The University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology has had a long-standing interest in the archaeology of Iran. In 1956, Robert H. Dyson, Jr., began excavations south of Lake Urmia at the large mounded site of Hasanlu. Although the results of these excavations await final publication, the Hasanlu Special Studies series—of which this monograph is the fourth volume—describes and analyzes specific aspects of technology, style, and iconography. This volume describes a group of ongoing research projects, most of which provide new information on Iron Age technology. A theme that runs through these studies is the degree to which ancient workers varied the composition of their products to create desirable colors and textures. The book begins with a description of the wooden furniture fragments along with fittings and decorative elements for furniture. It presents the first detailed description of the charred textiles, and places these textiles in their archaeological contexts, suggesting the roles that textiles may have played in daily life. Later chapters assess the significance of Hasanlu in the history of glassmaking, describe the archaeometallurgy of the Hasanlu IVB bronzes, and present a catalog of the bladed weapons. Also, the book presents the evidence for deliberate violence against individuals as indicated by their skeletal injuries and the results of a project undertaken to determine whether DNA could be used to obtain a better understanding of the population history at Hasanlu.

This book presents for the first time the complete corpus of equipment for horses excavated by The Hasanlu Project in the Iron II level at Hasanlu Tepe, Iran. The equipment is varied, extensive, and in a context sealed as buildings collapsed during the violent surprise attack and resulting fire that destroyed the town. The equipment, most still in its primary location ready for active use, make it of particular, if not unique, importance. It is also remarkable in the quantity recovered, its variety and richness, the functional types that could be identified (riding, draft, ceremonial), and the amount that could be reconstructed. Its life context gives new information about equipment and usage not otherwise available and allows suggestions for the layered importance of the horse as evidenced by the equipment. No other book presents equipment for horses in a similar context and quantity because the preservation at Hasanlu is unique for this part of the Near East in this time period. The equipment also provides new insight into space use in Hasanlu, one of the most important Iron Age sites in northwest Iran. Findspots yield information about building use and reuse, some as stables. These and architectural alterations provide unique information regarding changes to the town over time, some of which most likely reflect changes in the dynamics of the region.

Hasanlu V provides archaeologists with a new, more accurate chronology of Hasanlu, the largest and arguably the most important archaeological site in the Gadar River Valley of northwestern Iran. This revised chronology introduces Hasanlu Periods VIa, V, and IVc for the first time. Based on new findings, the report overturns current constructions of the origins of the archaeological culture in Hasanlu, which sought to link the Monochrome Burnished Ware Horizon (formerly known as the Early Western Grey Ware Horizon) to the migration of new peoples into western Iran in the later second millennium B.C. Hasanlu V shows instead that the Monochrome Burnished Ware Horizon developed gradually from indigenous traditions. This reappraisal has important implications for our understanding of Indo-Iranian migrations into the Zagros region.

The Southern Caucasus is a region of great historical, cultural and strategic importance, which means that it has become an indispensable research field for most of the social sciences, particularly archaeology. However, despite its rich potential, research in the areas of modern-day Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Nakhichevan, North-western Iran and North-eastern Turkey has been inadequate when compared with other important culture basins such as Mesopotamia and the Mediterranean. In October 2012, Atatürk University in Erzurum, North-eastern Anatolia, Turkey, with the patronage of the Eurasian Silk Road Universities Consortium (ESRUC), hosted a Symposium of academics from more than 120 science and education institutions around the world to discuss opinions and share information about cultures in this region from its earliest times to the Middle Ages, within the scope of Ancient History, Archaeology, Art History, and Ethno-archaeology. This two volume publication is a compilation of 75 articles, which were evaluated and selected by an Academic Committee, from contributors who presented their academic papers at the Symposium.

This Handbook is a state-of-the-field volume containing diverse approaches to sensory experience, bringing to life in an innovative, remarkably vivid, and visceral way the lives of past humans through contributions that cover the chronological and geographical expanse of the ancient Near East. It comprises thirty-two chapters written by leading international contributors that look at the ways in which humans, through their senses, experienced their lives and the world around them in the ancient Near East, with coverage of Anatolia, Egypt, the Levant, Mesopotamia, Syria, and Persia, from the Neolithic through the Roman period. It is organised into six parts related to sensory contexts: Practice, production, and taskscape; Dress and the body; Ritualised practice and ceremonial spaces; Death and burial; Science, medicine, and aesthetics; and Languages and semantic fields. In addition to exploring what makes each sensory context unique, this organisation facilitates cross-cultural and cross-chronological, as well as cross-sensory and multisensory comparisons and discussions of sensory experiences in the ancient world. In so doing, the volume also enables considerations of senses beyond the five-sense model of Western philosophy (sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell), including proprioception and interoception, and the phenomena of synaesthesia and kinaesthesia. The Routledge Handbook of the Senses in the Ancient Near East provides scholars and students within the field of ancient Near Eastern studies new perspectives on and conceptions of familiar spaces, places, and practices, as well as material culture and texts. It also allows scholars and students from adjacent fields such as Classics and Biblical Studies to engage with this material, and is a must-read for any scholar or student interested in or already engaged with the field of sensory studies in any period.

Though the Neo-Assyrian Empire has largely been conceived of as the main actor in relations between its core and periphery, recent work on the empire’s peripheries has encouraged archaeologists and historians to consider dynamic models of interaction between Assyria and the polities surrounding it. Imperial Peripheries in the Neo-Assyrian Period focuses on the variability of imperial strategies and local responses to Assyrian power across time and space. An international team of archaeologists and historians draws upon both new and existing evidence from excavations, surveys, texts, and material culture to highlight the strategies that the Neo-Assyrian Empire applied to manage its diverse and widespread empire as well as the mixed reception of those strategies by subjects close to and far from the center. Case studies from around the ancient Near East illustrate a remarkable variety of responses to Assyrian aggression, economic policies, and cultural influences. As a whole, the volume demonstrates both the destructive and constructive roles of empire, including unintended effects of imperialism on socioeconomic and cultural change. Imperial Peripheries in the Neo-Assyrian Period aligns with the recent movement in imperial studies to replace global, top-down materialist models with theories of contingency, local agency, and bottom-up processes. Such approaches bring to the foreground the reality that the development and lifecycles of empires in general, and the Neo-Assyrian Empire in particular, cannot be completely explained by the activities of the core. The book will be welcomed by archaeologists of the Ancient Near East, Assyriologists, and scholars concerned with empires and imperial power in history. Contributors: Stephanie H. Brown, Anna Cannavò, Megan Cifarelli, Erin Darby, Bleda S. Düring, Avraham Faust, Guido Guarducci, Bradley J. Parker

The Archaeology of Iran from the Palaeolithic to the Archaemenid Empire is the first modern academic study to provide a synthetic, diachronic analysis of the archaeology and early history of all of Iran from the Palaeolithic period to the end of the Achaemenid Empire at 330 BC. Drawing on the authors’ deep experience and engagement in the world of Iranian archaeology, and in particular on Iran-based academic networks and collaborations, this book situates the archaeological evidence from Iran within a framework of issues and debates of relevance today. Such topics include human–environment interactions, climate change and societal fragility, the challenges of urban living, individual and social identity, gender roles and status, the development of technology and craft specialisation and the significance of early bureaucratic practices such as counting, writing and sealing within the context of evolving societal formations. Richly adorned with more than 500 illustrations, many of them in colour, and accompanied by a bibliography with more than 3000 entries, this book will be appreciated as a major research resource for anyone concerned to learn more about the role of ancient Iran in shaping the modern world.