Spatial narratives, commemorative practices and the building project: New urban foundations in Upper Syro-Mesopotamia during the Early Iron Age

This dissertation investigates the practice of founding new cities in the ancient Near East as a socio-cultural phenomenon. Among Upper Syro-Mesopotamian polities of the Early Iron Age (EIA, ca. 1200–850 BC), notably the regional states of the Syro-Hittite world and Assyria, the idea of establishing new urban settlements was a cross-culturally shared landscape strategy. In their commemorative monuments, EIA elites developed an eloquent rhetoric that prioritized the cultivation of landscapes and construction of cities. The phenomenon is, therefore, understood as a cross-cultural historical problem and explored on an interregional scale. Archaeological and epigraphic evidence suggests that these building projects were socially significant undertakings that transformed the urban sphere as well as their rural hinterlands. Through the analysis of material evidence from several case studies, new foundations are interpreted on three spatio-temporal scales: long-term processes of landscape change and settlement history, production of urban space through large-scale building activities, and the development of symbolically charged architectural technologies. The dissertation incorporates contemporary critical approaches to landscape history, urbanization, social practices, architectural space and material culture, and attempts to develop a discourse on how social memories are constructed through space-producing activities. In terms of long-term settlement history, new foundations were not confined to elite-initiated urban centers, but rather marked a hallmark of settlement trends across Upper Mesopotamia in the EIA, because they were attested in various scales including villages, farmsteads, frontier fortresses and regional centers. Foundations were festive events where performative spectacles of commemoration took place and where the society\u27s relationship with history was redefined. The construction projects involved the narrativization of urban spaces through the making of a constellation of commemorative monuments. This was partly accomplished through the technique of raising stone orthostats with narrative relief programs in public contexts, a technique that became an interregional practice among EIA cities. As a technological style and architectonic aesthetics in the urban landscapes, orthostat programs acted as material manifestations of elite ideology, cultural representation and spatial practice. The three scales of analysis contribute to the interpretation of new urban foundations as a material as well as a representational practice of spatial production and signification

Spatial narratives, commemorative practices and the building project: New urban foundations in Upper Syro-Mesopotamia during the Early Iron Age

This dissertation investigates the practice of founding new cities in the ancient Near East as a socio-cultural phenomenon. Among Upper Syro-Mesopotamian polities of the Early Iron Age (EIA, ca. 1200–850 BC), notably the regional states of the Syro-Hittite world and Assyria, the idea of establishing new urban settlements was a cross-culturally shared landscape strategy. In their commemorative monuments, EIA elites developed an eloquent rhetoric that prioritized the cultivation of landscapes and construction of cities. The phenomenon is, therefore, understood as a cross-cultural historical problem and explored on an interregional scale. Archaeological and epigraphic evidence suggests that these building projects were socially significant undertakings that transformed the urban sphere as well as their rural hinterlands. Through the analysis of material evidence from several case studies, new foundations are interpreted on three spatio-temporal scales: long-term processes of landscape change and settlement history, production of urban space through large-scale building activities, and the development of symbolically charged architectural technologies. The dissertation incorporates contemporary critical approaches to landscape history, urbanization, social practices, architectural space and material culture, and attempts to develop a discourse on how social memories are constructed through space-producing activities. In terms of long-term settlement history, new foundations were not confined to elite-initiated urban centers, but rather marked a hallmark of settlement trends across Upper Mesopotamia in the EIA, because they were attested in various scales including villages, farmsteads, frontier fortresses and regional centers. Foundations were festive events where performative spectacles of commemoration took place and where the society\u27s relationship with history was redefined. The construction projects involved the narrativization of urban spaces through the making of a constellation of commemorative monuments. This was partly accomplished through the technique of raising stone orthostats with narrative relief programs in public contexts, a technique that became an interregional practice among EIA cities. As a technological style and architectonic aesthetics in the urban landscapes, orthostat programs acted as material manifestations of elite ideology, cultural representation and spatial practice. The three scales of analysis contribute to the interpretation of new urban foundations as a material as well as a representational practice of spatial production and signification

Borders are Rough-hewn: Monuments, Local Landscapes and the Politics of Place in a Hittite Borderland

Cultural historian Elliott Colla proposed in a recent paper that ancient borders, unlike their modern versions, were often roughly hewn, both materially and conceptually. With this he not only refers to the artfully crafted and politically contested nature of borders in antiquity but also cleverly highlights their geological grounding. For the Hittite imperial landscapes, Calla's statement has special resonance, since Hittite frontiers are often discussed with respect to the making of rock reliefs and spring monuments that commemorate the kingship ideology at both politically contested border regions and appropriate local sites of geological wonder and cultic significance such as caves, springs and sinkholes. Treaties were signed and border disputes were settled at these liminal sites where divinities and ancestors of the underworld took part as witnesses. One such monument is the Yalburt Yaylas1 Sacred Mountain Spring Monument that features a lengthy Hieroglyphic Luwian inscription put up by the Hittite kings in the countryside. Excavated by the Anatolian Civilisations Museum, Ankara, in the 1970s, the Yalburt Monument near Konya is dated to the time of Tudhaliya IV (1237- 1209 BC). Since 2010, the Yalburt Yaylas1 Archaeological Landscape Research Project has investigated the landscapes surrounding the Yalburt Monument. The preliminary results of the extensive and intensive archaeological surveys suggest that the region of Yalburt was a deeply contested frontier, where the Land of Hatti linked to the politically powerful polities of western and southern Anatolia. This paper discusses the nature of a Hittite borderland with respect to settlement programmes, monument construction and regional politics

The political ecology of roads and movement: The Yalburt Yaylası Archaeological Landscape Research Project 2018 Season

This third volume in the Archaeology of Anatolia series offers reports on the most recent discoveries from across the Anatolian peninsula