The Fifth Anatolian Iron Ages Colloquium, held at Van in 2001, brought together specialists from Turkey, Europe and America to focus on the archaeology of Anatolia in the complex period between the collapse of the Hittite empire and the Persian conquest. The papers gathered in this volume cover the area from Urartu in the east to Phrygia in the west, and range from the discussion of broad problems of chronology and cultural interaction to the presentation of new material from both major and less well known sites. Although most of the papers relate to the area of present-day Turkey, a significant feature of the Fifth Colloquium was the inclusion of papers placing Anatolian archhaeology in its wider context from Thrace, through the Black Sea area, to the Caucasus and beyond.

The twenty-seven papers in this collection come from the Third Anatolian Iron Ages Colloquium held at Van, Turkey, in 1990. Contributors include: M U Anabolu (The meander motif in Iron Age south-western Anatolia); O Belli (Urartian dams in eastern Anatolia); C Burney (Urartu and Iran); D Collon (Urzana of Musasir's seal); A Cilingiroglu (Excavations at the fortress of Ayanis); H Gonnet (The cemetery and rock-cut tombs of Beykoy in Phrgyia); J D Hawkins (The end of the Bronze Age in Anatolia); W Kleiss (The chronology of Urartian defensive architecture); A Ramage (Early Iron Age Sardis and its neighbours); J Reade (Campaigning around Musasir); L E Roller (The Phrygian character of Kybele); K S Rubinson (Eastern Anatolia before the Iron Age); G K Sams (Aspects of early Phrygian architecture at Gordion); V Sevin (Excavations at the Van castle mound); G D Summers (Grey Ware and the eastern limits of Phrygia); M M Voigt (Excavations at Gordion 1988-89); R Yildirim (The Urartian furniture fragments in Elazig Museum); L Zoroglu (Cilicia Tracheia in the Iron Age).

This title provides comprehensive overviews on archaeological philological, linguistic, and historical issues at the forefront of Anatolian scholarship in the 21st century.

This book is the first to characterize the Iron Age city-states of southeastern Turkey and northern Syria, using archaeological, historical, and visual evidence to argue for a unified cultural formation characterized above all by diversity and mobility.

In 1950, the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology began excavations at the ancient Phrygian capital of Gordion in central Turkey. The Museum's Gordion Project continues today, with researchers from many disciplines and with many specializations contributing to a growing—and sometimes changing—body of information and understanding about this complex and multifaceted site, inhabited by peoples and diverse civilizations for millennia. In this volume of Gordion Special Studies, Lynn E. Roller focuses on a series of stone blocks with incised figural and abstract drawings recovered from early Phrygian structures at Gordion. The great majority of the incised stones come from a single structure within the Early Phrygian citadel at Gordion known as Megaron 2, a stone building with several remarkable features and a likely candidate for the citadel's temple. The volume begins with a description of the excavation of the stones and a discussion of Megaron 2. Next is an analysis of the subject matter of the drawings by type, describing scenes of human figures, animals, architectural drawings, geometric patterns, and formless marks. A discussion follows of the sources from which the drawings could have been taken and of parallels with similar scenes and designs on objects in other media from Gordion and other contemporary sites in Anatolia. The fourth section proposes an explanatory hypothesis on the origin of the drawings, and considers who could have made them and why. Parallels with comparable drawings from Anatolia and the Near East are discussed here. The final section summarizes the contribution of the drawings to our understanding of the development of the Early Phrygian material at Gordion. University Museum Monograph, 130

In The Socio-economic Organisation of the Urartian Kingdom, Ali Çifçi presents a detailed study of the life of the highland communities of eastern Anatolia, Armenia and north-west Iran between the 9th and 6th centuries BC. In doing so, the author uses archaeological excavations, surveys, and textual evidence from both Urartian and Assyrian sources, as well as original ethnographic observations, within the context of the geographical setting of the Urartu Kingdom. This book investigates various aspects of the Urartian Kingdom from its economic resources and the movement of commodities (agriculture, animal husbandry, metallurgy, trade, etc.) to the management of those resources and the administrative organisation of the state. This includes the Urartian concept of kingship and the king’s role in administration, construction, the division of the kingdom, as well as the income generated by warfare. "There are several key philological and archaeological works that propel the field of Urartian studies and provide dialogue partners for Urartologists and historians of Anatolia and the ancient Near East...Ali Çifçi’s The Socio-Economic Organisation of the Urartian Kingdom can be included as a partner in dialogue when researching Urartu and Iron Age Anatolian archaeology..." Selim Ferruh Adalı, Social Sciences University of Ankara, in Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2018.07.22.

This study analyses the social and symbolic value of the material culture, in particular the pottery production and the architecture, and the social structure of the local communities of a broad area encompassing Eastern Anatolia, the South Caucasus and North-western Iran during the last phase of the Late Bronze Age and the Early Iron Age. This broad area is known from the Assyrian texts as ‘Nairi lands’. The second part of the study, furnishes a reassessment of pottery production characteristics and theories, as well as of the socio-economic structure and issues, tied to the sedentary and mobile local communities of the Nairi lands. The study brings into focus the characteristics, the extension and the distribution of Grooved pottery, along with other pottery typologies, by providing an accompanying online catalogue with detailed descriptions and high-resolution images of the pots and sherds obtained from public and private institutions in Turkey and Armenia. Moreover, the socio-political organisation and subsistence economy issues are addressed in order to advance a possible reconstruction of the social structure of the Nairi lands communities. Particular attention is devoted to the pastoral nomad component and the role played within the Nairi phenomenon. The study includes a very large corpus of text images and high-resolution color images of the pottery of the area under examination, gathered by the author in order to offer a reliable tool and compendium.

The city on the Kerkenes Dag in the high plateau of central Turkey was a new Iron Age capital, very probably Pteria. Founded in the later seventh century BC, the city was put to the torch in the mid sixth century and then abandoned. Between 1999 and 2011 what we have called the Cappadocia Gate, one of the seven city gates that pierce the 7 km of strong stone defenses, was excavated in its entirety. This volume documents as fully as possible the results of those excavations. The location of the gate and its architecture are discussed and illustrated, with a chapter devoted to its partial restoration. Cultic installations within the gate structure include a built stepped monument with semi-iconic idol, an aniconic stela, and graffiti representing similar stones. Sculpture set up at the back of the gate comprised many fragments of a life-sized statue supported by a plinth bearing adorsed sphinxes carved in relief. The remains of two human victims of the destruction are examined, as are animal bones that perhaps provide evidence of meals consumed by builders of the gate. Pottery and other finds, including well-preserved iron door bands, are presented, as is an exceptional ornament of gold and electrum. A final chapter attempts to place these remarkable discoveries in a wider context. The gate plan and the cultic installations and sculpture set up inside the gate appear to be entirely Phrygian. Combined with evidence of Paleo-Phrygian inscription and graffiti already published (OIP 135), this volume sheds dramatic new and unexpected evidence for the power, wealth, and sophistication of an eastward expansion of Phrygia. The brief existence, hardly more than 100 years, together with the excellent stratigraphic context of the destruction level, provide an unparalleled window onto the first half of the sixth century BC on the Anatolian Plateau.

Drawing on many parallels from Philistia through the Levant, Anatolia, the Aegean Sea, and beyond, this research begins to fill a longstanding lacuna in the Amuq Valley and attempts to correlate with historical and cultural trends in the Northern Levant and beyond.

Students of antiquity often see ancient Turkey as a bewildering array of cultural complexes. Ancient Turkey brings together in a coherent account the diverse and often fragmented evidence, both archaeological and textual, that forms the basis of our knowledge of the development of Anatolia from the earliest arrivals to the end of the Iron Age. Much new material has recently been excavated and unlike Greece, Mesopotamia, and its other neighbours, Turkey has been poorly served in terms of comprehensive, up-to-date and accessible discussions of its ancient past. Ancient Turkey is a much needed resource for students and scholars, providing an up-to-date account of the widespread and extensive archaeological activity in Turkey. Covering the entire span before the Classical period, fully illustrated with over 160 images and written in lively prose, this text will be enjoyed by anyone interested in the archaeology and early history of Turkey and the ancient Near East.