2015 | Anatolica Volume 41 Numéro spécial en l’honneur du 80ème anniversaire de Klaas Veenhof, 2015 ISSN: 0066-1554; 41
The articles collected in the first part of this issue address three fields to which Klaas Veenhof has made significant contributions, to honour him on the occasion of his 80th birthday: Kültepe-Kanesh, chronology of the ancient Near East, and the Old Babylonian period.
The location of the mines that supplied silver, which Old Assyrian merchants shipped to Assur in large quantities, remains unclear. Recent lead isotope analyses of artefacts found at Acemhöyük, Qalat Shergat (ancient Assur) and Kültepe (ancient Kanesh) suggest that these objects originated from the Taurus Mountains. — K. Aslıhan Yener
A gold plaque crumpled in a lump was found in a room dated to the Period of Assyrian Trade Colonies at Kaman-Kalehöyük in 2010. The gold sheet was partially unfolded and a proposed restoration drawn. Although the upper part of the plaque is missing, the design cut out of gold sheet is thought to be a composition of a lion-dragon standing on its hind legs with a fawn at its feet, all enclosed within a frame. The motif of the lion-dragon is one of the subjects brought to Anatolian art from Mesopotamia in the early phase of the second millennium B.C. The lion-dragons observed on seal impressions from Karum Kanesh are in the tradition of Sumerian and Akkadian art in their forms and concepts. The gold plaque from Kaman-Kalehöyük offers another example of the lion-dragon and the nature of Mesopotamian influence on Anatolian art. — Masako Omura
The reign of the Old Babylonian king Samsu-iluna had its ups and downs. Best known are the revolts quenched by him, as he proudly relates in his inscriptions. He remains silent about his financial problems, the collecting of taxes and recovering outstanding debts. The two texts presented here show that he took action at last and some of his cities even had to sell property in order to pay him off. — Marten Stol
A sacrilegious incident involving members of the family of the priest of the goddess Ishtar in the Old Assyrian central colony Kanesh is reported to the priest in a letter. After a presentation and discussion of this document, the present article investigates the role of priests in Old Assyrian society and the evidence about sacred space in ancient Kanesh. — Jan Gerrit Dercksen
The Mari Eponym Chronicle (MEC) is represented by eleven fragments of clay tablets, which were excavated in the palace of king Zimrī-Līm at Mari. These tablets provide precious information on the political developments in Northern Mesopotamia during almost a hundred years. For each year covered by the chronicle, the name of the acting eponym is given, as well as what was considered the most important political event that happened during that year. Following its publication by M. Birot in 1985, various scholars studied this important document. A fresh reconstruction of the text is presented in this article, which also contains a discussion of the possible function of the extant copies. — Rafał Koliński
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Çadır Höyük, on the north central Anatolian plateau, is one of the few multi-period sites in the region. The site has demonstrated occupation spanning six millennia (ca. 5200 BCE to the late 11th century CE). The 2013 and 2014 seasons, reported on here, have continued to target the four main periods investigated over the last decade: the Late Chalcolithic/Early Bronze Age (ca. 3600-2900 BCE), the Middle Bronze/Hittite period (ca. 1800-1200 BCE), the Middle and Early Iron Age (ca. 1200-800 BCE), and the Middle Byzantine (6th-11th c. CE). In the Late Chalcolithic trenches we have, after well over a decade, finally retrieved the additional extant walls of the Omphalos Building first exposed in 2001. We also recovered unusual apsidal structures and revealed a non-domestic structure that may have been used for specialized purposes. The Early Bronze trenches have offered a very clear view into occupation outside the large perimeter wall and possible industrial activities. Our second millennium investigations have revealed additional information on the defensive architecture and the reuse of various phases in successive periods. Iron Age investigations have continued to paint a picture of industrial activities that took place in the last decades of the Hittite Empire and after its collapse. Work in our Byzantine areas over the last two seasons has revealed much about the building of the major fortification system on the summit, and the creation of various phases of residential structures on the North Terrace. — Sharon R. Steadman, Gregory McMahon, Jennifer C. Ross, Marica Cassis, T. Emre Şerifoğlu, Benjamin S. Arbuckle, Sarah E. Adcock, Songül Alpaslan Roodenberg, Madelynn von Baeyer, and Anthony J. Lauricella
This article presents the results of excavations at Ziyaret Tepe, the Late Assyrian city of Tušhan in the Diyarbakır Province of southeastern Turkey during the summers of 2011-2013, as well as from a study season in 2014. Excavation in nine operations is briefly summarized, and the preliminary results of zooarchaeological and archaeobotanical studies in three operations are presented. Major public buildings of the Late Assyrian period (c. 882-611 BC) were recovered in Operation AN (palace), Operation W (administrative building), and Operation Y (city fortification), while an exposure of domestic architecture was revealed in Operation K. Also of importance from these field seasons was the documentation of a Late Roman, or Late Antique, occupation in Operations T and U. Zooarchaeological evidence from earlier excavations in Operation K reveal the subsistence practices of commoners during the Late Assyrian period. Likewise, the use of plants for human food and animal fodder are discussed for the Late Assyrian (Operation Q, the city gate excavated earlier) and the Late Antique (Operation T, domestic housing) periods. These combined reports outline the importance of animal husbandry, as well as agricultural production of grain, as key economic aspects of the Late Assyrian settlement, and complement existing cuneiform documentation. — Timothy Matney, Tina Greenfield, Kemalettin Köroğlu, John MacGinnis, Lucas Proctor, Melissa Rosenzweig, and Dirk Wicke
This article presents the results of the 2014 season of the Lower Göksu Archaeological Salvage Survey Project, in the Mersin Province of Southern Turkey. In 2014, the team continued the work begun in 2013, documenting as many archaeological sites and monuments in the Lower Göksu valley as possible before the scheduled construction of the Kayraktepe Dam. During the course of the two-week season, we were able to discover several new sites in the flood zone, as well as returning to several known sites to undertake more detailed work. This more detailed work included initial resistivity surveying and the documenting of illegal excavations. A short summary of the field season and a discussion about our methodology and the local settlement patterns are provided here. The 2014 season of this Bitlis Eren University project, which is conducted in collaboration with the University of Leicester, was funded by the Bitlis Eren University Scientific Research Projects Commission and the British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara. The survey project will continue for another season in 2015 and we will most probably start excavating one of the major sites in 2016 in collaboration with the Silifke Museum. — Tevfik Emre Şerifoğlu, Naoíse MacSweeney and Carlo Colantoni
The use of natron as a source of soda in vitrified material industries, especially glassmaking, is known since the first millennium BC in the Near East. The source of natron has usually been associated with the well-known reserves of Wadi Natrun in Egypt, whereas ancient Anatolian sources have been less discussed as potential supplies. This paper reviews the sources of natron available in Anatolia and discusses their importance for the ancient vitrified material industries. — Gonca Dardeniz
In recent years, the Sagalassos Archaeological Research project of the University of Leuven has coordinated a research programme aimed at the community of ancient Sagalassos. Understanding in more detail how the ordinary townsfolk lived and worked in antiquity forms an important aspect of this research. With this aim in mind, archaeological excavations were launched at Site LE in 2012. Here, a dense stratigraphical sequence documenting changes within part of a neighbourhood in the upper parts of the ancient town was documented. An original domestic quarter changed character resulting from the erection of public buildings in Roman Imperial times, such as the Neon Library and the unidentified public building of Site LE. In late Roman times, the structures of Site LE were thoroughly re-organized, possibly including a house and a textile workshop. A very well preserved coroplast workshop formed part of this arrangement too. Upon abandonment of these domestic and artisanal units, Site LE was overhauled one last time. Remains of an early Byzantine professional bakery were identified within the re-organized premises. This paper wishes to present our initial understanding of the site, its phases of architectural and functional organisation as well as the detail of the consecutive structures. As such, the paper represents the framework for continued study and future publication of the at times fairly unique find assemblages, such as the materials found within the late Roman coroplast workshop. — Jeroen Poblome, Hendrik Uleners, Inge Uytterhoeven, Elena Marinova, and Bea De Cupere
Full text of Anatolica articles available online at Peeters Online Journals (€ 14 per article).
