Anatolian Chronology in the Early and Middle Bronze Age

1957 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. 55-88 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Mellaart
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Rapid Progress ◽  
Nineteen Thirties ◽  
Historical Society ◽  
Field Surveys ◽  
Old Kingdom ◽  
The Past ◽  
New Material ◽  
Middle Bronze Age ◽  
Systematic Field

Modern scientific excavation did not start in Turkey until the nineteen-thirties and it is therefore not surprising that Anatolian chronology has been somewhat neglected in the past.Since the war, however, Anatolian archaeology has made rapid progress. New excavations, publication of old ones and systematic field-surveys have added a vast amount of new material, much of it stratified. These new results call for a reconsideration of Anatolian chronology, not as an adjunct to that of Syria and the Aegean, but in its own right. The recent excavations at Kültepe, near Kayseri, undertaken by T. and N. Özgüç for the Turkish Historical Society, have produced literary evidence for relating the Anatolian culture-sequences to those of Mesopotamia in and before the Hammurabi period. This new material has a direct bearing on the vexed problem of dating the Hammurabi period and the rise of the Hittite Old Kingdom and at last enables one to establish the chronology of the area, not only in relation to Mesopotamia, but also in absolute dates.

scholarly journals How Rocks Die: Changing Patterns of Discard and Re-Use of Ground Stone Tools in Middle Bronze Age Cyprus

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (21) ◽  
pp. 8869
Author(s):  
Andrew McCarthy
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Political Change ◽  
Stone Tools ◽  
Cultural Objects ◽  
The Past ◽  
Ground Stone ◽  
Changing Patterns ◽  
Middle Bronze Age

Cultural objects are thought to have a lifespan. From selection, through construction, use, destruction, and discard, materials do not normally last forever, transforming through stages of life, eventually leading to their death. The materiality of stone objects, however, can defy the inevitable demise of an object, especially durable ground stone tools that can outlive generations of human lifespans. How groups of people deal with the relative permanence of stone tools depends on their own relationship with the past, and whether they venerate it or reject its influence on the present. A case study from the long-lived site of Prasteio-Mesorotsos in Cyprus demonstrates a shifting attitude toward ground stone objects, from the socially conservative habit of ritually killing of objects and burying them, to one of more casual re-use and reinterpretation of ground stone. This shift in attitude coincides with a socio-political change that eventually led to the ultimate rejection of the past: complete abandonment of the settlement.

Memory and its Demolition: Ancestors, Animals and Sacrifice at Umm el-Marra, Syria

2013 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 495-522 ◽  
Author(s):  
Glenn M. Schwartz
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Early Bronze Age ◽  
Human Sacrifice ◽  
Ancestor Veneration ◽  
The Past ◽  
Middle Bronze Age

At Umm el-Marra in western Syria, a sequence of Bronze Age ritual installations facilitates the investigation of how Syrian elites employed memory, ancestor veneration, and animal (and perhaps human) sacrifice to reinforce their position, and how others used countermemory to contest it. Relevant data derive from an Early Bronze Age complex of elite tombs and animal interments and a Middle Bronze Age monumental platform and shaft containing animal and human bodies deposited ritually. Analysis of the spatial landscape, with patterns of access or inaccessibility, facilitates additional insights, as does the consideration of the intentionality or lack of it in ancient references to the past.

Barrows in action. Late Neolithic and Middle Bronze Age Barrow Landscapes in the Upper Dniester Basin, Ukraine

2019 ◽  
Vol 94 (1) ◽  
pp. 92-115
Author(s):  
P. Makarowicz ◽  
J. Niebieszczański ◽  
M. Cwaliński ◽  
J. Romaniszyn ◽  
V. Rud ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Steppe Zone ◽  
Late Neolithic ◽  
Knowledge And Skills ◽  
Linear Pattern ◽  
The Past ◽  
Western Ukraine ◽  
Middle Bronze Age ◽  
Direction Of Movement ◽  
Cultural Code

Abstract The aim of this article is to view the spatial distribution of Upper Dniester Basin’s (Western Ukraine) barrows and to interpret their location principles. These monuments were often situated on the flattened summits of watershed ridges or hills. It appeared also that some of them were located on upper parts of gentle slopes of not more than 8° of inclination. Mounds appear within linear and group-linear arrangements and were rarely observed as clusters, while more specific adjustments to their location were dependant on local terrain morphology. Barrow alignments run along the elevated ridges, while clustered groups were situated in places where erosive indentations or denudation cavities prevented barrows from stretching in a linear pattern. It can be noted that during the spatial development of barrow alignments, more attention was paid to the intervisibility between the mounds, than to their visibility from other places in the landscape. The potential of observing at least one of the following groups of tumuli from every embankment indicates the direction of movement within the framework of the barrow landscape, perhaps augmented in the past by the presence of paths or “roads”. Examples of analogous or similar, in a certain sense even universal, practices in shaping barrow landscapes were documented also from various parts of Eurasia. Therefore, it is argued these traits were shared by all “barrow societies” and their origins can be traced to the steppe zone. Specific and repeatable patterns of barrow arrangements are a manifestation of certain knowledge and skills, transmitted over generations and immortalized in the landscape that symbolized the incorporation of territory by “barrow societies”. Characteristic mound alignments became a cultural code or institution, as it were – an instrument of familiarising previously unknown landscapes, facilitating movement and simultaneously expressing continuity of kin-lineages.

Chronology and Terminology in the British Bronze Age

1969 ◽  
Vol 49 (1) ◽  
pp. 22-29 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. B. Burgess
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Early Bronze Age ◽  
Late Bronze Age ◽  
The Past ◽  
Age Gap ◽  
Middle Bronze Age

SummaryThe paper pleads for an end to persistent misuse of the traditional ‘Three Age’ terminology which still governs the Irish British Bronze Age, and for acceptance of work of the past decade which has either been ignored or misunderstood. Uniform terms of reference are needed, fitted to the new attitudes. Hawkes's Scheme of 1960 provides a framework for this, and is summarized. The Early, Middle, and Late divisions now have a techno-typological, rather than cultural, basis.Traditional cultural and ceramic concepts, based on typology, have resisted changes demanded by a new emphasis on the evidence of associated finds. The various Urn forms and the Deverel—Rimbury complex are particularly relevant here. Associations of Urns, and the few available C14 dates, are examined to demonstrate their existence in the Early Bronze Age, but, because of a remarkable ritual break at c. 1400, not in the Middle Bronze Age, let alone the Late Bronze Age. Similarly, Deverel—Rimbury is now Middle Bronze Age, not Late Bronze Age, its position after c. 1000 uncertain. Since much in our Iron Age is now thought indigenous, already apparent in Deverel—Rimbury, an awkward Late Bronze Age gap is opened up, apparently devoid of settlements and pottery. But much nominally Iron Age material may prove to be Late Bronze Age. There is a need for many more C14 dates to clarify these problems.

‘The Spearhead of the Pennon …’

2019 ◽  
Vol 148 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew G Knight ◽  
Trevor G Cowie
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
National Museum ◽  
Museum Collection ◽  
Late Professor ◽  
The Past ◽  
Middle Bronze Age

In 1999, the late Professor Charles Thomas donated a Middle Bronze Age spearhead to the National Museum collection. This spearhead came with a label indicating that it was part of the pennant taken into the Battle of Flodden by Robert Chisholme in 1513. This paper investigates the likelihood that such a claimed association could have any basis in truth, as well as briefly contributing some thoughts on the discovery of already ancient objects in the past.

scholarly journals The Interdisciplinary Approach of Some Middle Bronze Age Pottery from Eastern Romania

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (11) ◽  
pp. 4885
Author(s):  
Ana Drob ◽  
Viorica Vasilache ◽  
Neculai Bolohan
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Raw Materials ◽  
Interdisciplinary Approach ◽  
Main Element ◽  
Archaeological Sites ◽  
The Past ◽  
Prehistoric Pottery ◽  
Type Size ◽  
Middle Bronze Age ◽  
Manufacturing Technologies

Prehistoric pottery is the most abundant material discovered in archaeological sites and represents the main element of knowledge about human communities from the past. This study presents a model of interdisciplinary investigation of pottery through several types of analyses, enabling the scientific study of this category of artifacts. The analyses were performed on 11 ceramic fragments from the Middle Bronze Age settlement of Piatra Neamț–Lutărie, Eastern Romania, considering information about the color, production technique, type, size, functionality and category of the vessel, but also data related to ceramic paste inclusions. The samples were studied by optical microscopy (OM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) coupled with energy-dispersive X-ray analysis (EDX) and micro-Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (µFTIR). The results obtained provide important information regarding pottery manufacturing technologies, such as sources of the raw materials and firing temperatures, and revealed the functionality of various vessel categories within a prehistoric settlement.

A rapid cooling event over the western Pacific region during the Middle Bronze Age

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hangfang Xiao ◽  
Wenfeng Deng ◽  
Xi Liu ◽  
Xuefei Chen ◽  
Yangrui Guo ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Western Pacific ◽  
Pacific Region ◽  
Western Pacific Region ◽  
Rapid Cooling ◽  
Middle Bronze Age ◽  
The Western Pacific

Burial in the Time of the Amorites. The Middle Bronze Age Burial Customs from a Mesopotamian Perspective

2020 ◽  
Vol 29 ◽  
pp. 381-422
Author(s):  
Zuzanna Wygnańska
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Burial Customs ◽  
Middle Bronze Age

‘Buckle up and Fasten that Belt!’. Metal Belts in the Early and Middle Bronze Age

2020 ◽  
Vol 29 ◽  
pp. 303-330
Author(s):  
Silvia Prell
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Middle Bronze Age
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