Degree Date
2015
Degree
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Department
Classical and Near Eastern Archaeology
Abstract
This doctoral dissertation investigates the position and significance of the southern Anatolian coast within the exchange networks of the eastern Mediterranean and the Near East during the second millennium BC (Middle and Late Bronze Ages). To investigate this, the project employed chemical and lead isotope analysis of copper objects from the Bronze Age sites of Tarsus, Kinet, and Tell Atchana in the plains of Cilicia and Amuq in southern Turkey, to examine both the possible sources of the metal and the techniques by which this material was manufactured into finished artifacts. The observed patterns of copper technology and trade are compared to the evidence from the wider Mediterranean and the Near East, so as to identify the correlations and distinctions between the study region and the broader world of the second millennium BC. The study assemblage consists of around one hundred metal artifacts, and includes such items as pins, small tools, arrowheads or small ornaments. The samples were selected from three different periods of the second millennium BC, the Middle Bronze Age (ca. 2000-1600 BC), the Late Bronze Age I (ca. 1600-1400 BC) and the Late Bronze Age II (ca. 1400-1200 BC), so that a comparison between these periods could be made. Both chemical and compositional analyses were performed by means of mass spectrometry, at the laboratories of Deutsches Bergbau Museum in Bochum in Germany. The chemical analysis demonstrates a gradual shift from the arsenical-copper metallurgy to the use of tin-bronze through the second millennium BC, which correlates well with the general pattern in the Mediterranean and the Near East. However, compared to certain other areas in the wider Mediterranean, this transition appears to have been a slower process in the plains of Amuq and Cilicia. The isotope analysis indicates that throughout the second millennium BC all three sites were supplied to a major extent by the same copper sources, the significance of which, however, fluctuated with time and locality. Possible explanations of these observed patterns in the analytical data are discussed within the frame of the socio-political and economic conditions of the period.
Citation
Kuruçayırli, Emre. "Copper Metallurgy in Cilicia and the Amuq in the Second Millennium BC: Insights into Aspects of Bronze Age Technology and Trade." PhD diss., Bryn Mawr College, 2015.
Comments
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