Asia Anteriore Antica. Journal of Ancient Near Eastern Cultures
https://riviste.fupress.net/index.php/asiana
<p>Asia Anteriore Antica (AsiAnA) is an open access peer-reviewed international journal on ancient Near Eastern Cultures that aims to offer a handy tool of scholarly information in different fields (Archaeology, Archaeometry, Epigraphy, History, Philology), with a dedicated attention to interdisciplinary research, new approaches and methodological advances.</p> <p>The journal publishes original contributions (full-length papers, reviews, short notes and open questions’ debates) in Italian, English, French, German; special issues on relevant topics are also considered for publication.</p>Firenze University Pressen-USAsia Anteriore Antica. Journal of Ancient Near Eastern Cultures2611-8912<ul> <li class="show">Copyright on any open access article in AsiAna published by FUP is retained by the author(s).</li> <li class="show">Authors grant FUP a license to publish the article and identify itself as the original publisher.</li> <li class="show">Authors also grant any third party the right to use the article freely as long as its integrity is maintained and its original authors, citation details and publisher are identified.</li> <li class="show">The <a class="is-external" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0</a> formalizes these and other terms and conditions of publishing articles.</li> <li class="show">In accordance with our Open Data policy, the <a class="is-external" href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Public Domain Dedication waiver</a> applies to all published data in AsiAna open access articles.</li> </ul>Smelting Metals, Enacting Rituals. The Interplay of Religious Symbolisms and Metallurgical Practices in the Ancient Eastern Mediterranean
https://riviste.fupress.net/index.php/asiana/article/view/2134
<p class="p1">The archaeological discourse on the development of metallurgy in Anatolia, the Levant and, more generally, the Eastern Mediterranean region has extensively focused on crucial aspects such as procurement routes, technological developments, manufacturing strategies, and socio-economic connotations of metal consumption. On the other hand, potential symbolic and ritualistic aspects permeating mining and metal-making activities have rarely been taken into consideration, largely due to the ephemerality of such traditions and practices in the material record. Extensive studies have analyzed the ritual dimensions of iron and copper metalworking across different belief systems and social structures, from pre-industrial sub-Saharan Africa to pre-classical Andean cultures, from Bronze Age Central Europe to China. Drawing on the contemporary anthropological and archaeological debate on the subject, this contribution identifies and analyzes recurrent semantics of ritualization in metalworking processes, looking at different lines of epigraphic and material evidence from the Chalcolithic and Bronze Age Eastern Mediterranean. The aim is to discuss patterns of correlation between belief systems, ritual behavior, and socioeconomic organizations and to prompt more comprehensive analyses on the complementary technological and symbolic aspects of ancient metallurgical practices.</p>Dalila M. Alberghina
Copyright (c) 2023 Dalila M. Alberghina
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2024-02-282024-02-28532210.36253/asiana-2134State Production and Market at Ebla – Animal and Wool Values
https://riviste.fupress.net/index.php/asiana/article/view/1963
<p class="p1">The kingdom of Ebla covered an area extending around 200 km from north to south and from east to west; that is, from the modern Syrian-Turkish border down to the oasis of <span class="s1"><strong>Ḥ</strong></span>ama in the south, and from the Amuq plain, where the delta of the Orontes River flows into the Mediterranean Sea, up to Emar, its allied city, whose territory reached the Euphrates. The Central Administration – the Palace – had at its disposal the revenues from its own administrative organization, with its workshops, as well as from the “village communities”, represented by a large number of “Elders”. Notwithstanding that, Ebla’s envoys also acquire several types of goods, such as mules, cattle and sheep, garments and wool, from the markets of the cities in its own kingdom, and in other city-states, primarily from its archival, Mari. Luxury goods, on the other hand, were mostly acquired on the basis of ceremonial gifts from court to court. Long-distance-trade, however, was not relevant in the formation of the Syrian regional states. Goods (including the tributary deliveries its officials owed the Palace) were given also values in silver, and small goods, such as aromatic essences, were valued in wool. The average value of a head of cattle was around 25 shekels of silver, while a sheep was worth between 1 and 1½ shekels. It is not possible to establish the exact value of the weight used for wool. These prices are in any case much lower compared to those used in Mesopotamia during the Ur III period.</p>Alfonso Archi
Copyright (c) 2023 Alfonso Archi
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2024-02-282024-02-285234010.36253/asiana-1963A Culinary Perspective on North-Central Anatolia: An Overview of Cooking Facilities across the Late Bronze and Iron Ages
https://riviste.fupress.net/index.php/asiana/article/view/2116
<p class="p1">This paper presents the evidence related to the spread of cooking methods in north-central Anatolia during the Late Bronze and Early and Middle Iron Ages (1650-700 BC), with particular emphasis on fire installations and cooking tools collected during the last century of archaeological activities. Ovens, hearths, andirons, cooking pots, and baking plates are a constant presence within the various settlements of the Anatolian plateau. This essay will reconstruct the history of cuisine and eating customs across the Late Bronze and Iron Ages through archaeological evidence and complementing it with ethnographic research. This approach, indeed, offers extra information on foodways not available in written sources, especially when the latter are lacking or reticent. Finally, the data and information on daily life’s cooking and food preparation will be employed as a lens to identify broader social and economic phenomena prompted by the rise and fall of the Hittite Empire in the heart of the Anatolian Plateau.</p>Giacomo Casucci
Copyright (c) 2023 Giacomo Casucci
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2024-02-282024-02-285417210.36253/asiana-2116Re-collecting Sherds: Rescue Activities of Archaeological Materials from Tell Afis, Syria
https://riviste.fupress.net/index.php/asiana/article/view/2101
<p class="p1">In September 2021 a small group of archaeologists, members of the University of Florence excavations at Tell Afis, made return to Syria and took part into an expedition concerning not the site itself, out of reach due to the political crisis in the country since 2011, but materials from the site kept in the expedition house written at Saraqib. This article is an account of that return and of the following ones in 2022 written with the aim to keep attention on Syria, its important past and its critical present.</p>Candida Felli
Copyright (c) 2023 Candida Felli
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2024-02-282024-02-285738010.36253/asiana-2101Living in the Lower Town at Kınık Höyük (Niğde). Preliminary Report on the 2021-2022 Campaigns in Anatolia
https://riviste.fupress.net/index.php/asiana/article/view/2151
<p class="p1">Excavations at the site of Kınık Höyük have brought to light over the past twelve years several occupational phases dated to the first Millennium BCE both on the acropolis and in the lower town, especially for the Middle Iron Age and the Hellenistic period. Since 2021 the University of Firenze joined the University of Pavia (Italy), NYU-ISAW (USA) and Dokuz Eylül University in Izmir (Turkey) in the excavations at the site of Kınık Höyük, and since 2022 the same university took over in the management of the project. This article is a preliminary report on recent excavations area D2-3, located in the lower town, where archaeologists could identify six phases of occupation and two large primary contexts dated to the beginning of the Middle Iron Age, that provide new insights on every-day assemblages and inventories produced locally and the architectural and archaeological context they are related to. The most interesting element in terms of urban layout and structure is related to the construction of the massive defensive fortification of the lower town, that seems to be related so far to the earliest occupation of the Iron Age lower town, i.e. possibly at the end of the Early Iron Age. A selection of the materials and a detailed report on deposits and architecture provides the reader with the archaeological data collected mainly in the campaign 2022 and 2021 in the lower town excavations, while a general overview on the urban fortification of the acropolis allows a general picture of the whole settlement defensive system and space organisation.</p>Marina PucciCorrado AlvaroSofia BartolozziMargherita CarlettiLorenzo CastellanoCaterina FantoniFederica LentiniMariacarmela MontesantoBurak Yolaçan
Copyright (c) 2023 Marina Pucci, Corrado Alvaro, Sofia Bartolozzi, Lorenzo Castellano, Margherita Carletti, Caterina Fantoni, Federica Lentini, Mariacarmela Montesanto, Burak Yolaçan
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2024-02-282024-02-2858113010.36253/asiana-2151A Goddess and a City or How to Read the Hieroglyphic Luwian Sign MANUS+MANUS
https://riviste.fupress.net/index.php/asiana/article/view/1961
<p class="p1">This paper argues that the unusual determinative MANUS+MANUS of the goddess Pahalati in Hama that resisted explanation until now can be understood due to its new attestation in the logographic spelling of a Cilician toponym. It will be shown that an earlier attempt that identified MANUS+MANUS as a variant of MAGNUS, the city as Urušša, and the name of the goddess as a Phoenician-Luwian mixed phrase meaning ‘Great Lady’, is palaeographically, linguistically, and geographically impossible. A clue to the decipherment of MANUS+MANUS is provided by the homo(io)phonous settlement in Cilicia, Pahra-, which explains how the same sign could have been used both as a determinative and as a logogram in accordance with the regular rules of the usage of the determinatives.</p>Zsolt Simon
Copyright (c) 2023 Zsolt Simon
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2024-02-282024-02-28513113810.36253/asiana-1961Maliya, Malija, Malis, Athena. From Kizzuwatna to the Aegean: Borrowings, Translations, or Syncretisms?
https://riviste.fupress.net/index.php/asiana/article/view/1854
<p class="p1">Notwithstanding her Kizzuwatnean origins, Maliya becomes part of the Bronze Age Hittite State Cult thanks to Queen Pudu<span class="s1"><strong>ḫ</strong></span>epa, who advocates a renovation of the dynastic cult. Therefore, Maliya and her temple became protagonists of the Hittite religious festivals. In the Iron Age, the goddess cult spreads to Western Anatolian milieus (Lycian and Lydian), developing apparent syncretic convergences with deities of the Aegean context. This paper investigates how Maliya and her Aegean counterparts converged, arguing and discussing the most debated positions.</p>Livio WarbinekFederico Giusfredi
Copyright (c) 2023 Livio Warbinek, Federico Giusfredi
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2024-02-282024-02-28513915110.36253/asiana-1854