Hasanlu V

Hasanlu V PDF

Author: Michael D. Danti

Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press

Published: 2013-07-31

Total Pages: 520

ISBN-13: 1934536628

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Hasanlu V provides archaeologists with a new, more accurate chronology of Hasanlu, the largest and arguably the most important archaeological site in the Gadar River Valley of northwestern Iran. This revised chronology introduces Hasanlu Periods VIa, V, and IVc for the first time. Based on new findings, the report overturns current constructions of the origins of the archaeological culture in Hasanlu, which sought to link the Monochrome Burnished Ware Horizon (formerly known as the Early Western Grey Ware Horizon) to the migration of new peoples into western Iran in the later second millennium B.C. Hasanlu V shows instead that the Monochrome Burnished Ware Horizon developed gradually from indigenous traditions. This reappraisal has important implications for our understanding of Indo-Iranian migrations into the Zagros region.

On salt, copper and gold

On salt, copper and gold PDF

Author: Collectif

Publisher: MOM Éditions

Published: 2021-11-19

Total Pages: 482

ISBN-13: 235668168X

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An international conference focused on the beginnings of mining and metallurgy in the Caucasus was organised in Tbilisi in June 16th-19th 2016 under the auspices of the National Museum of Georgia. This conference, which was funded by the Agence nationale de la recherche (France) and the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (Germany), aimed at discussing the intricate relationships between the emergence of mining and metallurgy, and the shaping of late prehistoric societies in south-western Asia. The Caucasus is renowned in Near Eastern archaeology for its wealth in natural resources, in particular in metal ores: for decades, scholars have surmised a specific causal relationships between the rise of complex, hierarchical societies in the Near‐East and the development of extractive metallurgy. Metallurgy, however, is only the most visible part of the story that accounts for the dramatic changes perceptible in south‐western Asia in the course of the 5th millennium BCE. Early mining, which is not restricted to metal-ore mining, certainly also had an impact in terms of economic networks, social dynamics, settlement patterns and regional integration, not only across the Caucasus, but also in the ancient Near and Middle East. Drawing on these fundamental questions, this book explores the socio-economic, technological and environmental background that favoured the rise of systematic mining and extractive metallurgy in the Caucasus at the end of the Chalcolithic. How far was early mining linked to the spread of specific subsistence strategies such as pastoral herding? Were mined resources mainly intended for local consumption or distributed throughout the Near East, towards Anatolia, Iran or Mesopotamia? Here are some of the issues that are discussed in the present volume, which contains 21 articles written by some of the most eminent specialists in Caucasian archaeology.

From Sherds to Landscapes

From Sherds to Landscapes PDF

Author: Mark Altaweel

Publisher: Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago

Published: 2021-05-20

Total Pages: 366

ISBN-13: 1614910642

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This volume honors McGuire Gibson and his years of service to archaeology of Mesopotamia, Yemen, and neighboring regions. Professor Gibson spent most of his career at the University of Chicago's Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations department and the Oriental Institute. Many of his students, colleagues, and friends have contributed to this volume, reflecting Gibson's diverse interests. The volume presents new results in areas such as landscape archaeology, urbanism, the ancient languages of Mesopotamia, history of Mesopotamia, the archaeology of Iran and Yemen, prehistory, material culture, and wider archaeological topics.

Dancing at the Dawn of Agriculture

Dancing at the Dawn of Agriculture PDF

Author: Yosef Garfinkel

Publisher: University of Texas Press

Published: 2010-01-01

Total Pages: 397

ISBN-13: 0292779968

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As the nomadic hunters and gatherers of the ancient Near East turned to agriculture for their livelihood and settled into villages, religious ceremonies involving dancing became their primary means for bonding individuals into communities and households into villages. So important was dance that scenes of dancing are among the oldest and most persistent themes in Near Eastern prehistoric art, and these depictions of dance accompanied the spread of agriculture into surrounding regions of Europe and Africa. In this pathfinding book, Yosef Garfinkel analyzes depictions of dancing found on archaeological objects from the Near East, southeastern Europe, and Egypt to offer the first comprehensive look at the role of dance in these Neolithic (7000-4000 BC) societies. In the first part of the book, Garfinkel examines the structure of dance, its functional roles in the community (with comparisons to dance in modern pre-state societies), and its cognitive, or symbolic, aspects. This analysis leads him to assert that scenes of dancing depict real community rituals linked to the agricultural cycle and that dance was essential for maintaining these calendrical rituals and passing them on to succeeding generations. In the concluding section of the book, Garfinkel presents and discusses the extensive archaeological data—some 400 depictions of dance—on which his study is based.

The Ilkhanid Heartland

The Ilkhanid Heartland PDF

Author: Michael D. Danti

Publisher: UPenn Museum of Archaeology

Published: 2004-07

Total Pages: 128

ISBN-13: 9781931707664

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The site of Hasanlu Tepe in Iran is today known mainly for its Iron Age archaeology. In this report Michael Danti has re-examined the records from excavations between 1956 and 1962 to reconstruct the sequence of occupation on the mound from the late 13th to early 14th centuries.

The Neolithisation of Iran

The Neolithisation of Iran PDF

Author: Hassan Fazeli Nashli

Publisher: Oxbow Books

Published: 2013-12-11

Total Pages: 305

ISBN-13: 1782971912

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The period c. 10,000-5000 BC witnessed fundamental changes in the human condition with societies across the Fertile Crescent shifting their alignment from millennia-old practices of seasonally mobile hunting and foraging to year-round sedentism, plant cultivation and animal herding. The significant role of Iran in the early stages of this transition was recognised more than half a century ago but has not been to the fore of academic consciousness in recent decades. In the meantime, investigations into Neolithic transformation have proceeded apace in all other regions of the Fertile Crescent and beyond. Here, 18 studies attempt to redress that balance in re-assessing the role of Iran in the early neolithisation of human societies. These studies, many of them by Iranian scholars, consider patterns of change and/or continuity across a variety of topographical landscapes; investigate Neolithic settlement patterns, the use of caves, animal exploitation and environmental indicators and present new insights into some well-known and some newly investigated sites. The results re-affirm the formative role of this region in the transition to sedentary farming.

Nairi Lands

Nairi Lands PDF

Author: Guido Guarducci

Publisher: Oxbow Books

Published: 2019-12-19

Total Pages: 288

ISBN-13: 1789252814

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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 Iranian Plateau during the Bronze Age

The Iranian Plateau during the Bronze Age PDF

Author: Collectif

Publisher: MOM Éditions

Published: 2020-03-19

Total Pages: 358

ISBN-13: 2356681779

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The book compiles a portion of the contributions presented during the symposium “Urbanisation, commerce, subsistence and production during the third millennium BC on the Iranian Plateau”, which took place at the Maison de l’Orient et de la Méditerranée in Lyon, the 29-30 of April, 2014. The twenty papers assembled provide an overview of the recent archaeological research on this region of the Middle East during the Bronze Age. The socio-economic transformation from rural villages to towns and nations has prompted many questions into this evolution of urbanisation. What was the impact of interactions between cultures in the Iranian Plateau and the surrounding regions (Mesopotamia, the South Caucasus, Central Asia, Indus Valley)? What was the overall context during the Bronze Age on the Iranian Plateau? What was the extent and means of the expansion of the Kuro-Araxe culture? How did the Elamite Kingdom become established? What new knowledge has been contributed by the recent excavations and studies undertaken in the east of Iran? What was the influence of the Indus Valley culture, known as an epicentre of urbanisation in South Asia? What are the unique characteristics of the ancient cultures in Iran? While the urbanisation of early Mesopotamia has been the subject of much debate for several decades, this topic has only recently been raised in respect to the Iranian Plateau. This volume is the product of an international community from Iranian, European, and American institutions, consisting of recognised specialists in the archaeology of the Iranian Bronze Age. It provides an overview of the latest research, including abundant results from current on-going excavations. The current state of archaeological research in Iran, comprising many dynamic questions and perspectives, is presented here in the form of original contributions on the first emergence of towns in the Near and Middle East.