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CHAPTER XXIV (a) - ANATOLIA, c. 2300–1750 B.C.
- Edited by I. E. S. Edwards, C. J. Gadd, N. G. L. Hammond
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- Book:
- The Cambridge Ancient History
- Published online:
- 28 March 2008
- Print publication:
- 31 October 1971, pp 681-706
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Summary
INTRODUCTORY
The period with which this chapter is concerned is of particular interest to the historian, for it is during these five and a half centuries or so that the greater part of Anatolia came to be dominated by newcomers from the north, speaking a variety of Indo-European languages, and having a culture, religion, economy and customs which had little in common with those of the earlier populations. During this period were laid the foundations for the historical kingdoms of the later second millennium, but their beginnings are hidden by the veil of illiteracy, lifted (but only in Central Anatolia) in the fourteenth and thirteenth centuries B.C. To visualize events during the later centuries of the third and the beginning of the second millennium—the Early Bronze Age 3 and Middle Bronze Age 1 periods of the archaeologist—we are almost entirely dependent on evidence from excavation and exploration, since the earliest written records—the so-called Cappadocian texts—do not appear till the very end of the period with which we are concerned. Being mainly concerned with trade and litigation, they shed only occasional light on the political conditions in Central Anatolia. Historical texts are extremely few.
We have seen, as the end of the second Early Bronze Age approached, a sequence of migratory movements culminating in a great invasion, perhaps of Indo-European newcomers, which divided the peninsula diagonally into two almost equal parts, causing immediate and unmistakable changes in the south and south-western regions. Widespread destruction is followed by an overall decline in material culture. Throughout the wide cultural provinces of the previous period, the entire Konya plain and the southernmost part of the south-west Anatolian region, evidence of settled occupation becomes rare, and one may suspect a corresponding relapse into nomadic conditions.
CHAPTER XVIII - ANATOLIA, c. 4000–2300 b.c.
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- By J. Mellaart, University of London, Carl W. Blegen, University of Cincinnati
- Edited by I. E. S. Edwards, C. J. Gadd, N. G. L. Hammond
-
- Book:
- The Cambridge Ancient History
- Published online:
- 28 March 2008
- Print publication:
- 31 October 1971, pp 363-416
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- Chapter
- Export citation
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Summary
In a previous chapter we have witnessed the development of native Anatolian neolithic and chalcolithic cultures and their subsequent destruction at the hand of barbarians with inferior culture-traditions in the west, whereas some measure of continuity of painted pottery traditions was observed in the south. We must now continue our narrative of the development of the Late Chalcolithic cultures in their later phases during the first half of the fourth millennium.
END OF THE LATE CHALCOLITHIC PERIOD
With the burning of Mersin XVI, that intrusive culture from the Konya plain—rich in pottery, architecture and metalwork—was, if not completely eliminated, at least greatly weakened. The badly documented second half of the Late Chalcolithic period (Mersin XV–XII) is characterized by ever increasing eastern influences from North Iraq gaining at the expense of what survived of the Mersin XVI and local Halaf traditions. Mersin was refortified in level XV a and these defences lasted through the next two levels (XIV, XIII) furnishing eloquent evidence for unsettled conditions. The stratigraphical record is almost certainly incomplete and lacunae are expected after the successive destructions of Mersin XIV and XIII. Side by side with painted wares of local ‘Ubaid type, grey burnished bowls occur, having red and black counter-parts in Mersin XIV–XIII, at Tarsus and a number of other Cilician sites, as well as at Sakcagözü across the Amanus, at Tell esh-Shaikh in the ‘Amūq and at Tepe Gawra in northern Mesopotamia. These grey bowls are fashioned in imitation of stone vessels found in the same levels and the term ‘Uruk’ which is often applied to them, is not only erroneous, but would seem to be misleading, in so far as their context not only in Cilicia, but also at Tepe Gawra is unmistakably ‘Ubaid’.