Red Lustrous as a marker of globalisation in the LBA Near East? (original) (raw)
Related papers
Pointed Juglets as an International Trend in Late Bronze Ritual Practices: A View from Alalakh.
Overturning Certainties in Near Eastern Archaeology. A Festschrift in Honor of K. Aslıhan Yener, 2017
Late Bronze Age international relations and their consequent effects in the development of distinct but similar forms of vessel types in Anatolian and Eastern Mediterranean contexts are explored in this article. The similar contextual and stylistic patterns observed between North Central Anatolian (nca) and Cypriot White Shaved Ware juglets at Tell Atchana, ancient Alalakh are reviewed under the larger theme of ritualistic traditions when the connectivity patterns between distinct regions contributed to the formation of international tools of ritual practices.
Another look at Red Lustrous arm-vessels
Structures of Inequality on Bronze Age Cyprus. Studies in honour of Alison K. South. SIMA PB 187, eds. L. Crewe, L. Hulin and J. Webb)., 2018
This paper focuses on Red Lustrous Wheelmade (RLW) arm-vessels from Cyprus, central Anatolia and Cilicia, with the aim of examining how these objects were handled, used and embedded in social and cultural practices in the three regions. The approach taken draws upon the materiality of objects – both the physical properties, as well as human-object entanglements – as well as theoretical approaches exploring embodiment and material habitus. Examining the material qualities of the arm vessels should help us to better understand how people physically interacted with these and incorporated them within distinct social practices. This paper also explores the social messages encoded within the visual vocabulary of the arm-vessels, situating this within a wider understanding of drinking scenes from the Cypro-Levantine social worlds, specifically to throw light upon embodied practices and material habitus. Through this discussion I hope to highlight that these objects should not simply be considered as museum pieces or catalogue entries; but instead we should attempt to understand how they were integrated within social and material worlds. were items that were handled,
Tombs and Offering Pits at the Late Bronze Age Metropolis of Hala Sultan Tekke, Cyprus
BASOR, 2017
Hala Sultan Tekke is a large Bronze Age city close to the famous homonymous mosque near the international airport of Larnaca on the south coast of Cyprus. Previous research demonstrated that the city lourished mainly in the later part of the Late Bronze Age—viz., during the 13th and 12th centuries b.c.e.—but recent excavations conirmed that the city was occupied from as early as the Middle Cypriot III–Late Cypriot IA period around 1600 b.c.e. he current project, which started in 2010, exposed three new city quarters (CQ1–3) in the northern part of the city close to the ancient harbor—that is, today's Larnaca Salt Lake. Geophysical surveys by georadar and magnetometer, which were carried out in Area A, a plateau approximately 600 m east of CQ1 and opposite the mosque, indicated more than 80 roughly circular anomalies. Among the seven anomalies excavated in 2016 are Tomb X and Ofering Pit V, which are the main subjects of this article. Concentrated in these features were objects of high artistic value from a vast area of the eastern Mediterranean, including the Aegean, the Levant, Egypt, and possibly Anatolia. Both features antedate the occupation of the previously excavated city quarters.
Religions 12(10), 2021
The aim of the paper is to discuss mortuary contexts and possible related ritual features as parts of sacred landscapes in Late Bronze Age Cyprus. Since the island was an important node in the Eastern Mediterranean economic network, it will be explored whether and how connectivity and insularity may be reflected in ritual and mortuary practices. The article concentrates on the extra-urban cemetery of Area A at the harbour city of Hala Sultan Tekke, where numerous pits and other shafts with peculiar deposits of complete and broken objects as well as faunal remains have been found. These will be evaluated and set in relation to the contexts of the nearby tombs to reconstruct ritual activities in connection with funerals and possible rituals of commemoration or ancestral rites. The evidence from Hala Sultan Tekke and other selected Late Cypriot sites demonstrates that these practices were highly dynamic in integrating and adopting external objects, symbols, and concepts, while, nevertheless, definite island-specific characteristics remain visible.
Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, 2021
Routes are part of broader ’landscapes of movement’, having an impact on and being impacted by other sociocultural processes. Most recent studies on connectivity networks remain highly topographic in scope, incidentally resulting in the restitution of a long term fixity. The anachronistic transposition of best known route networks across various ages, irrespective of context-specific circumstances, further enhances this static approach. On the other hand, when changes in connectivity are considered, trends are generally analysed over ’big jumps’, often spanning several centuries. This article aims to contextualise dynamics of change in route trajectories within shorter and well-defined chronological boundaries with a case study on the evolution of route landscapes across the Taurus mountains under the Hittite kingdom and empire (ca. 1650–1200 BCE). I will adopt an integrated approach to multiple datasets, aiming to investigate variables operating at different time depths. In the conclusions, I will argue that, while the Hittite route system in the target area was in part rooted on previous patterns of connectivity, some eventful shifts can also be individuated and historically explained. This enables, in turn, an enhanced perspective on the formation and transformation of Hittite socio-cultural landscapes.
Ways of Being Hittite: Empire and Borderlands in Late Bronze Age Anatolia and Northern Syria
Studia Orientalia Electronica, 2021
In this paper, I take identity as a characteristic of empire in its periphery, denoting the totality of: 1) the imperial strategies an empire pursues in different regions, 2) the index of empire in each region, and 3) local responses to imperialism. My case study is the Hittite Empire, which dominated parts of what is now modern Turkey and northern Syria between the seventeenth and twelfth centuries bce, and its borderlands. To investigate the identities of the Hittite imperial system, I explore the totality of the second millennium bce in two regions. First, I explore imperial dynamics and responses in the Ilgın Plain in inner southwestern Turkey through a study of the material collected by the Yalburt Yaylası Archaeological Landscape Research Project since 2010. Second, I explore the identity of the Hittite Empire in the city of Emar in northern Syria by a thorough study of the textual and archaeological material unearthed by the Emar Expedition. In both cases, I argue that the manifestations of the Hittite Empire were mainly conditioned by the pre-Hittite trajectories of these regions. The strategies that the administration chose to use in different borderlands sought to identify what was important locally, with the Hittite Empire integrating itself into networks that were already established as manifestations of power, instead of replacing them with new ones.
Gaps in the record: The missing LH I-II and IIIB phases on Euboea
An Island Between Two Worlds: The Archaeology of Euboea from Prehistoric to Byzantine Times, edited by Z. Tankosic, M. Kosma, and F. Mavridis , 2017
The paper offers an explanation for the seeming scarcity of LH I-II and of LH IIIB material on Euboea. Although settlement maps suggest that Euboea was virtually deserted during LH I-II, the paper argues that this absence is virtual only and caused by the restriction of recognizable LH I-II wares to elite centers. The real gap during LH IIIB is ascribed to a disruption of the coastal network along the Euboean Gulf by the Mycenaean palaces and the subsequent marginalization of the island.