Amuq

Abstract
In this article I propose to show that in his eighth regnal year Ramesses III campaigned against the Philistines on the Northern borders of Canaan and where halted by them. Ramesses was victorious in a pitched battle, routed them to their home and destroyed their kingdom – “the Land of Palestine”. This land was recently located in the Amuq plain in Southern Turkey – the ancient Kingdom of Alalakh.

This paper presents a Middle Bronze Age palace kitchen recently excavated at Tell Atchana, ancient Alalakh. Due to its destruction by fire, the well-preserved context with in situ pottery provides the opportunity to understand the structural and functional organization of a palace kitchen.

This paper presents a Syro-Cilician ware pitcher from a recently excavated Middle Bronze Age palace kitchen context at Tell Atchana, Alalakh. Although Syro-Cilician ware is the prevailing painted pottery tradition in the first half of the second millennium BC within a broad but specific area, the ware has been understudied. This paper aims to be the initial step of an interregional research project regarding the technological, stylistic, functional, cultural, and chronological aspects of Syro-Cilician ware. The features and comparatives of the Atchana pitcher exemplify the larger data set and research directions of the plalnned project.

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This research began as part of the Hittite Historical Atlas Project (HHA), and it aims to designate the settlements that were occupied during the Middle Bronze Age (MBA, ca. 2000-1600 BC1) and the Late Bronze Age (LBA, ca. 1600-1200 BC) in the Amuq Valley in southern Turkey. In combining the archaeological data with the textual evidence in the HHA, this research identifies 2nd millennium BC sites which could possibly be associated with site names mentioned in the textual records, but which have not yet been located. Although it is archaeologically not possible to trace the presence or absence of Hittite material culture through survey material, changes in the local pottery traditions, as well as in settlement patterns, can be linked to the changing socio-political environment in the region. This task is accomplished by re-evaluating the data gathered during the surveys conducted in the Amuq Valley by Robert Braidwood and K. Aslıhan Yener to acquire a better understanding of the MBA-LBA sequence of the region. This is made possible because of the new excavations conducted in the last 15 years at the Bronze Age capital city of Alalakh (Tell Atchana), which have begun to provide a stratified local ceramic sequence that can be used as a reference for a new look at the 2nd millennium BC Amuq settlements through survey collections.

with J. Osborne, T. Harrison, S. Batiuk, J.P. Dessel, E. Denel, Ö. Demirci
The archaeological site of Tell Tayinat in the province of Hatay in southern Turkey was the principal regional center in the Amuq Plain and North Orontes Valley during the Early Bronze and Iron Ages. This paper focuses on the latest known period of occupation at Tayinat, which during the Iron Age was the Syro-Anatolian city of Kunulua. In 2004, following a 67-year hiatus, the University of Toronto’s Tayinat Archaeological Project (TAP) resumed excavations at the site. Here we present the
preliminary results of TAP’s investigations of the Iron Age II and III settlement, including the topography of the 1st millennium settlement, super- and sub-structural remains associated with Building II (a temple first discovered in the 1930s), a second, newly discovered temple (Building XVI), part of a large Assyrian-style courtyard building, and the remains of additional monumental architecture on the Iron
Age citadel. The terminal phases of these structures date to the Iron Age III period, or the late 8th and 7th century occupation of Kunulua following the Assyrian conquest in 738 b.c.e., and collectively point to the transformation of Kunulua’s royal citadel into a Neo-Assyrian provincial administrative center, a pattern witnessed at contemporary sites elsewhere in southeastern Anatolia and northern Syria.

Introduzione La ricerca sui periodi del Bronzo Tardo e del Ferro nel levante del nord ed in particolare nell'area della piana dell'Amuq, attualmente condotta dall'Università di Firenze, ha preso l'avvio come un cosiddetto progetto di sca-vo d'archivio. Incentrato nell'analisi della documentazione archeologica e dei materiali della Syrian Expedition to the Amuq condot-ta dall'Oriental Institute di Chicago (OI), si è poi trasformato in un progetto di coopera-zione con il museo archeologico di Hatay, e ha incluso attività sul campo in cooperazione con l'università Mustafa Kemal di Antakya presso il sito di Alalaḫ/Atchana. Non po-tendo, come era previsto, includere il basso Oronte Siriano, il progetto si è poi allargato alle attività sul campo nella regione di Ga-ziantep, presso il sito di Zincirli (Samal) con l'Oriental Institute. Lo studio del materiale è partito da un ap-proccio tradizionale incentrato sull'aspetto cronologico e tipologico. Successivamente, il tentativo di usare il materiale archeologico per rispondere a problematiche di carattere storico/culturale ha comportato l'utilizzo di metodologie mutuate dall'archeologia cogni-tiva e comportamentale. Il presente contribu-to si concentra sulla presentazione della base di dati, sulla metodologia di indagine scelta e offre a titolo di esempio un caso studio relati-vo alla influenza culturale ittita nella regione dell'Amuq con particolare riferimento alla ce-ramica da mensa. Il dato archeologico, documenti d'archivio e di scavo Il sito di Chatal Höyük, collocato nella piana dell'Amuq, attuale provincia di Hatay nella Tur-chia sud-orientale, fu oggetto di indagine archeo-logica estensiva da parte di un team dell'Oriental Institute di Chicago. Questo era solo uno dei tre siti (Tell Tayinat, Tell Judeidah) indagati esten-sivamente all'interno di un progetto regionale, denominato Archaeological Syrian Expedition to the Amuq 1. I siti si trovavano in un'area sotto la giurisdizione del protettorato francese di Siria e la divisione del materiale seguiva ancora la leg-ge sulle antichità dello scomparso Impero Otto-mano, che prevedeva una ripartizione al 50% dei materiali archeologici tra il museo locale (museo di Antakya, ora Hatay) e l'istituzione promotrice dell'indagine archeologica (in questo caso, l'OI). Le indagini archeologiche sul campo si conclu-sero nel 1936, e furono seguite da una prospezio-ne di superficie nella piana dell'Amuq 2 , condotta da R. Braidwood, che era divenuto direttore del progetto. Lo scavo archeologico presso il sito di Chatal Höyük, in particolare, ha portato alla luce in modo estensivo livelli occupazionali dal Bronzo Tardo II (XV sec. a.C.) alla fine del Ferro III (fine VI sec. a.C.). Tutta la documentazione di scavo (diari, disegni, fotografie, lettere) e i ma-teriali (il 70% del materiale ceramico e il 50% degli altri materiali) dal sito di Chatal Höyük fu-rono portati nei magazzini dell'OI, dove tutt'ora si trovano. Il progetto di analisi e pubblicazione 1 McEwan 1937. 2 Braidwood-Braidwood 1960.

This paper shows for the first time a comprehensive study of the coroplastic art from the Neo-Syrian kingdoms during the whole Iron Age. The study is part of a recently concluded Ph.D. research project that aimed at defining regional trends for the coroplastic production of the Northern Levant. Thus first of all a general introduction to the many problematics encountered during the research is provided, i.e. the relative paucity of raw data and previous errors of method. In second instance, the new method adopted in the research is described, demonstrating that the coroplastic art of the Northern Levant is characterized by a great heterogeneity in terms of numeric finds, chronologies, and types. Different traditions are in fact tentatively identified in the following micro-regions: the Middle Euphrates Valley (Karkemish, Tell Ahmar, Tell Amarna, Zeytinli Bahçe Höyük, Saraga Höyük, Kefrik, Deve Höyük, Tell Shiukh Fawqani), the Amuq Plain (Tell Tayinat, Tell Judaidah, Chatal Höyük), the Islahiye Valley (Zincirli Höyük), the Aleppo Plateau (Tell Afis, Tell Abou Danne, Tell Rifaat, Neirab), the Upper Orontes Valley (Hama), and the Khabur Valley (Tell Halaf). The heterogeneity of these clay figurines reflects the multi-ethnic character of these Neo-Syrian states. From one hand, during the Iron I period the incursion of the Aegean foreign element has deeply stimulated the local production of part of this large region. From the other hand, toward the end of the Iron II and full Iron III periods we assist to a new growth of figurine finds mirroring the penetration of a new wealthy economic model imported with the Neo-Assyrian provincialization of the Northern Levant.

Study on the Aramaic inscription celebrating king  Hazael of Damascus reproduced on richly decorated bronze plaques in the shape of horse frontlets and blinkers, founda Samos and Eretria in Greece, as well as on a specimen in ivory from Arslan Tash

The jug published in this article was brought to the Antalya Museum (Turkey) in 1999, as a consequence of the arrest of people involved in illegal excavation, the confiscation of this jug by the security services who brought it to the museum The painted decoration of this trefoil mouthed and flat bottomed jug is quite attractive. The origin of some similar decorated painted pottery dating from the Middle Bronze Age (ca. 2100 – 1750 B.C.) is thought to have been in the region of North-Syria/Cilicia and the Amuq Valley.

The second half of the 3rd millennium BC represents the height of the urbanization process observed during the Early Bronze Age of northern Syria. In a geo-political sense, the Amuq Plain, located in southern Turkey, is situated in a strategic location and as such has long been described as a crossroads of Near Eastern cultures. Tell Tayinat has been identified as the largest settlement in the plain beginning in the early 3rd millennium BC; excavations conducted in the 1930s uncovered a series of levels dating to the 3rd millennium which formed the foundation of the chronological sequence for this time period. More recent excavations at the site have produced significant remains dating to the Early Bronze IVB (2300–2000 BC). This article presents preliminary results of petrographic analysis of 57 samples from the Early Bronze IVB ceramic assemblage, identifying five primary petro-fabrics, and seven outlier groups, and goes on to discuss the broader significance of these results with regard to other comparative petrographic data in the Orontes area.

The ceramic assemblages of Amuq F-G are often cited as type-assemblages for the Late Chalcolithic-Early Bronze I period.  However, Amuq Phase F has long been recognized as chronologically problematic due to its lack of a direct stratigraphic relationship with the preceding phase (Amuq Phase E).  This article assesses the evidence for a chronological gap between Phases E and F of the Amuq sequence, and presents preliminary results of a re-analysis of the ceramic evidence from Amuq Phase F and early Phase G.