Conceptions of Gender and Body Images in the Aegean World and East Mediterranean Societies in the Late Bronze Age

Ugarit was a highly cosmopolitan, multilingual and multiscript city at the intersection of several major Late Bronze Age political and cultural spheres of influence. In the thirteenth centurybc, the city adopted a new alphabetic cuneiform writing system in the local language for certain uses alongside the Akkadian language, script and scribal practices that were standard throughout the Near East. Previous research has seen this as ‘vernacularization’, in response to the city's encounter with Mesopotamian culture. Recent improvements in our understanding of the date of Ugarit's adoption of alphabetic cuneiform render this unlikely, and this paper instead argues that we should see this vernacularization as part of Ugarit's negotiation of, and resistance to, their encounter with Hittite imperialism. Furthermore, it stands as a specific, Ugaritian, manifestation of similar trends apparent across a number of East Mediterranean societies in response to the economic and political globalism of Late Bronze Age élite culture. As such, these changes in Ugaritian scribal practice have implications for our wider understanding of the end of the Late Bronze Age.

Download Full-text

The circulation and consumption of Red Lustrous Wheelmade ware: petrographic, chemical and residue analysis

Anatolian Studies ◽

10.1017/s0066154600000648 ◽

2005 ◽

Vol 55 ◽

pp. 25-59 ◽

Cited By ~ 13

Author(s):

Carl Knappett ◽

Vassilis Kilikoglou ◽

Val Steele ◽

Ben Stern

Keyword(s):

Gas Chromatography ◽

Bronze Age ◽

Residue Analysis ◽

Gas Chromatography Mass Spectrometry ◽

Plant Oils ◽

Late Bronze Age ◽

East Mediterranean ◽

Fabric Analysis ◽

Northern Cyprus ◽

Scientific Analysis

AbstractRed Lustrous Wheelmade ware is one of the most recognisable classes of pottery from the Late Bronze Age of the east Mediterranean. Yet both its production source and the nature of its contents and use remain a source of some debate. These questions are tackled here through an intensive programme of scientific analysis involving 95 samples of Red Lustrous Wheelmade ware and related wares from seven sites in Turkey, Cyprus and Egypt. Petrography and instrumental neutron activation analysis are combined in the study of the ceramic fabrics, with a view to specifying the source of this ware; while gas chromatography and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry are used to analyse absorbed and visible residues in and on the sherd samples, in the hope of shedding light on vessel contents and possible use. The results of the fabric analysis show the ware to be extremely homogeneous, indicative of a single source: northern Cyprus is at present the most likely candidate, although further analysis, particularly of clay samples from the region in question, would certainly be desirable. The residue analysis suggests that Red Lustrous Wheelmade ware might have been used to carry some kind of plant oils, possibly perfumed, and that in some instances the vessel interior was coated with beeswax as a sealant.

Download Full-text

The Final Bronze Age in the Near East and in Temperate Europe

Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society ◽

10.1017/s0079497x00019484 ◽

1948 ◽

Vol 14 ◽

pp. 177-195 ◽

Cited By ~ 5

Author(s):

V. Gordon Childe

Keyword(s):

Bronze Age ◽

Mediterranean Area ◽

The Other ◽

Early Bronze Age ◽

Late Bronze Age ◽

East Mediterranean ◽

Advanced Phase ◽

Temperate Europe ◽

The One ◽

Satisfactory Manner

When ten years ago I discussed the absolute chronology of the European Bronze Age, I took the amber beads from Kakovatos as providing a terminus ante quem about 1450 B.C. for its ‘Early’ phase and accepted the appearance in the East Mediterranean area of cremation burial in urn-fields, cut-and-thrust swords (fig. 1), safety-pins (fig. 3), turban dishes and urns with ribbed or twisted handles as indicative of a similar limit about 1250 B.C. for the beginning of the Late Bronze Age. The first date has subsequently been confirmed and given precision in a satisfactory manner. In his paper on ‘The Early Bronze Age in Wessex’ Piggott showed how his Wessex culture could be cross-dated by Aegean contacts. On the one hand many Wessex graves contain segmented faience beads imported from the East Mediterranean and plausibly dated there about 1400 B.C.: on the other, graves of the same culture at Normanton and Manton were furnished with gold-bound amber discs identical in form and size with one from a L.M. II tomb at Knossos. Assuming the latter to be a British import, it gave 1450 as a terminus ante quem for the rise of the Wessex culture. At the same time British types in Central Europe and Unětician types in Wessex barrows, established a synchronism between the Wessex culture and the advanced phase of the Early Bronze Age cultures of the Danubian area (in typological terms Reinecke's phase A2), to which phase the Perjamos grave at Ószentivan, containing imported segmented faience beads, identical with those from Wessex and therefore also datable about 1400, should be assigned.

Download Full-text

Late Cypriot I A maritime trade in action: underwater survey at MaroniTsaroukkasand the contemporary east Mediterranean trading system

The Annual of the British School at Athens ◽

10.1017/s0068245400017354 ◽

2002 ◽

Vol 97 ◽

pp. 97-162 ◽

Cited By ~ 8

Author(s):

Sturt W. Manning ◽

David A. Sewell ◽

Ellen Herscher

Keyword(s):

International Trade ◽

Bronze Age ◽

Late Bronze Age ◽

East Mediterranean ◽

Trading System ◽

Time Period ◽

Middle Bronze Age ◽

Key Sites ◽

Dramatic Shift ◽

New Evidence

The period from the late Middle Bronze Age to the start of the Late Bronze Age in the Levant, largely coeval with the Canaanite, ‘Hyksos“, 15th Dynasty of Egypt, is characterized by the appearance of Late Cypriot I A ceramics at a number of key sites in the east Mediterranean. The exact absolute dates to apply to this period have been the subject of controversy, in part inter-linked with debate over the date of the eruption of Thera, but scholarship recognises that this visible horizon of international trade must have been of considerable significance, especially on Cyprus itself. Here a dramatic shift in settlement to the coastal areas of the island at the beginning of the Late Cypriot period has long been recognized; this is also the time period of the formation of larger complex socio-political entities at the sites on Cyprus which go on to comprise the Late Cypriot ‘urban“ civilisation. Tombs of the relevant Middle Cypriot III–Late Cypriot I period are well known on Cyprus, but stratified settlement contexts on Cyprus, yet alone contexts directly related to such international trade, are scarce to non-existent. We report finds of just such direct relevance from a (currently) unique deposit as a result of an initial investigation of the seabed off the Late Cypriot site of MaroniTsaroukkason the south coast of Cyprus (MTSB Site 1). Consideration of these finds provides important new evidence for the Late Cypriot I A period; they also indicate routes to more sophisticated analyses of Cypriot–east Mediterranean interaction and the resolution of current problems in chronology. In particular, a review of Late Cypriot I A connections highlights the need to emphasise the central importance of the Canaanite pre-18th Dynasty (late Middle Bronze Age) world to the formative development of both Late Bronze Age Cyprus, and the Late Bronze Age Aegean.

Download Full-text

ATLANTIS IN SPAIN II

Bulletin of the Geological Society of Greece ◽

10.12681/bgsg.11165 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 43 (1) ◽

pp. 108

Author(s):

S.P. Papamarinopoulos

Keyword(s):

Science Fiction ◽

Bronze Age ◽

Late Bronze Age ◽

Greek Language ◽

East Mediterranean ◽

The Past ◽

North East ◽

The North ◽

12Th Century ◽

Archaeological Excavations

Plato, who lived in the 4th century B.C., wrote the dialogue Timaeos and Critias when he was 52 years old. In this he describes a catastrophe in Athens from an earthquake in the presence of excessive rain. He also describes several details, not visible in his century, in the Acropolis of Athens. These details are a spring and architectural details of buildings in which the warriors used to live. In Critias he mentions that the destruction of the spring was caused by an earthquake. The time of the catastrophe of Atlantis was not defined by him but it is implied that it occurred after the assault of the Atlantes in the Mediterranean. Archaeological excavations confirmed the existence of the spring which was about 25 m deep with respect to the present day walking level. Archaeologically dated ceramics, found at its bottom, denote the last function of the spring was in very early 12th century B.C. Plato describes the warriors’ settlements which were found outside of the fortification wall in the North East of the Acropolis. The philosopher, who was not a historian, describes a general catastrophe in Greece from which the Greek language survived till his century. Archaeological studies have offered a variety of tablets of Linear B writings which turn out to be the non-alphabetic type of writing of the Greeks up to the 12th century B.C. before the dark ages commence. Modern geoarchaeological and palaeoseismological studies prove that seismic storms occurred in the East Mediterranean between 1225 and 1175 B.C. The result of a fifty-year period of earthquakes was the catastrophe of many late Bronze Age palaces or settlements. For some analysts both Athens and Atlantis presented in Timaeos and Critias are imaginary entities. They maintained that the imaginary conflict between Athens and Atlantis served Plato to produce the first world’s “science fiction” and gave the Athenians an anti-imperialistic lesson through his fabricated myth. However, a part of this “science fiction”, Athens of Critias, is proved a reality of the 12th century B.C., described only by Plato and not by historians, such as Herodotus, Thucydides and others. Analysts of the past have mixed Plato’s fabricated Athens presented in his dialogue Republic with the non-fabricated Athens of his dialogue Critias. This serious error has deflected researchers from their target to interpret Plato’s text efficiently.

Download Full-text

Ceramics, trade, provenience and geology: Cyprus in the Late Bronze Age

Antiquity ◽

10.1017/s0003598x0011539x ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 88 (342) ◽

pp. 1180-1200 ◽

Cited By ~ 16

Author(s):

Peter Grave ◽

Lisa Kealhofer ◽

Ben Marsh ◽

Ulf-Dietrich Schoop ◽

Jürgen Seeher ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Neutron Activation Analysis ◽

Bronze Age ◽

Eastern Mediterranean ◽

Source Area ◽

Late Bronze Age ◽

East Mediterranean ◽

Spatial Organisation ◽

Trade Networks ◽

Major Producer ◽

New Perspective

The island of Cyprus was a major producer of copper and stood at the heart of east Mediterranean trade networks during the Late Bronze Age. It may also have been the source of the Red Lustrous Wheelmade Ware that has been found in mortuary contexts in Egypt and the Levant, and in Hittite temple assemblages in Anatolia. Neutron Activation Analysis (NAA) has enabled the source area of this special ceramic to be located in a geologically highly localised and geochemically distinctive area of western Cyprus. This discovery offers a new perspective on the spatial organisation of Cypriot economies in the production and exchange of elite goods around the eastern Mediterranean at this time.

Download Full-text

THE EAST MEDITERRANEAN LATE BRONZE AGE GLASS TRADE WITHIN THE CONTEXT OF THE PANAZTEPE FINDS

Oxford Journal of Archaeology ◽

10.1111/j.1468-0092.2012.00382.x ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 31 (2) ◽

pp. 121-141 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

NAZLI ÇINARDALI-KARAASLAN

Keyword(s):

Bronze Age ◽

Late Bronze Age ◽

East Mediterranean

Download Full-text

The Concept of Palestine: The Conception Of Palestine from the Late Bronze Age to the Modern Period

Journal of Holy Land and Palestine Studies ◽

10.3366/hlps.2016.0140 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 15 (2) ◽

pp. 143-202 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Nur Masalha

Keyword(s):

Bronze Age ◽

Old Testament ◽

Political Geography ◽

Classical Antiquity ◽

Late Bronze Age ◽

Collective Consciousness ◽

Ancient History ◽

Master Narratives ◽

The Bible ◽

School History

The Concept of Palestine is deeply rooted in the collective consciousness of the indigenous people of Palestine and the multicultural ancient past. The name Palestine is the most commonly used from the Late Bronze Age (from 1300 BCE) onwards. The name Palestine is evident in countless histories, inscriptions, maps and coins from antiquity, medieval and modern Palestine. From the Late Bronze Age onwards the names used for the region, such as Djahi, Retenu and Cana'an, all gave way to the name Palestine. Throughout Classical Antiquity the name Palestine remained the most common and during the Roman, Byzantine and Islamic periods the concept and political geography of Palestine acquired official administrative status. This article sets out to explain the historical origins of the concept of Palestine and the evolving political geography of the country. It will seek to demonstrate how the name ‘Palestine’ (rather than the term ‘Cana'an’) was most commonly and formally used in ancient history. It argues that the legend of the ‘Israelites’ conquest of Cana'an’ and other master narratives of the Bible evolved across many centuries; they are myth-narratives, not evidence-based accurate history. It further argues that academic and school history curricula should be based on historical facts/empirical evidence/archaeological discoveries – not on master narratives or Old Testament sacred-history and religio-ideological constructs.

Download Full-text