Explores the formation of power during secondary polity formation by integrating multifaceted ceramic and material analyses of Gordion.

This book publishes the results of 220 botanical samples from the 1993-2002 Gordion excavations directed by Mary Voigt. Together with Naomi Miller's 2010 volume (Gordion Special Studies 5), this book completes the publication of botanical samples from Voigt's excavations. The book aims to reconstruct agricultural decision making using archaeological and paleoenvironmental data from Gordion to describe environmental and agricultural changes at the site. John M. Marston argues that different political and economic systems implemented over time at Gordion resulted in patterns of agricultural decision making that were well adapted to the social setting of farmers in each period, but that these practices had divergent environmental impacts, with some regimes sponsoring sustainable agricultural practices and others leading to significant environmental change. The implications of this book are twofold: Gordion will now be one of the best published agricultural datasets from the entire Near East and, thus, serve as a valuable comparable dataset for regional synthesis of agricultural and environmental change, and the methods the author developed to reconstruct agricultural change at Gordion serves as tools to engage questions about the relationship between social and environmental change at sites worldwide. Other books address similar themes but none in the Near East address these themes in diachronic perspective such as we have at Gordion. University Museum Monograph, 145

Ancient Gordion has long been recognized as a key Iron Age site for Anatolia and the eastern Mediterranean. Archaeological research has revealed much about its sequence of occupation. However, as yet no study has explored the underlying drivers of political and economic change at this site. This volume presents an overview of the political and economic histories supporting emergent elites and how they constructed power at Gordion during the Iron Age (1200-300 BCE). Based on geochemical and typological analysis of nearly 2000 Late Bronze Age to Hellenistic ceramic samples, the volume contextualizes this primary dataset through the lens of ceramic production, consumption, exchange and emulation. Synthesizing site data sets, the volume more broadly contributes to our understanding of the pivotal role of groups and their economic, social, and ritual practices in the creation of complex societies.

Some of the most dramatic new discoveries in Asia Minor have been made at Gordion, the Phrygian capital that controlled much of central Asia Minor for close to two centuries. The most famous ruler of the kingdom was Midas, who regularly negotiated with Greeks in the west and Assyrians in the east during his reign. Excavations have been conducted at Gordion over the course of the last 60 years, all under the auspices of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. In spite of the economic and political importance of Gordion and the Phrygians, the site is consistently omitted from courses in Old World archaeology, primarily because Gordion lies too far to the west for many Near Eastern archaeologists, and too far to the east for classical archaeologists. Moreover, there is no book that offers a comprehensive and up-to-date assessment of the material culture of Gordion during the Phrygian period, a gap that will be filled by this volume. The chapters cover all aspects of Gordion's Phrygian settlement topography from the arrival of the Phrygians in the tenth century B.C. through the arrival of Alexander the Great in 333 B.C., focusing on the site's changing topography and the consistently fluctuating interaction between the inhabitants and the landscape. A reexamination of the material culture of Phrygian Gordion is particularly timely, given the dramatic recent changes in the site's chronology, wherein the dates of many discoveries have changed by as much as a century. The authors are among the leading experts in Near Eastern archaeology, historic preservation, paleobotany, and ancient furniture, and their articles highlight the interdisciplinary nature of the Gordion project. A significant component of the book is a new color phase plan of the site that succinctly presents the topography in diachronic perspective.

This book is a succinct and readable account of recent research at Gordion, the ancient capital of Phrygia, long one of the key sites for understanding Iron Age Anatolia. The regional survey at Gordion has involved a range of interdisciplinary studies—archaeological, environmental, and ethnoarchaeological—to produce an unusually comprehensive understanding of how the landscape evolved, the patterns of settlement during the rise and fall of the Phrygian state, and its environmental constraints. With a history of excavation of over a century, Gordion has yielded a vast store of material culture, some of which is spectacular. The Midas tumulus, the architecture of the Phrygian citadel, and the artifacts from several decades of excavations present unique challenges and solutions for conservation methodology. Analyses of these artifacts are providing new insights into the political and economic relationships of this region, particularly from the Early Iron Age to the Roman period. Presenting current work at Gordion contributes to the broader understanding of archaeology across the region and around the world.

The Oxford Handbook of Ancient Anatolia is a unique blend of comprehensive overviews on archaeological, philological, linguistic, and historical issues at the forefront of Anatolian scholarship in the 21st century. Anatolia is home to early complex societies and great empires and was the destination of many migrants, visitors, and invaders. The offerings in this volume bring this reality to life as the chapters unfold nearly ten thousand years (ca. 10,000-323 BCE) of peoples, languages, and diverse cultures who lived in or traversed Anatolia over these millennia. The contributors combine descriptions of current scholarship on important discussion and debates in Anatolian studies with new and cutting edge research for future directions of study. The 54 chapters are presented in five separate sections that range in topic from chronological and geographical overviews to anthropologically-based issues of culture contact and imperial structures and from historical settings of entire millennia to crucial data from key sites across the region. The contributers to the volume represent the best scholars in the field from North America, Europe, Turkey, and Asia. The appearance of this volume offers the very latest collection of studies on the fascinating peninsula known as Anatolia.

New results and interpretations challenging the notion of a uniform, macroregional collapse throughout the Late Bronze Age Eastern Mediterranean Ancient Western Asia Beyond the Paradigm of Collapse and Regeneration (1200–900 BCE) presents select essays originating in a two-year research collaboration between New York University and Paris Sciences et Lettres. The contributions here offer new results and interpretations of the processes and outcomes of the transition from the Late Bronze Age to the Iron Age in three broad regions: Anatolia, northern Mesopotamia, and the Levant. Together, these challenge the notion of a uniform, macroregional collapse throughout the Eastern Mediterranean, followed by the regeneration of political powers. Current research on newly discovered or reinterpreted textual and material evidence from Western Asia instead suggests that this transition was characterized by a diversity of local responses emerging from diverse environmental settings and culture complexes, as evident in the case studies collected here in history, archaeology, and art history. The editors avoid particularism by adopting a regional organization, with the aim of identifying and tracing similar processes and outcomes emerging locally across the three regions. Ultimately, this volume reimagines the Late Bronze–Iron Age transition as the emergence of a set of recursive processes and outcomes nested firmly in the local cultural interactions of western Asia before the beginning of the new, unifying era of Assyrian imperialism.