A RE-INTERPRETATION OF THE LATE BRONZE AGE CHRONOLOGY AT BEYCESULTAN BASED ON C-14 DATING
Channel: European Association of Archaeologists
Date: 2021-04-03

The  excavations  by  James  Mellaart  and  Seton  Lloyd  at  Beycesultan  in  central  western  Anatolia  during  the  1950s  revealed  an  extensive settlement with continuous habitation layers from the Chalcolithic to the Late Bronze Age. Beycesultan thus became (after Troy) the second Bronze Age settlement in western Asia Minor to be excavated on a large scale. In the course of the re-newed investigations led by Eşref Abay after 2007, ten C-14 samples were taken from layers 5b-5a/II-Ib. Their analyses now lead to a re-evaluation of Beycesultan’s chronology.Based on ceramic typology, Mellaart attributed layer Ib (5a) after the 12th cent. and level II (5b) to the 13th cent. (all BCE). The C-14 samples, however, now suggest that the layers 5a/Ib and 5b/II, which had been placed between ca 1100 and 1300, ought to be dated to 1830-1685 at the earliest and (even more likely) 1530-1410 at the latest.This change in dates for two Late Bronze Age layers has major repercussions for the interpretation of the site. Using the Hittite texts, it is now possible to contextualize the site in a wider geo-political framework vis-à-vis Arzawa and Hatti. What is more, a big percentage of the 24 newly introduced pottery shapes of layer 5a/Ib are now synchronous with ceramic styles in the Hittite core region. Furthermore, it can be shown that the big fire that destroyed layer 5b/II can now be plausibly placed in the period of the so-called Assuwan confederacy – and it may thus reflect a military advance under the rule of Tudḫaliya I/II.


Author(s): Kourkoulakos, Antonios (University of Münster)