POLITICAL BOUNDARIES AND CULTURAL CONTACTS DURING THE IRON AGE IN SOUTH-EAST ANATOLIA: CILICIA, AMUQ AND THE KARA SU VALLEY

Abstract

The contributions collected in this section were presented in June 2018 at the workshop “Political Boundaries and
Cultural Contacts during the Iron Age in South-East Anatolia: Cilicia, Amuq and the Kara Su Valley” run by Marina
Pucci and Sebastiano Soldi at Ascona, during the International Conference Beyond All Boundaries: Anatolia in
the First Millennium BC organized by Annick Payne and Jorit Wintjes. The initiative to publish them in this SMEA
issue aims at offering a deeper glimpse of the stratigraphic sequences and ceramic production of a wide region at the
border between Anatolia and northern Syria, comprehending Cilicia, the Amuq and the Kara Su valley.
In the early first millennium BC a group of independent political entities, which are usually called Syro-Anatolian,
developed in the north-east area of the Mediterranean. By the end of the 8th century BC these new polities
were all annexed to the Neo-Assyrian Empire. The contextual analysis of the material culture of four important Iron
Age sites of this region, i.e. Misis, Sirkeli, Chatal and Zincirli, will significantly expand our knowledge of the period.
It will also allow readers to contrast different historical narratives in which pottery is considered the principal
instrument to reconstruct material practices based on the production and consumption of objects and goods, and
to delineate the development of material cultures in a period which witnessed a peak of cross-cultural interactions
in the eastern Mediterranean.