King Taita and His 'Palistin': Philistine State or Neo-Hittite Kingdom? (Antiguo Oriente 13, pp. 11-40), 2015 (original) (raw)
2015, Antiguo Oriente
The end of the Hittite Empire and the destruction and abandonment of Alalakh represents a cultural break between the Late Bronze and Early Iron Ages in the ‘Amuq Valley. In the Iron I, a population with clear ties to the greater Aegean world, perhaps related to the Philistines of southern Canaan, established an agro-pastoral settlement at Tell Ta‘yinat and the surrounding area. This occupation, marked by Field Phases 6 through 3 at Ta‘yinat, was both materially and chronologically ephemeral, and should be viewed as a cultural outlier sandwiched between the Hittite–controlled LBA and later Iron I. This intrusive population lived alongside the indigenous inhabitants of the ‘Amuq, bequeathing to the region a toponym – Palastin – that would far outlast their own relevance and archaeological visibility. By the First Building Period at Tell Ta‘yinat, which immediately followed the Aegean-related phases, the site was home to a dynasty overseeing a typical Neo-Hittite state, with its toponym all that remained of the ‘Sea Peoples’ presence that occupied it at the beginning of the Iron Age.
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