Etruria between the Iron Age and Orientalizing Period and the Adoption of Alphabetic Writing

2021 ◽  
pp. 293-319
Author(s):  
Enrico Benelli ◽  
Alessandro Naso
Keyword(s):  
Iron Age ◽  
Settlement Patterns ◽  
Writing Skills ◽  
Peer Groups ◽  
Gift Exchange ◽  
Eighth Century ◽  
Social Transformations ◽  
Cultural Approach ◽  
Mediterranean World ◽  
Alphabetic Writing

This chapter combines a cultural approach (Naso) with a philological (Benelli) one to examine the emergence of Etruscan alphabetic writing in the eighth century BC. Naso outlines changes in settlement patterns and major social transformations in Etruria in this period, largely to be connected with maritime trade and openness to the broader Mediterranean world. Benelli focuses on the mechanism through which the new idea was taken up. He notes that epigraphy is by no means a necessary and immediate consequence of the adoption of writing skills. The oldest Etruscan inscriptions provide evidence of a system of gift exchange amongst the newly forming aristocracy which was strongly tied up with ritualized friendship between kinship groups and peer groups. It is within this milieu that alphabetic writing was articulated and disseminated. All forms of Etruscan letters can be traced back to Euboean prototypes, with the possible exception of the so-called san.

Changes in regional settlement patterns in Cappadocia (central Turkey) since the Neolithic: a combined site survey perspective

2014 ◽  
Vol 64 ◽  
pp. 33-57 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samantha Lee Allcock ◽  
Neil Roberts
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Settlement Patterns ◽  
Archaeological Site ◽  
Raw Material ◽  
Central Anatolia ◽  
Archaeological Survey ◽  
The Republic ◽  
Regional Settlement ◽  
Central Turkey

AbstractMore than 50 years of archaeological survey work carried out in Cappadocia in central Turkey has produced a number of important contributions to the understanding of long-term settlement histories. This article synthesises and critically evaluates the results of three field surveys conducted in Cappadocia which recorded material remains dating from the Early Holocene through to the establishment of the Republic of Turkey. Results from the combined Cappadocia surveys reveal temporal patterns over the longue durée that include a lack of detectable pre-Neolithic occupation and important exploitation of obsidian as a raw material during the Neolithic. There was growth and expansion of settlement during the later Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age, a steady continuation of settlement during the Middle and Late Bronze Ages, followed by rupture in settlement at the end of the Bronze Age. A new phase of settlement expansion began during the Iron Age and continued through Hellenistic and Roman times. This in turn was disrupted during the Byzantine period, which is associated with increased numbers of fortified sites. The succeeding long cycle of settlement began in Seljuk times and continued through to the end of the Ottoman period. Comparison with systematic archaeological site surveys in the adjacent regions of Paphlagonia and Konya shows some differences in settlement patterns, but overall broad sim¬ilarities indicate a coherent trajectory of settlement across central Anatolia over the last ten millennia.

New Media in the Late Iron Age

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter S. Wells
Keyword(s):  
New Media ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Developmental Trajectory ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Late Prehistoric ◽  
Late Iron Age ◽  
Mediterranean World ◽  
Temperate Europe ◽  
The Mediterranean ◽  
Middle Iron Age

This chapter analyzes coins and writing in late prehistoric Europe. The development of coinage in temperate Europe and the first regular signs of writing are innovations that share some important features. Both were introduced from outside the region, specifically from the Mediterranean world, toward the end of the Middle Iron Age. Although both had existed in the Mediterranean world for centuries before their introduction and adoption in temperate Europe, both appear in temperate Europe at about the same time, during the third century BC and more abundantly during the second and first centuries. They were both adopted at a particular time in Europe's developmental trajectory, and under specific economic and political circumstances.

The Lists of Phalaborwa Rulers: A Comparison of Variant ‘Fixed’ Sources

1979 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 209-224
Author(s):  
R.T.K. Scully
Keyword(s):  
Iron Age ◽  
Oral Tradition ◽  
Eighth Century ◽  
Historical Reconstruction ◽  
Specific Detail ◽  
Cultural Complex ◽  
The Past ◽  
Lines Of Descent ◽  
Political Association ◽  
Diverse Groups

In this paper I discuss genealogical material documented in the past about the ruling families of Phalaborwa in the northeast Transvaal. Recent archeological research in Phalaborwa demonstrates a continuous Iron Age cultural complex in the area centered around Lolwe hill since the eighth century A.D. Subsequent investigations of Phalaborwa oral tradition clearly link the present BaPhalaborwa Sotho-speaking population with the Iron Age past, adding considerable specific detail for the historical reconstruction of this remarkable 1000-year old metalproducing and trading society.Noble and royal genealogies among the BaPhalaborwa focus on the main line of Malatji clan rulers and in all of the Malatji lines the genealogies merge at one or other ascending levels. There is consequently a single ultimate prestige genealogy for all noble and royal families in Phalaborwa which has become fixed by the efforts of various of the tribe literates since the 1930s. Inconsistencies in oral tradition from diverse groups, however, suggest that this genealogy was not rigid in the past, but flexible, allowing certain direct lines of descent to become obscured and the collateral and even unrelated lines which have found their way into political association with the ruling house of Phalaborwa by various means to be added.

Formation of the Phrygian state: the Early Iron Age at Gordion

2000 ◽  
Vol 50 ◽  
pp. 37-54 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mary M. Voigt ◽  
Robert C. Henrickson
Keyword(s):  
Iron Age ◽  
Eighth Century ◽  
Central Anatolia ◽  
Early Iron Age ◽  
Archaeological Research ◽  
European Language ◽  
Historical Sources ◽  
Documentary Sources ◽  
History Of ◽  
The City

A brief history of archaeological research at Gordion Piecing together documentary sources from areas to the east and west of Anatolia, historians agree that in the eighth century BC, central Anatolia was dominated by people who spoke an Indo-European language, Phrygian (Mellink 1991: 621; Muscarella 1995: 92 with refs). From historical sources we also know the location of the Phrygians' capital, Gordion: Quintus Curtius (Hist Alex III.1–2) states that the city lay on the Sangarios River ‘equally distant from the Pontic and Cilician Seas’. Using this description, Gustav and Augustus Körte travelled across Turkey more than a century ago looking for the physical remains of Gordion and Phrygia. They eventually focused on a mound lying adjacent to the Sangarios or modern Sakarya. The mound, now called Yassıhöyük, is large relative to others in the region, and lies in the proper geographical setting for ancient Gordion; a series of artificial mounds or tumuli scattered across nearby slopes provides additional evidence of the settlement's importance.

Radiocarbon Dates for Sub-Saharan Africa: VI

1969 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 149-169 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian M. Fagan
Keyword(s):  
Iron Age ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Eighth Century ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Radiocarbon Dates ◽  
European Contact ◽  
The Third ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
Eastern And Southern Africa

The Sixth List contains many dates from Eastern and Southern Africa. An important sequence of dates from Malawi is published, indicating that the Iron Age there had begun as early as the third century A.D. The beginnings of the Zambian Early Iron Age are well established by the fourth century, while important new dates for ‘Dimple-based’ wares in Rwanda and Kenya place that pottery type within the same time span.The Palabora dates from the Transvaal indicate that the Limpopo valley was settled by Iron Age people by the eighth century, and numerous isolated samples are recorded. The five dates from Ife in Nigeria confirm that the terracotta sculpture there was being made before European contact, while numerous samples for earlier sites are published.

‘Drinking the Feast’: Alcohol and the Legitimation of Power in Celtic Europe

1999 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 71-93 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bettina Arnold
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Social Relationships ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Considerable Change ◽  
Alcoholic Beverages ◽  
British Isles ◽  
Documentary Evidence ◽  
Mediterranean World ◽  
Metal Ceramic ◽  
The Impact

Drinking and feasting were an integral part of life in Iron Age Europe and the British Isles. The distribution of food and especially drink in prescribed fashion played a key role in establishing and maintaining social relationships. Alcoholic beverages were important consumable status items in prehistoric Europe, serving as a social lubricant as well as a social barrier. The metal, ceramic and wooden vessels required for the preparation, distribution and consumption of these beverages were a vehicle for inter- and intragroup competition, and underwent considerable change, both symbolic and material, through time. This article will attempt a cognitive analysis of the material culture of Iron Age drinking and feasting by integrating archaeological and documentary evidence. The impact of contact with the Mediterranean world, gender configurations, and the ideology of power and patronage will be discussed in relation to changing material culture assemblages.

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