Alalakh/Tell Atchana

This chapter of my book in progress examines the ancient city Karahöyük-Konya in relation to the kingdom of Purušhanda.The chapter also describes the possible relations with the Göksu valley, Alalakh, Amuq valley, the Amanum and Taurus mountains.

As the first comprehensive study of fortification systems and defensive strategies in the Levant during the Middle Bronze Age (ca. 1900 to 1500 B.C.E.), Walled up to Heaven is an indispensable contribution to the study of this period and of early warfare in the ancient Near East. Although archaeologists and ancient historians alike have discussed a variety of theories regarding the origin and cultural significance of the construction of earthen ramparts during the Middle Bronze Age, only this work addresses these questions in detail. In a tour de force, Burke traces the diachronic evolution and geographic distribution of the architectural features and settlement strategies connected with the emergence of Middle Bronze Age defenses in the Levant. By synthesizing historical and archaeological data from Mesopotamia and Egypt as well as the Levant, he reveals the interconnectedness of the Near Eastern world during the first half of the second millennium to an extent not recently considered. The result is a detailed employment of cognitive, social, and dirt archaeology to reconstruct the political, social, military, and cultural implications of the construction of monumental defenses and the development of defensive networks during the period of Amorite hegemony in the Levant.

Based on author's Ph.D. dissertation: The Architecture of Defense: Fortified Settlements of the Levant during the Middle Bronze Age (2004). Ph.D. Dissertation. Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, University of Chicago.

This paper is an attempt to understand the perception of colour of glass in the second millennium BC by providing specific examples from the capital of Hittites, Boğazköy/Hattuˇsa (Çorum, Turkey) in Central Anatolia, and from the North Syrian Tell Atchana/Alalakh (Hatay, Turkey), which served as a vassal to the Hittites in the Late Bronze Age. By discussing both archaeological and linguistic evidence from these two case sites, the perception of colour in glass and value of certain types of colours at the center and periphery of the Hittite Empire are discussed.

Keywords: colour; glass; second millennium BC; Anatolia; Boğazköy/Hattuˇsa; Tell Atchana/Alalakh

In diesem Artikel wird versucht, die Wahrnehmung der Farbe von Glas im zweiten Jahr- tausend v. Chr. zu verstehen, und zwar anhand konkreter Beispiele aus der Hauptstadt der Hethiter, Boğazköy/Hattuˇsa (Çorum, Türkei) in Zentralanatolien und aus dem nordsyrischen Tell Atchana/Alalakh (Hatay, Türkei), Vasall der Hethiter in der späten Bronzezeit. Anhand archäologischer und linguistischer Belege aus diesen beiden Fallbeispielen wer- den die Wahrnehmung von Farbe in Glas sowie der Wert bestimmter Arten von Farbe im Zentrum und an der Peripherie des hethitischen Reiches diskutiert.

This article studies the Idrimi inscription from ancient Alalah, modern Tell Atchana, in order to explore how and to what effect manifestations of empire may have been socially consequential to local populations ruled by Mittani. Specifically, the article argues that Idrimi is presented as a Mittani hero, but the story of his life is told in a Northwest Semitic-Akkadian code; an imperial vision receives a local expression. From this conclusion, the article ends by trying to infer something about the inscription's intended audience.

This book addresses the question of what function gold objects had in the Middle and Late Bronze Age states of Syria and the Northern Levant, how gold objects evolved formally and stylistically over time, and how the gold assemblages were contextualised and composed. One focus of the study is on the objects from the Middle Bronze Age 'Tomb VII' of Qatna, which are presented in their entirety for the first time in this volume. In addition, gold assemblages from other Middle and Late Bronze Age sites in the Syrian-North Levantine region are examined with regard to their composition and parallels between the sites. Textual sources relating to gold from Syria and the Northern Levant are analysed in contrasting detail in order to obtain a comprehensive picture of the use of gold objects in the Middle and Late Bronze Age states of Syria and the Northern Levant.

This article presents a statistical analysis of signs of the CV type and their values as used for stop consonants in Alalaḫ VII documents. Comparing the Alalaḫ VII syllabary with those of OAkk, OAss and Mari, I show that it had not been systematized by the time of the city's destruction, and that one cannot speak of an adequate written representation for all voiced, voiceless and emphatic stops in Alalaḫ VII. Nevertheless, the syllabary does show a tendency towards a rational distribution of the signs used. This research also demonstrates that it may be misleading to consider Alalaḫ VII the direct source of borrowing of Hittite cuneiform.

In this article, the authors examine the divine support and religious justification of wars by Anatolian and North Syrian rulers in the Late Bronze Age, an epoch of international diplomacy. Notable is that many wars and conflicts in the region of Anatolia and North Syria took place in this period, which may have occasioned an increasing need to justify them by appeal to divinities. Rezumat. În acest articol, autorii analizează contribuția divină și motivarea religioasă a războaielor de către conducători anatolieni și din nordul Syriei în Epoca Târzie a Bronzului, o perioadă favorabilă diplomației internaționale. Un aspect notabil este faptul că multe din războaiele și conflictele din regiunea Anatoliei și a Syriei de Nord au avut loc în acest moment, ceea ce e posibil să fi creat o nevoie tot mai mare de a le justifica prin apelul la divinități.

Kizzuwatna and the Amuq Plain, two neighboring regions, went through major political and cultural changes in the Late Bronze Age. Textual evidence provides an account of historical events and related alterations in political and cultural structure. The datings of these historical events play a crucial role in synchronizing these two regions. In addition, archaeological evidence (i.e. pottery) is examined in order to question whether the changes in political status and hegemony are reflected in the material culture. This paper presents and discusses the types of evidence and shortcomings for synchronizing the histories of Kizzuwatna and Amuq.

The Idrimi Statue Inscription from Alalakh (modern Tell Atchana) has added immeasurably to our understanding of Late Bronze Syria since it was published by Smith in 1949. However, it is notorious for its non-standard Akkadian grammar and paleography. While recent studies have explained individual problems in the inscription, a systematic framework for the verbal system has been lacking. Following a suggestion from Dietrich and Loretz (1981), I examine three types of non-standard verb forms in the ISI and argue that these are best understood as reflexes of a scribal code similar (but not identical) to the Canaano-Akkadian code of the Taanach and Amarna Letters. These non-standard verb forms are limited to the first part of the inscription while standard Akkadian verbs appear in the second part of the inscription, suggesting that the scribe was switching between orthographic codes in order to achieve his rhetorical goals. I conclude by considering some of the questions raised by the inclusion of the code of ISI in the orthographic and linguistic repertoire of Syro-Palestinian scribes.

Palaces, in many respects, represent the
main outcome of the great socio-economic transformation
that characterised the outgrowth of
urban societies during the first half of the second
millennium BC. In the Levant, the type of building
that appeared was characterised by traits that
make it quite different from similar and contemporaneous
buildings located in Mesopotamia. This
fact suggests the existence of an independent local
tradition in the Levant which has thus usually been
analysed in distinct chronological segments, with
separate discussions of the relevant Middle Bronze
Age (MBA) and Late Bronze Age (LBA) evidence to
hand. This work uses two case studies of palace
architecture dating to the MBA and LBA from Qatna
to propose an analysis that highlights the existence
of several shared traits. Via comparisons with
contemporary examples, in particular Alalakh, a
common genesis that developed along a unique
and continuous path is suggested for both MBA
and LBA palaces. The social role of northern
Levantine palaces is thus seen as an expression of
new local leaderships and as the vehicle of a common
language whose origin might be traced back
to the emergence of the so-called Amorite Koiné.

The effects of foreign military interventions on production and distribution systems in occupied lands are commonly assessed through the study of textual sources and pottery typologies in Bronze Age archaeology and historiography. In this article, we explore the zooarchaeological record of the recently uncovered Late Bronze IIA deposits at Alalakh (Tell Atchana) to test whether the Hittite intrusion into Syria had any effect on the economic organization of local policies. The quantitative analysis of taxonomic compositions, mortality profiles, and body part distributions suggests that while slight modifications occurred in the distribution of provisions, the faunal economy of Alalakh did not go through drastic changes under Hittite rule.

Historiographical research in archaeology has recently experienced an archival turn. Many researchers explore archaeological archives, whether they were formed as part of institutional or national depositories or, like the Tell Atchana excavation archive (Woolley Papers) held by the Institute of Archaeology at UCL, stem from individual excavation projects. This chapter explores the many research avenues open to researchers using material from such archival collections while keeping in mind that archives and their component parts are objects in their own right. Digitisation particularly of photographs can open access to archaeological research to a wider range of audiences through online databases, exhibitions and community engagement projects. Ultimately, such initiatives can help to virtually reunite archives and objects located in different museums.