For millennia, walled citadels have served both as residences for rulers and military forces and as sacred centers embodying the power of the elite. The outcome of a symposium organized by Koc University's Research Center for Anatolian Civilizations, the essays in this volume are by leading scholars on the area that is now Turkey, from the first millennium BC through the fourteenth century AD. They examine the phenomenon of citadels in a comparative perspective in Anatolia and neighboring regions. Archaeology, art history, and history are brought to bear on the phenomenon of the citadel in its urban context.

The seventh international colloquium devoted to the Iron Age of Anatolia and surrounding regions was convened at Edirne, Turkey, between the 19th and 24th April 2010. This volume contains the revised versions of some of the papers delivered at Edirne. They range geographically from southeastern Europe through central and eastern Anatolia to the Trans-Caucasus and northwestern Iran. As a survey of critical issues currently shaping critical discourse on Iron Age Anatolia, they provide an invaluable body of new information and ideas.

The Early Iron Age period of the southern coastal plain of the Levant (ca. 1200-900 BCE) displays certain new features that suggest the appearance of the Philistines or other Sea Peoples. The early stages of this period represent a departure from Late Bronze Age traditions and evidence of cross-cultural influences within the eastern Mediterranean. This volume contributes to the discussion of the origin of the Sea Peoples by examining the role of adornment in the portrayal of cultural identity. Metal jewellery is assessed from 29 sites in the southern Levant, the Aegean, and Cyprus, resulting in the creation of the first multi-regional typology of metal jewellery for the Iron Age I-IIA eastern Mediterranean. By examining various categories of metal jewellery from the southern Levant and its western neighbours, this study contributes to the debate about the relations and exchanges that affected the region during this pivotal period in history. The formation, maintenance, and communication of group identification through physical appearance is assessed through a phenomenological view of cultural material to explain what is termed cultural intention.

This volume explores the long, rich traditions of viticulture and wine production in Anatolia and Thrace, from the Neolithic era to the present day. Chapters by ten contributing authors illustrate the important and varied roles that viticulture has played in the Anatolian region, and how the vine and wine have shaped the civilizations of Anatolian peoples for millennia. Examining archaeological remains, archival and historical texts, works of art, the records of chroniclers, ethnographic data, migration and demographic patterns, and contemporary legislation and advertising, the ten authors collectively reveal the importance of wine production and consumption in Anatolia's past, and demonstrate why its legacy of tangible and intangible cultural heritage should be valued in the present, and protected in the future.

This book proposes a new occupation model for the remains of Khirbet Qumran, the site associated with the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Using the latest in virtual reality technology, the author reconstructs the site of Qumran and demonstrates that the site was initially built as a Hasmonean fortress, and was later expanded into a residence for a self-sufficient community responsible for the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Willi Heffening publishes here the Arabic version of the "sermon against laughter" attributed to Ephrem. Heffening accompanies the Arabic text with a brief introduction, a German translation, and a critical apparatus with variants from the Greek version.

Tel Yarmuth is a major archaeological site of the southern Levant, located 25 km south-west of Jerusalem. In the Early Bronze Age, it was the largest fortified city-state of this region. Long after its abandonment around 2400 BCE, it was reoccupied on the acropolis only, which remained settled more or less continuously from the Middle Bronze Age II (17th-16th cent. BCE) to the Early Byzantine Period (4th cent. CE). The site is identified with the biblical settlement of Yarmuth and the Byzantine village of Iermochos. This volume is the first monograph of the final publication of the excavations conducted between 1980 and 2009. It is devoted to the excavations on the acropolis where the entire settlement history of Yarmuth was established. It provides an account of those excavations, a detailed presentation of the stratigraphy, extensive descriptions of the pottery and the various archaeological artefacts and ecofacts, and a discussion of the archaeological and biblical contexts of the site's history. The continuous archaeological sequence from the Late Bronze II to the end of the Iron Age I (c. 1200-950 BCE) is especially noteworthy. It illustrates the fate of a Canaanite village in the shadow of larger regional centers during the momentous centuries that witnessed the decline of the Canaanite polities, the rise of the Philistine city-states and the emergence of the kingdom of Judah.

This work presents the most recent views on a subject of primordial importance for all students of history: the understanding of humankind's process of becoming, viewed through the study of the beginnings of pottery in the late forager, and early farmer societies of Europe. It is a collection of essays, by some of the prominent European scholars and young dynamic archaeologists whose works focus on the early European and Middle Eastern pottery, intended to present a new perspective on the rise of a new technology in prehistory. With the breadth, variety and novelty of the approaches presented, Early farmers, late foragers and ceramic traditions. On the beginning of pottery in Europe is a fascinating read for scholars, as well as for the public at large.

One of the most intriguing issues facing archaeologists working in the second millennium BC is the collapse of Late Bronze Age palace economies and the rise of smaller principalities called the Iron Age kingdoms. Some of these kingdoms retain vestiges of the previous Hittite Empire while others represent an ethnic diversity of newly emerging centers of power. The decentralized kingdoms stretch from Cilicia to the Tigris River and are situated on both sides of the modern border of Syria and Turkey. Theories about this political transition have varied from environmental causes, internal dynastic squabbles in Hattusha, to marauding bands of mythical "Sea Peoples". Modern political realities across the border between Turkey and Syria have often minimized the flow of scholarly information about this important collapse. This book compares archaeological data from new as well as established excavations dating to the Late Bronze and Iron Ages. Special attention is given to significant new understandings of chronology that will contextualize the structural collapses at the end of the Late Bronze Age and will illuminate the rise of new Iron Age kingdoms and their imperial ambitions.

In 1963 excavations at Tepe Guran in Luristan revealed a series of occupations, representing a small Neolithic village with an economy based on dry-farming, herding, and hunting, and strongly dependant on the nearby rivers and hills. A unique sequence of a-ceramic and early ceramic levels covering a period of more than a thousand years (c. 6700-5500 BC) were uncovered. Peder Mortensen's book is the final report on the excavations, supplemented by sections on the prehistoric environment and on hunting and early animal domestication at Tepe Guran by Kent V. Flannery and Pernille Bangsgaard. The results are presented within a framework of reflections relating to the author's and to other scholars' recent research on the development of Neolithic settlement and subsistence patterns in the Central Zagros region.

This volume publishes 34 papers from the international conference 'The Phrygian Lands over Time: From Prehistory to the Middle of the First Millennium AD', held at Anadolu University in Eskisehir in November 2015. It is arranged in two parts - 'From Midas to Christianity' and 'From Region to Sites' - plus an Introduction. The first part is more general, opening with six papers that touch on various aspects of Midas, moving on through the Achaemenid to Byzantine periods, linguistics, onomastics and epigraphy, borders, pottery and architecture, etc. The second part focuses on individual regions and sites (such as Aizanoi, Bogazkoey, Kerkenes, Dorylaion, Midas City, Pessinus, etc.) from the Early Bronze Age to the Roman Period, including ethnic composition, the cult of Cybele and recent results. The Introduction examines recent scholarship on Phrygia and the problems we face.

Les Etudes ougaritiques III, volume XXI de la serie Ras Shamra - Ougarit, est un ouvrage collectif - rassemblant les contributions de vingt-sept auteurs. Les etudes presentees portent sur les deux sites voisins de Ras Shamra et Ras Ibn Hani, localises sur le littoral syrien a quelques kilometres au nord de la ville de Lattaquie. Une premiere partie comporte quinze textes relatifs a des recherches menees dans le cadre de la Mission archeologique syro-francaise de Ras Shamra - Ougarit (Ministere francais des Affaires etrangeres, Direction generale des Antiquites et des Musees de Syrie). Les resultats portent principalement sur l'yge du Bronze et, pour l'essentiel, sur la periode du Bronze recent. Ils concernent, d'une part, des travaux de terrain (etudes de plusieurs bytiments et d'amenagements hydrauliques, analyses des techniques de construction) et, d'autre part, des etudes du materiel archeologique et epigraphique, avec la presentation de pieces inedites, provenant des fouilles en cours ainsi que de l'exploration ancienne du tell de Ras Shamra et du site de Minet el-Beida. Dans une seconde partie, quatre articles portent sur Ras Ibn Hani. Le premier presente les resultats d'un sondage menee a Ibn Hani en 1987, qui a permis de mettre en evidence une occupation du Bronze ancien dans le secteur. Puis, trois rapports preliminaires relatifs a la campagne de fouille, menee en 2011 par la Direction generale des Antiquites et des Musees de Syrie sur le site de Ras Ibn Hani, apportent de nouvelles donnees sur l'occupation de ce secteur, du Bronze recent a l'epoque byzantine.

Tas-Silg, on the south-east coast of the island of Malta, is a major multi-period site, with archaeological remains spanning four thousand years. A megalithic temple complex built in the early third millennium BC gave way to a Phoenician and Punic sanctuary dedicated to the goddess Astarte. The sacred place underwent major transformations in Roman times, becoming an international religious complex dedicated to the goddess Juno. Located on the maritime routes plied by mariners and traders, its fame did not escape the attention of the first-century BC orator Cicero. Excavated as part of a major archaeological project in the 1960s, the site of Tas-Silg lay abandoned for several decades. In 1996, the University of Malta renewed excavations at the site for ten seasons, uncovering Neolithic and Late Bronze Age occupation levels, and substantial deposits associated with ritual offerings of Punic date. This volume is the first monograph of the final publication of the excavations. It provides an account of those excavations and of the studies which accompanied them, including the lithic assemblages, the figurative representations, scarabs and amulets, the worked stone, the coins, and environmental analyses. It forms a companion volume to the second monograph, which reports on the pottery and the inscribed pottery.

Urartu is still less well known than it should be, despite the best efforts of many of the contributors to the current work. This edited collection of 21 chapters (all but one in English) written by a mixture of established and younger scholars, mainly from Turkey and Armenia but also from Western Europe and North America, offers a very broad coverage of Urartu and its principal sites. It may still leave unclear whether the Urartian state was centralised or decentralised, both (over time) or neither - probably there are as many opinions as contributors. There is not an over-arching narrative. Two chapters consider the state of Urartian studies, one examines Eastern Anatolia before Urartu; others look at Urartian history, economy, architecture, temples and sanctuaries, funerary architecture, pottery, iconography, and metalwork. 'International relations' and Urartian expansion, north, south and west, are the focus of the next three chapters. The final seven consider major Urartian sites: Erzincan/Altintepe Castle, the fortress of Ayanis, Bastam, Sardurihinili-Cavustepe, Erebuni/Arinberd, Karmir-Blur and Tushpa/Van Citadel. The aim has been to produce an in-depth introduction to most matters Urartian.

Le volume Ras Shamra - Ougarit XXIV est dedie a la memoire de Pierre Bordreuil. Chercheur de renommee internationale, epigraphiste, professeur, Pierre Bordreuil avait rejoint, en 1971, l'equipe de la mission archeologique de Ras Shamra. L'ouvrage collectif, qui correspond aux Etudes ougaritiques IV, comprend seize articles auxquels ont contribue neuf membres de l'equipe de Ras Shamra et cinq chercheurs exterieurs a la mission. Plusieurs textes sont directement consacres a la personnalite et a l'oeuvre de Pierre Bordreuil. La plupart des etudes, qu'elles abordent l'archeologie ou les textes, sont des contributions a la civilisation ougaritique et plusieurs livrent des donnees inedites issues soit de l'exploitation des archives de la mission concernant les fouilles anciennes, soit des recherches de terrain actuelles sur le site de Ras Shamra et sur celui de Tell Shamiyeh.

De l'ile d'Aphrodite au Paradis perdu, itineraire d'un gentilhomme lyonnais, volume XXII de la serie Ras Shamra - Ougarit est un ouvrage collectif dedie a Yves Calvet, directeur de 1999 a 2008 de la composante francaise de la mission syro-francaise de Ras Shamra - Ougarit, site sur lequel il fouilla de 1978 a 2010. Fouilleur avant tout, mais aussi prospecteur, ceramologue, iconographe, epigraphiste, editeur: les contributions de quarante-deux auteurs reunies ici permettent de retracer l'itineraire de cet eminent archeologue lyonnais, du bassin de la Mediterranee aux confins de l'Arabie et aux rives du Golfe persique. La Grece et Chypre, l'Iran, l'Iraq, le Yemen, Koweit, la Syrie: Yves Calvet est un parfait representant de la Maison de l'Orient et de la Mediterranee, dont il est un des membres les plus anciens, un des "fondateurs" de cette institution, creuset de la recherche sur l'Orient ancien. Avec ses collegues de Lyon et d'ailleurs, il est parti a la conquete de contrees mythiques - le royaume de la reine de Saba, le pays de Dilmun, le Paradis perdu quelque part entre Tigre et Euphrate, le royaume de Baal, dieu de l'orage et des tempetes, et Chypre, l'ile de la belle Aphrodite -, reves lointains que les textes rassembles ici se chargeront de raviver.