Ancient Western Asia Beyond the Paradigm of Collapse and Regeneration (1200-900 BCE) : Proceedings of the NYU-PSL International Colloquium, Paris Institut National D’Histoire De L’Art, April 16–17, 2019

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. Cover Frontmatter Contents List of Figures Introduction PART 1: ANATOLIA 1. Interpreting the Late Bronze Age – Iron Age transition in central Anatolia, and the aftermath of the Hittite Empire 2. Hydrogeomorphological records of climate changes during the Bronze and Iron Ages in the Bor Plain (central Anatolia) 3. Farming the land of Hatti: Emergence and collapse of the Late Bronze Age agricultural landscape of central Anatolia 4. Observing change, measuring time: Documenting the Late Bronze Age – Iron Age sequence at Gordion 5. Interweaving the threads: Changes and continuity in the textile production at Arslantepe (SE Anatolia) at the turn of the First millennium BCE 6. Memory of the empire? Aspects of continuity and innovation in the Neo-Hittite Kingdoms 7.The gods in Luwian religious formulas: Second and First millennia BCE 8. Notes on the paradigm of Late Bronze Age collapse and Iron Age regeneration in the Hittite sphere of influence PART 2: ASSYRIA 9. Assyria in turmoil between territorial loss and the emergence of new powers (1200–900 BCE) 10. Changing gods at Qasr Shemamok: Local cults and the Assyrian Empire at the beginning of the Iron Age 11. How “Assyrian” was Assyrian religion? The intercultural dynamics of Assyrian state rituals during the Late Bronze and Iron Ages 12. Portrait of an ancient borderland: Settlement patterns and mobility in the region of Koi Sanjaq/Koya (Erbil, Iraq) 13. Changing powers and material culture: The case of Qasr Shemamok 14. Monument and motif in transition: The Neo-Assyrian rock reliefs at Maltai and Khinis 15. Collapse, or not? How the Neo-Assyrians saw the Dark Ages 16. On the transmission of knowledge in cuneiform: The role of religious professionals and scholars during the so-called “Dark Age” (1200–900 BCE) PART 3: THE LEVANT AND BEYOND 17. Who are the Aramaeans? A selective re-examination of the cuneiform evidence for the earliest Aramaeans 18. Interculturality and linguistic legacy in the Syro-Anatolian polities at the turn of the second millennium BCE 19. The cult of the storm god in the Syro-Anatolian region: Regional continuity and local innovation in figurative representations between the Late Bronze and Iron Ages 20. After Emar: The disappearance of cities in the Iron Age Middle Euphrates 21. Between the Barada and the Wadi Zarqa: Local scenarios for a global crisis 22. Identity politics in a buffer zone: A sociopolitical view from the Iron Age IIA Hula Valley 23. Farther horizons: The Late Bronze Age to Iron Age transition beyond the southern Levant 24. The diffusion of the consonantal alphabet as a bellwether of systemic change in Levantine graphic and intellectual history during the Bronze–Iron transition (1200–850 BCE)? Index