Exploring ‘Dark Ages’. Archaeological Markers of Transition in the Near East from the Bronze Age to the Early Islamic Period (original) (raw)

And yet, these aspects are not entirely visible in the historical narrative of crisis concerning the ancient Near East in general, and particularly Mesopotamia. As argued by Yoffee (2006: 222), collapse in the Mesopotamian world can be seen as related to the end of a particular form of government rather than to the collapse of a civilization. Causes of collapse have been imputed to multiple factors. Dramatic environmental change, 'whether abrupt or prolonged in time', are amongst the primary causes of political and societal disruptions. Recent contributions on the topic (Harper 2018; Manning 2018) have discussed how large territorial states (i.e., the Roman Empire, the Ptolemaic Kingdom) were favored or brought down also because of their success or failure to adjust their structural mechanisms to mutated ecological conditions. Climatic variability and major ecological disruptions (i.e., mega-droughts) have been observed as causes of collapse in the Near East and Mesopotamia as well (Courty, and Weiss 1997; Weiss 2012: 12, Weiss 2017; Sinha et al. 2020). Along with the environmental interpretation, however, a critical contribution to collapse resides in the economic crisis either generated by or directly causing a political breakdown. This is, for example, the case of the end of the Middle Bronze Age and of the so-called Amorite period (2000-1600 BC ca.), which will be discussed more extensively further on in this book by Bonatz, and Coppini. In such a particular scenario, the collapse led to a partial 1 st millennium BC marks a significant moment in the historical narrative of Mesopotamia and the Near East. Therefore, the paper contributes to the discussion about the social and cultural role of the Neo-Assyrian state, its relationship with neighbouring states, and its physical transformation of the landscape, which have been extensively and thoroughly discussed on multiple occasions (Düring 2020; Liverani 2017; Fales 2001). A critical moment for the understanding of the imperial evolution of Assyria is represented by its final years, whose historical and archaeological interpretation bears more than a single puzzling aspect with it. The period that roughly covers the time span between the late 7 th century BC and the last quarter of the 4 th century BC perfectly represents the uncertainty of 'Dark Age' and 'transition' are indeed both key words in the contribution of Karel Nováček. In his paper, the term transition is used to refer to the ceramic assemblages dated from Late Sasanian to Early Islamic period (early 7 th-early 10 th century AD), which are quite invisible in the archaeological record of Northern Mesopotamia, especially if compared to other better known regions, like the Southern Levant (Müller-Wiener 2016; 2017). For this reason the Late Sasanian and Umayyad periods in North Mesopotamia are indeed labeled as 'Dark Ages'. On such premises, Karel Nováček focuses his analysis on the pottery assemblages retrieved from different sites in the region of Adiabene/Hadyab (Northern Iraq) such as Kona Makhmur and others surveyed sites in the Dasht-i Kandinawa and in the Erbil Plain. Thanks to the analysis of these sets of evidence, Nováček concludes that the Late Sasanian-Early Islamic ceramic horizon represented a much more consistent entity. In particular, according to recurrence of certain decorative patterns on the studied pottery and on legacy data from regional assemblages, some markers of two ceramic periods (CP1-CP2) have been identified. The first is dated to a period spanning the late seventh and the eighth centuries; and the second starting in the late eighth century and possibly continuing to the first half of the tenth century. Amongst the contemporary ceramic types, the 'Honeycomb Ware' jars is one of the most peculiar wares analyzed from Nováček and even if the type is largely locally produced, its formal and decorative concept represent the evidence of a wider and shared decorative concept, which has been attested throughout an extended region, from Khuzistan to North Syria and from Mosul to the Persian Gulf (Simpson 1996: 100; Müller-Wiener 2017: 49-50). Raffaella Pappalardo also deals with such a delicate matter, with a paper that aims at shedding a new light on the challenging identification of the transitional ceramic markers from Late Sasanian to Early Islamic period in Northern Mesopotamia. Taking into consideration the data collected through the years at Tell Barri, she discusses how the residual material culture from levels mostly dated to the period between the 11 th and the 14 th century should be rather ascribed to a peculiar and well differentiated historical phase. This period, which roughly covers the passage from the Sasanian dominion in the region to the early Islamic times, bears specific and well-established material culture identifiers, namely ceramics. This Bibliography