Anatolian Studies

The nature of the relationship between the Assyrian state and the Syro-Hittite states is often represented in the writings of archaeologists and ancient historians under the rubric of imperialism, Assyrian sovereignty, and the Syro-Hittite resistance, an unchanging formula largely based on center-periphery models. This structuralist model of fixed relationships is thus characterized as a firmly-set trajectory of power relations and a teleological narrative of conquest, ending without exception with the eventual and complete submission and subjugation of Syro-Hittite states to Assyrian military power. While Syro-Hittite states are represented as vulnerable and politically weak entities, the Assyrian state is referred as an “expansionistic imperial power” or “superior invading force”. Had they escaped direct Assyrian sovereignty, these peripheral communities were at least deemed “Assyrianizing” in their material culture. This a priori qualification of Syro-Hittite-Assyrian relationships as an imbalanced power distribution is an outcome of the preponderance of studies of Assyrian sovereignty with an obsession with the (cosmic) image of the sovereign in his visual and verbal manifestations. Secondly it is often assumed that the study of Assyrian imperialism has always operated through coercion and military violence. Alternative forms of engagement between the Neo-Assyrian state and the Syro-Hittite kingdoms such as diplomacy, political negotiation, trade, exchange of ideas, politics of settlement, land management, taxation or traveling craftsmen and circulation of technology and knowledge are much more rarely discussed. In this paper, I suggest that historical perspectives on the unchallenged Assyrian imperialism are often driven by the alluring, yet biased perspectives offered by the sumptuous, if not excessive corpus of Assyrian annalistic accounts, state sponsored texts, and imperial monuments. Therefore such perspectives prioritize short-term political histories of conquest and domination over other longer term and more horizontally distributed aspects of the past such as cultural practices, ecological histories, political landscapes, socialization, or material worlds. The historicist accounts of the Near Eastern past can be challenged and perhaps balanced by evidence offered by archaeological, material, and environmental research, which present alternative and often contrasting perspectives on these particular histories. Prioritizing textual evidence often leaves out the material flows, delicate negotiations of power, dynamics of trade and exchange and the politics of resource extraction. Attending to other forms of evidence allows us to reflect on the complexity of the relationships between Assyria and the Syro-Hittite states. In this article, I pay particular attention to such interactions and encounters that are other than military in nature, and give priority to material evidence that challenge standard imperialist narratives of Assyrian textual accounts.

This interdisciplinary study allowed me to establish, on the basis of linguistic, genetic, archaeological, historical and religious data, that linguistic concordances between Gaulish and Slavic were linked with Neolithic migrations from NorthWestern India and Pakistan to Iran, Mesopotamia, Anatolia, the Caucasus, the North of the Black Sea, Danubic and Balkan Europe, Gaul and Iberia, where Neolithic farmers contributed to the formation of the megalithic civilisation which developed in Gaul from 5.000 BC and brought an archaic language stemming from a Trans-Eurasian original language. This explains the linguistic concordances I established between Gaulish and Dravidian languages-250 common words from the 500 words I studied (and 160 with Burushaski), as well as with Altaic, Uralic, Kartvelian, Anatolian and Middle-Eastern languages. This also explains similarities I have found in the organisation of the Society and religion, which lead certain researchers to suggest, on the basis of the spread of the very ancient haplogroup H2 P-96 from India to Western Europe, that first Europeans and proto-Dravidians had an ancient common origin, as macrohaplogroups F and K, from which stem all European haplogroups, and haplogroup H could appear in India.

MÖ 9. yüzyıldan itibaren Tuşpa merkezli olarak ortaya çıkan Urartu Krallığı’nın kuruluş süreci kaynakların kısıtlı olması nedeniyle tam anlamıyla açıklığa kavuşturulmuş değildir. Bu dönem genellikle Assur yazıtlarında geçen ‘Uruatri’ ve ‘Nairi’ gibi birtakım tanımlamalarla açıklanmaya çalışılmıştır. MÖ 13. yüzyıldan itibaren Assur kaynaklarında coğrafi birtakım adlandırmalar olarak kullanılan bu terimlerden Uruatri’nin Urartu Krallığı ile ilişkisi ancak MÖ 9. yüzyıldan itibaren kurulabilir. Bu ilişkinin kurulabilmesinde ise Urartulu kralların Assur karşısında ciddi bir siyasi rakip haline dönüşmesi etkilidir...

Invited talk - University of Vienna (18 January 2022)
From the Adriatic Sea to the mountainous borders with Iran and from the Black Sea to the scorched shores of the Red Sea, the Ottoman domains were home to myriad locations of archaeological importance. The multitude of prehistoric, ancient and medieval civilisations that had left their imprint on Ottoman lands was bound to attract the interest of Europeans. Ottoman subjects were not in themselves left uninterested. Visits, digs, illicit traffic, museums and many more activities attest to this.
As the 19th century was progressing with the number of manifestations of an interest in ancient finds rising, the Ottoman state decided to take it upon itself to regulate this area of human activity. This presentation discusses the legal responses of the Ottoman state to this rising interest and, more specifically, the laws on antiquities of 1869, 1874, 1884 and 1906. It traces their origins, such as the incidents or other factors that motivated the state to promulgate the laws. It aims to shed light on the topics these laws covered, such as definitions on antiquities, the ownership of finds, stipulations on the import and, significantly, export of antiquities, any protective measures, and the regulation of excavations. It also provides a comparison between Ottoman archaeological legislation and that of the Greek kingdom in an attempt to identify points of convergence and divergence. To what extent was Ottoman policy inspired by Greece’s treatment of antiquities? Finally, this presentation does not fail to investigate the reasons for replacing one law with another. In this, a discussion of how each law was implemented in the vast domains of the empire remains crucial.
In all, this presentation aims to provide a comprehensive picture as to the Ottoman legal approaches to antiquities that, together with the development of Ottoman museums, encapsulate Ottoman archaeological policy. In discussing the laws, we shall see how the Ottoman state evolved from being largely a bystander into a guardian of antiquities in its lands.

In this book, Claudia Glatz reconsiders the concept of empire and the processes of imperial making and undoing by investigating the practices, places, and things and their evolving interconnections with people, that together produce, challenge, and, above all, continuously transform imperial networks and their constituent communities. The volume provides a new, critical account of the Hittite imperial network of Late Bronze Age Anatolia (c. 1600-1180 BCE), one of the earliest archaeologically well-attested imperialist polities of the ancient Near East, through detailed analyses of a wide range of archaeological, iconographic, and textual sources. Concerned with the analysis and communication of the complexity, messiness, and ever transforming nature of imperial relationships, the book examines the practices through which Hittite elites and administrators hoped to bind together disparate communities and achieve a measure of sovereignty in particular places and landscapes, and with the help of particular material things. It also tracks the ambiguities inherent in these practices, their messy results, their un- and under-achievements, and how they were resisted, or more subtly negotiated in different regional and cultural contexts.

Hadrianopolis is a site located on the principal western route from the Central Anatolian plain through the mountains to Bartın and the Black Sea, 3 km west of the modern town of Eskipazar, near Karabük, in what was in Roman times southwestern Paphlagonia (modern northwestern central Turkey). This site was a small but important city, controlling this major route and dominating a rich agricultural and especially vinicultural enclave on the borders between Paphlagonia, Bithynia and Galatia. Between 2005 and 2008, four survey, excavation and restoration campaigns were conducted at this Roman and early Byzantine site by Dokuz Eylül University in Izmir. As a result of the 2005 surveys of the area, it was confi rmed that Hadrianopolis was indeed coincident with Viranşehir, which is located c. 3 km west of modern Eskipazar and was active between the 1st cent. BC. and the 8th cent. AD. The fi eld surveys in 2005 identifi ed the remains of at least 24 buildings at the site. Among them are two bath buildings, two basilicas, a domus, an apsidal building, a fortifi ed structure of the Byzantine period, a possible theatre, a vaulted building, a domed building and some domestic buildings, most of which were paved with extensive mosaic floors. Following the publication of the inscriptions (Hadrianopolis I), glass (Hadrianopolis II), and pottery fi nds (Hadrianopolis III), the present volume IV of this multi-volume report is devoted to the early Byzantine mosaics and frescoes from this site, which have been dated mainly to the 6th and 7th cent. AD. The main find spots for mosaics and frescoes are Baths A, Baths B, Basilica A, Basilica B, the Apsidal Building and the Domus. One of the most remarkable discoveries was undoubtedly the floor mosaic of the nave of Basilica B, which displays personifi cations of the Four Rivers of Paradise: Euphrates, Tigris, Phison and Geon.

The fact that the Achaemenids controlled Anatolia for two centuries provokes a question about the extent of Greek, Anatolian, and Persian contacts and exchange during this period. The growing
evidence for foreign domination has been accompanied by new and revised evidence of the region’s acculturation, which appears to have been a natural process. Archaeological finds from funerary contexts provide
a large amount of information and testify to the cosmopolitan art and culture. Artists and craftsmen spread their artistic styles far and wide along with iconographic norms closely connected to exchange networks, circulation of people, and common lifeways.

Manisa ili sınırlarında yer alan Aigai, Antik Dönemde Aspordene, günümüzde Yunt Dağı olarak isimlendirilen dağ silsilesindeki Gün Dağı üzerinde kurulmuştur. Yunt Dağı idari açıdan Manisa ve İzmir il sınırları içinde yer almaktadır. Toplam yüz ölçümü 3.521,70 km² olan bu alan kuzeyde Bakırçay (antik Kaikos), güneyde Gediz (antik Hermos) nehirleri, doğuda Kırkağaç ve Akhisar ovaları ile batıda Çandarlı Körfezi ile sınırlanmıştır. Yüksekliği 500-1000 m. arasında değişen tepeler ve bu tepeler arasındaki geniş düzlüklerden oluşan, Yunt Dağı’nın en yüksek noktası 1076 m.’de yer almaktadır

https://www.habelt.de
Nováková, L. 2019. Greeks who dwelt beyond the sea: people, places, monuments.  Universitätsforschungen zur prähistorischen Archäologie 333. Bonn: Dr. Rudolf Habelt. ISBN 978-3-7749-4216-5.
The Greek civilization, whose legacy remains visible to the present day, developed in several places on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea. The Greeks often came into contact with different, sometimes significantly older and more developed cultures that helped them to advance in the sciences, arts and trade. One such crossroads of civilizations was Anatolia, a land that was the literal meeting place of east and west with an incredibly diverse population. This was reflected in the diversity of its cultures, languages and religions. There is a growing volume of new research – papers, articles and monographs – aimed at determining at least in part how these ancient societies defined themselves. The answer to this relatively complex question can only be sought in the written and archaeological evidence. We can get to know the Hellenes from written sources and their unique artistic heritage, while grave art helps to fill in the rich mosaic of their Anatolian neighbors. The term “Greeks dwelling beyond the sea” is a paraphrase of the name for the Greeks in foreign sources (Yaunā), which referred to the inhabitants of the distant lands beyond the western frontier of the Persian Empire. In this case, the term refers to the Greeks who crossed the Aegean Sea and settled on the Anatolian mainland and nearby islands.
https://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2020/2020.09.34/

Öz: Çaldıran Savaşı'ndan kısa bir süre sonra Osmanlı hâkimiyetine giren Varto bölgesi, Hınıs ve Handırıs ile birlikte Bitlis sancağına bağlandı. 1540 yılına kadar Bitlis sancağına bağlı kalan Varto, Erzurum eyaletinin teşkili ve Hınıs'ın buraya tabi bir sancak haline getirilmesinden sonra Hınıs'ın bir nahiyesi haline getirildi. Varto'nun Hınıs'ın nahiyesi olarak idari teşkilattaki varlığı 19. yüzyıl ortasına kadar devam etti. 19. yüzyıl ortalarında Muş'a bağlanan Varto, önce nahiye daha sonra kaza olarak idare edildi. Bu çalışmada, günümüzde Muş'a bağlı bir ilçe merkezi olan Varto'nun 17. yüzyıl ortalarındaki idarî, sosyal, yerleşim, nüfus ve aşiret yapısı dört avârız defterine (1642, 1643, 1645 ve 1650) göre incelenmiştir. 17. yüzyılda Varto'da kaç köy olduğu, bu köylerde kimlerin veya hangi aşiretlerin yaşadığı, devlet merkezine ne kadar vergi verdikleri sorularına cevap aranmıştır. Ayrıca 16. yüzyıla ait tahrir defteri verileri kullanılarak iki yüzyıl arasında karşılaştırmalar da yapılmıştır.
Abstract: The Varto region, which came under Ottoman rule shortly after the Battle of Çaldıran, was connected to the sanjak of Bitlis with Hınıs and Handırıs. Varto, which remained under the sanjak of Bitlis until 1540, was transformed into a sub-district of Hınıs after the formation of the province of Erzurum and the transformation of Hınıs into a sanjak of it. Varto's presence in the administrative organization as the sub-district of Hınıs continued until the mid-19 th century. Being connected to Mush in the mid-19 th century, Varto was first ruled as a sub-district and then as a district. In this study, the mid-17 th century administrative, social, settlement, population and tribal structure of Varto, which is currently a central district of Mush, was examined according to four avârız registers (1642, 1643, 1645 and 1650). Answers for the questions "How many villages were there in Varto in the 17 th century?", "Who or what tribes lived in these villages?", and "How much tax did they pay the state center?" were sought. In addition, comparisons were made between the 16th and 17 th centuries by using the 16 th century tahrir registers data.

There is a general agreement among scholars that the name Lycaonia derives from Luwian *Luka-wani, i. e. "inhabitant of Lukka". This interpretation was introduced by Goetze (1954 [1]) and accepted by Laroche (1976 [2]: 17) and later put under scrutiny by Melchert (2003 [3]: 14) and Simon (2019 [4]). Also Carruba (1996 [5]), Durnford (2013 [6]: 62-63), Schürr (2016 [7]) have accepted what is reported by the chronicles of the Hittite kings: invaders from Lukka (Bryce 1992 [8]) would push towards the Konya Plain. Of course, these records (Hawkins 1995 [9]: 29) are very distant from the first mention of Lycaonia in Cyropaedia by Xenophon around 370 B.C. Another impending problem is how they might be reflected in Genesis, whose historical background is not easy to pinpoint. Paradoxically, some light might come from what seems at first most uncertain. First, because in the rarefied picture of Biblical proto‑history, Lamech is the only Cainite to deserve a full-fledged myth after Adam.

Anatolia, with its multicultural background and unique geography, is " the cradle " of many civilizations. It enables a variety of architectural design practices, due to diverse climate conditions from one region to another. Recently, a great intention is to generate architectural forms which provides health and comfort, less energy and harmony with human in the rural areas of Anatolia. There is a need to explore the properties of climate, material and building technology used in the traditional rural architecture in order to adapt into new architectural system. The identification of how physical environmental characteristics change in accordance with different climate regions and how traditional architecture aligned with the existing physical environment are specially important for the development of a method in this context. This study aims to resolve the characteristics of traditional architecture for the reassessment of rural area. Balıkesir is one of the provinces having a physical environment that can be utilized with the diversity of climate. In this study, therefore, Balıkesir is taken into account as it holds three types of climate. Different types of country houses in Balıkesir region are selected, modelled in 3D and analysed in terms of physical environment in regard to their own climate conditions. A comparison is also made between the obtained values of different climate regions. The results show that traditional rural architecture has many traits and features, that hardly found in today's contemporary residences.

Turkish Ecocriticism: From Neolithic to Contemporary Timescapes explores the values, perceptions, and transformations of the environment, ecology, and nature in Turkish culture, literature, and the arts. Through these themes, it examines historical and contemporary environmentally engaged literary and cultural traditions in Turkey. The volume re-imagines Turkey in its geo-social and ecocultural narratives of multiple connections and complexities, in its multi-faceted webs of histories, and in its rich multispecies stories.

Excavations undertaken at Uşaklı Höyük in Turkey during 2018 revealed a mosaic stone floor associated with a large building of Hittite date. This unique discovery raises new questions about the origin of mosaic flooring in Near Eastern public architecture of this period.

The article considers the culmination period of the struggle of Byzantine Empire and Great Seljuk Sultanate for Northwest Anatolia in 1090−1091 which is described by Anna Comnene. The analysis of two chapters of the book VI "Alexiad" reveals some aspects of Anna's work, when she deliberately violated the chronology of events, thereby turning the historical narrative into an epic. The author of the article carries out the "de-epization", and restores the chronology of events. This allows seeing the difficult political state of the region on the eve of the First Crusade.

A (Dutch) publication of a lecture held at Gent University, in the Fall of 2014.

It is only appropriate that the Hellenic Centre of the University of Gent, a city situated not too far away from the trenches of  the Great War dedicates this 2015 issue of its journal Tetradio to the Great Wars that were fought in Ancient Greece. This contribution focuses on what may arguably be considered the most famous and contested of all those wars- the war on Troy (famous, because of the epics of the blind bard Homer and its place in western –and eastern- cultural history and identity; contested because the city was deserted, its location lost, and the veracity of Homer’s songs doubtful). In this paper, I argue for a Bronze Age origin of the Trojan epic, and that various aspects of the Iliad and Odyssey are best understood in a late Mycenaean, i.e. 13th century BC, context.

The Kizilbash were at once key players in and the foremost victims of the Ottoman-Safavid conflict that defined the early modern Middle East. Today referred to as Alevis, they constitute the second largest faith community in modern Turkey, with smaller pockets of related groups in the Balkans. Yet several aspects of their history remain little understood or explored. This first comprehensive socio-political history of the Kizilbash/Alevi communities uses a recently surfaced corpus of sources generated within their milieu. It offers fresh answers to many questions concerning their origins and evolution from a revolutionary movement to an inward-looking religious order.

(ΙΒΥ 312 - Ιστορική Γεωγραφία του Βυζαντίου): Στο μάθημα εξετάζεται ο γεωγραφικός χώρος της Βυζαντινής αυτοκρατορίας (Μικρά Ασία, Αρμενία, βόρεια Μεσοποταμία, Συρία, Παλαιστίνη, βόρεια Αφρική, Νησιά, Ιταλία, Βαλκάνια), δηλαδή οι περιοχές και τα οικιστικά τοπία του ανατολικού μεσογειακού χώρου κατά το μεσαίωνα. Περιφέρειες και τοπία - κλιματολογικές συνθήκες και αλλαγές στο φυσικό περιβάλλον μετά την αρχαιότητα - οικονομική εκμετάλλευση της γης και της θάλασσας - συγκοινωνιακό δίκτυο (χερσαίοι και θαλάσσιοι δρόμοι) - σύνορα, διοικητική διαίρεση, προσαρτήσεις και απώλειες εδαφών - εκκλησιαστική οργάνωση και μοναχισμός - οικισμοί και τοπωνύμια - πληθυσμός (εθνότητες και γλώσσες) - πηγές και βιβλιογραφία για την ιστορική γεωγραφία του Βυζαντίου.

Danişmend Gazi’nin önderliğinde on birinci yüzyılda Anadolu’da kurulan bu Türkmen beyliği Haçlı ileri güçlerinin durdurulması ve Anadolu’nun dinsel kimliğinin kazandırılmasında rol almıştır. İlk haçlı seferinin yarattığı heyecanı dindiren ve Anadolu’daki güç dengesini Müslümanlık lehine dengeleyen Danişmendlilerin askeri ve politik özellikleri dinsel fetihlerin karşılıklı rekabetini doğurmuştur. Selçuklular ile kurdukları askeri ittifak ile Anadolu’daki dinsel rekabette Haçlılara karşı bir adım öne geçmişlerdir. Ancak Anadolu’daki siyasal parçalanmışlık dinsel mukavemetin önüne geçerek Haçlılar karşısındaki ortaklığı parçalamış, Danişmendliler ile Selçuklular birbirine düşmüştür. Bir yandan Anadolu’nun eski hakimi Bizans’ın sıklıkla müdahale ettiği bölgede yerel güçler ve Haçlılarla mücadele eden Müslüman Türk ittifakının parçalanışı Anadolu’nun Müslümanlaşmasını bir anlığına sekteye uğratmıştır. Çok geçmeden Selçukluların iç sorunları bölge politikalarının Danişmendliler lehine değişmesini sağlamış ve bölgedeki dinsel fethi sürdürecek yeni bir iktidar sağlanabilmiştir. Yenilenen Danişmendli iktidarı uzun süreler boyunca Anadolu’nun dinsel fethi için mücadele edecek ve sıklıkla Selçuk, Bizans ve Haçlı kuvvetleriyle çarpışacaktır. Bu bildiride on ikinci yüzyılda Hıristiyanlar ile Müslümanlar arasında Anadolu’da yaşanan dinsel fetih rekabetinde Danişmendlilerin üstlendiği rol tartışılacaktır.

The Dictionary of Indo-European Poetic and Religious Themes (DIEPART) was a desideratum in the field of comparative studies. Initiated by the founding father Adalbert Kuhn, Indo-European phraseology and poetics has been a constant subject of research, with a first synthesis in 1967 by Rüdiger Schmitt (Dichtung und Dichtersprache in indogermanischer Zeit, Wiesbaden), a seminal book by Calvert Watkins in 1995 (How to Kill a Dragon. Aspects of Indo-European Poetics, Oxford) and various important works by Enrico Campanile, Françoise Bader, M.L. West and some others.
Didier Calin has made a new synthesis in the form of a Dictionary, extremely practical in use, where he not only presents the existing results, but also brings the new discoveries he made with the help of the Anatolian languages and the Latvian folksongs, the dainas. A copious index verborum and index locorum enable the researchers to find quickly a text occurence and its translation.
The book is designed not only for comparatists or indo-europeanists but also for classicists and for the specialists of various branches who are interested in the deep history of their field.»
Didier CALIN, who lives in Riga, was trained in Germany in Indo-European philology. He has studied extensively the Latvian dainas (popular folksongs) which retain an extraordinary wealth of mythological motives of Indo-European age.
Can be ordered here : http://www.centchemins.com/

The Marby rug, claimed by many eperts to be 15th century or earlier was discovered in a church in Sweden many decades ago and since has occupied a special place in oriental carpet history.

The author of this paper, Jack Cassin, questions this conclusion using documentary evidence which though not conclusive does create more than a shadow of doubt.

Mordoğan is a sea-side township in the district of Karaburun in Izmir, western Turkey. It is situated on the eastern shoreline of Karaburun Peninsula within the Gulf of Izmir at about 20 km to the south of the district center of Karaburun. In a close distant of Mordoğan there was a Greek village1920s that was called as "Tekke Köy". In this short article in Turkish language this small rural church of 19th cent. is being presented.

Dear Colleague,
We would like to thank you very sincerely for your presentation at the international symposium, entitled “Unguentarium. A terracotta vessel form and other related vessels in the Hellenistic, Roman and early Byzantine Mediterranean in Izmir, Turkey”. Between May 17 and 18, 2018 we have hosted c. 50 participants from 15 countries and 34 papers dealing with terracotta unguentaria were presented in these two days of symposium. We ask you to send us your paper, if it deals with terracotta unguentaria. The Editorial Board asks you kindly to provide an original, previously unpublished and scientific paper, dealing with unpublished materials from excavated or surveyed sites or from the museums with previously unpublished photos without copyright problems.