unknown settlementstructures to the south of the southwest corner of the city wall as well as to the west of the city which are obscured today by modern land use . This finding has to be verified by further prospections in the future, but it is obvious that this area was settled more densely than previously known . Another result of the interpretation of the aerial images and satellite data is the mapping of hollow ways in the wider surroundings of Resafa, indicating historic routes connecting Resafa with its wider surroundings . Then, the course of the former Roman military road to the south of the city was identified and earlier assumptions corrected (Fig . 2) . Also the modern transformation of the historical topography due to the increasing population in the Euphrates Valley, transport infrastructure and agricultural land use, which can be traced through sequences of historical imagery of different dating, is an important result of research (more extensive, s . Gussone 2016b) . 5 .2 Settlement development The magnetic representation of archaeological structures (as anomalies) shows significant differences, depending on ground conditions and building materials . At some rare find sites it is possible to identify whole floor plans (FP 102/105); other find sites are severely disturbed or there is only a palimpsest of various building phases to be seen (FP 136, FP 185) . After all, at most find sites it was possible – through the superposition and comparison of the diverse prospection results – to detect at least the contours of principal building structures and courtyards . Thus it was possible to achieve a more accurate representation of the settlement traces extra muros (Fig . 3a, b) . The initial definition of find sites (Survey I) generally follows the ridges and ‘hilltops’ of the buried archaeological remains, which differ considerably from the actual extent of the buildings . Also the orientation of their real footprint shows a significant deviation from the first find site characterization, due to varying microclimate effects at the different compass directions causing asymmetrical erosion processes of the ruins . Thus it can be stated, as one further result of research, that the extent of the building structures is larger than their characterization in the previous find site plans, which means also that the different buildings in the central area were significantly closer to each other and that the settlement in this area was denser than previously depicted . Another result pertains to the analysis of overlapping building structures . The comparison with the documentation of surface features and oblique aerial photos was essential to identify in some cases the sequence of these settlement layers and building phases (cf . Gussone 2016a: fig . 5) . In addition, this analysis produced new insights into the relation of earlier building structures and the Marwanid settlement phase . At the western edge and at the eastern fringe of the southern surroundings, overlapping settlement layers are clearly visible . In the central area there may be some additions to building structures, but there is a far lesser extent of alterations and overlapping structures (Fig . 3a) . In accordance with the results of Survey III, there are settlement structures dating to the © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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first half of the 8th century in the whole area as well as structures of earlier date to the west of later date to the east and northeast (s . Gussone and Müller-Wiener 2012) . This means that the central area south of the city displays the original, more or less unaltered layout of the Marwanid settlement structure . At the western edge, earlier building structures exist beneath the 8th century phase; at the eastern fringe this phase is buried by later structures . Therefore it is not possible to reconstruct the layout of the Marwanid settlement as a whole due to the massive changes in both areas . As regards the eastern fringe, we may expect that the settlement should have consisted – as in the central area south of the city – mainly of the type of more or less square structures with representative features . This building-type is considered as typical of the Marwanid palatial architecture of the so-called ‘desert castles’ or ‘quṣūr’ as there are similar, unaltered structures found nearby (cf . Gussone 2016; recent overview of the ‘desert castles’/’quṣūr’: cf . Genequand 2012, cf . Konrad, Ch . 2016; regarding the variability of this typology s . Siegel 2015) . At the western edge, the situation is different due to the terrain . Moreover, the building structures here appear to have been larger and also – eventually according to their size and position at the edge to the main wādī – more representative (FP 136, FP 143, FP 145, as well as FP 220 to the south) . 5 .3 Structure and orientation of buildings The core area of the settlement extra muros lay to the south of the walled city at the edge of the wādī, as previously assumed, but the other parts of the surroundings – to the north, the far south and the fringes to the east – were also settled with different degrees of density . In the core area the average size of the buildings is larger and the average density higher than in the marginal areas . This indicates that the important buildings of the caliphal residence were situated in the central area, albeit some denser building clusters or buildings of roughly the same size as in the center (at FP 220) and, partly, also with representative features existed in the peripheral areas (FP 124, FP 199; FP 263) . The combination of settlement structures and contour lines shows the importance of the terrain for the arrangement of the buildings and their relation to the landscape . The positioning of buildings on slight elevations at the edge to the wādī or along the roads seems to also serve the purpose of visibility . The facades are decorated with towers, their entrances are facing roads or open spaces presumably not only for functional, but also representative reasons . The builders made use of the advantages of the natural setting for the orientation and prominent appearance of their architecture (Fig . 4a) . 5 .4 Center of the caliphal residence Finally, the interpretation of all prospection results indicates the probable location of the center of the caliphal residence and the main palace of Hishām . The plan of the settlement traces reveals that the area with the highest density of buildings is to be found at the southwestern spur to the south of the walled city, where the main © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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wādī forms a bay . The spur is occupied by FP 145 – by far the largest structure in the surroundings of Resafa – which dominates the adjoining buildings (Fig . 4b) . The building at FP 145 measures at its north and east sides about 125m, the front to the south is shorter due to the terrain, thus forming an irregular polygon or a square with tapered southwest corner . The interpretation of the magnetic prospection is obscured due to the building materials, which consist of ashlars of gypsum stone similar to the subsoil in this area and baked bricks . After all, in accordance with the terrain and the results of previous prospections, several sequences of courtyards can be identified . The use of ashlars, roof tiles and baked bricks instead of mud bricks, which are usually used for the buildings of the settlement extra muros, as well as its extraordinary size, indicate a building of special relevance . Pieces of glass mosaic, stone cubes for flooring and stucco decorations found nearby also indicate an elaborate interior decoration of this spacious building complex (Gussone and Müller-Wiener: survey 2009; Konrad, Ch .: excavation 2009, publication of both in preparation) . Furthermore, a walled garden with a richly decorated pavilion is situated to the west of this site which was interpreted by its excavator T . Ulbert as having been commissioned by at least a high-ranking patron, if not by Hishām himself (Ulbert 1993) . Summarizing, I would argue that the complex at FP 145 was – with high probability – the main palace of the caliphal residence of Hishām b . ʿAbd al-Malik . Furthermore, it seems very likely that the Marwanid settlement in the surroundings of Resafa with its distinct variety of building size, architectonic features and materiality as well as a graded prominence of building sites or distance to the center of settlement reflects the hierarchy of Hishām‘s family, court, and its serving entities . The comparison of the structures of the settlement and caliphal residence with socio-anthropological aspects will be discussed as a next step in relation to the findings of M . Müller-Wiener regarding the structure and personnel of the caliphal court in Resafa during the reign of Hishām b . ʿAbd al-Malik (first results: Müller-Wiener 2016; Müller-Wiener in press) . 6. Umayyad predecessors – Resafa’s contribution to Ghassanid sedentarization Animportantquestionisbroughtupbytheexistenceofpre-Marwanidbuildingstructures at the edge of the wādī, as was already assumed by C . Konrad during the excavation of FP 143 in 2006 and discussed controversial then (FP 143 cf . Sack et al. 2013, 96–97) . However, a topic that has not been considered properly as yet is the relevance of the Ghassanid/Jafnid presence at Resafa for the settlement to the south of the walled city . Towards the end of the 5th century the Arab confederation of the Ghassanids immigrated to Syria . Emperor Anastasius made a contract with their elite, the Jafnids (cf . Fisher 2011), in 502, to bind them as foederati with an important role in border defense (Shahīd 1995: 3−12; cf . Whittow 1999; Liebeschuetz 2015) . At this time, they had probably already become Christian and Saint Sergios of Resafa is said to have been one of their most important saints (Shahīd 1995: 694; Fowden 1999: 141–149; © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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c .f . Fisher 2011: 56–64) . The Ghassanids/Jafnids have probably taken responsibility for the defense of the border in the area of Resafa from about 529 (Konrad 2001: 113) . The Ghassanid capital is said to have been at Jābiya in the Golan (Shahīd 2002: 95–105), but their sphere of influence and the area in which built structures associated with Jafnid patronage are located, stretched from there to Resafa and the Euphrates (Gatier 2015: fig . 1) . Their presence at Resafa had been discussed above all in regard to the so-called al-Mundhīr-building, based on its building inscription (current state of research and discussion, s . Ulbert and Konrad 2016) . Thus Resafa is considered as one of the main centers of the Ghassanids, namely the sub-tribe of the al-Bahrāʾ, but also as the ‘headquarter of command’ for the Phylarch responsible for border defense (Shahīd 2002: 42–51, 116–121; cf . Ulbert and Konrad 2016: 65) . The close relation between the Christianization of the Ghassanids/Jafnids and their sedentarization, which was argued by I . Shahīd, is an important issue regarding 6th century settlement processes in the frontier zone (Shahīd 1995: 694–715; Shahīd 2002: 1–20) . Shahīd’s argument was objected to on several occasions; now it is assumed that the Ghassanids had a semi-nomadic lifestyle (Fisher 2011: 34−49, 108−116) . The challenge for research is to correlate buildings of Ghassanid/Jafnid origin known from the sources with archaeologically verified structures (cf . Bloch 2011: 138–141) . In the case of Resafa, it is usually assumed that the site served as a gathering place, where the confederation of the Ghassanids met seasonally, camping temporarily in the surroundings of Resafa . There is still a controversial discussion regarding the function of the al-Mundhīrbuilding; it may have served either as a church and/or an audience hall (Fowden 1999: 149–173; see also the differing interpretations and arguments of G . Brands, as a church, and of M . Konrad, as praetorium/audience hall, in Ulbert and Konrad, 2016) . In this context, it is to be noticed that a significant number of find sites with finds dating to c . 2nd half of the 6th century were found at the edge to the wādī, south of the city (Mackensen 1984: 1, fig . 2 . 37–89; cf . Gussone and Müller-Wiener 2012) . Furthermore, this is also the area where the interpretation of prospection data indicates the existence of larger building structures, existing before the Marwanid settlement phase . M . Konrad argued convincingly for the influence of Arabian palatial architecture as the role model for Jafnid buildings, exemplarily referring to Tulūl al-Ukhaidhir (Ulbert and Konrad 2016: 67) . Less convincing is the identification of the phylarch’s audience hall with the isolated structure of the al-Mundhīr-building, located in a necropolis close to the assumed place of martyrdom of S . Sergius, as the architectonic/urbanistic situations are quite different . In Tulūl al-Ukhaidir, dating to the 6th century, the audiencehall is part of a large complex (measuring c . 150 × 200m), adjacent to other building structures (Finster and Schmidt 2005; cf . Finster and Schmidt 1976: 57–82) . It seems to be more plausible to expect the audience hall of the phylarch within a larger palatial structure, most likely located at the western edge of the southern surroundings, if not directly beneath Hishām’s later main palace at FP 145 . Thus it seems plausible to consider the clear traces of settlement extra muros dating to c . 2nd half of the 6th century as Resafa’s contribution to the Arab sedentariza© 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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tion process in the 6th century . Furthermore the takeover of former Ghassanid building structures at Resafa by Caliph Hishām would fit perfectly with the continuous use of other Ghassanid sites by the Umayyads – for example, Jābiya, Jabal Sais and Qaṣr al-Ḥair al-Gharbī . 7. Outlook This is only a small segment of the results of the interpretation of prospection data in the surroundings of Resafa . Other questions as to the architectonic/urbanistic relation of Hishām’s caliphal residence at Resafa to other Early Islamic sites or the detailed explanation of the interpretation of the prospection data of individual find sites will be presented within the final publication in the Resafa-Series of the German Archaeological Institute . Bibliography Beckers, B . and Schütt, B . 2013 The elaborate floodwater harvesting system of ancient Resafa in Syria – construction and reliability . Journal of Arid Environments 96, 31–47 . Bloch, F . 2011 Das umayyadische ‚Wüstenschloss‘ und die Siedlung am Ǧabal Says 2, Keramik und Kleinfunde . Damaszener Forschungen 14 . Mainz . Brands, G . 2002 Die Bauornamentik von Resafa-Sergiupolis: Studien zur spätantiken Architektur und Bauausstattung in Syrien und Nordmesopotamien . Resafa 6 . Mainz . Finster, B . and Schmidt, J . 1976 Sasanidische und frühislamische Ruinen im Iraq. Baghdader Mitteilungen 8 . 2005

The origin of ‘desert castles’: Qasr Bani Muqatil, near Karbala, Iraq . Antiquity 79, 339–349 .

Fisher, G . 2011 Between Empires. Arabs, Romans, and Sasanians in Late Antiquity, Oxford . Fowden, K . E . 1999 The Barbarian Plain, Saint Sergius Between Rome and Iran . Berkeley . 2002

Sharing holy places, Common Knowledge 8 .1, 124–146 .

Gatier, P .-L . 2015 Les Jafnides dans l’épigraphie greque au VIè siècle . In: D . Genequand and Ch . J . Robin (eds .), Les Jafnides. des rois arabes au service de Byzance (VIè siècle de l‘ère chrétienne) . Actes du colloque de Paris, 24–25 novembre 2008. Paris, 193–222 . Genequand, D . 2012 Les établissements des élites omeyyades en Palmyrène et au Proche-Orient. Bibliothèque archéologique et historique 200 . Beyrouth . Greatrex, G . and Lieu, S . N . C . 2002 The Roman Eastern Frontier and the Persian Wars II: 363–630. A Narrative Sourcebook, London . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Gussone, M . 2014 Resafa-Rusafat Hisham . Von der Kalifenresidenz zum Standort handwerklicher Produktion – Kontinuität und Wandel einer islamischen Siedlung vom 8 . bis 13 . Jh . In: Koldewey-Gesellschaft (ed .), Bericht über die 47. Tagung für Ausgrabungswissenschaft und Bauforschung, 16. bis 20. Mai 2012 in Trier . Dresden, 175–186 . 2016a Resafa – Ruṣāfat Hišām, Siedlung und Residenz . Ergebnisse zur relativen Chronologie der Siedlungsreste und ihre Auswirkung auf die Interpretation der Kalifenresidenz . In: D . Sack, D . Spiegel and M . Gussone (eds .) 2016, 125–138 . 2016b Zur Methodik der Interpretation ‚multidisziplinärer Prospektionsergebnisse‘ in Resafa, Syrien . In: U . Lieberwirth and I . Herzog (eds .), Computeranwendungen und Quantitative Methoden in der Archäologie – 4. Workshop der AG CAA 2013 . Berlin Studies of the Ancient World 34 . Berlin, 127–156 . Gussone, M . and Müller-Wiener, M . 2012 Resafa-Rusafat Hisham, Syria . ‘long-term survival’ of an Umayyad residence – First results of the extended surface survey . In: R . Matthews and J . Curtis (eds .), Proceedings of the 7th International Congress of the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East, 12.–16. April 2010 in London. Volume 2. Wiesbaden, 569–584 . Gussone, M . and Sack, D . 2017 Resafa / Syrien . Städtebauliche Entwicklung zwischen Kultort und Herrschaftssitz . In: E . Rizos (ed .), New Cities in Late Antiquity: Documents and Archaeology. Bibliothèque de l‘Antiquité Tardive 35 . Turnhout, 117–135 . Hof, C . 2016 The late Roman city wall of Resafa/Sergiupolis (Syria) . Its evolution and functional transition from representative over protective to concealing . In: R . Frederiksen, S . Müth and P . Schneider (eds .), Focus on Fortification. New Research on Fortification in the Ancient Mediterranean and the Near East . Monographs of the Danish Institute at Athens 18, Oxford, 397–412 . Ilisch, L . 1996 Die islamischen Fundmünzen . In: D . Sack, Die Große Moschee von Resafa – Rusāfat Hišām. Resafa 4 . Mainz, 111–132 . Konrad, C . 2016 Resafa-Sergiupolis/Ruṣāfat Hišām . Die Paläste von ar-Ruṣāfa . Ergebnisse der Untersuchung von zwei frühislamischen Großbauten der Siedlung extra muros . In: D . Sack, D . Spiegel and M . Gussone 2016, 139–151 . Konrad, M . 2001 Der spätrömische Limes in Syrien: Archäologische Untersuchungen an den Grenzkastellen von Sura, Tetrapyrgium, Cholle und in Resafa . Resafa 5 . Mainz . Liebeschuetz, W . 2015 Arab tribesmen and desert frontiers in late Antiquity, Journal of Late Antiquity 8/1, 62–96 . Mackensen, M . 1984 Eine befestigte spätantike Anlage vor den Stadtmauern von Resafa. Ausgrabungen und spätantike Kleinfunde eines Surveys im Umland von Resafa-Sergiupolis. Resafa 1 . Mainz . Müller-Wiener, M . 2016 Zeremoniell und gebauter Raum in der frühislamischen Palastarchitektur . In: D . Sack, D . Spiegel and M . Gussone (eds .) 2016, 51–63 . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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in press Der Palast als ‚Soziotop‘ – Funktionen und Funktionsträger in frühislamischen Residenzen . Zwischen archäologischem Befund und Textquellen . Keynote at the conference of D . Wicke . Der Palast im antiken und islamischen Orient. 30. März bis 1. April 2016 in Frankfurt am Main. Otto-Dorn, O . 1957 Grabung im umayyadischen Rusafa . Ars Orientalis 2, 199–234 . Sack, D . 1996 Die Große Moschee von Resafa – Rusāfat Hišām. Resafa 4. Mainz . Sack, D ., Becker, H ., Stephani, M . and Chouker, F . 2004 Resafa-Umland, Archäologische Geländebegehungen, geophysikalische Untersuchungen und digitale Geländemodelle zur Prospektion in Resafa – Rusafat Hisham . Bericht über die Kampagnen 1997–2001 . Damaszener Mitteilungen 14, 207–232 . Sack, D . and Gussone, M . (eds .) 2015 Resafa-Sergiupolis/Rusafat Hisham, Syrien – Pilgerstadt und Kalifenresidenz. Die Kurzberichte des Resafa-Projekts aus den Jahrbüchern des MSD 2004–2014. Sonderdruck in thematischer Anordnung. Berlin . Sack, D ., Gussone, M . and Kurapkat, D . 2014 A vivid city in the ‘Syrian desert’ – The case of Resafa-Sergiupolis / Rusafat Hisham . In: D . Morandi Bonacossi (ed .), Settlement Dynamics and Human-Landscape Interaction in the Steppes and Deserts of Syria . Studia Chaburensia 4 . Wiesbaden, 257–274 . Sack, D ., Gussone, M . and Mollenhauer, A . (eds .) 2013 Resafa-Sergiupolis/Rusafat Hisham. Forschungen 1975–2007. Berlin . D . Sack, D . Spiegel and M . Gussone (eds .) 2016 Wohnen – Reisen – Residieren. Herrschaftliche Repräsentation zwischen temporärer Hofhaltung und dauerhafter Residenz in Orient und Okzident . Berliner Beiträge zur Bauforschung und Denkmalpflege 15 . Petersberg . Shahīd, I . 1995 Byzantium and the Arabs in the Sixth Century. 1.1. Political and Military History. 1.2. Ecclesiastical History . Washington . 2002

Byzantium and the Arabs in the Sixth Century. 2.1. Toponomy, Monuments, Historical Geography, and Frontier Studies . 2.2 Economic, Social and Cultural History . Washington .

Siegel, U . 2015 Resafa – Rusafat Hisham . Vom Zeltspieß zum Grundriss . Aufnahme und Interpretation von Oberflächenbefunden . In: Koldewey-Gesellschaft (ed .), Bericht über die 48. Tagung für Ausgrabungswissenschaft und Bauforschung, 28. Mai bis 1. Juni 2014 in Erfurt. Dresden, 212–221 . Ulbert, T . 1993 Ein umaiyadischer Pavillon in Resafa-Rusafat Hisham . Damaszener Mitteilungen 7, 213–231 . Ulbert, T . and Konrad, M . 2016 Al-Mundir-Bau und Nekropole vor dem Nordtor . In: T . Ulbert (ed .), Forschungen in ResafaSergiupolis . Resafa 7 . Berlin, 1–108 . Whittow, M . 1999 Rome and the Jafnids . Writing the history of a 6th-century tribal dynasty . In: J . Humphrey (ed .), The Roman and Byzantine Near East 2. Portsmouth, 207–224 . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Fig . 1 Resafa, site plan, based on all known information, 2012 (M . Gussone 2012, incorporated material by M . Mackensen; H . Tremel, D . Sack, M . Stephani; G . Hell, J . Giese; D . Spiegel, C . Hof) © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Fig . 2 Resafa, wider surroundings with newly detected historic roads and settlement structures, 2015 (M . Gussone 2015 . Interpretation based on: find site map, M . Mackensen; H . Tremel 1977/1978; historical aerial images, rectified by G . Hell; aerial ortho mosaic, EIRA 1961 and recent satellite data, ICONOS 2009, courtesy B . Beckers/TOPOI) © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Fig . 3a Resafa, southern surroundings, results of the interpretation of prospection data, 2016 (M . Gussone 2016)

Fig . 3b Resafa, southern surroundings, magnetograms and aerial orthophoto mosaic, 2016 (M . Gussone 2016, magnetograms by H . Becker 1997–2009; aerial orthophoto mosaic EIRA [1961], rectified by G . Hell 2012) © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Fig . 4a Resafa, southern surroundings, position of find sites in relation to terrain, detail FP 148, 2016 (M . Gussone 2016, based on all available prospection data [IFPO 1930s; EIRA 1961; M . Mackensen; H . Tremel 1977/1978; D . Sack since 1983; H . Becker 1997–2009; M . Stephani 1999–2006; G . Hell 2006–2012; U . Siegel 2001–2010; IKONOS 2009, courtesy B . Becker/Topoi])

Fig . 4b Resafa, FP 145 and its surrounding at the western edge to the wadi south of the city, magnetogram and interpretation of prospection data, 2016 (magnetogram H . Becker 2001; interpretation M . Gussone 2016, based on all available prospection data, cf . Fig . 4a) © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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The Rural Alanjān Region of Isfahān in the Islamic Periods: A Preparatory Overview for Landscape Archaeology Jaleh Kamalizad 1 Abstract Lanjān (historically known as Alanjān Rustāq) is a fertile and ancient region located in the southwest of Isfahan . The region stretches along the Zāyandeh Rūd River from the boundaries of the Chahārmahal and Bakhtiyāri Province to the Suffa Mount to the south of Isfahan city . Because of its direct access to the Zāyandeh Rūd River and other environmental potentials, this region had been inhabited before the advent of Islam . Considering the large extent of Lanjān and its rural structure, the study presents an overview of the geography and history of the Alanjān region, which will serve a landscape archaeology approach that aims at reconstructing and analyzing all dynamic changes caused by human activity during the Islamic period . According to written sources and archaeological survey data, different aspects of traditional water management, agricultural lands, settlement pattern, and their effects on the residents’ livelihood and administrative geography of Lanjān were investigated . One of the important factors in forming and continued habitation in this area is the permanent access of residents to the Zāyandeh Rūd River and the effective role of this river in an agricultural-based economy .

1. Introduction After the 1970s, there were a few changes in the approaches and objectives of archeological studies of the Islamic period, and the focus of archaeologists shifted from urban environment and key sites to suburban and rural areas, and consequently to the analysis of the livelihood and settlement patterns of these societies (Banning 1996; Milwright 2010:17) . In the present study, Lanjān County, located in Isfahan, Iran, was selected to be studied as despite its rich historical and natural potentials, it has not been examined thoroughly until now . The large extent and rural structure of Lanjān are among the reasons it has been mostly neglected by researchers and archaeologists; only remarkable architectural monuments and sites such as the Qaleh Bozi Middle Paleolithic site, 2 the Friday Mosque of ‘Oshtorjān’, the Pīr Bakrān Mausoleum, and the Khān Lanjān Fortress have been studied .

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Archaeology Department, Faculty of Humanities, University of Tehran . The Qaleh Bozi site includes two rock shelters and a cave located on the southern face of the Qaleh Bozi Mountain . The site was initially studied in 2004 and the project later continued in 2005 (Biglari et al . 2009) . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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In this regard, in 2008, the author started her research in Lanjān, and Khān Lanjān town and fortress were studied by applying the landscape archaeology approach (Kamalizad 2009) . Then in 2013, the author continued her research, aiming to answer questions regarding settlement pattern, economy, and the relations of rural and urban communities . In the landscape archaeology approach, the whole of a geographical area is considered an archaeological site (Taylor 1987: 137), and focusing on a specific site and an archeological monument should be avoided . In landscape archaeology, settlements, agricultural lands, roads, and other impacts of human activities are a subset of elements of an ancient site (McPhillips 2014; Wilkinson 2003) . 2. Geography and the role of the Zāyandeh Rūd River With an area of 1700 km², Lanjān is a vast and fertile region in the southwest of Isfahan which starts from the Zāyandeh Rūd River upstream near the border of the Chahār Mahāl and Bakhtiyārī Province and stretches to Suffa Mountain, 5km from the city of Isfahan . Lanjān has been formed along the Zāyandeh Rūd on the alluvium of the river which is located at 51° 34' 10 .34'' E to 51° 13' 1 .56'' E longitude, and 32° 32' 51 .79'' N to 32° 22' 22 .48'' N latitude . According to the current political divisions, it is divided between the three counties of Felāvarjān, Mubārakeh, and Lanjān . The landscape of Lanjān is bounded by the Shāhkuh Mountain to the northeast and east for 18km and by the Khūlanjān and Bīdakān mountains to the south . In addition, the Western highlands, the Dālān Kūh mountains, extend continuously in a northwest– southeast direction to central Lanjān . The Qaleh Bozi Mountain is located at the last protrusion of Dālān Kūh (about 1950 meters above sea level), from where it controls over the Lanjān region (topographic map 1:50,000, 1998) . The Zāyandeh Rūd River, the only permanent river in the center of the Iranian Plateau and the lifeline of Isfahan, travels approximately one third of its path through Lanjān and is the most important factor influencing the cultural landscape of this region . This river originates from northeast of the Zardkūh Mountain in the Chahār Mahāl and Bakhtiyārī Province and travels about 360 kilometers to the Gavkhouni marsh to the east of Isfahan . The Zāyandeh Rūd River enters the Isfahan Province through Lanjān and waters its fields before reaching Isfahan city . It enters the semimountainous areas of Lanjān (with an average height of 1880m) from the south of the Dalankūh mountain ranges and after traveling through the Zamān Khān Bridge (Hosseini Abari 1999) Along this area, which is locally called ‘Upper Lanjān’, the Zāyandeh Rūd flows through a narrow and deep canyon from west to east . Because of the topography of Upper Lanjān, the villages are small and mostly along the meanders of the Zāyandeh Rūd . Arriving in the center of Lanjān, the river takes a slight turn toward the north and the city of Isfahan which reduces the speed of the water and creates a fertile plain at an altitude of 1630 meters (Hosseini Abari 1999) . In this region, which is called ‘Lower Lanjān’, settlements are larger both in number and size (Map 1) . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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3. Alanjān in written sources and the Khān Lanjān fortress Because of the rich natural potentials of Lanjān, the large and fertile region has always (even during the Middle Paleolithic period) been interesting and human beings have continuously taken steps to improve the environment . According to early Islamic written sources, in the Sasanian period this region was called ‘Alanjān Rustāq’ . 3 Because of its vast water supply, fertile farmlands that were of high importance in Zoroastrianism, and access to the Fārs and Istakhr roads, Lanjān was one of the important regions of Isfahan during this period . Ibn Rusta in 310 AH/922–3 AD mentioned ‘Alanjān Routāq’ as a location for collecting and dividing the water of Zāyandeh Rūd . He believed that the Sassanid founder, Ardashir I (r . 227–242 AD), divided and controlled the Zāyandeh Rūd’s water and established rules for the repartition of the waters into irrigation channels (Ibn Rusta 1892: 154–55) . In the seventh century and during the Arab invasion of Isfahan, the nobles of this city hid in Alanjān Rustāq which demonstrates the logistical role of the city at the time of the Muslim conquest of Isfahan (Ibn al-Athīr 2002: 1520) . From the early Islamic period until the Mongol invasion, historical and geographical references mentioned Khān Lanjān as one of the flourishing towns in Alanjān Rustāq . The town, located at the confluence point of the ancient Fārs and Bakhtiyārī roads, was of significant commercial importance as the last station before arriving at Isfahan city; however, there is no consensus among scholars about its exact location . Ibn Ḥawqal (10th century AD) said about the town: “Khān Lanjān is a small town, fertile and rich in products, in the midst of a most pleasant district and rural area, with abundant water and trees, and delicious peaches . It has a mighty fortress which serves as a store place for their Amīrs and overlooks Khān Lanjān and its districts as far as Isfahan . Between Lanjān and the city [Isfahan] there are seven Fārsakh” . Ibn Ḩawqal also mentioned that the water of the Zāyandeh Rūd River was divided into many branches and springs based on everyone’s due share (Ibn Ḥawqal 1938: 365) . The mountain castle of Khān Lanjān stood at the center of Alnajan Rostaq and was used to protect the fertile Khān Lanjān town and its ancient roads . The castle was first studied by Stern and Beazley (Stern et al . 1971) . In September 2008 the author surveyed and mapped the Khān Lanjān fortress and also studied the reasons and causes of the castle’s construction in such a place . The Khān Lanjān fortress (today known as Qaleh Bozi Fortress) is located at between 1720 to 1875 meters above sea level and at 32° 24' 24'' N and 51° 33' 45''s E . The fortress, with about 9260m² area, comprises a citadel at the highest point of the mountain, central fortifications and a small castle at the lower part (Kamalizad et al . 2012: 67–68) . The mountainous fortress, in addition to its role in road maintenance and security, had residential,

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Rostāq is a rural district smaller than ‘Ostan’ and ‘Khore’ in the geographical units of Sasanian which had been used in the administrative geography of Isfahān until the Mongol period (Hamawi 1977) . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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governmental, military and defensive functions in special times and situations (Kamalizad 2016) (Fig . 1) . There are no references to Khān Lanjān Castle in the written and other sources after the Mongol invasion . According to Ḩamdallah Muṣṭawfī (8th AH/14th AD), settlements at the north of the Qaleh Bozi Mountain with Fīrūzān centrality were flourished, including ‘Oshtorjān’, Pīr Bakrān with their unique monuments of Ilkhanid architecture . Although the Jewish sites near Pīr Bakrān, the Sarah-bat-Asher shrine and cemetery, dating back to about the beginning of the second century AD, show that this area was important even before the Islamic period . During the Ilkhanid period, major changes occurred to the administrative geography of Isfahan and the word ‘Rustāq’ was replaced by ‘district’ . Lanjan, as the sixth district, contains 20 villages of which the largest are Gāvnān, Qahdirījān and Gulishād (Mustawfi Qazvīnī1993: 57) (Fig . 2) . The famous traveler, Ibn Baṭṭūṭa (727 AH/1326 AD) traveled to Lanjān along the Bakhtiyārī road which was called the Atabaki 4 road in that period: “… We travelled thence along the well-watered plains [Lanjān] belonging to the district of the Isfahan city until we reached the town of Oshtorjān . It is a beautiful town, with a plentiful water supply and many gardens, and in it is a marvelous mosque through which the river runs [literally, the river splits it’] . Then we travelled on from there to the city of Fīrūzān which was a small city with rivers, trees, and gardens . We continued our path through the gardens and waters and picturesque villages with numerous pigeon towers and we arrived to Isfahan next day . …” (Ibn Baṭṭūṭa 1984: 42) Among the monuments mentioned by Ibn Baṭṭūṭa during his journey to Lanjān, pigeon towers are completely related to the agricultural economy in this district . The fertilizer obtained from the pigeon towers was used on farmlands . The pigeon towers were mostly cylindrical towers made of mud bricks, with nest-holes all over them . According to Iranian traditional agricultural texts, pigeon guano, compared with that of other birds, is the best and most beneficial fertilizer, especially for irrigated cultivations (Askurasikah 2009: 45) (Fig . 3) . In the early sixteenth century, Iran was united under the rule of the Safavid dynasty; this period is often considered to be the beginning of modern Persian history . One of the potentially important primary sources of the Safavid period in Lanjān is a document attributed to Shaykh-i Bahā’ī and the date 923 AH/1517 AD [both, however, disputed] . According to this scroll, the Zāyandeh Rūd water distribution network was revived and reconstructed, which led to new administrative divisions in the Lanjān region . This legal document greatly helps us to understand traditional water management and the number and names of Lanjān settlements . During the Safavid period, this region is called ‘Lanjān and Alanjān block’ and is divided into

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The rule of the Great Atabakan-e-Lor dynasty began in the south-west of Iran in the second half of the sixth century and lasted until 827 AH . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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two blocks called Upper Lanjān and Lower Lanjān . According to this document, the Zāyandeh Rūd was initially divided into 33 shares between the sextet blocks of Isfahan in proportion to their population, livelihood, and the quality of their soil, both for urban and agriculture uses . The Lanjān block, which was made up of farmlands and rural settlements, received 10 shares; the Jayy block, which included the city of Isfahan, received 6 shares . Then, these shares were further divided into ‘irrigation channels’ or mādis and then between villages and farmlands . These divisions were only enforced and supervised during the hottest 165 days (from June 5 until November 20) of the year, based on specific laws and regulations that were detailed in the scroll attributed to Sheikh Bahāyi (Hosseini Abari 1999: 73) (Table 1) . The scroll confirms that in the Safavid period, rice was the main crop produced in Lanjān . Jean Chardin, who traveled to Isfahan in the seventeenth century, believed that the best Iranian opium poppy was produced in the Lanjān block and the plains and hillsides were replete with this plant (Chardin 1951: 49); however, most of the European merchants and tourists who came to Isfahan in this period focused on the pigeon towers of the city . Chardin recounted more than 3000 pigeon towers in the vicinity of the city, some of which housed up to 14 thousand pigeons (Chardin, 1951: 386) . As the city of Isfahan was chosen as the main seat of the Safavids, the number of gardens and resorts around it increased . And because of easy access and closeness to Isfahan and favorable environmental conditions, Lanjān was superior to other regions in the vicinity of Isfahan, such as Mārbīn . Some of the gardens built in this period were Bāgh-i Kūmah and Bāgh-i Vahsh, for water supply, there were a few rearrangements and changes in the text of the scroll . Mullā Jalāluddīn Munajjim describes the construction of Bāgh-i Kūmah of Lanjān in his book Tārīkh-i ʽAbbāsī in 1609 where Shāh Abbās used to go for bird hunting (Munajjim Yazdī 1987: 353) . In the Safavid era, Vargan Bridge was built and the road to Bakhtiyārī was relocated to the west of Lanjān in order to decrease the traffic in the region . Due to the chaotic political and social conditions during the Qajar era, no large settlements were built there and Lanjān was mostly used as a resort and hunting ground . Also because of the key role of the Zāyandeh Rūd in providing the water of Isfahan, various rulers had tried to increase the water in this river by incorporating the Kūhrang River, which is one of the branches of the Karūn River, originating from the eastern ranges of the Zardkūh Mountain . Such attempts date back to the Saljuq period, continuing until the Safavid and Qajar period . All those struggles paid off when in 1953 the Kouhrang tunnel was finished (Hosseini Abari 1999: 34–35) 4. Summary Crossing Lanjān and depositing its sediment, the Zāyandeh Rūd River has created a region with fertile soil and favorable conditions for farming . As one of the elements of Lanjān’s landscape, the river not only quenches the water needs of the © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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inhabitants directly and permanently, but also plays a key role in the formation and the pattern of dispersion of the settlements; creating small settlements mostly on the meanders of the river in the upstream areas and ‘upper Lanjān’ region, which are rarely mentioned in the historical sources of the Islamic period . However, after Qaleh Bozi Mountain and in the ‘lower Lanjān’ region, with lower heights and gentle slopes, there was the opportunity for more exploitation and better water management and so many larger settlements were formed and later transformed during different historical periods . From the first centuries of Islam until the Mongol invasions, due to the necessity to protect and preserve the Khān Lanjān town and the ancient roads that led to it, the Khān Lanjān mountainous castle was established as a robust fortress in the center of Alanjān Rustāq and afterwards the fortress was used consistently . During the Ilkhhanid period, the administrative center of Lanjān was moved to Fīrūzān town, to the north of Qaleh Bozi Mountain . The significance of Fīrūzān during the Ilkhanid era can be understood from the remarkable architectural heritage of this period which includes such as the Bābā Maḥmūd Bridge and the Pir Bakran Mausoleum, located to the east of Fīrūzān town, or the Imāmzādah Rābiʽ Khātūn and the Friday Mosque in ‘Oshtorjān’ town to the west of Fīrūzān . During the Safavid dynasty, the irrigation network and division of the Zāyandeh Rūd River were renovated and reconstructed through the so-called Shaykh-i Bahāʾī Scroll . This legal and regulatory document takes great care in dividing and allocating water to small and large geographical units, and therefore it is one of the important sources to understand and locate the Lanjān settlements in the sixteenth century . Therefore besides providing a rich environment, anthropogenic agents by creating facilities such as roads, bridges, agricultural lands, water canals and gardens played an effective role in forming the cultural landscape and changing the administrative geography of Lanjān during the Islamic periods . Acknowledgements I appreciate Mr . Mehdi Taheri’s financial support for me to participate in the 10th ICAANE conference and Mrs . Negar Saliani’s comments on an earlier version of this paper . Bibliography Askurasikah, F . 2009 Varznāmah, ed . Ḩasan Ātifī, Teheran . Banning, E . B . 1996 Highlands and Lowlands: Problems and Survey Frameworks for Rural Archaeology in the Near East . Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 301, 25–45 . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Biglari, F ., Javeri, M ., Mashkour, M ., Yazdi, M ., Shidrang S ., Tenberg, M ., Kamal Taheri, K . and Darvish, J . 2009 Test excavations at the Middle Paleolithic sites of Qaleh Bozi, Southwest of Central Iran, A preliminary report . Iran Palaeolithic, 29–38 . Chardin, J . 1951/1330 The Travels of Sir John Chardin . Persian translation by Hossein Arizi, Isfahan . Hamawi, Yakut al1977 Mu’jam al-buldan . Vol . 1 . Beirut . Hosseini Abari, S . H . 1999 Zāyandeh Rud from wellspring to lagoon . Isfahan . Ibn Athīr 2002 al-Kāmil fī al-tārīkh, Vols . 6, 8 . Beirut, 1422 . Ibn Baṭṭūṭa, M . 1984 The travels of Ibn-Battūta, ed . S . Lee . London . Ibn Ḥawqal, A . 1938 Kitāb Ṣūrat al-arḍ, ed . J . H . Kramers . Leiden . Ibn Rusta, A . 1892 Kitāb al-Aʽlaq al-nafisa, ed . M . J . Goeje . Leiden . Kamalizad, J . 2009 Archaeological Survey of Khān Lanjān Castle of Isfahan and its Landscape, unpublished MA thesis, Teheran University (in Persian with an English abstract) . 2016

The landscape archaeology in Lanjān plain of Isfahan, Iran, during the Islamic period (650–1722 AD) (preliminary report), Archaeologies . Journal of the World Archaeological Congress 12 .

Kamalizad, J ., Mahmud Abadi, S . A . and Rezaii, A . 2012 Khān Lanjān castle of Isfahan: An Archaeological Survey . Maramat-i āthār va bāfthā-i tārikhīfarhangī 1/2, 63–74 (in Persian) . McPhillips, S . 2014 Rural Life in Islamic Archaeology . Encyclopedia of Global Archaeology, 6386–6398 . Milwright, M . 2010 An Introduction to Islamic Archaeology . Edinburgh . Munajjim Yazdī, M . 1987 Tārīkh-i ʽAbbasī ya rūznāma-i Mullā Jalāl, ed . S . Vāhidnīyā . Tehran 1366 . Muṣṭawfī Qazvīnī, H . 1993 Nuzhat al-qulūb, ed . G . Le Strange . Frankfurt/Main . Stern, S . M ., Beazley, E . and Dobson, A . 1971 The Fortress of Khān Lanjān, Iran 9, 45−57 . Taylor, T . 1987 Archaeology and the Norwegian Cultural Landscape . Current Anthropology 28, 230−233 . Wilkinson, T . J . 2003 Archaeological Landscapes of the Near East. Tucson, Arizona . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Map 1 Armed Forces Geographical Organization of Iran, topographic map of Mobarakeh (1:50,000), page IV 6354, 1998 (in Persian)

3098 shares in Villages, farms 76/5 shares

275 shares 33 shares of Zāyandeh rud in irrigation Canals in Blocks 76/5 shares

595/5 shares

Upper Lanjan 6 161

672

Isfahan districts

84/5 shares

10

Lanjan

1

Lower Lanjan 4

282 shares

29 shares

4

Marbin

2

674 shares

37 shares

6

Jey (Isfahan city)

3

854 shares

14 shares

4

Baraan

4

243 shares

22 shares

6

Ruydasht

5

387 shares

12 shares

3

Kararaj

6

Table 1 classification of Zāyandeh rud watershed based on Sheikh Bahai edict (tūmar) at 923 H/1517 AD

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Fig . 1 situation of different parts of the Khān Lanjān fortress in the Southern face of Qaleh Bozi mountain (photo: J . Kamalizad 2008)

Fig . 2 Aerial photograph of settlements in the northern district of Qaleh Bozi mountain during the Il-Khanid period (google earth 2016)

© 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Fig . 3 Pigeon towers near agricultural lands of Ejgerd village (photo: J . Kamalizad 2015)

© 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

The Pre-Islamic and Early Islamic City of al-Ḥīra

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The Pre-Islamic and Early Islamic City of al-Ḥīra: First Results of the Archaeological Survey 2015 Martina Müller-Wiener 1 – Ulrike Siegel 2 Abstract In late antiquity and early-Islamic times al-Ḥīra was one of the major urban and cultural centres of Mesopotamia . Located at the interface of several cultural spheres, the historical site of al-Ḥīra offers a prime example to study the processes of acculturation and transfer that shaped Late Antique and early Islamic material culture, architecture, and urbanism . The present paper gives a brief outline of the research questions, preparatory investigations and methodology of the survey project and presents the first results of the field campaign conducted in October 2015 .

1. Introduction The historical site of al-Ḥīra is located to the south of al-Najaf and al-Kūfa in southcentral Iraq, on a slightly elevated, V-shaped area at the eastern end of the Kerbela Plateau . The foundation of al-Ḥīra is dated to the 3rd century (Toral-Niehoff 2014: 33) when a shift of the main branch of the Euphrates about 3km to the west created favourable hydrological conditions for agricultural and settlement activities (Nissen 1973: 84) . When al-Ḥīra became the capital of the Lakhmid-rulers (c . 270–602 AD), an Arab power sponsored by the Sasanid Persians, the city developed into a political, economic and cultural centre . In 633, al-Ḥīra was taken by the troops of the Muslim general Khālid ibn al-Walīd; in 639, the garrison town of al-Kūfa was founded nearby . Whereas al-Kūfa subsequently developed into one of the centres of early Islamic Iraq, the sources indicate that al-Ḥīra continued to exist until the 10th century at least . After its final abandonment the relics of the city remained undisturbed by later building activities until recently . Today a considerable part of the area of ancient al-Ḥīra has been built over and the rapid growth of al-Najaf threatens the undeveloped area that remained . The formation and development of al-Ḥīra was informed by various economic, political, cultural and environmental factors . The city was a major trading centre, a royal capital and a religious centre . The general environmental conditions were characterised by the vicinity of the Euphrates . The major branch of the river ran about three kilometres east of the city and guaranteed the supply of water for the population and for agriculture . To the west and northwest the urban area touched the steppe-like transition zone between the Euphrates valley and the plateau of the Arabian Desert with a number of oases settlements .

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Goethe-University Frankfurt am Main . German Archaeological Institute, Oriental Department, Berlin . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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The city of al-Ḥīra was one of the major trading centres on the Middle Euphrates and destined to control the communication between Syria, Mesopotamia and Arabia . Via the Euphrates the city was connected with the middle-Babylonian channel system, the Persian Gulf and Syria . Furthermore, it was the point of departure for the major caravan routes to al-Yamāma, East Arabia, al-Ḥijāz and South Arabia (Rougeulle 1998) . In addition, under Muslim rule the city became a major stop on the pilgrimage routes leading from Baghdad to Mecca and Medina . The heterogeneous urban population of al-Ḥīra was predominantly Arab, but it comprised an Aramaic part as well . In addition, the sources mention the existence of Persian aristocrats who owned farmsteads in the environs . The Arab population of al-Ḥīra was predominantly Christian, even if the rulers of the Lakhmid-dynasty did not convert to Christianity until about the year 590 . In the 5th century the city was the seat of a bishop and the Catholicoi of the nearby Sasanian capital Ctesiphon were traditionally buried in al-Ḥīra . This situation continued under Muslim rule, when the monasteries of al-Ḥīra were the most conspicuous architectural features in the urban landscape and popular places of convergence . The importance of al-Ḥīra as an interface where traditions from various cultural spheres merge may well be observed with regard to the court of the Lakhmid rulers . The sources indicate that Lakhmid courtly culture was a synthesis of Arab-Bedouin and Sasanian representational practices . The patronage of architecture and poetry served as a major means of self-fashioning and demonstration of power . Subsequently the representational traditions of the Lakhmid court were apparently of major importance for the development of the later courts of the early-Islamic dynasties of the Umayyads and Abbasids . Historical research concerning the city and the Lakhmid dynasty has a long history . It started in 1899 with Rothstein’s work on the Lakhmids (Rothstein 1899) and experienced a new high point with recent investigations focussing on the Romans and Sasanians and their Arab allies (cf . Fisher 2011; Fowden 2013) . In contrast to this, the archaeological research on al-Ḥīra is clearly out of proportion to the significance of the site . Our knowledge of the urban structure of al-Ḥīra and the appearance and location of its famous monasteries, churches and palaces is restricted to the information that can be gleaned from historical written sources and from some scattered excavations of single structures . Therefore the survey project was designed both to carry out a critical reappraisal of previous archaeological work and, based on this, to prepare and conduct a survey of parts of the area . The major aim of the survey is to clarify the location, extension, structure and chronology of the ancient settlement of al-Ḥīra within its environmental and historical context . A further objective is to provide data for the definition of areas of high heritage value that should be protected and further investigated archaeologically in the near future . The field campaign in October 2015 was funded by the Max van Berchem Foundation and conducted in cooperation with the Iraqi State Board of Antiquities and Heritage, the Archaeological Institute of the University of al-Kūfa, the Ori© 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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ent Department of the German Archaeological Institute and the Berlin Institute of Technology . 2. Review of previous archaeological investigations In preparation for the survey, available documentation of previous inspections and archaeological work was reviewed with respect to research history, methodology, location, topography, results and interpretation according to the excavators . Relevant data were also acquired by the evaluation of satellite images, aerial photographs, historical maps and cadastral plans . The review demonstrated that archaeological research on the ground has been restricted to isolated structures which was published in preliminary reports or remained unpublished . The following is a brief general summary of the research history in chronological order . The alleged ruins of the famous palace of al-Khawarnaq, built during the reign of the Lakhmid king Nuʿmān b . Imruʾ al-Qays, were visited by 19th and early 20th century European travellers such as B . Meissner (1901), L . Massignon (1910), G . Bell (1911) and A . Musil (1927) and mapped by H . Kiepert in 1883 . Close reading of the respective route descriptions reveals, however, that the localisation of the visited sites seems to vary . This observation is corroborated by the fact that two differing sketches of a ruin mound by B . Meissner and A . Musil are available (Meissner 1901: 19; Musil 1927: 106, fig . 34) . In other words, the localisation of the respective sites and their identification as historical al-Khawarnaq is doubtful . The area described nowadays as Tell Qaṣr al-Khawarnaq was mapped during the survey (Fig . 1) . It revealed no clear surface features and few finds . The most comprehensive archaeological investigation on al-Ḥīra was directed by G . Reitlinger and D . Talbot Rice from the University of Oxford in 1931 . Trial trenches were driven into 13 different mounds and a substantial collection of finds was delivered to the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford . At mound V and mound XI the remains of large churches of rectangular plan and oriented towards the south-east were uncovered more or less completely . Talbot Rice suggests that the church of mound XI probably dates from the 6th century (Talbot Rice 1932a: 279), while the edifice of mound V – from the viewpoint of the mural paintings – dates from the 7th century (Talbot Rice 1934: 57) . A comparative study by Y . Okada (1991) indicates that both churches represent the typical plan of early churches in Iraq . At mound I a large, two-storeyed house surrounded by an enclosure wall was uncovered . Each floor had fourteen rooms arranged around a central court . It seems that the principal rooms decorated with carved stucco were on the upper floor and those below cellar-like rooms, which had been filled in before the last period of occupation . The building had been modified at various periods . According to the excavator the enclosure wall was first built in the Sasanian period, while the two-storied building was constructed in phase 2 in the Early-Islamic period and modified in phase 3 at the end of the eighth century . The stucco decorations framing the doors on the upper floor also belong to the last building phase . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Unfortunately, the excavations of the Oxford team were published only in three brief reports (Talbot Rice 1932a; Talbot Rice 1932b; Talbot Rice 1934) . A complete description of the excavation results is missing, hence the argumentation for the buildings history such as the dating of phase 1 and phase 2 at mound I is not verifiable . Another problem is, that the working area is only described in a preliminary sketch, whereas the accompanying text gives a vague description of the localisation of the various mounds . This is to say that it is not possible to reconstruct the location of the working area . Based on a comparative close reading of the articles it was possible to define an area that will most probably contain the Oxford mounds . It is situated halfway between the so-called Tulūl Kunaidira (see below) and Kharāʾib alSadir . However, it was not possible to identify the area more closely . In 1946 the excavation of a mound next to the edge of Baḥr al-Najaf directed by M . Ali revealed parts of a huge two-phased building with a central court . A brief report comprising a plan of the building was published in Arabic . The excavator interprets the building as a palace and suggests its identification as the palace al-Sadir, allegedly built by the Lakhmid king Nuʿmān b . al-Mundhir (Ali 1946) . The exact localisation of the excavations is not known . The area described nowadays as Kharāʾib al-Sadir was visited and mapped during the survey (Fig . 1) . In 1980 and 2001 excavations were carried out on the so-called burial ground of Abū Sukhayr, Maqbarat Abū Sukhayr . The finds, mostly glass vessels, as well as the different types of burials indicate occupancy from the 1st to the 5th century; the majority of the graves belong to the 4th and 5th centuries (al-Shams 1987–88; NegroPonzi 2005: 143–144) . In 1990 French archaeologists surveyed the area south of al-Najaf for one day . Based on this brief fieldwork and including the pottery finds from the 1931 excavations kept in Oxford, M .-O . Rousset published two articles on the pottery and glass finds (Rousset 1994; Rousset 2001) . A comparative reappraisal of the published material indicates, however, that the pottery from the surveyed area and from the Oxford excavations – which were most probably located further south-east – cover different periods . The material from the surveyed area dates to the 7th and 8th centuries exclusively, whereas the pottery brought to light by the Oxford excavations includes pottery-types datable to the 8th century as well as types, such as opaque-white glazed fragments, that are characteristic for the 9th and 10th centuries . A group of nine mounds located some 1 .5km south of al-Najaf International Airport is termed by the local authorities Tulūl Kunaidira . The Archaeological Atlas of Iraq also uses this designation . The area has not been subjected to archaeological investigation yet . Most probably the Tulūl Kunaidira are part of the large number of mounds mentioned by 19th and early 20th century European travellers . This assumption is reinforced by the superimposition of satellite images and the historical map produced by H . Kiepert in 1883 . The location of the Tulūl Kunaidira corresponds exactly to a group of mounds described by Kiepert as ‚Ruinen von Hira’ . Between 2007 and 2010/2011 three campaigns of excavation were conducted within the precincts of al-Najaf International Airport . Unpublished excavation re© 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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ports in Arabic were kindly provided by our cooperation partners in the Iraqi State Board of Antiquities and Heritage . Extended excavations were realised at three sites and small soundings at three other sites . In 2007 parts of a complex with two courtyards surrounded by groups of rooms were exposed . The actual extension and outer boundaries of the complex remain unclear . Another complex with central courtyard and surrounding rooms and iwāns was uncovered in 2009 . A large number of stucco panels with vegetal and geometrical ornamentation were found in the debris as well as in situ . Originally they faced the door- and iwān-openings . In 2010/2011 an area was opened 80m to the north-west revealing two separate but connected structures with iwāns and rooms arranged around two central courtyards . Chronological classification of the excavated structures is only implicitly suggested by attributing them to the flourishing of the city of al-Ḥīra . The comparative integrated review of previous archaeological investigations in the area of historical al-Ḥīra shows a chronological shift of sites datable to the 5th–6th centuries in the eastern part of the area (Maqbarat Abū Sukhayr) and those with finds dating from the 8th to 9th century in the western part of the survey area . One of the aims of the survey was to examine and verify this observation . 3. Survey areas and methodology It is generally acknowledged that a systematic surface survey is a robust methodological tool for regionally focused research, even if the parameters of sampling strategies and data collection are under continuous discussion (cf . Tartaron 2003 with further literature) . Considering the wide variety of possible approaches, it is imperative to describe the sampling strategy and methods of data collection of the respective project in order to provide a framework to compare the collected data to those of other surveys . In the present case the field methods were developed and prepared in advance, based on the evaluation of satellite images, aerial photographs, historical maps and travelogues, and previous excavations and adapted to the local conditions in the field . The most serious problem we faced was the disturbed nature of the areas . The terrain along the edge of the Baḥr al-Najaf is seriously disturbed by settling activities, waste dumping and natural erosion . The area in the precincts of al-Najaf International Airport was partly used as agricultural fields in the 1990s and is disturbed by ploughing, scraping of the surface and low earthen walls . The archaeological survey was carried out from October 5th to October 13th 2015 . For the survey, four areas were defined in advance . Due to the different nature of the areas and sites investigated, the survey was conducted following two different methods . Clearly defined sites such as those on the edge of Baḥr al-Najaf were surveyed intensively within the restricted areas by walking at a distance of only 5 to 10 metres . In areas of broad expanse (especially those to the south and within al-Najaf International Airport), fields of approximately 200 metres in width and 300 to 500 metres in length were surveyed by a team of eight or nine persons . This is to say that the team © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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members walked at a distance of approximately 20 metres . In total, 20 areas were surveyed with this method . In general, three to four members of the team tracked the survey with handheld GPS receivers . The position of important finds such as coins, accumulation of pottery, architectural remains or remarkable surface features were described and marked by handheld GPS receivers . Diagnostic surface finds were collected and assembled at the end of each track . While for the greater part of the pottery finds the statistical record was already made in the field, selected pottery sherds and artefacts such as coins and stucco fragments were cleaned and documented in detail . During the campaign the various data resulting from the survey were recorded in form sheets, find lists, site sheets as well as area sheets . Later, the records of the surface finds were inserted into a database and into a GIS . 4. First results and conclusions The condition of the four surveyed areas varies considerably . Consequently the informative value of the data obtained is fairly different . The entire edge of the Baḥr al-Najaf is severely disturbed by settlement and construction activities as well as by erosion . The surface shows some traces of historical structures, the amount of surface finds is comparatively low . The area that was partly surveyed for one day by a French mission in 1990 (Fig . 1) is likewise partly settled and cultivated . Nevertheless surveying revealed much surface pottery, including moulds, wasters and slag indicating production sites . Most important in terms of chronology is the fact that only this area revealed wasters, moulds and moulded pottery, indicating an early 9th century date . The most interesting results were obtained from the extensive surveying within the precincts of al-Najaf International Airport and in the area to its south . Even if the terrain is partly disturbed by former agricultural cultivation and some mounds were partially levelled in order to install military positions, it was possible to trace a great number of surface features indicating architectural structures and to collect meaningful numbers of diagnostic finds . A total of 297 mounds and accumulations of pottery and brick-rubble were mapped . In the mapping of our results we distinguished mounds and building structures, accumulations of pottery and/or brick rubble and the excavations carried out by Iraqi archaeologists . The resulting map (Fig . 2) shows clearly that remains of building and settlement activities cover a wide area around and beyond the clearly visible high mounds . The next working step will be to overlay the mapped structures and georeferenced, false coloured satellite images . Preliminary tests have already shown that part of the structures mapped as single entities are actually part of larger building units . The total number of diagnostic pottery sherds collected amounts to 2115, of which 66% are unglazed and 34% are glazed . By far the greatest number of unglazed rim or base fragments belong to large storage vessels, generally known as torpedo-jars . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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They show different ware types and appear with and without bitumen lining . Further groups occurring in greater numbers are fragments of thick-walled storage vessels with honeycomb pattern and handles with stamped, rosette shaped thumb rest and applied wavy clay bands . The latter most probably belong to jars with incised decoration (Okada 1989: 42–43, fig . 14; 48, 52, 53) . Glazed pottery finds are almost exclusively made up of turquoise glazed specimens with a yellowish, medium fine fabric . The most frequent shapes are middle-sized jars with a club-shaped rim or a broad collar and flat base, frequently with a wavy incised line below the rim, small bowl-shaped oil lamps with pinched spout and traces of tripods and heavy oil lamps with a long closed nozzle . Although the ceramic chronology of Late Antique and early Islamic Iraq is far from being complete, typological dating of the contained diagnostic sherds allowed us to provide a first assessment of the chronology of the area visited . Specific shapes of turquoise glazed ceramics such as the double rim with indentations (Fig . 3a) or a spouted bowl, which also occur in Ctesiphon, Susa and Sīrāf (Kervran 1977: figs . 29 .3, 34 .3; Mason and Keall 1991: fig . 3), were counted as indicators of pre-Islamic to early Islamic date (6th–7th centuries) . Among the unglazed material, small, unglazed bowls (or lids?) with broad indented rim, fragments of big, thick-walled vessels with a decoration of stamped roundels or carinated bowls with constricted neck and everted rim were counted as pre-Islamic to early Islamic date (cf . Adams 1970: figs . 6ax, bd, 9; Finster and Schmidt 1976: fig . 87h; Whitcomb 1985: fig . 51r–u) . Fragments that were counted as indicative of the early Islamic period (8th century) were brittle ware types such as the necked pot with profiled rim (Fig . 3b) or the casserole with grooved rim (cf . Vokaer 2011) as well as handles with rosette shaped knob (cf . Mustafa 1963: fig . 5; Adams 1970: fig . 8; Rousset 1994: 33–34 argues for 9th century date), unglazed fragments with applied decoration or thin-walled fragments with incised decoration (cf . Finster and Schmidt 1976: fig . 51; Patitucci and Uggeri 1984; Okada 1989: fig . 14) . Indicators of middle-Abbasid period occupation (9th century) are in particular glazed types, which are well known from other 9th century sites (Northedge et al. 1988; Kennet 2004: 38–41) . Most common are fragments with opaque white glaze and streaked and splashed decoration, or fragments with white or yellow slip and bluish-green and brown vertical stripes (Fig . 4a) . In addition to pottery, the survey produced fragments of glass vessels, most frequent are bases of stemmed goblets, probably belonging to vessels of the type described by Negro-Ponzi in relation to Umm Khasham (Negro-Ponzi 2005: 141, fig . 2 .1, 3) . Among the remarkable single finds is a glass roundel with bird figure, which can be compared to Sasanian glass medallions from Qaṣr-i Abū Naṣr (Whitcomb 1985: 39, pl . IV .11) . Another group of finds are stucco fragments which resemble the stuccos excavated by Iraqi archaeologists in the airport area (Fig . 4b) . The most spectacular single finds are two stucco plaques with incised and coloured crosses (Müller-Wiener et al. 2015) which resemble plaques with crosses from sites in the immediate neighbourhood of al-Ḥīra such as ʿAyn Shaya (Okada 1989: 58–60, figs . 22–23; Okada 1990; Kabi 2014), al-Quṣayr or the previous Oxford excavations at al-Ḥīra . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Finally, the survey produced 70 copper coins . The majority were heavily corroded and need further treatment in order to be legible . In general one may discern a small type measuring 0 .8–0 .9cm in diameter and bigger ones with an average diameter of 1 .9cm . Nine coins are clearly Islamic, most probably Abbasid, but this needs further specialised analysis . The counting of the diagnostic finds and the mapping of their distribution in the field provided a preliminary chronological pattern . Thus, the majority of sites and areas show high numbers of pre-Islamic or early-Islamic period (6th–7th centuries; 8th century) finds . Areas with predominantly pre-Islamic and early-Islamic settlement are concentrated in the eastern sections of the surveyed area, whereas the western sections include clear evidence of 9th century dating . This seems to indicate that settlement activities shifted from east to west resulting in the spatial juxtaposition of different use phases . Another important observation is that all sites and areas are critically endangered by construction and cultivating activities . For the near future it is planned to continue the archaeological survey and to expand it by geophysical prospection and by a stratigraphic survey of existing bulldozer pits . Bibliography Adams, R . McC . 1970 Tell Abu Sarifa: a Sasanian–Islamic ceramic sequence from south central Iraq . Ars Orientalis 8, 87–119 . Ali, M . 1946 Tanqibāt fī al-Hīra . Sumer 2/1, 29–32 . al-Shams, M . 1987–88 Hafriyāt Maqbarat al-Hīra . Sumer 45, 42–56 . Bell, G . 1911 (last access 3 .1 .2018), diary entry from March 8th 1911 . Finster, B . and Schmidt, J . 1976 Sasanidische und Frühislamische Ruinen im Iraq . Baghdader Mitteilungen 8, Baghdad . Fisher , G . 2011 Between Empires. Arabs, Romans, and Sasanians in Late Antiquity . Oxford . Fowden, E . 2013 Des Églises pour les Arabes, pour les Nomades? In: F . B . Chatonnet (ed .), Les églises en monde syriaque . Paris, 391–420 . Kabi, N . 2014 A new repertoire of crosses from the ancient site of Hira, Iraq . Journal of the Canadian Society for Syriac Studies 14, 90–102 . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Kennet, D . 2004 Sasanian and Islamic Pottery from Ras al-Khaimah (eBook version): Classification, Chronology and Analysis of Trade in the Western Indian Ocean . Oxford . Kervran, M . 1977 Les niveaux islamiques du secteur oriental de l’Apadana . II: le matériel islamique . Cahiers de la Délégation Archéologique Française en Iran 7, 75–161 . Mason, J . and Keall, E . J . 1991 The Abbasid glazed wares of Siraf and the Basra connection: petrographic analysis . Iran 29, 51–66 . Massignon, L . 1910 Mission en Mésopotamie (1907–1908). Cairo . Meissner, B . 1901 Von Babylon nach den Ruinen von Hîra und Huarnaq. Leipzig . Müller-Wiener, M ., Siegel, U ., Gussone, M . and Salman, I . 2015 Archaeological survey of al-Ḥīra/Iraq . Fieldwork campaign 2015 . Fondation Max van Berchem Bulletin 29, 5–7 . Musil, A . 1927 The Middle Euphrates. A Topographical Itinerary. New York . Mustafa, M . A . 1963 Preliminary report on the excavations in Kufa during the third season . Sumer 19, 36–65 . Negro-Ponzi, M . 2005 Mesopotamian glassware of the Parthian and Sasanian period: some notes . Annales de 16e Congrés de l’Association Internationale pour l’Histoire du Verre . Nottingham, 141–145 . Nissen, H . J . 1973 Südbabylonien in parthischer und sasanidischer Zeit. Baghdader Mitteilungen 6, 79–86 . Northedge, A ., Bamber, A . and Roaf, M . 1988 Excavations at Ana. Iraq Archaeological Reports 1 . Warminster . Okada, Y . 1989 Excavations at Ain Shai’a ruins and Dukakin caves . Ar-Rafidan 10, 27–88 . 1990

Reconsideration of plaque-type crosses from Ain Shai’a near Najaf . Ar-Rafidan 11, 103–112 .

1991

Ain Shaiʾa and the early Gulf churches: an architectural analogy . Ar-Rafidan 13, 87–93 .

Patitucci, S . and Uggeri, G . 1984 Failakah. Insediamenti Islamici. Ricerche e Scavi nel Kuwait . Rome . Rothstein, G . 1899 Die Dynastie der Laḫmiden in al-Ḥīra. Ein Versuch zur arabisch-persischen Geschichte zur Zeit der Sassaniden . Berlin . Rougeulle, A . 1998 Quelques notes sur les voies de communication en Irak médiéval . In: R . P . Gayraud (ed .), Colloque International d’Archéologie Islamique . Cairo, 347–365 . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Rousset, M .-O . 1994 Quelques precisions sur le materiel de Hira (céramique et verre) . Archéologie Islamique 7, 19–55 . 2001

La céramique de al-Ḥīra à décor moulé, incise ou appliqué . Techniques de fabrication et aperçu de la diffusion . In: E . Villeneuve and P . Watson (eds .), La Céramique Byzantine et Proto-Islamique en Syrie-Jordanie (IVe–VIIIe siècles apr. J.-C.) . Beyrouth, 221–230 .

Talbot Rice, D . 1932a The Oxford excavations at Hīra, 1931 . Antiquity 6/23, 276–291 . 1932b The Oxford excavations at Hīra . Journal of the Royal Central Asian Society 1932, 254–268 . 1934

The Oxford excavations at Hīra . Ars Islamica 1/1, 51–73 .

Tartaron, T . F . 2003 The archaeological survey: sampling strategies and field methods . In: J . R . Wiseman and K . L . Zachos (eds .), Landscape Archaeology in Southern Epirus, Greece I . Princeton, 23–45 . Toral-Niehoff, I . 2014 Al-Ḥīra. Eine arabische Kulturmetropole im spätantiken Kontext . Leiden . Vokaer, A . 2011 La Brittle Ware en Syrie. Production et diffusion d’une céramique culinaire de l’epoque hellénistique à l’époque omeyyade, Brussels . Whitcomb, D . S . 1985 Before the Roses and the Nightingales: Excavations at Qasr-i Abu Nasr, Old Shiraz. New York .

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Fig . 1 al-Ḥīra Survey 2015; site plan of surveyed areas

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Fig . 2 al-Ḥīra Survey 2015; remains of buildings and settlement activities in the area of al-Najaf International Airport and to its south

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a – al-Ḥīra Survey 2015: fragment of turquoise glazed vessel with indented double rim

b – al-Ḥīra Survey 2015: fragment of brittle ware cooking pot with profiled rim Fig . 3

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a – al-Ḥīra Survey 2015: fragment of glazed bowl with vertical stripes in green and light brown

b – al-Ḥīra Survey 2015: stucco fragments Fig . 4 © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Capitalizing Jerusalem and Beyond: A Preliminary Note on Muʿāwiya’s Urban and Imperial Vision 635–680 Beatrice St. Laurent 1 – Isam Awwad 2 Abstract Muʿāwiya’s jurisdiction in Jerusalem from 638 to 680, is evidenced in his urban planning of the Ḥaram and the area south of the precinct wall . He built his mosque between 639 and 660; planned and initiated construction of the Dome of the Rock left incomplete at his death; his palace south of his mosque outside the precinct; and initiated construction of the administrative area west of his palace demonstrating intent to establish Jerusalem as his imperial capital . Though documentary evidence is sparse for Jerusalem, more exists for projects by the Sea of Galilee and Arabia . Jerusalem was part of a strategic imperial scheme begun in the north, including the winter capital Sinnabra, repair of the Hamat Gader bath and possibly a mosque in Tiberias . That he also agriculturally developed the region south of Mecca contributes to substantiating claims for his imperial goals and plans for Jerusalem as one of several capitals .

There is a long-standing debate concerning the first mosque of Jerusalem created by ʿUmar or Muʿāwiya and the creation of Dome of the Rock and its role in the the greater complex of Bayt al-Maqdis (later al-Ḥarām al-Sharīf) in 7th century early Islamic Jerusalem (Fig . 1) . Further there is little clarity as to who planned and initiated construction of and the origins of the form and plan of the Dome . Methodologically speaking, early scholars trained in the European and American historical methodological tradition be it history, art history or archaeology relied on later historical texts of the 9th and 10th century, and sought the origins of both the early Islamic imperial tradition and its monuments in the region in the Byzantine and Persian traditions . This approach leads to erroneous conclusions by ignoring other possible sources of inspiration for both early Islamic statehood and its relevant monumental development in Jerusalem and Bilād al-Shām . Our current research utilizing more recent evaluations of this historical material prompted a re-examination of historical sources in the new context of Muʿāwiya’s role in Jerusalem, and sites by the Sea of Galilee and in Arabia . 3 This research has moved out of Jerusalem to substantiate claims that Jerusalem was the intended capital of Muʿāwiya . That has led to the exploration and re-evaluation of sources utilized for the study of the 7th century, of recent research on how capitals – administrative, seasonal or religious – were viewed in the early Islamic pe-

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Bridgewater State University . Chief Architect and Conservator al-Ḥaram al-Sharīf (1972–2004), Jerusalem . For a list of earlier sources examining this topic, see St . Laurent and Awwad 2013 . See also St . Laurent and Awwad 2016 . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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riod and also of material cultural evidence from other sites established by Muʿāwiya both north of Jerusalem and south in Arabia . 1. Jerusalem My colleague and co-author Isam Awwad and I, in 2013, published an article in the Jerusalem Quarterly 54 identifying the building known as Solomon‘s Stables in the southeast corner of al-Ḥarām al-Sharīf as the seventh century mosque of Bayt alMaqdis or Jerusalem built by Muʿāwiya, the first Umayyad caliph (St . Laurent and Awwad 2013) . We further elaborated that the mosque was part of a grander religiouspolitical urban scheme in Bayt al-Maqdis known today as al-Ḥarām al-Sharīf, which included the Golden Gate as ceremonial entrance, and Triple Gate as entrances to the mosque and precinct, the Single Gate as entrance only to the mosque and the Double Gate as a direct entrance to the precinct leading to the Dome of the Rock . In our published paper for ICAANE 9, we further proposed that, prior to his death in 680, Muʿāwiya planned and began construction of the Dome of the Rock and the administrative structures south of the Ḥarām in preparation for establishing Jerusalem as his capital . It is clear that there are many local early churches that informed the plan and form of the Dome of the Rock . Additionally, the South Arabian centrally planned palaces called miḥrabs approached by ladders or stairs that survived in legends are also a source of inspiration (Khoury 1993) . Their colorful exteriors could be the inspiration for the colorful exterior mosaic decoration of the Dome . No church in the region has such exterior décor (St . Laurent and Awwad 2016) . More recent development of this research in Jerusalem expands Muʿāwiya’s role in the development of the entire area of the al-Ḥarām al-Sharīf to include at least two of the northern and three of the western entrances to al-Ḥarām al-Sharīf platform and possibly the construction of the platform of the Dome of the Rock, which is already known as substantially smaller than today (Fig . 2) . 4 Similarly located as the Double Gate, the present Bab al-ʿAtm was a Triple Gate leading directly to the upper platform and the Dome of the Rock . Bab Hitta was either a Double Gate or Triple Gate leading to the precinct and Dome . Only remnants of one arch from each of these gates remain visible today (Burgoyne 1999) . The western gates seemingly were much simpler in their construction and thus probably less important entrances during this period (Burgoyne 1999) . As already pointed out by Michael Burgoyne, the west side of the platform was 18 meters narrower than today, with expansion occurring at a later time (Fig . 3) (Burgoyne 2009) . It is not yet clear if the current limits of south side of the platform were the same as today and is a subject of ongoing research . From our previous publications, it is

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known that there was an arcade extending from the north entrance of the Mosque of Muʿāwiya (Marwani Muṣallā today) to the mosque’s ceremonial entrance – the Golden Gate . We further propose that the arcade extended the full length of the east wall of the Ḥarām and there is also evidence that there was an arcade extending along the north perimeter wall of the Ḥarām . The evidence for this is in the remaining indentations in the bedrock for the support of an arcade (Fig . 4) . 5 That the northern, western eastern and southern entrances can potentially be attributed to the early Umayyad period suggests that the entire area of the lower platform was established in the 7th century . As stated in our previous articles on this topic, for 7th century Jerusalem we have no documentary evidence either in the form of text or inscriptions . 2. The early Umayyad 7th century The Islamic 7th century has for generations in scholarship posed problems . According to some, the reasons are in the absence of traditional forms of evidence used to measure imperial declaration – historical narratives, coinage proclaiming for imperial Islam, and inscriptions . With this lacuna of standard data, scholars dismissed the presence of key features of state and urban institutions or attributed state formation and accompanying institutional infrastructure to a later period . Scholarship projected back from views expressed in later politically biased texts arriving at faulty conclusions assigning the creation of imperial institutions and presence in Jerusalem to later Islamic dynastic presence . During the last 30 years, scholars approached the study of the texts from the Early Islamic period to include an analysis not only of Islamic texts of the 9th and 10th century usually utilized by scholars for dating but also relevant and close to contemporary multi-cultural textual sources and archaeological evidence of material culture . This methodology is not reliant on old definitions of markers of Islamic beginnings and statehood formation and provides significant insights into the imperial enterprises and material culture of this heretofore much neglected period . Studies re-examining the textual sources for the Early Islamic period are revealing a much altered picture of the ‘state of the state’ during the time of the Prophet up to the end of the Umayyad period in 750 . 6

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We are thankful to Michael Burgoyne for this information . St . Laurent’s analysis of this subject and related scholarship is of necessity brief and hopelessly inadequate . Elaboration will appear in a chapter of our book currently in preparation Capitalizing Jerusalem: Muʿāwiya’s Urban Vision 638–680. An entire evaluation of Hoyland/Johns vs . Donner/ Foss views among others on the use of sources for the 7th century appear in a chapter in our forthcoming book entitled Revising History: Establishing a Methodology for the 7th Century. © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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3. Multiple capitals in the 7th century With respect to the creation of state institutions in this period, two positions dominate . First, the view that prevails and survives from earlier scholarship is that no stable administrative institutions and capital existed in a single place in this period and thus one cannot discuss this period as one of statehood . Such more ‘western’ view of statehood and institutional development dominates this model . What emerges in more recent scholarship is that the range of influences in institutional and monumental creation is equally derived not only in the Byzantine or Sasanian traditions but equally from the pre-Islamic Sabeo-Himyaritic traditions of South Arabia and the Ḥijāz . Thus the new empire brought with it already well-established notions of administration and urban development . Conquest was simplified and facilitated by the pre-existent trade routes and the presence in Greater Syria of Arabic-speaking tribes leading to unity (Kennedy 2004: 15–16) . Arab tribes had settled into sedentary encampments prior to Islam, for example the Banū Ghassān in al-Jābiya in Syria . As was the pattern established during the period of the Rashidun Caliphs, garrison towns were established outside of major classical cities in northern Bilād al-Shām as well as in other places such as Kufa in Iraq and al-Fusṭāṭ in Egypt . Viewed through this new lens, the traditional evidence of coinage, viewed previously as not proclaiming in the name of Islam, suggests stronger central administrative control than initially thought . Beginning in 42/662–3, coins included hijra dates and displayed the name of the governors with the title ʿAbd Allāh b . ʾAmīr or Muʿāwiya with his title of Commander of the Faithful/Believers or ʾAmīr al-Muʾminīn (Donner 2010, 135; Foss 2010: 81) . The proclamation was to the Believers not in the name of Islam at this time . Though not all agree with him, Donner postulates that the ‘Community of Believers’ at this time included Christians and Jews (all were considered ahl al-kitāb, people of the book, or monotheists) and that a unified concept of Islam came later during the reign of ʿAbd al-Malik (Donner 2010: 124) . Thus there is a strong case to be made for imperial presence within this altered context . What emerges from this new scholarly model is that, though the administrative capital of Syria was in Damascus (Kennedy 2004: 62), the evidence from Arabia and the Yemen linked to Bilād al-Shām or greater Syria in this period suggests that capitals were seasonally dictated and that Muʿāwiya as the first Umayyad caliph developed corresponding administrative and tangible monumental and institutional structures in multiple places . This substantiates early 7th-century Islamic imperial presence in Bilād al-Shām and the northern periphery of Jerusalem in the upper Jordan Valley (Whitcomb 2009; Foss 2010) . The majority of Arab tribes that came to Syria from South Arabia and the Ḥijāz were urban dwellers and settled in semi-permanent sites (Whitcomb 2009: 241) . There is debate concerning the role of al-Jābiya . It once served as one of the main cities or capitals of the Ghassanids and Muʿāwiya’s use of the site may not have been just as a garrison town but as one of the seasonal capitals of the early realm along with Damascus and Sinnabra as winter capital located on © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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the west side of the Sea of Galilee (Whitcomb 2009) . It is also known that Muʿāwiya maintained extensive land-holdings in Arabia and no doubt returned on occasion to his region of origin in Mecca . Our view is that there is now sufficient evidence to substantiate claims to the existence of concrete institutions and apparatus of imperial presence in Jerusalem from 661 forward with Jerusalem serving as one of the periodic capitals of the Early Islamic Umayyad Empire . 4. Setting the stage for Jerusalem in the north periphery? Muʿāwiya went to Syria with the first armies in 634 sent by the first caliph Abu Bakr (Foss 2010: 75) . In pre-Islamic times Muʿāwiya’s family owned property in Balqāʾ in Jordan facilitating integration into the region (Kennedy 2004: 61) . He was governor of Bilād al-Shām between 638–660, from 660 to 680, was the first Sufyanid Umayyad caliph . During his 40 years living in Syria, he established a capital in Damascus, and spent time seasonally in al-Jābiya and in the Tiberias region by the Sea of Galilee in the upper Jordan Valley and no doubt in Jerusalem where he built his mosque into the southeast corner of Bayt al-Maqdis or al-Ḥarām al-Sharīf . Once established as residences of the ruling Umayyads by Muʿāwiya, successive Umayyad caliphs including ʿAbd al-Malik and his son Marwān followed the same seasonal pattern of habitation in these multiple ‘capitals .’ Muslims conquered Roman-Byzantine Tiberias (Ṭabariyyā) the capital of Palestina Secunda in 635 and made it the capital of jund al-Urdunn further developing the site of the Roman/Byzantine city . Shortly after the conquest, a meeting occurred between army commanders and the caliph ʿUmar in al-Jābiya (one of the urban residences of the early Umayyads) to establish the terms of occupation, divide Syria into provinces or ajnād, settle the tribes who came with the conquest, and fix tax rates and means of collection (Cytryn-Silverman 2009: 37, 57 n . 3) . 7 Apparently the apparatus of empire as well in play at the very beginning during the period of conquest of Syria . Cytryn-Silverman has been excavating the mosque of Tiberias . The mosque dates from the 8th century and she attributes it possibly to Hishām b . ʿAbd al-Malik (724– 743) . Under the 8th century mosque there is a smaller earlier mosque over which the later larger mosque is aligned on the qibla wall . The much smaller earlier hypostyle mosque was constructed re-using a remaining Roman wall with columns in secondary use (Cytryn-Silverman 2009: 49–54; Cytryn-Silverman 2015: 207) . Since the building is aligned along the qibla wall it is likely that the lower structure was the first mosque on the site and can possibly be dated to the 7th century on the basis of materials of construction as they parallel construction of the early monuments of

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al-Ḥaram al-Sharīf . 8 This simple modest mosque is possibly the first mosque on the site built shortly after the conquest of Tiberias by Muʿāwiya perhaps when he was appointed governor . There is also an earlier pre-Islamic building or praetorium – term used by Whitcomb – just east of the mosque, also possibly converted to a Dār al-ʾImāra or governor’s house or administrative center (Cytryn-Silverman conversation with excavator; Whitcomb 2016, 13) . The winter residence and capital of the Umayyads from the time of Muʿāwiya was in the palace of al-Sinnabra located on the southwestern shore of the ‘Sea’ of Galilee, just south of the old northern branch of the Jordan River and 5 kilometers from Tiberias (Illustration 5) . Also it was located on the road from Damascus to Tiberias and the coast . The site had previously been identified as Khirbat al-Karak originally identified as a Roman period synagogue with adjacent bathhouse . Ronnie Reich disproved the viability of the building as a synagogue and it was identified by Whitcomb as the Umayyad winter palatial residence of al-Sinnabra (Whitcomb 2002: 1–6; Reich 1993) . A recently published article of Donald Whitcomb discusses this palace as the first of the Umayyad quṣūr (palaces) built in Bilād al-Shām (Whitcomb 2016: 13) . The later quṣūr are scattered through the region and into Jordan . That of the later Khirbat alMinya is located just north of Tiberias and that of Khirbat al-Mafjar is in Jericho to the south in the Jordan Valley . According to Whitcomb, the palace bears a striking resemblance to the praetorium of Tiberias, which served as the Dār al-ʾImāra or government administrative building of Tiberias (Whitcomb 2016: 13) . The palace is constructed on earlier Roman period ruins from basalt stones in re-use . In fact, it has been suggested that at least some of the basalt came from the ancient city of Hippos across the Sea of Galilee .9 This suggests that Muʿāwiya possibly possessed an awareness of the value of the historical past and its display in defining his new winter capital . In 2012, an excavation south of the present excavation revealed a system of inverted siphon conduits bringing fresh water from a Roman aqueduct across the riverbed to the palace and bathhouse (Alexandre 2013) . The excavation of 2014 revealed evidence of two bridges coming from the mainland in the north and crossing the upper channel of the Jordan River and a matching bridge over the southern mouth of the Jordan . When water flowed in both channels the site became an island (Alexandre 2014) . The basalt paving at least 5 meters wide and possible related basalt walls of the northern bridge is possibly the ramp of a bridge that crossed the Jordan from the north . The date of construction proposed is the 7th century, documented in historical sources . In the 7th century the bridge connected the palace to the Umayyad district capital (jund al-Urdunn) of Tiberias . Rafi Greenberg attributes the construction of the bridge and water conduits to ʿAbd al-Malik . Since ʿAbd al-Malik followed in the footsteps of Muʿāwiya at many sites including Sinnabra, Caesarea and Jerusalem we would suggest that Muʿāwiya’s

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Conversations with Katia Cytryn-Silverman both onsite and elsewhere . This was discussed with Rafi Greenberg in March 2016 and I await the publication for more definitive evidence . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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role may be much greater than previously thought . It seems that the siting of the palace by the mouths of the river is strategic and aimed at control of water resources feeding into the lake . Further the existence of the bridges both links the palace to the district capital of Tiberias and perhaps his mosque in the north and to the main road to Damascus from the southern bridge . The scale of construction suggests that the administrative apparatus of the Early Islamic Empire was clearly up to the task . For Muʿāwiya there is at least one regional inscription dealing with the harnessing of water resources and located at a bath very close to the palace of Sinnabra . According to a Greek inscription dated December 5, 662, Muʿāwiya also sponsored the renewal of the Roman baths of Hamat Gader on the Yarmūk River nestled at the base of the Golan Heights not very distant from and to the east of the southern tip of the ‘Sea’ of Galilee in close proximity to both the Mosque in Tiberias and the Palace of Sinnabra (Fig . 6): In the days of ʿAbdallāh Muʿāwiya, the commander of the Faithful, the clibanus of the (baths) here was cleared and renewed by ʿAbdallāh b . Abī Hāshim (or Abī ʿAsim), the governor, in the month of December on the fifth day, Monday, in the 6th (Year) of the (Byzantine) indiction, in the year 726 of the colony, according to the Arabs the 42nd year, for the healing of the sick, under the care of John the Gandarene, the steward (Di Segni 1997: 239) . 10 The use of the hijra year 42 AH or 662 CE signals Islamization and the imperial nature of the inscription during the second year of Muʿāwiya’s reign as first Umayyad caliph . Muʿāwiya is addressed as ʿAbd Allāh or Servant of God, which is a title employed for early caliphs and ʾAmīr al-Muʾminīn or Commander of the Faithful also a reference to his role as ruler (Di Segni 1997: 239) . That the inscription is in Greek with a cross at the beginning is also significant . When Muʿāwiya moved to the region it is clear that his intention was to integrate into the ‘community of believers’, which at that time included the People of the Book – Jews, Christians and Muslims . That the inscription is in Greek by no means implies that there was little central government administrative definition . Rather it is clear he wanted the message to be understood to the local Greek-speaking Christian population and that they were indeed part of the new Muslim imperial presence in the region . In addition, Muʿāwiya retained the Sasanian coinage of the region with the addition of his title and hijra dates . This suggests that he favored inclusivity of all people in the region . This would be to his benefit to consolidate Umayyad imperial control in the region . The palace and baths were also favored and continuously used as the winter residence and spa by the later Umayyads, notably ʿAbd al-Malik and his successors . Monumental inscriptions are an important signifier of power, proclaiming authority on significant sites and buildings . The baths were initially built in the mid2nd century with a Byzantine phase of repair dating from the mid-5th to the mid-7th

10 Transcription and translation by Leah di Segni . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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century . The bath was in use throughout the Umayyad period until the earthquake of 749 (Hirschfeld 1997: 11–12) . Muʿāwiya thus saw the value of such a facility and assumed control and use of the spa of Hamat Gader – still in use today . The construction of the mosque and palace and the renewal of the baths thus provided the early Umayyads with control over the entire area from Tiberias to the base of the Golan Heights up to al-Jābiya to Damascus in the north . Muʿāwiya also controlled the regional water resources supplying water to this area in the Jordan Valley . This winter capital also provided easier access via the Jordan Valley to Jerusalem and control over the road leading to the city . From the evidence of Tiberias and its region, it is clear that there is a pattern established by Muʿāwiya for construction in the early Islamic empire . There are no grandiose monuments proclaiming loudly for Islam . Rather construction is modest in both plans, scale and decoration over ruins of previously significant sites of the Romans and Byzantine precedents . Materials of construction at both Tiberias and alSinnabra are stones in secondary usage . It is also clear that earlier monuments such as the praetorium took on new functions in the newly Islamic domain . Further the one inscription of Muʿāwiya that is securely dated proclaims that he is the ʾAmīr al Muʾminīn defining his role in the second year of his reign as first Umayyad caliph . That the inscription at Hamat Gader is in Greek and those in Arabia in Arabic suggest that Muʿāwiya chose his language by the region where the language was spoken, perhaps denoting inclusivity . With al-Jābiya, Damascus and Tiberias secured in the north the path to Jerusalem was now clear for ʿUmar to conquer Jerusalem . It was reported in later texts that ʿUmar constructed a mosque in Jerusalem though it is unclear if he initiated any architectural projects in Jerusalem . Apparently, he left that development to Muʿāwiya who he appointed as in 638 as governor of Syria or Bilād al-Shām and later after 660 as caliph . 5. Muʿāwiya’s holdings in Arabia There is material cultural evidence to support that Muʿāwiya returned to Arabia after his departure to Bilād al-Shām and had large land-holdings in the area south of Mecca . There exist two inscriptions on a dam created to irrigate and supply water to his extensive estates in that arid region (Foss 2010: 87) . The soil conservation dam 25 to 30 feet high and built of huge boulders is in the mountains less than 20 miles east of Ṭāʾif (Illustration 7) . On that dam is an inscription in simple Kufic letters, which is perhaps the first Arabic inscription identifying Muʿāwiya as Commander of the Believers . It reads as follows: This dam [belongs] to ʿAbdallāh Muʿāwiya Commander of the Believers . ʿAbdallāh b . Sakhr built it, with the permission of Allah, in the year fifty-eight . O Allah, pardon ʿAbdallāh Muʿāwiya, Commander of the Believers, and strengthen him, and make him victorious, and grant the Commander of the Believers the enjoyment of it . ʿAmrū b . Janāb wrote [it] (Miles 1948: 237) . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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The dam was completed in 677/678, two years before Muʿāwiya’s death in 680 . It is known that the area around Ṭāʾif was extensively developed for agricultural purposes and well-irrigated in pre-Islamic and early Islamic times (Lammens 1922: 139ff .) . It is also known that Muʿāwiya and his brothers ʿUtbah and ʿAnbasah acquired many holdings in the Ṭāʾif area so that it formed a single block of familial property (Lammens 1922: 238–239) . 11 So it is clear that Muʿāwiya returned to his native Ḥijāz and sustained property and no doubt a residence in Arabia throughout his 40 year residency in Bilād-al-Shām. This dam also evidences his interest in and mastery of controlling the water resources of this arid region encouraging agricultural development .12 The question arises as to why it was in the interest of later Abbasid historians to minimize the role played by the Prophet, Muʿāwiya and the Umayyads in general in the development of agriculture in Arabia . In 1948, George C . Miles stated: Propagating the anti-Umayyad cause, ‘Abbasid traditionalists put into the mouth of the Prophet the words, “I was sent not for agriculture but for jihād, the Holy War .” They averred that Muḥammad “ . . . planted no palms, nor dug canals or wells .” Such ḥadīth were useful propaganda to combat the Umayyad agricultural policies, and thus Umayyad sympathies in general (Miles 1948: 236) The Umayyads and notably the Sufyanids were avid farmers and did not neglect their original homeland in the Ḥijāz region of Arabia . Muʿāwiya in particular, with the newly acquired fortunes resulting from conquests in the north bought up vast properties in Arabia and spent enormous sums developing the land for agriculture . Near ʿArafa and in the Mecca Valley he dug wells and irrigation ditches, built dikes and dams to contain the soil against winter floods, built reservoirs and fountains to irrigate the surrounding land . 13 Miles attributes this construction to him rather than to ʿAbd al-Malik . 6. Conclusion This paper discusses the broadening of previous research on Muʿāwiya’s monumental architectural construction in Jerusalem . His role in Jerusalem has been challenged in earlier scholarship based on the absence of usual signifiers of imperial presence . An examination of his monumental construction to the north by the Sea of Galilee and to the south in the Ḥijāz and South Arabia where these usual signifiers do exist assist in substantiating arguments for his imperial presence in his intended capital of Jerusalem .

11 Miles also cites al-Balādhurī and Yaqūt as sources of his information for the agricultural development of the region . 12 The authors’ book in progress Capitalizing Jerusalem: Muʿāwiya’s Urban Vision 638–680 will elaborate on additional inscriptions from the period of Muʿāwiya . 13 Miles’s source for much of this information comes from Lammens 1907: 130–140; Lammens 1914: 234–242 . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Bibliography Alexandre, Y . 2013 Tel Bet Yerah, the Inverted Siphon Pipeline . Hadashot Arkheologiyot. Excavations and Surveys in Israel 125 . < http://www .hadashot-esi .org .il/Report_Detail_Eng .aspx?id=3336> (last access 3 .1 .2018) . 2014

Tell Bet Yerah: the Bridge to el-Sinnabra: final report . Hadashot Arkheologiyot. Excavations and Surveys in Israel 126, 1–11 .

Burgoyne, M . 1999 Some further observations on the Gates of the Ḥaram al-Sharif . In: Jeremy Johns (ed .), Bayt al-Maqdis: Jerusalem and Early Islam. Oxford Studies in Islamic Art 9 .2 . Oxford, 215–222 . 2009

Smaller Domes in the Ḥaram al-Sharif Reconsidered in Light of a Recent Survey . In: R . Hillenbrand and S . Auld (eds .), Ayyubid Jerusalem: The Holy City in Context 1187–1250. London,147–178 .

Cytryn-Silverman, K . 2009 The mosque of Tiberias . Muqarnas 26, 37–61 . 2015

Tiberias, from its foundation to the early Islamic period . In: D . A . Fiensy and J . R . Strange (eds .), Galilee in the Late Second Temple and Mishnaic Periods. Volume 2: The Archaeological Record from Galilean Cities, Towns, and Villages. Minneapolis, 186–210 .

Di Segni, L . 1997 The Greek inscriptions of Hammat Gader . In: Y . Hirschfeld, The Roman Baths of Hammat Gader: Final Report . Jerusalem, 185–266 . Donner, F . 2010 Muhammad and the Believers: At the Origins of Islam . Oxford . Foss, C . 2010 Mu’āwiya’s state . In: J . Haldon Money (ed .), Power and Politics in Early Islamic Syria: A Review of Current Debates. Farnham, 76–96 . Greenberg, R . and Paz, S . 2010 Tel Bet Yerah 2007, 2009 . Hadashot Arkheologiyot . Excavations and Surveys in Israel 122 . Jerusalem . Hirschfeld, Y . 1997 The Roman Baths of Hammat Gader: Final Report . Jerusalem . Kennedy, H . 1986/2004 The Prophet and the Age of the Caliphates: The Islamic Near East from the Sixth to the Eleventh Century, 2nd edition . London . Khoury, N . 1993 The dome of the rock, the Ka’ba, and Ghumdan: Arab myths and Umayyad monuments . Muqarnas 10, 57–65 . Lammens, H . 1907 Études sur le règne du Calife Omaiyade Mo’awiya Ier. Mélanges de la Faculté Orientale . Université Saint-Joseph 2 . Beirut . 1914

Le berceau d’Islam, Volume 1: Le climat – les bédouins. Rome .

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La cité Arabe de Taif à la veille de l’hégire. Mélanges de la Faculté Orientale . Université SaintJoseph 8 . Beirut . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Miles, G . 1948 Early Islamic inscriptions near Ta’if in the Hijaz, Journal of Near Eastern Studies 7, 236–242 . Reich, R . 1993 The Bet Yerah ‘synagogue’ reconsidered . ‘Atiqot 2, 137–144 . St . Laurent, B . and Awwad, I . 2013 The Marwani Musalla in Jerusalem: new findings. Jerusalem Quarterly 54, 7–30 . 2016

The archaeology and preservation of early Islamic Jerusalem: revealing the 7th century mosque on the Ḥaram al-Sharif . In: R . Stucky, O . Kaelin and H . Mathys (eds .), Proceedings of the 9th International Congress on the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East, 9–13 June 2014, Basel. Volume 2. Wiesbaden, 441–453 .

Whitcomb, D . 2002 Khirbet al-Kerak identified with Sinnabra . Al-‘Usur al-Wusta: The Bulletin of Middle East Medievalists 14/1, 1–6 . 2009

From pastoral peasantry to tribal urbanites: Arab tribes and the foundation of the Islamic state in Syria . In: J . Szuchman (ed .), Tribes and the State in the Ancient Near East; Cross-Disciplinary Perspectives . Oriental Institute Seminars 5 . Chicago, 241–260 .

2016

Notes for an Archaeology of Mu’āwiya: Material Culture in the Transitional Period of Believers . In: A . Borrut and F . Donner (eds .), Christians and Others in the Umayyad State . Late Antique and Medieval Islamic Near East 1 . Chicago, 11–27 .

Fig . 1 al-Ḥaram al-Sharīf 1930 (photo: Library of Congress) © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Fig . 2 al-Ḥaram al-Sharīf (photo: Library of Congress)

Fig . 3 al-Ḥaram al-Sharīf (graphics: Alessandra Angeloni) © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Fig . 4 North Arcade embedded in bedrock . (photo: St . Laurent, 2016)

Fig . 5 Palace of Sinnabra (photo: St . Laurent, 2014) © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Fig . 6 Bath of Hammat Gader (photo: Alex Brey 2014)

Fig . 7 Dam at Ta’if 1945 (after Miles 1948) © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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The Toprakkale Castle at the Arab-Byzantine Frontier: Textual Sources and Notes on Archaeology Füsun Tülek 1 Abstract Toprakkale Castle, in East Plain Cilicia, is situated on the east–west trade route which runs along the southernmost fringes of the plain just before the first hills of the Amanus Mountains and at the north entrance of the Kısık Pass through which runs the land route leading to the northeastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea . The castle, placed strategically at such a junction of roads, surmounts a conical hill reaching an altitude of 140 meters with its inner and outer baileys . The kern of the castle encroaches on a steep talus and basalt bedrock with outer walls adorning the hill like a necklace . The walls rising high with round and pentagonal towers are awe-inspiring . The castle, Abbasid in origin and a Mamluk stronghold at its major final phase of use, is regarded as having an obscure foundation history . Archaeological evidence and Arabic literary sources shed light on the historical background of its site . The original name of the castle is controversial as well, frequently named Tell Hamdun or Tili in non-Islamic medieval literary sources . The present paper aims to comprehend the foundation phase and identity of the castle within the building program of the Arab armies in al-thughūr recorded in Medieval Arabic sources .

1. Geographical situation of Toprakkale Toprakkale Castle, at the southernmost fringes of the East Plain Cilicia, is located at the junction of major ancient military and trade routes which is also today a main junction, named Toprak, of modern highways which connect Gaziantep, Adana, and the Hatay Provinces . The major ancient route, the D-400 highway today, runs from east to west, from the Arslanlı Bel Pass on the Amanus Mountain to the Misis Heights along the southernmost fringes of the plain . The second ancient route, the D-817 highway today, forks at the junction following the ancient route via Kısık Pass to proceed to shores of the Iskenderun Gulf along the Mediterranean Sea and, or, following the route to further south crossing the Amanus Mountain range via Belen Pass to proceed to Antioch and North Syria . Minor ancient military routes on the Taurus Mountain Range which proceed from the ancient town of Kokusun, currently Göksun, to the north, and cross mountain passes such as Bağdaş Bel, Meryemçil Bel, Mazgaç Bel, and Esenli Bel descend to the south of the plain to converge at the Toprak junction in the Toprak district where the castle of Toprakkale in Osmaniye Province is situated (Alkım 1959: 60) . The Toprak junction, situated before the north entrance to the Kısık Pass, also plays a

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major strategic role as the gate of East Plain Cilicia . The Kısık Pass, 5km long on the north–south axis, separates the first heights of the Amanus Mountain Range on the east side from the heights of the Deli Basalt Formation on the west side . The ancient city of Oinoanda/Epiphaneia is situated at the southwestern edge of the Kısık Pass encroaching on the skirts of the Deli Halil Basalt Formation and keeps the south entrance to the Pass as well . Thus, Toprakkale Castle at the north and the ancient city of Epiphaneia at the south acts as the gates of the strategic Kısık Pass which provides access not only to the sea but also to North Syria (Tülek 2011) . A hill, conical in shape, stands on the large triangular field of Toprak junction crowned by a castle . The altitude of the junction field is 65m, from where the hill rises up to ±70m . On top of the hill the castle stands magnificent with outer and inner bailey walls, which still remain, rising ±10 to 15 meters high (Tülek 2015) . In total the castle reaches to a height of ±140 to 150 meters above sea level with an awe-inspiring silhouette . Towers are placed purposefully at the kern of the castle to provide a panoramic view, making it easy to watch over the land and routes which it guards . The castle had a couple of major construction phases which included numerous repairs to the walls at intervals as well as the addition of permanent and temporary structures . The geomorphological composition of the hill demonstrates a bedrock of flysch and basalt layers; the southern half of the hill has a flysch formation covered with a thick basalt layer and the northern half is covered with the debris of settlements on flysch layers (Yılmaz 2015) . The basalt layer is an extension of the Deli Halil Basalt Formation as the Deli Halil volcano is 3km away as the crow flies to the southwest of the castle . The south skirts of Toprak Hill are composed of column basalt formation . Today, the debris of settlements around the west, north, and northeast skirts of the hill is easily detectable beneath olive groves which yield a plethora of potsherds datable to the second millennium BC to Late Medieval times (Tülek 2013, 245) . Toprak Hill that the castle surmounts has even been assertively identified as a prehistoric mound (Seton-Williams 1954: 128) . The Karaçay stream, a branch of the River Pyramos runs to the north of the castle along the ancient route, and a small branch of it forks to the south running through the Kısık Pass like a canal . 2. State of research on the site Toprakkale Castle has been the subject of scholarly research such as Die Burg Til im südöstlichen Kilikien published by J . Gottwald in 1940; Burgen der Kreuzritter im heiligen Land, auf Zypern und in der Ägäis published by W . Müller-Wiener in 1966, Burgen der Kreuzritterzeit in der Grafschaft Edessa und im königreich Kleinarmenian published by H . Hellenkemper in 1976, and The Fortifications of Armenian Cilicia published by R . W . Edwards in 1987 . Numerous articles and monographs have been published concerning the history and architecture of the Crusaders and Crusader castles, some of which also illustrate and mention Toprakkale . Major studies of the castle mentioned above sketched out a plan of the castle and tried to identify the © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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building phases as an essential initial step of examination . Gottwald utilized a sketchy plan drawn by the Berlin–Baghdad railway engineer E . Huebsch which is precious as it illustrated the castle on Toprak Hill with its environs (Gottwald 1940) . It was MüllerWiener who first drew a plan of the castle with its architectural units (Müller-Wiener 1966, fig . 5) . Hellenkemper and later on Edwards elaborated the plan of the castle based on Müller-Wiener’s plan (Hellenkemper 1976, fig . 90; Edwards 1987, fig .72) . 3. Name and identification in textual sources In the present day, the castle is named after the district of Toprak where it is situated as Toprakkale, hence the toponym newly flourishing town at north of the castle is named after the castle as town of Toprakkale in the Osmaniye Province . The abovementioned research addresses the castle as Tell/Tall Ḥamdūn, Til Ḥamdūn or Tili, a name first known to have been mentioned in the medieval literature of the twelfth century referring to a castle in Plain Cilicia . Late medieval literature, which have an approach of Byzantine and Crusades perspective does not mention the castle and the name ‘Tell Ḥamdūn’ before the twelfth century (Edwards 1987, 244) . The Chronicle of Michael the Syrian in the twelfth century noted the attendance of a Jacobite bishop at a synod held in the eleventh century whose home place was recorded as Tall Ḥamdūn (Honigmann 1954: 152) . ‘Tall’ or ‘Tell’ means ‘hill’ in Arabic which apparently denotes a castle or a settlement situated on a hill . A second twelfth century medieval Byzantine source, the Alexiad of Anna Comnena, employed the word ‘Tili’ (τιλίου/τίλια) in the chapter narrating Bohemond’s oath to the Emperor Alexius Comnenos when he claimed ‘together with the three Tilia (hills surmounted by castles)’ (Comnena 1969: 13 . xii, 432) . Indeed, in East Plain Cilicia there are three medieval castles in close proximity, each crowning a hilltop . These are the Toprakkale, Hemite and Castabala castles . The Hemite and Castabala castles are at the northeast fringes of the plain on the hilltops of ridges of the Amanus Mountain Range along the River Pyramos/Ceyhan, and they are ±8km distant from each other . These two castles are on the north side of the major military-trade route running at an east–west axis and Toprakkale, as the third of the three castles, is on the south side of the major route just ±16km distant from the two castles (Tülek 2015) . A thirteenth-century diary, the travel log of Father Wilbrand von Oldenburg (1854), mentioned the castle Thila as a castrum valde bonum cujusdam nobilis in 1211 (Oldenburg XXV) . Father Wilbrand’s itinerary began from the port of Alexandretta (İskenderun), probably following the route along the coast of the Gulf listing places such as Portella, Canamella, then proceeding inland to Mamistra (Mopsuestia/Misis/ later named al-Maṣṣīṣa by Arabs) and other towns in West Plain Cilicia . He must have taken the route leading up to the north, to the first highlands of the Taurus Mountain Range, to visit Sis/Sisiya (Kozan) and then, making a detour, Wilbrand descended to the south visiting Anavarza . Wilbrand’s itinerary is quite confusing © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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with the given location and names of towns after Misis, as well as after Anavarza . Later scholarhip seems reached to a consensus on some of the confused town names listed in Wilbrand’s itinerary as Adamodana is Amuda, which later was considered as Hamatie or Hemite, as well as, the name Thila, which was taken by Gotwald as the name of the Toprakkale Castle . For Gotwald, the castle at Toprakkale should be the Thila, since between the Hemite Castle and Canamella ‘there are no any other ruins of a castle as impressive as Toprakkale, which could deserve the phrase “castrum valde bonum of the noble man”’ (Gottwald 1940: 100) . In fact, there are two more castles between the mentioned three castles Hemite, Castabala, and Toprakkale; these are the Hamus/Çardak Castle and the Gebeli Castle, both of which are on the west side of the Amanus Mountain Range and are aligned on a north–south axis . The Hamus/Çardak Castle is on a ridge on the Amanus Mountain Range at an altitude of ±800m controlling both the route proceeding to the plain via the Arslanlıbel Pass and the Plain having a view of Castabala and Hemite castles the Sarvanda/Sarvantikar Castle . However the Hamus/Çardak Castle can only communicate with Toprakkale Castle via the Gebeli Castle at an altitude of ±260m on the lower heights of the Amanus Mountain Range just by the Karaçay stream, where the stream reaches the plain from the mountains (Tülek 2007: 48) . 2 Medieval scholarship consensus is that the name given to Toprakkale Castle from the tenth century onwards is Tell Ḥamdūn, which was named after the last mighty commander Sayf al-Dawla, a member of the Hamdanid dynasty (Garood 2008: 128) . It is known that Sayf al-Dawla was stationed in al-thughūr, Plain Cilicia, protecting the area in the name of Abbasid Caliphate and its ruling Hamdanid dynasty as Aleppo was the base . However, there is no clear evidence that Toprakkale was the headquarters of the commander Sayf al-Dawla and that the Tell Ḥamdūn castle was the Toprakkale Castle named after him (Canard 1953) . In none of the literary sources is there clear geographical description to identify securely that Toprakkale was the Tell Ḥamdūn Castle . Besides, Honigmann confused the location of the Toprakkale castle illustrating it by the river Pyramos under the name Tell Ḥamdūn, but recounted it in the text as Hamaite Kalessi whose older name is ʿĀmūdā, which indeed is the original site of the Hemite castle (Honigmann 1935: Map 2) . 4. The early Islamic period in Arabic textual sources The above-mentioned scholarship of medieval studies and non-Arabic medieval primary sources do not mention the original name of the castle before the tenth century . The consensus of the scholarship on the original foundation date and past of the castle is unknown and obscure (Hellenkemper 1976) . Edwards mentioned that Hārūn

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Gebeli Castle has not been subjected to examination during any of the major studies on medieval castles mentioned in the present text . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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al-Rashīd built two castles in al-thughūr on the west side of the Amanus Mountain Range, but eliminated the option that the second castle is the Toprakkale Castle, which is named Kanisat al-Sawdā/al-Kanīsa in origin . Edwards did not elucidate on what basis he rejected the possibility of Toprakkale as being al-Kanīsa (Edwards 1987: 244) . On the other hand, medieval Arab geographers and historians of the ninth and tenth centuries do not recount a castle under the name of Tell Ḥamdūn in al-thughūr . Arab writers such as the geographer Aḥmad b . Abī Yaʿqūb b . Jaʿfar b . Wahb b . Wadīh al-Yaʿqūbī, al-Yaʿqūbī for short, who lived in the ninth century wrote Kitāb al-buldān, Abū al-Qāsim ʿUbayd Allāh b . ʿAbdallāh b. Khordādhbeh, Ibn Khordādhbeh for short, lived 820–912 and wrote Kitāb al-masālik wa-l-mamālik, Muḥammad Abī al-Qāsim Ibn Ḥawqal, Ibn Ḥawqal for short, wrote Ṣūrat al-ʿarḍ in 977 AD, and Yāqūt al-Hamawī wrote Kitāb Muʿjam al-buldān in the twelfth century, repeatedly describe a castle Abbasid in origin on the west side of the Amanus Mountain Range named al-Kanīsa (Kanīsat al-Sawdā) instead of Tell Ḥamdūn . According to their description the castle was isolated from the sea but close to Ḥiṣn al-Muthaqqab (al-Balādhurī 1987: 228) . Besides, another tenth-century Arabic geographer Ibn Ḥawqal illustrates al-Kanīsa perfectly at the place described by former and contemporary Arabic sources (Ibn Hawqal 1992) . The presence of Arab armies in East Plain Cilicia dates back to the first half of the seventh century . The Yarmūk Battle which took place between Arab and Byzantine armies in 636 AD had a crucial impact on the socio-political history of the Plain Cilicia . Nine years after the Yarmūk victory, Arab armies crossed the highlands of the Taurus Mountain Range and were before the gates of the major Byzantine cities in Anatolia such as, before the city of Amorion in 645/46 AD and eight years later they were before the gates of Constantinople . Emperor Heraclius, after the defeat of Yarmūk, ordered the eviction of the Cilician castles and towns to retreat to north of highlands, to the inner parts of Anatolia so as to create a buffer zone where the Taurus Mountain Range was a natural border (Strange 1930: 128; al-Balādhurī 1987: 224) . Thus, at first the Plain Cilicia was part of al-ʿāṣima of the Arab armies; later it became a military zone of al-thughūr in 673 AD as part of Bilād al-Shām . Muʿāwiya the First, governor of Bilād-al-Shām, let Arab soldiers reside in the empty castles between Antioch and Tarsus . However, later, he ordered his son, commander Yazīd, to destroy all of them . Muʿāwiya I attacked and destroyed Mopsouhestia in East Plain Cilicia (Brooks 1898: 183), but later had a castle built named al-Maṣṣīṣa by the year 680 (al-Balādhurī 1987: 237) . However, the first substantial building program in al-thughur took place at the time of the chaliph ʿAbd al-Malik b . Marwān in 703 AD; the al-Maṣṣīṣa stronghold was restrengthened which later became the rampage for the attacks of Arabs to inland to take over the castles in the area including the castles of Sis/Kozan and Tyanna/Niğde (Brooks 1898: 191) . Newly founded places such as Kafr Baya along the Ceyhan River and across it the alMaṣṣīṣa castles were populated by Arabs (Ibn Hawqal 1992: 167–168) . Al-Balādhurī recounts that the Umayyads, particularly at the time of the caliph Hishām b . ʿAbd al© 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Malik (724–743 AD), undertook a building program at East Plain Cilicia reinforcing it with settlements and strongholds which safeguarded the roads leading to Bilād alShām such as al-Rabad, al-Khusus, Ḥiṣn Qatarghash, Ḥiṣn al-Muthaqqab, and Ḥiṣn Mūra and Ḥiṣn Buqa in the Antioch region (al-Balādhurī 1987: 228) . Building activities gained impetus during the rule of Abbasid Caliphate, particularly at the time of al-Manṣūr, on the west side of the River Ceyhan . Tarsus was chosen as headquarters and the destroyed towns of Germanicia-Marʿash, Adhana, al-Maṣṣīṣa, and ʿAyn Zarba were rebuilt (Grabar 1987: 244) . The strategy of creating a secure zone for the army was first employed at the time of al-Mahdī (775–785 AD) rebuilding the city of Tarsus, which was later renewed by caliph Harūn al-Rashīd following the plan of a Miṣr in 788 AD (al-Balādhurī 1987: 230–232) . In the second half of the eighth century caliph Harūn al-Rashīd (786–809 AD) also undertook a building program reflecting a new conception of settlement organization . According to al-Balādhurī, Harūn al-Rashīd organized settlements to the northwest of Bilād al-Shām in hierarchical organisation as Manbij became the capital town of al-ʿawāṣim . Thus, at the time of war, the settlements of al-ʿawāṣim would be safe places for Arab armies to retreat from the frontier/al-thughūr (al-Balādhurī 1987: 180) . Harūn al-Rashīd accomplished a substantial building program in East Plain Cilicia and rebuilt the town of ʿAyn Zarba and its castle in 797 AD . ʿAyn Zarba became a military base for the army to capture al-Sisiya, which is situated at north, on the Taurus highlands . Three years later, in 800 AD al-Harūniyya and Kanīsat al-Sawdā were built ex novo in East Plain Cilicia just by the the Amanus Mountain Range (al-Balādhurī 1987: 234–235) . Ibn Ḥawqal recounts that Kanīsat al-Sawdā was a castle built over the ruins of a Roman structure in black stone by Harūn al-Rashīd (Ibn Ḥawqal 1992: 155) . Literally, Kanīsat al-Sawdā meaning ‘black church’ or ‘black building’ is illustrated on an Arab regional map shown on the west side of the Amanus mountains, close to al-Muthaqqab but isolated from the Mediterranean Sea (Ibn Ḥawqal 1992: 168) . Ibn Khordādhbeh recounts that Kanīsat al-Sawdā was one of the frontier castles of Bilad al-Sham together with ʿAyn Zarba, al-Harūniyya, and Tell Jubayr in 846 AD . 5. The Middle Byzantine, Crusader and Mamluk periods After three hundred years of Arab rule, Byzantine armies took back the region in 962 AD (Honigmann 1935: 92) . In the hands of the Byzantine Empire the castle received substantial construction works . The outer bailey, whose walls had pentagonal towers, encircled the west and north side of the castle (Tülek 2015) . At the end of the eleventh century, it seems that the castle was the seat of Jacobites . Anna Comnena does not mention such a use of the castle but recounts how the patrimony of the castles in the region was given to the Crusadres . In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries the region became a battleground where Byzantines, Crusaders, and Armenian barons destroyed towns, took over castles and then rebuilt them (Hellenkemper 1976: © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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150; Hild and Hellenkemper 1990: 137), thus the castle changed hands many times between the Crusaders, and Armenian barons . Mamluks took over the control of Plain Cilicia with its castles . King Hethum of the Armenians, at that time, was the lord of the Cilician Armenia surrendered to Mamluk Sultan Baybars in 1274/75 AD (Har-El 1995: 31) . A century later, by the middle of the fourteenth century, Turkmen tribes, the Dulkadirids and later the Ramadans were in Cilicia ruling the region in alliance with the Mamluks (Har-El 1995: 34) . The Mamluks ruled in Cilicia for almost two centuries considering it a military zone for their Aleppo- and Cairo-based power centres until they were defeated by the Ottoman Sultan Bayazıd II in 1488 and they lost power in Cilicia and Anatolia forever . 6. Archaeological evidence The history of the castle and its region can be told briefly based on Arabic and Byzantine literary sources and architectural evidence . However, this account does not tell us much about the unwritten and untold past of the site before the initial building phase of the extant castle, that is to say, before the rule of Arab armies in Plain Cilicia . Nothing is mentioned of the Kanīsat al-Sawdā after the ninth century . Was it destroyed? Why would the Abbasids destroy it? None of the Arab and Byzantine historians recorded such a major incident . Literary texts are silent concerning the castle as if the castle had fallen into oblivion or its name had been changed . The archaeological examination of the castle and remains over the hill slopes and finds, such as ceramics and marble spolia, shed light on the unknown past of the site . Ceramics are the basic diagnostic material culture to identify once prevailing cultures at a given site . The site yields a plethora of potsherds all over the hill skirts, in the cut sections of the hill slope as well as in the inner and outer baileys of the castle . Potsherds are found in the cut sections of the modern road leading to the castle and many more are visible in parts of the soil beneath the stones of the talus . The examination of the potsherds of the site are attested at the earliest to the Hittite Imperial period and in general the dates of the potsherds range from the Early Iron Age to Hellenistic, Roman Imperial, and Byzantine periods; the latest dated potsherds belong to the Mamluk period . Possibly, there was a hiatus of habitation on the castle mound from the end of the middle Iron Age to the middle Hellenistic period . Potsherds indicate a continuous settlement from the middle Hellenistic period into the Roman Imperial period . Potsherds of Color Coated Fine Ware and East Sigillata A types are found in considerable amount . The ceramic repertoire indicates a middle Hellenistic and Roman Imperial period settlement on the slopes of the hill as well as, possibly, a fortress on the top . However, a late Antique pottery type, the Red Slipped Late Roman C ware, is absent . Absence of Late Roman C ware indicates another hiatus in the settlement history of the Toprak Hill between the fourth and possibly the ninth centuries . Medieval pottery of glazed sgrafiatto dating to the middle Byzantine period at the earliest through to the thirteenth century is abundant, particularly on © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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the west, northwest, and northern slopes of the hill as well as in the interior of the castle (Tülek 2015) . The pre-Islamic past of the castle site should be taken into consideration together with the ancient major settlements at its close geographic periphery as well . The archaeological evidence denotes that in the pre-Islamic past the conical hill was lived upon and fortified to guard the northern entrance of the Kısık Pass . The southern entrance of the Kısık Pass was guarded by the ancient city of Epiphaneia . The ancient city of Epiphaneia is precisely located on the southwest side of the Kısık Pass . Epiphaneia was the classical city of Oinoanda which was renamed in the middle Hellenistic period after the king Antiochus the IV Epiphanes, who ruled the region between 175–164 BC and refounded the city in his name . The ancient city of Epiphaneia encroaches on the fringes of the basalt formation, and probably had a colonnaded street leading to the harbor (Bell 1906) . At the present, the ruins of the ancient city are ca . 8km distant from the sea where the ancient harbor is completely covered with sand dunes (Tülek 2012) . It is most reasonable to anticipate that the king Antiochus Epiphaneus would build a castle on the conical hill at the northern entrance of the Kısık Pass to protect the city he built at the southern entrance of the pass from the enemy which, would definitely approach from the north via the major military routes . All through the ages, any ruling power of the East Plain Cilicia would reasonably fortify the Toprak junction to guard major military-trade routes and the Kısık Pass that connects the East Plain to the Mediterranean Sea, to North Syria, to deploy armies and to transport goods safely . It is no wonder that all the castles in Cilicia are positioned strategically on top of hills guarding the routes on the plain and mountain passes . Caliph Harūn al-Rashīd, following a similar military strategy to secure the north and south entrances of the Kısık Pass, must have fortified the hill top at north of the Kısık Pass, which was already covered with Roman ruins, and must have restored ruins of the ancient city of Epiphaneia at south of the Kısık Pass such as, the theatre and baths . At present the surviving ruins of the ancient city of Epiphaneia yield black basalt walls with solid buttresses, enclosing the ancient theatre, as well as material culture of the Abbasids such as intact pottery, for example, jugs, juglets and cooking pots unearthed at rescue excavations conducted by the archaeologists of the Hatay Archaeology Museum, yet to be published . A thorough examination of the Toprakkale Castle also recorded marble spolia . The construction material of the castle is mainly black basalt . The circuit walls of the inner and outer bailey are built of basalt stones . The exteriors of two towers, the North Tower of Unit A and Tower I, are each encircled by one row of marble like a necklace to define the second storey . Spolia marble is used only in one unit, in the piers of Unit B . Unit B is a rectangular hall covered with cross vaults of which 4 piers at the center contain huge white marble blocks having 3 fascias on one face . Dirt and contamination of the ages has blackened the spolia marble blocks; a simple scratch on the surface easily reveals the beautiful white marble beneath . These marble blocks having a 3-lined fascia should be entablature pieces of a Classical monumental structure, possibly of a pagan temple (Tülek 2015) . Three temple sites © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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are known of close to Toprakkale, the closest is the temple at the ancient city of Epiphaneia, the second site is the temple at Toprakkale town in the Karataş district, and the third temple site is on the hilltop of the Deli Halil ancient settlement (Tülek 2014: 194) . However, it is most plausible that the marble entablature pieces could have been from a temple situated on top of the Toprak Hill where the castle proper is built over . It should be kept in mind that Arab historians and geographers recount that Harūn ar-Rashīd built a castle over the Roman ruins . A settlement must have been situated at the site where the castle stands, probably on its slopes and skirts, possibly dating to the middle of the Hellenistic period and enduring through the Roman Imperial period and lasting until sometime late in the fourth century as evidenced by the abundant potsherds . The Roman settlement of the Toprakkale Hill might have terminated due to natural catastrophes such as earthquakes in the fourth century AD . Historically well-known major earthquakes of the region date to the sixth century, of which two of the three have epicenters at Antioch and one at Anazarbus . There must also have been former devastating earthquakes, dating to the end of the fourth and beginning of the fifth century, which demolished towns and settlements in the periphery of the castle as the Theodosius Codex records an edict of the emperor Theodosius granting tax exemption to the people of the region and to the city of Epiphaneia to recover and heal their wounds from a natural catastrophe . 7. Summary Accounts of Arab historians and geographers mention that the caliph Harūn al-Rashīd built a castle on Roman ruins on the west side of the Amanus Mountain Range and that the name was Kanīsat al-Sawdā, meaning built out of black stone . Hence, we strongly believe that our evaluation of the archaeological and architectural evidence such as ceramics and architectural spolia presented above supports the accounts of Arab historical geographical texts that the Kanīsat al-Sawdā built on the west side of the Amanus Mountains is the present day Toprakkale Castle, which later in the late medieval ages came to be known as Tell Ḥamdūn under the rule of the mighty commander Sayf al-Dawla . Acknowledgements The examination of Toprakkale Castle was conducted via a letter of permission issued by the Turkish Ministry of Culture . The research on “Toprakkale’nin ArkeJeolojik ve Mimari İncelenmesi” has been granted by the Kocaeli University as the KOÜ-BAP Project 2012–13 . Fahd Sbahi, a Syrian archaeologist studying for a MA at Berlin Freie University, joined the team during the 2013 campaign and collaborated by reading the texts of Arab geographers and historians in the original language as part of the historical geography studies of the region . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Deli Halil Antik Yerleşiminin Kurulumu ve Gelişimi Üzerine Doğa Olaylarının Etkisi. TÜBİTAK- SOBAG 109K025 Project Unpublished Report .

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Interaction of the Deli Halil Settlement with the Settlements in Issos Plain . The Archaeology of Hatay and Its Vicinity through the Ages . Mustafa Kemal University Publications 52 . Antakya, 191–210 .

2015

Toprakkale’nin Arkeo-jeolojik ve Mimari İncelenmesi . KOÜ- BAP 2012-73 Project Unpublished Report . Kocaeli, 1–90 .

Yaʿqūbī, A . al1892 Kitāb al-buldān. M . De Goeje (ed .) . Leiden . Yılmaz, İ 2015 Toprakkale’nin Jeolojik ve Jeokimyasal İncelenmesi . In: F . Tülek (ed .), Toprakkale’nin Arkeo-jeolojik ve Mimari İncelenmesi. KOÜ- BAP 2012-73 Project Unpublished Report. Kocaeli, 90–190 .

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Fig . 1 Topography of the Kısık pass and the castle hill

Fig . 2 Toprakkale castle viewed from the west © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

The Toprakkale Castle at the Arab-Byzantine Frontier

Fig . 3 Toprakkale castle, inner bailey, Unit B northwest pier

Fig . 4 Toprakkale castle, inner bailey Unit B northeast pier © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Fig . 5 Map of settlements at al-thughur by Ibn Hawkal

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Settlement Abandonment and Site Formation Processes: Case Studies from Late Islamic Syria Bethany J. Walker 1 Abstract This paper is concerned with the phenomenon of site abandonment in southern Bilād al-Shām on the eve of the Ottoman conquests . While the phenomenon of rural decline in the 14th and 15th centuries CE on the regional level is frequently cited in archaeological and historical literature, the actual mechanisms of site abandonment that stand behind it – its catalysts, timing, regionalisms, physical and cultural impact – have not been a serious focus of analysis on the local level . Study of the complex and gradual abandonment of two rural sites – Tall Ḥisbān (a large village and administrative center in central Jordan) and Khirbat Bayt Mazmīl (a fortified farmstead in the Jerusalem hinterland) – permit a comparison of the localized conditions facilitating and resulting from this ‘decline’ and the physical transformations of the sites (repairs and reuse of constituent buildings and facilities, spatial restructuring of the settlements, transformation of site function, physical patterning of abandoned areas) during their demise . Reference will also be made to other rural sites excavated in the region in order to more accurately describe the realities of village life, and the resilience of local societies, with the collapse of the late medieval state . While the phenomenon of rural decline in the 14th and 15th centuries CE on the regional level is frequently cited in archaeological and historical literature, the actual mechanisms of site abandonment that stand behind it have not been a serious focus of analysis on the local level . The following essay explores the social complexities of settlement abandonment and the different forms it can take in the archaeological record, focusing on two case studies from the central highlands of Transjordan and Palestine in the Mamluk and Ottoman periods .

1. Defining the settlement shifts of the late medieval era Archaeological study of the late medieval Levant is challenged by many factors, not the least of which is our terminological imprecision in matters related to social change . In describing contraction of settlements, ‘decline’, ‘squatter occupation’, and ‘site abandonment’ have come to stand for stages in a process, when it is not sudden or destructive . We use the terms quite freely, but it is not always clear what physical form in the archaeological record these stages take, or what the social process is which led to the gradual departure of populations from a place . The archaeology of the later Islamic periods has focused on disruptions in settlement during the transition from the Middle Islamic (Mamluk: 13th–16th centuries CE) to the Late Islamic (Ottoman: 16th–19th centuries CE) periods, as reflected in the survey record . In the Transjordan these changes are characterized by the abandonment of the majority of the large villages and towns for year-round settle-

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ment and subsequent resettlement in new ecological zones . The new sites are more ephemeral in their physical construction, smaller in scale, and appear to be associated with different patterns of land use . The extent of such settlement shifts differs from one region to the next, and it is not clear at this point to what degree they hold true for the Levant as a whole . The greatest changes were experienced in the central highlands of Transjordan . Some 87 .5% of the substantial villages of the Karak Plateau were abandoned, for good, where there was a general shift in settlement from the open plateaus for the wādīs . Further north, on the Madaba Plains, 35% of all sites surveyed by the Madaba Plains Project were occupied in the Ayyubid/ Mamluk period; by comparison only 7% were identified as Ottoman in date . Only in the well-watered northern highlands was there continuity of settlement into and through the Ottoman period, though on a smaller scale . The factors behind this settlement dispersal were a complex combination of imperial collapse, changes in land tenure (privatization of land), and repeated drought, which together favored a shift to smaller, self-sufficient settlements reliant on traditional forms of irrigation (Walker 2011a: 211–232) . This stands in stark contrast to the central highlands of historical Palestine, which did not experience such wide-scale settlement disruptions in the 15th and 16th centuries (Walker in press) . There is considerable continuity of rural settlement well into and throughout the Ottoman period, though villages fared better than towns after the Ottoman conquest . One notes, here, more a process of ‘ruralization’ than population decline and permanent abandonment . The social, environmental, and economic reasons for the differences in settlement history between Transjordan and Palestine have yet to be systematically explored . 2. General problems in studying the period archaeologically One reason for this is the many archaeological challenges of studying the later Islamic periods in the Levant . Few Mamluk and early Ottoman rural sites in southern Bilād al-Shām have actually been excavated . Poor preservation is one factor in the preference for survey over excavation: few sites of the period, outside of the castle towns and urban monuments, have survived . Most rural buildings were dismembered for building material long ago or built over by modern construction . In today’s Jordan, Tall Ḥisbān, Tall Dhibān, and Khirbat Fāris in the central plains are notable exceptions, as they have been subject to multiple-season campaigns . In Palestine, Khirbat Birzeit, Tiʿnnik, and Zirʿīn, which also span the Mamluk and Ottoman periods, have, as well, been systematically studied for many years . In Israel, such contemporary sites as Khirbat Dinʿila and Zūq al-Fawqānī, both located in the Galilee, have been identified as a result of salvage excavations, and are producing evidence of extensive settlement in this transitional period; the nature of salvage work, however, renders continued study of the sites, and longterm study of the sites in their full spatial extent, with their hinterlands, impossible © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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(for published reports, see Walker 2010) . Nonetheless, these sites generally suffer from the same stratigraphic problems: poor stratigraphic separation of occupational levels (making identification of living surfaces difficult), extensive pitting for refuse disposal, and heavy reuse of earlier buildings . The regional architectural tradition of low-sprung, barrel-vaulted buildings – has a frustrating longevity, which spans the entire medieval and modern periods (McQuitty 1986, 2007; McQuitty and Lenzen 1989) . The problem with the ceramic record – a largely handmade tradition that changes very little in form, surface decoration, and function over eight centuries – is notorious in our field (Johns 1998) . We are only beginning now to make progress in the dating of the so-called Handmade Geometrically-Painted (HMGP) Ware, on the basis of limited stratigraphic separation at controlled excavations (Gabrieli et al . 2014) . Fortunately the current excavations at Tall Ḥisbān (in the central Jordanian highlands) and Khirbat Bayt Mazmīl (in the central Palestinian highlands) are promising, as regards site preservation, history of occupation, and stratigraphy (Fig . 1) . With continued occupation throughout the Byzantine and Islamic periods, remarkably good architectural preservation, relatively good stratigraphy in the farmhouses (with their heavily plastered floors, flagstone pavements, and sealed middens), and continued occupation into the Ottoman era, these two contemporary, and complementary, rural sites are now subject to excavations as part of a coordinated and regionally comparative study of rural life in the Middle and Late Islamic periods . 3. Case studies: Ḥisbān and Mazmīl 3 .1 Tall Ḥisbān Tall Ḥisbān is a multi-period site in the Madaba Plains of central Jordan, located midway between Amman and Madaba and with views, on a clear day, of the Old City of Jerusalem, Jericho, and the northern end of the Dead Sea . A modest, Mamlukperiod Citadel occupies the summit of the tell, which is surrounded at its base by a densely settled village, comprised of clusters of one-room farmhouses with shared courtyards and cisterns (Figs . 2, 3) . Medieval Ḥisbān reached political and social prominence in the 14th century, when it was promoted in administrative status to a district capital and a small garrison posted there during the third reign of the Sultan al-Nāṣir Muḥammad . State investment helped to ‘urbanize’ the village, which grew rapidly in size, if not complexity, in a short period of time . Its sūq served a large area of the Transjordan central highlands, its scholars (trained in a local madrasa) made successful careers throughout the Mamluks’ realms, and it produced a wide variety of grains (and in large quantities) for export markets . An earthquake in mid-century was the apparent catalyst for the transfer of the garrison to Amman, along with the marketplace, legal court, and part of the local population . The village shrank in size and was very slowly abandoned for full-time occupation . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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The site has been subject to scientific excavations by American teams since 1968 . 2 With fieldwork now focused on the settlement below the Mamluk-era Citadel, an interesting picture of village growth, contraction, abandonment, and reoccupation is emerging for the later Islamic centuries . There is a marked spatial patterning in the abandonment of the site as a whole . In the Citadel, for example, upper courses of the fortification wall, parts of the corner towers, and the vaulting system of the garrison storeroom had collapsed with the mid-century earthquake – the latter preserving the contents of the room in a sealed deposit . There were some attempts to repair the Citadel . The easternmost end of the storeroom was replaced with a haphazardly-built small, square tower (2 × 5m), which was immediately filled in with rubble, providing a kind of buttress to the extant southwest corner tower of castle, and reducing the width of the main entrance to the Citadel complex (Walker 2011b) . Efforts to repair defense structures were quickly abandoned, and the summit of the tell was converted to domestic use, for a short period of time after a brief abandonment, in what we would normally call ‘squatter occupation’: the storeroom was reused as a kitchen (replete with tabuns and cooking pots), and the towers and cisterns were reduced to trash disposal (Fig . 4) . By the end of the Mamluk period, the summit of the tell was derelict; only in the 19th century were the ruins of the old Citadel storeroom used for secondary burial for several decades on a seasonal basis by transhumant populations (Walker 2001), and ruins of rooms flanking the northern gate – the former cooking spaces of the Mamluk Citadel – were restored and refurbished for short-term use as a stable (Walker and LaBianca 2003) . At the same time, use of the storage facilities and stables of the upper slopes, which serviced the garrison, came to an end, and these buildings became derelict, never to be used again . The southern gateway and its staircase were covered with soil and the upper slope transformed into terraces for gardens or orchards, modifying the topography of the slope in the process (Boraas and Horn 1969) . In the village below the tell, the buildings that experienced the greatest structural damage were very briefly abandoned by their occupants, who soon returned and tried to repair their property . Most remarkable in this regard was a small house on the southern slope, in Field B . During the 2014 excavation season, two complete Mamluk-era underglaze-painted jars were found outside a blocked doorway (Fig . 5) . Following the initial damage to the house’s walls and vaulting system, it seems the jars were deliberately placed there on their sides, we assume by the occupants of the house, and supported in their positions by a matrix of soil, small stones, and gravel: soil was poured in and around and above them . A small, handmade, handless jar –

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Tall Ḥisbān has been subject to excavations since 1968 by Andrews University of Michigan, USA . Excavations today are directed by the author, as part of the larger Hisban Cultural Heritage Project, under the senior direction of Øystein S . Labianca of Andrews University . A full bibliography of project publications since 1968 can be found at www .madaplains .org/hisban and https://www . mamluk .uni-bonn .de/islamic-archaeology/field-projects/tall-hisban . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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which once held an organic substance – was placed on top of the soil cover at the western end of the house façade . Following the burial of the two soft stonepaste jars, several new courses were added to the standing walls . Shortly afterward, a stonelined pit was constructed, encircling the three jars, and refuse from the building was placed within the pit, and around the jars . The house was then abandoned, and the partially repaired ruins were converted to refuse disposal (Walker et al . 2015) . The underglaze-painted jars in this pit were relatively valuable imports from Syria of a type widely exported in the late 14th century and, it has been argued, used locally for household storage of spices and grains . They were all devoid of contents (outside the surrounding fill): they contained no coin hoards, no burials of infants or still-borns . The reason for the placement of these three jars outside the house and their disposal in this manner is unknown . There are no known parallels for such ‘jar burials’ of this period, if we can refer to them in such a way, outside of their use as burial goods or tomb covers in Israel (Gophna et al. 2007; Gorzalczany 2009) and as burial goods in the Black Sea region of the southern Ukraine for Kipchak nobility (Holod and Rassamakin 2012) . In the latter case the grave included an underglazepainted ‘apothecary’ jar of the same date . All three of the jars from Ḥisbān have been sampled for residue analysis, and it is hoped that the results will shed some light on this extraordinary context . 3 Beyond the stratigraphic value – that is, the stratigraphic association of datable ceramic imports with a previously imprecisely dated handmade ware – the ‘jar burial’ sheds further light on the way Ḥisbān was abandoned . It appears that the occupants of this house may have intended to come back after they fled during the earthquake of the late 14th century . 4 They did for only a brief period and then left for good, as was the case for other structures on the slopes of the tell, which we have identified as farmhouses . A cache of 60 silver coins of the reign of the Mamluk sultan Baybars, discovered in the 1970s plastered into the bench of a farmhouse on the western slope of the tell (Parker 1978), may be related to the same pattern of hiding and hoarding that repeated itself at the site throughout the Mamluk period . As for the rest of the village on the flatlands below the tell, most houses appear to have remained occupied into the Early Ottoman period, but there was a gradual contraction of settlement over the course of the 15th and 16th centuries eventual abandonment of the houses . (The same pattern has been noted for Tall Dhibān, a contemporary village site on the Transjordanian highlands further to the south .) Some of the ruins of these structures were then revitalized briefly in the 19th century for domestic use and housing livestock . By the Tanzimat era, the nucleus of the village shifted to the location of mod-

3 4

We are grateful to Silvia Polla (Freie Universität Berlin) for her analysis of these samples . The stratigraphic context and the manner of burial suggest a deliberate and careful disposal and attempt to protect the jars . Until the results of the residue analysis are available, however, this interpretation is a preliminary one . The subsequent repairs to the house walls do indicate an attempt to rebuild after the earthquake . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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ern Ḥisbān, a half kilometer to the south and centered on a fortified farmstead, known locally as the qaṣr nabūlsī . By the British Mandate era, nothing of the medieval village, or the castle on the top of the hill, was visible to passersby or to local villagers . 3 .2 Khirbat Bayt Mazmīl Different patterns of site contraction, abandonment, and renewal emerge at the site of Khirbat Bayt Mazmīl, a 2 .8 dunam (0 .28 hectare) walled farming complex in Jerusalem’s agricultural hinterland that was once part of a much larger terraced landscape devoted to intensive cultivation of fruit trees . Perched on the summit of the highest hill in the Jerusalem Municipality, the site commands a view to the Old City, Hebron, and the village of ʿAyn Kārim (Fig . 6) . It sat astride the main Christian pilgrim’s route between Jerusalem and ʿAyn Kārim in the Crusader and Middle Islamic periods and may have once been property belonging to Mar Saba monastery (Kool 2014) . The site has, unfortunately, left a faint textual trail for the medieval Islamic periods . According to a waqfiyya (endowment document) dated to 720/1320, Bayt Mazmīl (‘the House of the Flute’) was a place located on the outskirts of Jerusalem . The land as a whole was devoted to terrace agriculture for fruit orchards and olive groves but had suffered from neglect . An endowment of the lands of larger ʿAyn Kārim by a descendent of Shuʿayb Abū Madyān al-Maghribī, the well-known 12thcentury Maghrebi mystic, was meant to promote revival of these terraces to create revenues for a Maghrebi zāwiya in Jerusalem (Massignon 1951 and 1953; Weigert 1990) . 5 Bayt Mazmīl marked the easternmost border of this endowed area . What exactly this place was is unclear . The Jerusalem hinterland in the late Mamluk period was covered with quṣūr (castles or small rural estates) built under state mandate and located on hill tops and in orchards (al-ʾUlaymī 1999: 81–83) . Some may have been assigned as iqṭāʿāt (quasi-feudal estates) to amīrs and other officials, who resided in them for short periods during the summers . The recovery at the site of glazed vessels with militarized blazons and inscriptions would lend support to this possibility . During the early years of Ottoman control, Bayt Mazmīl was a small community, with three households and three ‘bachelors’ (single men), according to the Ottoman tax register (defter) of 932–934/1526–28 (al-Bakhīt and al-Sawariyyah 2005) . It appears to have grown into village over the course of the Ottoman centuries, as it attested by recent coin finds and references to the site in Ottoman mandates and edicts (Walker and Dolinka, in preparation) . Khirbat (the ‘ruins of’) Bayt Mazmīl was the name given to the complex in the 19th and early 20th century by local people (and the modern neighborhood was once called ‘Bayt Mazmīl’ in recent memory), with the village of the same name (Bayt Mazmīl) located close at hand, at the base of the hill .

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The author wishes to thank Dr . Haggai Mazuz (Jr . Fellow at the Annemarie Schimmel Kolleg, University of Bonn) for his help in translating the Hebrew text . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Both the northern (the focus of current fieldwork) and southern (subject to salvage excavations in 2012 and 2013) sectors of this site were occupied in the Late Byzantine and Early Islamic periods, with much space given over to large-scale water systems (including a reservoir and several large and interconnected cisterns) . 6 In the Crusader and Ayyubid periods, settlement shifted to the summit of the hill, where a monumental building and public fountain were constructed . The site experienced its greatest growth in the Mamluk period, when the site grew once again, to incorporate the slopes of the hill and the land below, establishing what can only be described as a large and multi-functional farmstead, replete with stabling, industrial areas (furnaces), and large tabuns . Like Ḥisbān, the retrieval of glazed relief ware bowls with heraldic blazons and militarized inscriptions suggests that the site may have been an iqtāʿ or housed a garrison . Unlike Ḥisbān, which peaked in the 14th century, this part of Bayt Mazmīl reached its greatest growth in the 15th century . Large numbers of ceramic imports from the western and eastern Mediterranean attest to a level of wealth and participation in international exchange network, functions of its close relationship with the Holy City (Dolinka, in preparation) . In the 16th century, the site contracted once again to the limits of the Crusader site, with occupation centered on the top of the hill . By the 17th century the southern sector was converted to terrace gardens, as at Ḥisbān, and agricultural watch towers built on the summit of the hill . Over time these towers were included in the construction of a large, fortified agricultural complex, the remains of which stand today (Fig . 7) . The drystone construction – which was once a familiar sight in the central highlands – made use of wall stubs, vaults, and water facilities of the medieval era . After abandonment of the site in the 1920s, the ruins were terraced once again, creating a multiple-leveled garden . In the 1970s it was planted with fig trees and roses, and in recent years with prickly pear cactus, pomegranates, and almonds (Fig . 8) . Soil was brought in to fill the Early Islamic reservoir and create the terrace levels deep enough for almond trees . It was this green landscape – an abandoned, walled garden in the middle of a neighborhood of high-rises – that greeted the excavators the spring of 2015, when the current project began . 4. Conclusions Comparison of the Mamluk and Ottoman phases at Tall Ḥisbān and Khirbat Bayt Mazmīl raise important questions about the resilience of rural communities in the southern Syrian highlands during the transition from the Mamluk to Ottoman

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The project today is a joint study of settlement of settlement and terrace agriculture, currently funded by the German-Israel Foundation for Scientific Research and Development . The excavations, begun in 2015, are co-directed by the author and Dr . Benjamin Dolinka, Israel Antiquities Authority . For previous information on archaeological surveys and salvage excavations at the site, see Storchan and Dolinka 2014 . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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eras, as well as different patterns in the sites’ physical transformation . The gradual, phased abandonment of the Citadel and village of Ḥisbān cannot be explained by the earthquake alone: this pattern is part a regional trend of settlement dispersal and gradual abandonment of large villages on the central highland plateaus . The fate of the imperially led grain industry in the Mamluk period in the 15th century must be considered when looking for factors behind these trends . As for Khirbat Bayt Mazmīl, its settlement history was certainly conditioned by its unique location and roles in pilgrimage and feeding the city of Jerusalem . Nonetheless, it, too, follows a regional pattern – continuity of rural settlement, with transformation of site function, as at Khirbat Birzeit near Ramallah . That ‘hoarding’, conversion of former public and industrial areas to domestic use, sub-division of rooms, blocked doorways, haphazard repairs to walls, and heavy reuse of building material, and the relegation of once valuable water systems to middens are physical evidence of site abandonment is commonplace knowledge . But what these individually and collectively represent in terms of social change and steps in that process is not . Is what we call ‘squatter occupation’, for example, always evidence of the abandonment of a site for year-round occupation, or could it reflect a stage in the process of settlement abatement or even revival? On a final note, the conversion of an abandoned settlement to terraced agriculture appears to have been a fairly commonplace and traditional reuse of architectural ruins . 7 The phenomenon does raise two important issues . First, that the terraces were used by a community of farmers who lived nearby; this process may be related to the dispersal of village populations and creation of isolated plots of worked land (mazār), as documented by 16th-century Ottoman tax registers . Second, that such terracing requires bringing in soil from other locations and ultimately creates artificial terraces on slopes, transforming the site topography . ‘Settlement abandonment’ is a complex process that creates its own stratigraphic challenges and physically modifies the site in myriad ways . Bibliography Aerial Photographic Archive of Archaeology in the Middle East (APAAME) Archive accessible from: www .humanities .uwa .edu .au/research/cah/aerial-archaeology al-Bakhīṭ, M .ʿA . and al-Sawariyyah, N . R . 2005 The Detailed Defter of the Liwaʾ of Noble Jerusalem. Tapu Defterleri No. 427, 932 A.H./1525– 26 – 934 A.H./1527–28 . Amman – London [in Arabic and Turkish] . Boraas, R . S . and Horn, S . H . 1969 The first campaign at Tell Hesban (1968) . Andrews University Seminary Studies 7, 97–117 .

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Dolinka, B . in preparation The middle and late Islamic ceramics from Khirbet Beit Mazmil . In preparation for ʾAtiqot . Gabrieli, R . S ., Ben-Shlomo, D . and Walker, B . J . 2014 Production and distribution of hand-made geometric-painted (HMGP) and Plain Handmade Wares of the Mamluk period: a case study from northern Israel, Jerusalem, and Hisban . Journal of Islamic Archaeology 1 .2, 192–230 . Gophna, R ., Taxel, I . and Feldstein, A . 2007 Kafr ʿAna: A Rural Settlement in the Lod Valley . Salvage Excavation Reports 4 . Tel Aviv . Gorzalczany, A . 2009 A new type of cemetery from the late Mamluk and early Ottoman periods from central Israel . Levant 41 .2, 223–237 . Holod, R . and Rassamakin, Y . 2012 Imported and native remedies for a wounded ‘prince’: grave goods from the Chungul Kurgan in the Black Sea steppe of the thirteenth century . Medieval Encounters 18, 339–381 . Johns, J . 1998 The rise of middle Islamic hand-made geometrically-painted ware in Bilâd al-Shâm (11th–13th centuries AD) . In: R .-P . Gayraud (ed .), Colloque internationale d’archéologie islamique. IFAO, Le Caire, 3–7 février 1993 . Institut français d’archéologie orientale, Textes arabes et études islamiques 36 . Cairo, 65–93 . Kool, R . 2014 From Mar Saba to Bayit Ve-Gan . In: G . D . Stiebel, O . Peleg-Barkat, D . Ben Ami and Y . Gadot (eds .), Jerusalem: A New Frankish Period Seal of St. Sabas . New Studies in the Archaeology of Jerusalem and its Region . Collected Papers . Volume VIII. Jerusalem, 6–17 . Massignon, L . 1951 Documents sur certains waqfs des lieux saints de l’Islam: principalement sur le waqf Tamimi à Hébron et sur le waqf tlemcénien Abû Madyan à Jérusalem . Revue Études Islamiques, 73–120 . 1953

Documents sur certains waqfs des lieux saints de l’Islam: principalement sur le waqf Tamimi à Hébron et sur le waqf tlemcénien Abû Madyan à Jérusalem . (Additions et corrections à Revue Études Islamiques 1951, 73–120) . Revue Études Islamiques, 39–42 .

McQuitty, A . 1986 Architectural study of Beit Ras . Archiv für Orientforschung 33, 153–155 . 2007

Khirbat Faris: Vernacular architecture on the Kerak plateau, Jordan . Mamluk Studies Review 11 .1, 157–71 .

McQuitty, A . and Lenzen, C . J . 1989 An architectural study of the Irbid region with particular reference to a building in Irbid . Levant 21, 119–128 . Parker, S . T . 1978 Tell Hesban 1976: Area C .4, 6, 8, 9, 10 . Andrews University Seminary Studies 16, 71–108 . Storchan, B . and Dolinka, B . 2014 Jerusalem, Bayit Va-Gan . Hadashot Arkheologiyot 126 (09 .10 .2014) . (last access 04 .09 .2016) . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Ulaymī, Mujīr al-Dīn al-ʾ 1999 al-Uns al-Jalīl bi-Tāʾrīkh al-Quds wa-Khalīl, edited by M . al-Kaʾābinat . Amman . Walker, B . J . 2001 The late Ottoman cemetery in field L, Tall Hisban . Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 322, 47–65 . 2010

From ceramics to social theory: reflections on Mamluk archaeology today . Mamluk Studies Review 14, 109–157 .

2011a Jordan in the Late Middle Ages: Transformation of the Mamluk Frontier . Chicago . 2011b Transjordan as the Mamluk frontier: imperial conceptions of authority and space . In: G . Vannini (ed .), La Transgiordania Neu Secoli XII–XIII e le ‘Frontiere’ Del Mediterraneo Medievale: Trans-Jordan in the 12th and 13th Centuries and the ‘Frontiers’ of the Medieval Mediterranean . Oxford, 197–204 . in press Early Ottoman/late Islamic I/post-Mamluk: What are the archaeological traces of the 16th century in Syria? In: S . Conermann and G . Şen (eds .), The Mamluk-Ottoman Transition: Continuity and Change in Egypt and Bilad al-Sham in the Sixteenth Century . Bonn, in press . Walker, B . J ., Bates, R ., Hudon, J . and LaBianca, Ø . 2015 Tall Hisban 2013 and 2014 excavation seasons: exploration of the Medieval village and longterm water systems . Annual of the Department of Antiquities of Jordan 59, 483–523 . Walker, B . J . and Dolinka, B . in preparation Khirbet Beit Mazmil, investigations of Medieval Jerusalem’s hinterland: preliminary report on the 2015 survey and excavations seasons . In preparation for Zeitschrift der Deutschen Palaestina-Vereins . Walker, B . J . and LaBianca, Ø . 2003 The Islamic Qusur of Tall Hisban: preliminary report on the 1998 and 2001 season . Annual of the Department of Antiquities of Jordan 47, 443–471 . Weigert, G . 1990 A Maghribi religious endowment in fourteenth-century Jerusalem: On Abū Madyan alMaghribī’s endowment in Jerusalem . Cathedra 58, 25–34 [in Hebrew] .

© 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

© 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

Fig . 1 Map of Mamluk sites in southern Bilād al-Shām (courtesy Martin Grosch, Berlin)

Fig . 2 Aerial photo of Tall Ḥisbān – APAAME_20090930_MJN-50 (© Michael John Neville, Aerial Photographic Archive for Archaeology in the Middle East)

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Fig . 3 Floor plans of farmhouse clusters site-wide, Tall Ḥisbān (plan: courtesy Qutaiba Daisuke, Municipality of Dubai, Department of Archaeology)

Fig . 4 Post-abandonment domestic use of citadel entrance at Tall Ḥisbān (note stone-lined hearth and secondary wall delimitating stable) (photo: Tarina Greer, Missouri State University) © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

Settlement Abandonment and Site Formation Processes

Fig . 5 Imported underglaze-painted jars from house pit at Tall Ḥisbān (photo: courtesy Daniel Redlinger, University of Bonn)

Fig . 6 Aerial photo of Khirbat Bayt Mazmīl (photo: B . J . Walker) © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Fig . 7 Plan of fortified farmstead at Khirbat Bayt Mazmīl (courtesy Slava Pirsky, Incertum, Jerusalem)

Fig . 8 Terraces of almond trees in ruins of Khirbat Bayt Mazmīl (photo: B . J . Walker) © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

Hispanic Mercenaries’s Graves in the Italic World

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Hispanic Mercenaries’s Graves in the Italic World during the Roman Late Republican Period between Ethnicity and Integration Paola Puppo 1 Abstract The focus of this paper is the analysis of the role of Hispanic mercenaries in the Italic world during the late Republican period . The mercenaries constituted a material risk to human and were difficult to handle, even for their principals, and Greek and Latin historiography has often focused on their lack of gratitude, treachery and cruelty by providing a framework of them quite negative . The mercenary is actually a very complex figure: he becomes a stateless person to exercise the profession of a soldier in the service of others and he exercises the profession of soldier to attain the status of a full citizens, often in a community other than that of his origin . The reasons that lead these knights to serve as mercenaries are related to the phenomena of exclusion in the first place within their own family if there existed a patrilineal agnatic system that tended to exclude the cadets and secondly as a result of political infighting in the city of origin . With ethnic origin remains a link that the man wants to manifest in the first place at the time of burial: we analyze some graves with kalathoi in Iberian painted pottery founded in Italy . It is probable that the Hispanic mercenaries have also embarked on a process of integration with indigenous women and received land properties as payment for their services turning into a civic corporation that remembered the original ethnic group only at the time of burial .

The world of the mercenaries is in many ways still obscure and poorly defined, due to its inherent negative connotation particularly in the Roman world (and perhaps still in the collective) . This contrasts to Greek society where mercenaries were quite common even among those who were well off . The striking example is Xenophon, who participated in the struggle by Cyrus the Great against his brother Artaxerxes II, king of Persia, and he reported this experience in the Anabasis . 2 The mercenaries were a human material at risk and difficult to handle, even for their principals and Greek and Latin historiography has often focused on their lack of gratitude, treachery and ferocity providing a quite negative picture of them . The mercenary is actually a very complex figure: he becomes stateless person to exercise the profession of a soldier in the service of others and he exercises soldiering to achieve the status of full citizen, often in a community other than his home . The motivation that makes these knights serve as mercenaries is linked to exclusion phenomena primarily within their own family if there existed an agnatic

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Laboratorio di Scienze dell’ Antichita, SNS-Pisa . Collaboratore a Contratto, Ministero dell’ Istruzione dell’ Università e della Ricerca . Bettalli 2012: 18–19 . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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patrilineal system that tended to exclude the Cadets and secondly due to political infighting in the cities of origin . The ethnic diversity of militias could be a disadvantage, because of the objective linguistic difficulty in transmitting orders for different weapons, and because of the different modus dimicandi of individual groups . However, most of those using mercenary armies (Carthaginians, Romans and later empires) have always been able to take advantage of the distinct characteristics and the different vocations of the individual military contingents, as in the case of the soldiers of the Balearic Islands, trained from childhood in the use of the sling (Strab ., III, 5, 1) . Exactly this art, possessed as ethnic characteristic, led them to be requested by the client: the use of the sling (frombola) is characterized by striking from a distance, with precision, with a projectile with considerable kinetic energy . This allows the user to escape the threat of others without having to wear caps that hinder him . There is no doubt, however, that the armies of mercenaries, the first example of large scale hired labour in antiquity, often constitute a very substantial factor of economic dynamism . Mercenaries from the Iberian Peninsula would have been a constant presence in the army of Syracuse . Indeed, even in 369–368 BC, Dionysius chose to send an expeditionary force in Greece formed precisely to Iberians to answer a request for help from the Spartans who were succumbing in front of the Thebans . 3 This collection of experiences allows you to claim an active role of the mercenaries of the Iberian Peninsula able to adopt the new costumes in their society of origin is to adapt technological innovations and integrating them in their panoply of war and in the way of fighting . The mercenary Hispanic went from being considered as mistophoros to be integrated in the armies 4 and with the second century BC Roman conquest of the Iberian Peninsula, mercenaries Hispanics enter fully into in the ranks of the Roman legions as expressions materials document, becoming valuable source of knowledge and how to track the relationship between man and time . Certainly in historiography the idea remains latent that the mercenary could be considered a threat to the economic stability of Roman society as demonstrated once again by Varro for whom the business of brigandage to get food leads to the extension of abandoned fields propter latrocinia vicinorum . 5 Ethnic origin maintains a bond that is meant to manifest primarily at the time of burial: so for example in a cist-grave in the necropolis of Genicciola (La Spezia), the deceased ‘s bones were contained within the Iberian pottery painted kalathos (Fig . 1), that connected him with the region of origin (probably Ampurias

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Xenoph . Hell . 7, 1, 20 . Diod . 15 .70, 1 . Raimon Graells i Fabregat 2014 . Varro, De re rustica, I, 16 .2 . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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from where the vessel used as cinerary was imported, now preserved in La Spezia Archeological Museum) . The Iberian pottery painted kalathos (or sombrero de copa, according the Spanish expression that aptly describes the shape of the vessel, i .e . a top hat) is a large cylindrical vase with horizontal lip without handles, decorated with concentric circles, hanging semicircles and wavy vertical bands and groups of geometric patterns, all painted in brown; the type was produced in Spain during the third century BC and especially in the second century BC and its appearance is related to the Ibero-Roman culture . The centers of production of this type of pottery are likely to be placed in the north-east of the Iberian Peninsula, from Ampurias, and along the east coast of Spain, in the valley of the Ebro and in Catalonia . In Ameglia (La Spezia), a sombrero de copa was found inside a tomb: the burial cist, of quadrilateral form, consisted of four slabs of brown laminated shale, stone from the promontory of La Spezia (Fig . 2) . As well as the sombrero, the grave contained a La Tène brooch (fibula) and a bowl in painted black gloss ware . 6 The mercenaries achieve a certain efficiency when properly motivated: this is not a simple matter of money, even if the payment obviously has its importance . The mercenary is often an outcast: his value in battle will be directly proportional to the possibilities granted to him by the customer to redeem himself from his marginalization, through the distribution of lands, making him a citizen (Fig . 3) . Moreover, the mercenary forced the ancient communities to provide a substantial amount of cash in a short time . The link between mercenaries and coinage is a constant and is clear in some finds of coin hoards, as the case of drachmas from Massalia in San Cipriano in the municipality of Serra Ricco’, 7 and especially in Campania where coins of Ebusus in the Balearic Islands often appear in Pompeii, 8 as well as numerous coins from Massalia . Already Diodorus (V 17 .4) says that the mercenaries of the Balearic Islands, hired by the Carthaginians, used to waste the salary received in women and wine, thus giving a negative connotation of the mercenary . 9 The ease with which former enemies were assimilated into the Roman army as part of the auxilia was a highly distinctive feature of the late republican period . The intense and personal bond of loyalty between a noble and his retainers, clients, or comites has been remarked upon . It appears to have been a common feature, although it is probable that the exact nature of the bond and its significance was defined differently in each society . If the leader chose to fight for Rome, or for one side or the other in a civil war, then his retainers would have followed him, fighting

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Podesta 1886: 114–117 . Gorini 2011: 282–286 . Pardini 2013: 101–142 . Diodorus, V 17 .4 . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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as keenly and for as long as he chose . Most of the earlier auxiliary troops are more like the allies of the Republic, organized in their own units or groupings and led by their own leaders . According to Plutarch (Marius 20), in 102 BC, at Aquae Sextiae (now Aix en Provence), Marius sent officers along the line reminding the men of their orders, whilst ‘he was himself visible in the front rank, putting into practise the advice which he had given to his soldiers, for he was in a good training as anyone and in daring, he far surpassed them all’ . Among the Roman army’s ranks Hispanic mercenaries fought against Ambrones (Vimbri) and Teutons, as evidenced by the fragments of Iberian kalathoi found at Aquae Sextiae (now in Civic Museum in Aix en Provence) (Fig . 4) . In the Thyrrenic area, in the necropolis of Castiglioncello a large number of graves of Hispanic mercenaries stationed in the area have been found . And it is likely that they have also embarked on a process of integration through union with local women and received payment for their services so that the allocation of land ownership created a civic body that resembled the original ethnic group only at the time of burial . Besides the presence of the characteristic Iberian pottery painted kalathoi (7 specimens) from the necropolis of Castiglioncello come three stelai in local limestone (now preserved in Archaeological Museum of Florence), 10 each depicting an armed man with his face to the left, dressed in chiton, his body covered by a large oval scutum, edged and with a central spine, spear pointed at the ground with his right hand high in iron, his head protected by a helmet cap and cheek-pieces . This helmet is traditionally Celtic-Iberian, but was adopted by Roman’s army when developed tactics to manipulate as was the wooden scutum, as opposed to the Roman shield, the round bronze clipeus, a heavy and cumbersome weapon . Precisely the scutum gradually became appreciated by the Roman world for its quality and - without admitting it clearly – the Romans would eventually adopt it . In fact, the scutum allows the formation of lines but also individual defense because its profile and its light weight encouraged dueling . 11 Livius 12 documents the difficulties of the struggle of Rome against Carthage and military garrisons were present in Etruria: in 202 BC the console you . Claudius Nero, the party in order to join in the command of the war in Africa to Scipio, as the rally tribute had not authorized the replacement of the proconsul, faced a first storm inter portus Cosanum Loretanumque, off Porto Argentario; the party then travelled from Populonia, touched the island of Elba and Corsica, at the Montes Insani (probably in the east coast of Sardinia, between Dorgali and Baunei) and saw its fleet almost destroyed by a violent shipwreck .

10 Cherici 2006: 246–247 . 11 Cherici 2007: 221–222 . 12 Livius, XXX, 19, 5, 39, 1–3; 27 .5 and 38, 6–7 . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Data on the presence of Hispanic mercenaries continue in southern Etruria (in the necropolis in Belora), in two tombs at the Monti dell’Uccellina with two sombreros de copa attributable to the style of Olive-Liria, 13 in Elba’s Island from Necropolis of Profico Capoliveri (a sombrero de copa with geometric decoration associated with a small bitroncoconic olpe in grigia ampuritana), 14 in Latium (in Ardea), 15 in Cuma (sombrero de copa in excellent condition from the necropolis of Cuma, now in the Stevens Collection in the Archaeological Museum of Naples) . 16 In Campania, as mentioned above, the Ebusian coins, found in various sites and in particular in Pompeij, constitute an interesting document of the movement of goods, but above all people . 17 In some cases these coins from the mint of Ebusus (Balearic Islands), dating from the late third century BC to the second century BC, should be regarded as votive offerings, as in the case of those found in the Domus VI 2 at the Vicolo of Narcissus: these are bronze coins, bearing on the right the figure of Bes with a hammer in his right hand and snake in his left; on the reverse is a charging bull facing left . Next to this is a bronze coin that presents on the right a protome of horse with a globule and a bull on the reverse . However this coin falls in the series of pseudo-Ebusian coins . In the Domus VII, 15 in a hole in the bottom of a recess formed in the outer perimeter wall (subsequently buffered) were found three coins of Hispanic origin, showing a small bronze female head with the crown and rearing horse and star inside out, referring to the mint of Puig des Molins (Ibiza), a small bronze attributed to the mint of Baria (Villaricos, Almería) and an Andalusian semisse imitation, dated between the late third century BC and around the half of the second century BC . The author Stazio calls attention to the famous funditores from Balearic islands, 18 whose fame had caused the Carthaginian army before (during the two Punic Wars) and later Rome (after the defeat of Hannibal) would use them as auxiliares among the ranks of their armies; he suggests however that the Ebusus coins can be arrived in Southern Italy during the second punic war, thanks to the presence of the Balearic mercenaries in the ranks of the army of Hannibal . But there could also be Balearics slingers that were embarked on the cargo ships, to defend the loads from the attack of pirates . 19 In Sicily the Iberian pottery found in Tindari is to be put in connection with the presence of Iberian mercenaries in Sicily . Indeed Cicero (Verrines, 5, 72, 146 and

13 14 15 16 17 18 19

Mostra del restauro archeologico. Etruria grossetana. Grosseto 1970, 49, pl . 9 . Zecchini 1982: pl . 2 . Staccioli 1991: 1071–1077 . Puppo 2016: 90 . Bernal et al. 2013: 268–270 . Stazio 1955: 44–45 . Ranucci 2008a; Ranucci 2008b; Ranucci 2013: 157–160 . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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154) shows that the soldiers of Sertorius, after the defeat taken by Pompeius, landed in Sicily and were persecuted by Verre . The relatively small number of specimens of Iberian kalathoi found in grave contexts (Fig . 5) can help to strengthen the hypothesis that this is an object that accompanies the movements of individuals and wants to connote ethnic identity . Bibliography Bernal, D ., Cottica, D ., Manuel Sáez, Bustamante M ., Toniolo L . 2013 Anfore ebusitane e commercio a Pompei (III–I secolo a .C .): l’evidenza del Progetto I .E . (Impianto Elettrico, 1980–1981) nell’area del Foro . In: A . Arévalo González, D . Bernal Casasola and D . Cottica (eds .), Ebusus y Pompeya, Ciudades Marítimas. Testimonios Monetales de una relación = Ebusus e Pompei, Città Marittime.Testimonianze Monetali di una relazione . Cadiz, 257–274 . Bettalli, M . 2012 I mercenari . Pisa . Cherici A . 2006 Forme di contatto tra mondo celtico e mondo non celtico: riflessi culturali e socioeconomici del ‘mestiere delle armi’ . In: S . Gori (ed .), Gli Etruschi da Genova ad Ampurias. Atti del XXIV Convegno di Studi Etruschi ed Italici, Marseille–Lattes, 26 settembre – 1 ottobre 2002. In two volumes. Istituto Nazionale di Studi Etruschi ed Italici 24. Pisa – Roma, 371–394 . 2007

Sulle rive del Mediterraneo centro-occidentale: aspetti della circolazione di armi, mercenari e culture, In: G . M . Della Fina (ed .), Etruschi-Greci-Fenici e Cartaginesi nel Mediterraneo centrale. Atti del 14° Convegno internazionale studi sulla storia e archeologia dell’Etruria. Volume 1. Annali della Fondazione per il Museo ‘Claudio Faina’ 14. Roma, 221–256 .

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Note sulle stelai di Castiglioncello, In: Alle origini di Livorno. L’età etrusca e romana, Catalogo Mostra Livorno-Granai di Villa Mimbelli, 1 marzo–17 maggio 2009 . Livorno, 246–247 .

Garlan, Y . 1985 Guerra e società nel mondo antico, Bologna . Gorini, G . 2011 Il deposito di Serra Ricco’ e gli altri depositi dell’Italia settentrionale tra protostoria e storia . Studi in onore di Loredana Capuis, Antenor Quaderni 20 . Roma, 281–294 . Loman, P . 2005 Mercenaries, Their women and Colonisation . Klio . Beiträge zur Alten Geschichte 87, 346–365 . Pardini, G . 2013 Consumo e produzione di moneta a Pompei tra tarda repubblica e primo impero . Spunti per una riflessione . Annali dell’Istituto Italiano di Numismatica 59, 101–142 . Podesta’, P . 1879 Sepolcreto ligure di Genicciola . In: Notizie degli Scavi di Antichità 1879, 297–305 . 1886

Ameglia . In: Notizie degli Scavi di Antichità 1886, 114–117 . © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Puppo, P . 2016 Trade exchanges in the Western Mediterranean: the distribution of sombreros de copa . In: S . Japp and P . Kögler (eds .), Traditions and Innovations. Tracking the Development of Pottery from the late Classical to the Early Imperial Periods. Proceedings of the 1st Conference of IARPotHP Berlin, November 2013, 7th–10th . Vienna, 87–98 . Raimon Graells I Fabregat, 2014 Mistophoroi ex Iberias: una aproximaciòn al mercenariado hispano a partir de las evidencias arqueológicas (VI–IV a.C.). Venosa 2014 . Ranucci, S . 2008a Circolazione monetaria a Pompei . La documentazione numismatica dagli scavi dell’Università di Perugia . Annali Istituto Italiano di Numismatica 54, 151–175 . 2008b Moneta straniera a Pompei in età repubblicana: nuove acquisizioni, In: J . Uroz, J . M . Noguera and F . Coarelli (eds .), Iberia e Italia: modelos romanos de integración Territorial, IV Congreso Hispano-Italiano, Murcia 26–29 de abril de 2006, Murcia, 247–257 . 2013

Lo sviluppo della circolazione monetaria a Pompei in epoca repubblicana ed il ruolo delle monete straniere e delle imitazioni . In: A . Arévalo González, D . Bernal Casasola and D . Cottica (eds .), Ebusus y Pompeya, Ciudades Marítimas. Testimonios Monetales de una relación = Ebusus e Pompei, Città Marittime.Testimonianze Monetali di una relazione . Cadiz, 157–166 .

Staccioli, R . A . 1991 Un vaso iberico da Ardea . Archeologia Classica 43, 1071–1077 . Stazio, A . 1955 Rapporti fra Pompei ed Ebusus nelle Baleari alla luce dei rinvenimenti monetali di età repubblicana . Annali Istituto Italiano di Numismatica 2, 33–57 . Zecchini M . 1982 Relitti romani dell’isola d’Elba . Lucca .

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Fig . 1 Sombrero de copa from Genicciola (© Archaeological Museum, La Spezia)

Fig . 2 Grave in Genicciola (after P . Podestà 1879) © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Fig . 3 Drawing of a funerary ritual during the second century BC (drawing: courtesy of F . Mosca)

Fig . 4 Sombreros de copa (© Civic Museum, Aix-en-Provence) © 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7

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Fig . 5 Map of distribution of sombreros de copa in Iberians graves

© 2018, 2017, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-10996-3 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19742-7