From the river to the sea of the setting sun: route networks between the Euphrates and the Mediterranean during the Iron Age (1200-600 BCE)

Title

From the river to the sea of the setting sun: route networks between the Euphrates and the Mediterranean during the Iron Age (1200-600 BCE)

Creator(s)

Mariacarmela Montesanto

Date

2024

Is Part Of

Archeologia e Calcolatori

Volume

35

Issue

1

Pages

251–268

Language

eng

Rights

CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

DOI

https://doi.org/10.19282/ac.35.1.2024.17

URI

http://www.archcalc.cnr.it/journal/id.php?id=1298

Zotero BiDiAr

https://www.zotero.org/groups/5293298/bidiar/items/PNW57HL3/item-list

Abstract

The study of ancient roads has been important in understanding political, social, and cultural transformations of ancient trade networks and economies. In the Near East, landscape-oriented research has immensely contributed to the analysis of pre-modern road systems. However, while for Roman and medieval periods this method produced a dataset that implemented the rich corpus of historical information, research on pre-Roman connectivity networks strongly relies on the archaeological record, mostly represented by data from surveys. The use of these data allows a long term and chronologically unprecise reconstruction of ancient itineraries. Therefore, gaps in the data are often filled by the transposition of later itineraries, risking reiterating the idea that road networks are static, stable over a very long period. This article aims to contextualise connecting networks and route landscapes from the Euphrates river to the Mediterranean sea during the Iron Age (1200-600 BCE). The study will make use of an integrated approach by using multiple datasets. The research will argue that by considering different data, it is possible to offer a critical interpretation of the main route network employed during the Iron Age to connect the Euphrates area with the sea.

Zotero References Collection

https://www.zotero.org/groups/5293298/bidiar/collections/23JLIF3Z

Cites

Ibn Hani. Rapport préliminaire sur la quatrième campagne de fouilles (1978) à Ibn Hani (Syrie)

Political Geography and Palatial Crete

Der Tempel von Ain Dara

The Iron Age of the Middle Euphrates in Syria and Turkey

Tying the Threads of Eurasia: Trans-regional Routes and Material Flows in Transcaucasia, eastern Anatolia and western Central Asia, c.3000-1500BC

Greek and related pottery from Al Mina. A case study of production, consumption and distribution of Greek pottery in the Eastern Mediterranean from the 9th to the end of the 7th century BC.

Viaggio nella Siria centrale e in mesopotamia

Per Cappadociae partem... iter feci. Graeco-Roman Routes between Taurus and Halys

Villages antiques de la Syrie du nord. Le massif du Bélus à l'époque romaine,

The CIERA program and activities: Focus on the roads and wayside caravanserais in Medieval Syria

Tell Gindaris and the western Afrin valley,

The Iron Age Settlement at 'Ain Dara, Syria: Survey and Soundings: 786

Reconstructing historical journeys with least-cost analysis: Colonel William Leake in the Mani Peninsula, Greece

The site of Al-Mina, the port of Aḫtâ and Mediterranean trade in the age of the Assyrian Empire.

Excavation and Survey in the Jabbul Plain, Western Syria: The Umm el-Marra Project 1996–1997

Excavations in the Plain of Antioch III: Stratigraphy, Pottery, and Small Finds from Chatal Hoyuk in the Amuq Plain: Stratigraphy, Pottery, and Small finds

A Description of the East, and Some Other Countries.

Palestine And Syria; Handbook For Travellers

Sabuniye: A Late Bronze-Iron age port settlement on the northeastern Mediterranean coast

The Geography of Trade: Landscapes of Competition and Long-distance Contacts in Mesopotamia and Anatolia in the Old Assyrian Colony Period

Urban Built Environments in Early 1st Millennium Syro-Anatolia: Results of the Tayinat Archaeological Project, 2004–2016

Interregional Interaction in the Eastern Mediterranean during the Iron Age

The Syro-Anatolian City-States: An Iron Age Culture

The Syrian Jezireh in the Late Assyrian period: a view from the countryside

The Campaigns of Sargon II, King of Assyria, 721-705 B.C.: 55

The River Qoueiq, Northern Syria, and its Catchment, Part ii: Studies arising from the Tell Rifa'at Survey 1977-79

Karkemish. An ancient capital on the Euphrates

Foreign influences and local tradition in the Iron Age pottery production from Arslantepe. Evidence from the new excavations of the Neo-Hittite levels

Fluttuazioni territoriali e caratteristiche tipologiche degli insediamenti nella regione del Matah (Siria). Nota preliminare

Ancient Records of Assyria and Babylonia Volume 2: Historical Records of Assyria From Sargon to the End

Aram and Israel: or, The Aramaeans in Syria and Mesopotamia

The temple of the storm god in aleppo during the late bronze and early iron ages

Archaeology in Syria

Some New Assyrian Rock-Reliefs in Turkey

Preliminary Report on the Excavations at Tell Rifa‘at

The settlement of Yauna, ‘Ionian’ identity and the Greek presence on the Syrian coast in the second half of the eighth century BC: a reassessment of two letters from the Nimrud correspondence

On the Shifting Border Between Mesopotamia and the West: Seven Seasons of Joint Turkish-German Excavations at Oylum Höyük

An Archaeological Survey of the Plain of Jabbul, 1939

The ways of an empire: Continuity and change of route landscapes across the Taurus during the Hittite Period (ca. 1650–1200 BCE)

Bridging Digital Approaches and Legacy in Archaeology

The Neo-Assyrian Provincial Administration at Tayinat (Ancient Kunalia)

Eastern Mediterranean Economic Exchange during the Iron Age: Portable X-Ray Fluorescence and Neutron Activation Analysis of Cypriot-Style Pottery in the Amuq Valley, Turkey

Stone Worlds: Technologies of Rock Carving and Place-Making in Anatolian Landscapes

Viaggio nella Siria Centrale e nella Mesopotamia. Lettere famigliari

The 2007 season of excavations at Tell Qarqur

The roads from and to Aleppo: Some historical-geographical considerations in light of new archaeological data

Assyrian warfare

The Roman Frontier With Persia in North-Eastern Mesopotamia: Fortresses and Roads Around Singara

Roads on the frontier between Rome and Persia

Tell Ahmar on the Syrian Euphrates: From Chalcolithic Village to Assyrian Provincial Capital

Kārus on the Frontiers of the Neo-Assyrian Empire

The Iron age graves of Carchemish

The Construction of the Assyrian Empire: A Historical Study of the Inscriptions of Shalmaneser III (859-824 B.C.) Relating to His Campaigns to the West

On Art in the Ancient Near East: Of the First Millennium B.C.E.

The Making of the Middle Sea: A History of the Mediterranean from the Beginning to the Emergence of the Classical World

Studies on the annals of Ashurnasirpal II: Topographical analysis

Mesopotamia. Asia citerior. Auctore Henrico Kiepert Berolinensi. Geographische Verlagshandlung Dietrich Reimer (Ernst Vohsen) Berlin, Wilhemlstr. 29. (1903)

Ancient Antioch: From the Seleucid Era to the Islamic Conquest

The Ancient Piedmont Route of Northern Mesopotamia

Palestine And Syria; Handbook For Travellers

Mounds in the Plains of Antioch: An Archaeological Survey

Tell Shiukh Fawqani. 1994-1998