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Moving Landscapes, Making Place: Cities, Monuments and Commemoration at Malizi/Melid

June 2011
Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology 24(1)

DOI:10.1558/jma.v24i1.55

Authors:

University of Illinois at Chicago

The urbanization of Syro-Hittite (Luwian and Aramaean) states is one of most complex yet little explored regional processes in Near Eastern history and archaeology. In this study, I discuss aspects of landscape and settlement change in northern Syria and southeastern Anatolia during the Early Iron Age (ca. 1200-850 BC), and suggest that the emergent geo-politics of the region involved the foundation of cities and construction of specific types of commemorative monuments including rock reliefs, steles, and city gates. While defining new forms of territorial power, these monuments linked local polities to a shared Hittite past through their literary and visual rhetoric and a discourse of inherited agricultural land. To contextualize the subject matter, I first discuss the gradual southward shift of imperial Hittite center of power from central Anatolia towards Karkamiš and Tarhuntašša at the end of the Late Bronze Age, arguing against the widespread models of a sudden collapse of the Hittite Empire followed by dark ages. Furthermore, I present archaeological and epigraphic evidence for the formation of the regional state Malizi/Melid. This Syro-Hittite kingdom established itself in the Malatya-Elbistan Plains in eastern Turkey during the first centuries of the Early Iron Age as one of the earliest political entities to emerge from the ashes of the Hittite Empire. Monuments raised by Malizean ‘country lords’ in rural and urban contexts suggest a picture of a fluid landscape in transition, one that was configured through the construction of cities, and other practices of place-making.

Map of Upper Syro-Mesopotamia during the Late Bronze-Iron Age transition with sites mentioned in the text. (Base Map by Peri Johnson, using ESRI Topographic Data [Creative Commons]: World Shaded Relief ).

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Kızıldağ: Rock relief and inscriptions of Hartapu, overlooking the dried Hotamış Lake (author's photograph).

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. The kingdom of Malizi/Melid and the most prominent hieroglyphic Luwian monuments by the Malizean kings (based on Hawkins 2000).

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Elbistan Karahöyük mound, post-Hittite level Phase 2 plan: archaeological context of the hieroglyphic Luwian stele (adapted from Özgüç and Özgüç 1949: plan 4).

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Elbistan Karahöyük hieroglyphic Luwian stele (Özgüç and Özgüç 1949: pl. 49). Ankara Anatolian Civilizations Museum, Inventory no. 10754.

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Figures - uploaded by Omur Harmansah

Content may be subject to copyright.

Content uploaded by Omur Harmansah

Content may be subject to copyright.

Introduction: Place, Monuments and Politics

The foundation of new cities was one of the key

aspects of Near Eastern landscapes during the

Iron Age, as an architectural practice, a form of

public celebration and a source of political dis-

course. Assyrian, Urartian, Syro-Hittite and Ara-

maean rulers built new urban centers, carried out

renewal programs and made these works of pub-

lic benefaction a significant component of their

official ideologies (Mazzoni 1994). Elsewhere,

Moving Landscapes, Making Place: Cities, Monuments and Commemoration

at Malizi/Melid

Ömür Harmanşah

Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology and the Ancient World, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island

02912, USA

E-mail: omur_harmansah@brown.edu

Abstract

e urbanization of Syro-Hittite (Luwian and Aramaean) states is one of most complex yet little explored

regional processes in Near Eastern history and archaeology. In this study, I discuss aspects of landscape and

settlement change in northern Syria and southeastern Anatolia during the Early Iron Age (ca. 1200–850

BC), and suggest that the emergent geo-politics of the region involved the foundation of cities and construc-

tion of specic types of commemorative monuments including rock reliefs, steles and city gates. While den-

ing new forms of territorial power, these monuments linked local polities to a shared Hittite past through

their literary and visual rhetoric, and a discourse of inherited agricultural land. To contextualize the subject

matter, I rst discuss the gradual southward shift of an imperial Hittite center of power from central Ana-

tolia towards Karkamiš and Tarhuntašša at the end of the Late Bronze Age, arguing against the widespread

models of a sudden collapse of the Hittite Empire followed by dark ages. Furthermore, I present archaeologi-

cal and epigraphic evidence for the formation of the regional state Malizi/Melid. is Syro-Hittite kingdom

established itself in the Malatya-Elbistan Plains in eastern Turkey during the rst centuries of the Early Iron

Age as one of the earliest political entities to emerge from the ashes of the Hittite Empire. Monuments raised

by Malizean ‘country lords’ in rural and urban contexts suggest a picture of a uid landscape in transition,

one that was congured through the construction of cities, and other practices of place-making.

Keywords: commemorative monuments, political landscape, Syro-Hittite states, Luwian, Early Iron Age,

new urban foundations

Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology 24.1 (2011) 55-83

ISSN (Print) 0952-7648

ISSN (Online) 1743-1700

I have proposed that the upper Mesopotamian

states of the Iron Age shared the practices of

founding new cities and raising commemorative

monuments that celebrated those foundations

(Harmanşah 2005; 2009). In the display inscrip-

tions of these monuments, a political rhetoric

was formulated by linking military accomplish-

ments with building projects in carefully con-

structed narratives of the state. These narratives

found expression in both textual and pictorial

56 Harmanşah

form, carved in stone and displayed in public

spaces. The territorial expansion of a regional

polity and its takeover of agriculturally culti-

vated landscapes are negotiated and legitimized

through the construction of such monuments

in the form of rock reliefs, steles or architectural

reliefs and sculpture. Monuments appear in both

urban spaces and rural landscapes, and their

construction can be seen as politically charged

events of place-making.

In this study, I suggest that there is a very

close association between city foundations and

monument building as two distinct place-mak-

ing practices, since they were conceived and

presented as commemorative events among the

Near Eastern polities of the Iron Age. Following

this way of thinking, one could argue that mon-

uments (and, in a way, new cities) are products

of a ‘desire to commemorate’, which is a way of

narrating the past (Nelson and Olin 2003: 2).

Connerton (1989: 26-27) famously observed

that to remember rarely operates as recalling

specific and isolated events, but it does involve

‘forming meaningful narrative sequences’, and

thus is not an act ‘of reconstruction but of

construction’. Commemorative monuments in

this sense are structuring agents not only for

organizing the past and making sense of it, but

also locating those narratives and stories in the

landscape, and embedding them into geogra-

phies of power. Newly founded cities and towns

in the settlement landscape can be considered

as such spatial articulations of the ruling elite in

redefining their relationship with the past, their

ancestors and the inherited land.

To introduce an alternative to this perspective,

one could also say that monuments are products

of local cultural practices as much as they are

expressions of political authority. Knapp (2009:

47) recently wrote that ‘monumental build-

ings are culturally constructed places, enduring

features of the landscape that actively express

ideology, elicit memory and help to constitute

identity’ (my emphasis). Commemorative mon-

uments in particular are structures that embody

a deep kind of historicity, while featuring a col-

lective sense of belonging and cultural memory

laden with stories (Canepa 2010: 564 and n. 7;

Holliday 2002: xx-xxi). This richness is usually

attributed to the visual, textual and architectural

corpus or design of monuments, mainly their

narrative or iconographic content. I suggest

that their effectiveness in captivating public

imagination also derives from the specific site

of their construction, and the cultural signifi-

cance associated with their locality. Besides their

inscriptions, visual narratives or architectural

symbolism, monuments are made meaningful

by virtue of their place, the way they speak to the

cultural landscape to which they are introduced.

Recent work on the theory and archaeology

of place informs the present discussion, where I

define place as a meaningful locality, produced

by local practices, intersecting trajectories of

movement and accumulated material assem-

blages, and maintained by stories and legends

(see also Massey 2005: 130-46; Zedeño and

Bowser 2009). As a fundamental unit of lived

experience, places are layered localities where we

‘hang our life memories on’ in Živković’s terms

(2010: 169), or they are ‘an important source

of culture and identity’ in Escobar’s (2008: 7).

Because of this powerful nature of places in social

life, political agents always attempt to incorpo-

rate them into their ideologies, for example

through the construction of monuments. The

production of places or place-making involves a

negotiation between local cultural practices and

political interventions from above, and requires

a delicate balance between cultural memory and

stately narratives of history. The archaeology

of place therefore demands attentiveness to the

long-term biographies of places and the short-

term events that transform them.

Monument construction incorporates existing

‘places of power’, while opening them to new

forms of expression, practice and negotiation.

Often presented as spectacles of political power,

the making of monuments is an important

social event in the long-term history of places,

Moving Landscapes, Making Place

and these interventions of monumentalization

draw places into broader geographies of power.

In the following, I discuss this complex rela-

tionship between place and monuments in the

context of the making of upper Mesopotamian

political landscapes during the Late Bronze to

Early Iron Age transition. In the Iron Age, the

foundation of small and large towns, plantation

of orchards, cutting of irrigation canals and the

opening of new stone quarries went hand in

hand with raising commemorative monuments,

when transforming landscapes that were inher-

ited from the Late Bronze Age. Understanding

this spatial process requires a thorough engage-

ment with the archaeological landscape in the

region using evidence from published surveys

and excavations, as well as close familiarity with

the epigraphic and visual evidence from the

commemorative monuments. Bringing these

two strands of evidence together, this study

reflects on the political appropriation of land-

scapes and places, and the practices of place-

making. Before I present the archaeological and

epigraphic evidence from the Malatya-Elbistan

basin on the formation of the regional state

Malizi/Melid, I first contextualize this landscape

in the broader networks of interaction in upper

Mesopotamia and its long-term history.

Urbanization and Commemoration in Syro-

Hittite Landscapes

Following the collapse (or decline) of the Late

Bronze Age economic network in the east-

ern Mediterranean world, the Early Iron Age

(roughly early 12th to mid-9th centuries ,

Iron I in Syro-Levantine chronologies) marks a

time of new political associations and economic

structures in the upper Mesopotamian geog-

raphies (Figure 1) (Akkermans and Schwartz

2003: 351-77). The relative dearth of textual

material from the end of the 13th century 

to the beginning of the first millennium  has

long led historians to regard this period as a ‘dark

age’. Yet recent archaeological excavations, sur-

veys and epigraphic evidence are calling this clas-

sification into question, and suggesting greater

continuity rather than rupture (Bachhuber and

Roberts 2009; Bietak 2003; Braun-Holzinger

and Matthäus 2002; Fischer et al. 2003; Maz-

zoni 2000). Alongside this questioning of a

cultural hiatus, the emerging new picture of the

Early Iron Age appears as a time of dramatic

change. Combined with the radical reconfigu-

ration in the political geography of the region,

an impressive array of cultural transformations

are now associated with this curious transitional

period: a systemic change in landscapes of set-

tlement, re-orientation of trade networks, emer-

gent forms of state organization and agricultural

strategies, changes in material culture, writing

systems and technologies of craft production

(Akkermans and Schwartz 2003: 360-66; Bon-

atz 2000b; Bunnens 2000b).

Archaeological survey evidence suggests that

the Late Bronze Age system of nucleated settle-

ment around large urban centers was replaced

by a much more dispersed and rural pattern of

settlement, while previously unsettled, marginal

landscapes were opened to settlement, agricul-

ture and pastoralism (Wilkinson 2003: 128-33;

Harmanşah 2005: 517-25, table 1). As a result,

the Early Iron Age seems to have brought its

own definitions of urbanism, landscape organi-

zation, architectural practices and visual culture,

which is the subject of the present article. The

cities of the Early-to-Middle Iron Ages flour-

ished with fresh civic ideologies and forms of

spatial organization. During the process of

urbanization among the earliest Syro-Hittite

states, the newly introduced systems of land-

scape and settlement involved the foundation

of new villages, farmsteads, towns and eventu-

ally cities. Through the construction of specific

types of commemorative monuments, they

linked themselves to the imperial Hittite past in

their literary and visual rhetoric.

In discussing such practices of building and

commemoration, I draw the readers’ attention

to the close association between the foundation

58 Harmanşah

of new cities and the construction of monu-

ments as two forms of commemoration in the

public sphere. In the second half of the study, I

turn to the Syro-Hittite kingdom Malizi/Melid

that established itself in the Malatya-Elbistan

Plains in eastern Turkey during the first cen-

turies of the Early Iron Age. Malizi is one of

the earliest political entities to emerge from the

ashes of the Hittite Empire. The monuments

raised by Malizean ‘country lords’ in rural and

urban contexts, and their keen interest in build-

ing cities, suggest a picture of a fluid landscape

in transition, one that was configured through

the construction of urban centers, and the

monumental practices of place-making.

Emerging scholarship on the archaeology

and history of north Syria and southeast Ana-

tolia during the Late Bronze-Early Iron Age

transition has drawn attention recently to the

complex processes of regional state formation

during a time of an extensive reconfiguration

of power in the landscape. This geo-political

change stripped the region from the territorial

impact of imperial polities and their macro-scale

economic systems, especially following the col-

lapse of the Hittite Empire in central Anatolia

and the weakening of the Assyrian Empire in

the Middle-Upper Tigris valleys.

Following the Late Bronze Age collapse around

1200–1175 , a constellation of regional poli-

ties emerged in the margins of former Hit-

tite territories, with new ideological affiliations

and socio-economic framework (Mazzoni 2000:

1048). Among these polities, fairly well known

are Karkamıš in the Upper Middle Euphrates

valley, Malizi/Melid in the Malatya and Elbistan

plains, Tabal in Cappadocia, Kummuh near

Adıyaman, Gurgum in the region of Maraş, Que

in the Çukurova plain, Eastern Cilicia, Hilakku

in Rough Cilicia, Patina/Unqi in the Amuq

plain, and Hamath around Hama (Hawkins

1982; 1995a; 2000; Melchert 2003). These

states featured Luwian, Phoenician and Aramaic-

speaking populations that formed a multi-lingual

network of new rival states and shared various

aspects of material culture, social practices and

state ideologies (Harmanşah 2007a).

Among the material manifestations of this cul-

tural network was the construction of new cita-

dels as regional centers, primarily with functions

of manufacture, storage, trade and feasting. The

architectural technologies that were employed

in the course of these projects were innovative

and circulated inter-regionally. Craft produc-

tion, such as elephant ivory-carving in the form

of furniture, metalworking, stone masonry, and

textile production sustained a macro-regional

artisanal-visual culture among the Syro-Hittite

states with distinctive stylistic and iconographic

repertoires (Aro 2003; Winter 1988). Boom-

ing cultivation of the Mediterranean secondary

crops, olives and grapevine, in the newly settled

marginal landscapes, and the specialized pro-

duction of olive oil and wine, were important

aspects of the agricultural production in the

region. The circulation of manufactured luxu-

ries and commodities was substantially eased

with the introduction of the dromedary as a

pack-animal in Upper Mesopotamian overland

trade (Akkermans and Schwartz 2003: 361;

Mazzoni 1995a: 130; Schwartz 1989: 282);

these factors effectively connected Syro-Hittite

production centers to the trade networks of the

eastern Mediterranean and the demand from

markets of the Assyrian and Urartian states.

While cuneiform writing was largely aban-

doned after the collapse of the Hittite capital

Hattuša (modern Boğazköy) in central Anatolia,

hieroglyphic Luwian and alphabetic Phoenician

and Aramaic were extensively used in monumen-

tal commemorative inscriptions, featuring an

eloquent royal rhetoric, state ideology and cultic

affiliations. The well-known funerary monu-

ments of the Syro-Hittite world in the form of

steles and sculptures testify to distinct practices of

ancestor veneration, and a remarkable culture of

feasting (Bonatz 2000a and 2000b; Voos 1988).

Despite such innovations, which were brought

about by the emerging Syro-Hittite states, the

Late Bronze Age-Early Iron Age transition in

Moving Landscapes, Making Place

Figure 1. Map of Upper Syro-Mesopotamia during the Late Bronze-Iron Age transition with sites mentioned in the text. (Base Map by Peri Johnson, using ESRI

Topographic Data [Creative Commons]: World Shaded Relief).

60 Harmanşah

north Syria, south central and southeast Anato-

lia is distinctly marked with particular forms of

cultural continuity, both in terms of regional/

local traditions, and with respect to the contin-

ued affiliations with aspects of imperial Hittite

culture of the past. The unbroken stratigraphic

sequences at sites such as Tille Höyük, Lidar

Höyük, Norşuntepe, Kilise Tepe, Tell Afis, Kinet

Höyük, Porsuk Zeyve Höyük and Grê Dimsê

show little or no hiatus between the Late Bronze

and Early Iron levels (see various papers in

Fischer et al. 2003). The industrialized Hittite

technologies of wheel-made ceramic production

significantly overlap with the newly introduced

wares of the Early Iron Age, such as the ubiqui-

tous handmade wares with horizontal grooved

decoration of the Upper Euphrates basin and

eastern Turkey (Bartl 2001; Köroğlu 2003).

The epigraphic evidence of hieroglyphic

Luwian monuments and seal impressions from

the Early Iron Age has confirmed a largely

uninterrupted tradition of royal titulature and

monument-making (Hawkins 2009: 164). Fur-

thermore, the iconographic and stylistic aspects

of pictorial representations suggest that the Early

Iron Age artisanal practices in the Syro-Hittite

cities were still embedded in the imperial Hittite

traditions, on the one hand, and the local Bronze

Age traditions of north Syria, on the other. It can

be argued that this referencing of a shared Hit-

tite past amalgamated with local practices, and

sustained a collective identity among the Syro-

Hittite states (Bonatz 2001). Luwian represents a

vernacular Anatolian language group of the sec-

ond and first millennia , spoken extensively in

southeastern, south central and western Anatolia

at the time of the Hittite Empire and during the

Iron Age. Both the 13th-century imperial Hittite

rulers of Hattuša and Tarhuntašša in the Late

Bronze Age, and several rulers of the Syro-Hittite

Iron Ages chose to write their monumental

inscriptions on stone monuments and rock faces,

adopting a particular form of the Luwian lan-

guage and using the ‘Hittite’ hieroglyphic script

(Melchert 2003; Hawkins 2000: 1-6).

Notable in terms of the architectural and

cultic continuities in the region during the Late

Bronze-Early Iron Age transition are the two

Syro-Hittite temples recently brought to light at

the sites of Tell ‘Ain Dara and the Aleppo citadel.

The monumental temple at ‘Ain Dara, 40 km

northwest of Aleppo overlooking the Afrin val-

ley, was possibly dedicated to Ištar-Šawuška and

decorated with an impressive sculptural program

in basalt and limestone including representa-

tions of lions and sphinxes (Abu Assaf 1990).

The temple was founded some time in the

Late Bronze Age (ca. 1300 ) and continued

to be rebuilt and maintained until around 740

 (Abu Assaf 1990: 20-24, 39-41; Orthmann

1993; Zimansky 2002). This dating is con-

firmed by surface survey and test soundings on

the mound, which showed that the city at ‘Ain

Dara had a substantial settlement at the end of

the Bronze Age (13th century ) that contin-

ued without hiatus; it prospered most in the Iron

II period (ninth and eighth centuries ) (Stone

and Zimansky 1999).

The currently excavated temple to the Storm

God of Halab at the Aleppo citadel, the capital

of the Middle Bronze Age polity of Yamhad,

also illustrates such continuity in its architectural

technology and cultic significance. The temple

was founded sometime in the Early Bronze

Age but was reconstructed on a monumental

scale sometime in the early second millennium

 with large undecorated but finely dressed

orthostats on the inner façade of its northern

wall (Gonnella et al. 2005; Kohlmeyer 2009:

194). The temple had a major rebuilding phase

during the Late Bronze Age under the patronage

of the Hittites, when the first orthostats with

reliefs were introduced to the architecture of

the temple. It was rebuilt during the Early Iron

Age (end of 10th century ) with a much more

comprehensive and distinctively Syro-Hittite

relief program. A number of relief blocks carved

in imperial Hittite style were re-used in the

construction of the Iron Age temple, and they

illustrate late 14th- or 13th-century  building

Moving Landscapes, Making Place

activities at Aleppo. Like the ‘Ain Dara temple,

the Aleppo temple also featured basalt sphinx

and lion portal figures.

With their evolving architectural design,

building technologies and sculptural programs,

the temples at ‘Ain Dara and Aleppo are impor-

tant buildings that tell the story of the forma-

tion of a regional architectural tradition from

the Middle Bronze to the Middle Iron Ages,

impacted by a diversity of craft technolo-

gies circulating in the eastern Mediterranean

world (discussed in greater detail in Harmanşah

2007a). They demonstrate a fascinating amal-

gamation of architectural practices and visual

culture in the context of the Late Bronze-Early

Iron Age transition, rooted in the heterogene-

ous local practices and the shared inheritance

of imperial Hittite culture. Below I argue that

the formation of the regional state of Melid/

Malizi should be understood from a similar per-

spective, in the context of the Syro-Anatolian

cultural continuity and change during this time

period. In order to contextualize the making

of Malizi landscapes, in the following section I

turn to the shifting political landscape of north-

ern Syria and Anatolia at the end of the Bronze

Age, and discuss this transformation with the

help of the evidence for the practice of founding

new cities and commemorative monuments.

Moving Landscapes: Shifts in the Geography

of Power

From the available archaeological and epi-

graphic evidence, it is understood that Karkamiš

played a pivotal role in the reconfiguration of

the political landscape, following the fall of

the imperial Hittite dynasty at Hattuša around

1180  (Akkermans and Schwartz 2003: 266;

Hawkins 2000: 73-74). From the beginning of

the Middle Bronze Age onwards, Karkamiš had

a powerful geo-political and economic status in

the north Syrian landscape. Located at the most

prominent Euphrates crossing and controlling

the Upper Middle Euphrates river transport

traffic, it was a major center of craft production

and entrepôt, especially for metal, timber, wine

and finished products, from the Middle Bronze

into the Iron Age (Winter 1983: 178). Hittite

involvement with north Syria and southern

Anatolia, especially the area around Karkamiš,

had become particularly intensive in the last

two centuries of the empire (Beckman 1992;

Faist 2002). Šuppiluliuma I (1344–1322 )

consolidated the territorial power of the Hit-

tite empire over north Syria, and appointed his

own son Piyaššili (later known with his adopted

Hurrian throne-name Šarri-Kušuh) as a viceroy

king at Karkamıš and his other son Telipinus at

Halab (Aleppo), presumably as a priest of the

Storm God Tešub, around 1340 . Following

the creation of Hittite vice-royalty at Karkamiš,

this prosperous city became the main center of

Hittite political presence in north Syria after the

mid-14th century , while Halab/Aleppo must

have retained a more cultic rather than politi-

cal significance. The dynastic line of Karkamıš

kings seems to have survived the collapse of the

Hittite Empire, for their Iron Age successors

later claimed the title ‘Great King’ (see below).

Furthermore, Muwatalli II (ca. 1295–1272

) moved (or rather attempted to move) the

Hittite royal seat to Tarhuntašša, usually identi-

fied with a town and region in Rough Cilicia

(Bryce 1998: 251-255; Singer 1998). Following

the death of Muwatalli, the ‘Great King’-ship

was eventually restored to Hattuša by Urhi-

Tešub (Muršili III), Muwatalli’s successor to

throne (Bryce 1998: 277). Nonetheless, accord-

ing to recent epigraphic discoveries, Muwatalli

II’s other son Kurunta, who had become the

king at Tarhuntašša, later rivaled the ‘Great

King’-ship at Hattuša. This ideological contes-

tation became evident with the discovery of a

series of new finds in recent decades:

(a) in 1986, the ‘Bronze Tablet’ at Boğazköy

near Yerkapı, which is the completely pre-

served text of a treaty between Tudhaliya

IV and his cousin Kurunta (CTH 104),

62 Harmanşah

settling the boundaries of the ‘appendage’

kingdom of Tarhuntašša (Otten 1988);

(b) Kurunta’s own seal impressions on bullae

from Temple 3 at Boğazköy, naming him

‘Great King’ (Neve 1987: 401-403, n. 20);

Konya at a major spring source that prob-

ably marked the border between the Hit-

tite ‘Lower Land’ and Tarhuntašša (Bahar

1998).

As Hawkins (2009: 164) and Singer (1996)

convincingly argue, by the 13th century 

Tarhuntašša and Karkamiš had already become

politically powerful centers against the weak-

ening ceremonial capital at Hattuša, so much

so that their kings entertained the title ‘Great

King’, which was, until recently, thought to

have been the prerogative of the Hittite king at

Hattuša until the fall of the dynasty there.

According to recent archaeological work at

the Hittite capital, the Upper City of Boğazköy

was abandoned rather gradually, accompanied

perhaps with the ritual cleaning and ceremonial

sealing of cult buildings, contrary to the com-

monly held opinion that the prosperous city

was destroyed catastrophically by hostile attacks

(Seeher 2001). When a fire finally laid destruc-

tion to the town, the monumental buildings

were already cleaned and long abandoned. Based

on a critical reading of the overall archaeological

evidence from Boğazköy’s terminal Bronze Age

levels, Seeher (2001: 633) convincingly demon-

strated that many years prior to the destruction

of the city, Hattuša must have already lost its

status of capital city and royal residence. We

are not entirely sure of the fate of the kings

of Tarhuntašša at the end of the Bronze Age;

however, the dynastic line of viceroy-kings of

Karkamiš, thus related to the imperial dynasty

at Hattuša, survived into the Iron Age, hold-

ing control of the territories on the upper

Euphrates and north Syria (Singer 1996: 68-71).

Kuzi Tešub (son of Talmi Tešub), whose seal

impressions were found in the Early Iron Age

levels at Lidar Höyük, naming him the ‘King of

Karkamiš’, is shown to be the fifth king in the

line of Karkamiš’s imperial dynasty, descending

from Šarri-Kušuh. It is then not entirely surpris-

ing to find that the toponym ‘Land of Hatti’

in Assyrian annals shows precisely the same

territorial shift: from designating the central

Anatolian plateau in the Late Bronze Age (core

territories of the Hittite empire), to designating

the north Syrian region with its regional center

at Karkamiš in the Iron Age. The shift is cer-

tainly not random, and confirms this transfer of

territorial power (Hawkins 2000: 3).

The significant conclusion that emerges from

all of these new archaeological and epigraphic

data is that the economic as well as political

center of gravity in the geography of the Hittite

Empire had already shifted southwards to south

central Anatolia and north Syria during the 13th

century . The subsequent process of urbani-

zation in the Early Iron Age now makes more

sense as a continuation of this long-term trend.

This trans-regional shift of settlement system

that defined the Hittite Empire’s core territories,

i.e. ‘the Land of Hatti’, is comparable to the

shift of Assyrian core landscapes, ‘the Land of

Aššur’, from around the city Aššur to the Kalhu-

Nineveh-Arbela triangle in the upper Middle

Tigris-Upper Zap region during the Late Bronze

Age-Early Iron Age transition (Harmanşah

2005). One could speculate that the motivation

behind these grand-scale spatial transformations

was a growing desire to control shifting trade

networks and new metal resources effectively. It

is also evident that perhaps the most palpable

evidence of such moving landscapes was the

foundation of new capital cities, as illustrated by

the constructions of Tarhuntašša, Kar-Tukulti-

Ninurta, Kalhu, Ninuwa, Zincirli and others

(Casana and Hermann 2010). The administra-

tive vacuum that was created at the end of the

second millennium  in central Anatolia by the

collapse of the Hittite centers eventually led to

the formation of new indigenous regional poli-

ties, especially that of the Phrygians in the Halys

Moving Landscapes, Making Place

bend and the Sangarios valley, contemporane-

ous with the earliest Syro-Hittite states (Strobel

2008).

Perhaps one of the most significant features

of the archaeological landscape that aid our

understanding of this transformation of Syro-

Anatolian political geography are rock reliefs and

spring monuments with royal inscriptions and

iconography, presenting us with place-specific

expressions of the appropriation and recoloniza-

tion of landscapes (Glatz and Plourde 2011). In

the next section I present a brief discussion of

rock reliefs as commemorative monuments and

their role in shaping the Early Iron Age political

landscape.

Rock Reliefs, New Cities and Colonized Land-

scapes

In the ancient Near East rock reliefs are a

remarkable type of public monument, inscribing

culturally significant and geologically dramatic

places such as springs, caves, mountain passes,

river gorges, and rock outcrops with images

and text that usually communicate the official

ideology of the state or a political statement.

These durable entities are often commemora-

tive in nature and gather around themselves a

constellation of ritual practices and commemo-

rative ceremonies. They are therefore linked

to social performance and memory (Alcock

2002: 28-30). While colonizing the surfaces of

the natural rock, they adhere to the enduring

temporality of the geological landscape and

appropriate locally meaningful locales for state

spectacles. Carving rock reliefs is, in a way,

similar to the act of founding a new city in a

contested frontier landscape. Both acts claim to

take over previously barren ‘natural’ places with

the colonial gesture of civilizing them. Rock

reliefs are therefore critical markers of specific

historical processes in particular geographies.

In fact, their endurance in the landscape across

centuries invites continuous re-imagination of

their meanings and symbolisms and their incor-

poration in new political discourses, stories and

even multiple re-carving events, as was the case

with the famous site of Nahr el-Kalb in Lebanon

(Volk 2008).

There is a group of rock-cut monuments and

their associated building complexes in south

central Anatolia known as K, K,

and B, which provide us vital evidence

towards understanding the beginnings of Early

Iron Age urbanization in the former Hittite

territories, especially in the area that eventually

becomes the Syro-Hittite kingdom of Tabal (I

follow Hawkins 2000 for the names of rock

monuments and sites, written in  ). All

three monuments have hieroglyphic Luwian

inscriptions that consistently name a particular

ruler Hartapu, who assumes the title ‘Great

King, Hero,’ the son of a certain Mursilis, also

‘Great King’ (Hawkins 2000: 433-42, pls. 236-

43). K and K are two clusters of

inscriptions and rock reliefs located on the rocky

slopes of the mountain Karadağ and the lower

rock outcrop of Kızıldağ (Figure 2), both over-

looking the southern Konya plain, in the midst

of a rich archaeological landscape of late antique

ruins known as Binbir kilise (Ramsay and Bell

1909). B is another rock inscription

farther northwest in the area of Ihlara, northeast

of Aksaray and at the heart of the Cappadocian

landscape.

In the absence of thorough archaeological

work around them, these monuments are dated

on epigraphic grounds immediately after the

abandonment of Hattuša, not later than the

12th century  (Strobel 2008; Hawkins 2000:

434, contra Gonnet 1983)—especially consid-

ering the close affinity of these monuments

to the inscription at the Y sacred pool

complex of Tudhaliya IV (ca. 1237–1209 )

(Hawkins 2009: 165). The rock reliefs, rock-

cut features and a series of hieroglyphic Luwian

inscriptions at Kızıldağ are contained within a

sizeable fortress built on a rock outcrop over-

looking a seasonal lake, Hotamış Gölü (Figure

2) (Karauğuz et al. 2002). Karadağ is a volcanic

64 Harmanşah

mountain with an extra-urban, mountain-top,

cultic installation clearly associated with the

substantial settlement at Kızıldağ (Bittel 1986).

In one of the five Kızıldağ inscriptions, Hartapu

commemorates the foundation of a new city:

 

()   . há+ra/i-

tá-*430-sa

. +li . 

 +mi zi/a 

<Beloved (??) (of )> the Storm-God, the Sun,

Great King Hartapus,

son of Mursilis, Great King, Hero, built this

city.

(Hawkins 2000: 438. For commentaries, see

438-42).

These historically significant monuments sug-

gest that at the very beginning of the Early Iron

Age a local king named Hartapu was involved

in establishing a regional polity in the Konya

plain and Cappadocia. Such a territorial claim

was being formulated through the ideology and

royal rhetoric of founding new cities, which

was extensively used much later among Early

and Middle Iron Age polities. It is currently

unknown to what city Hartapu is referring in the

inscription, most likely the one at Kızıldağ, but

similar expressions of city foundations are also

known from the 13th-century  imperial Hit-

tite hieroglyphic Luwian monuments such as the

Sacred Pool Complex (Südburg) inscription of

Šuppiluliuma II at Boğazköy (Hawkins 1995b).

In the Südburg inscription the king commemo-

rates the construction of a number of towns dur-

ing his southwestern and south central Anatolian

campaigns. The landscapes of this region, i.e.

the northern foothills of the Taurus mountains

opening onto the fertile plains of the central

Anatolian plateau, formed a strategic frontier

between the Land of Hatti and Tarhuntašša.

This region was extensively demarcated in the

Figure 2. Kızıldağ: Rock relief and inscriptions of Hartapu, overlooking the dried Hotamış Lake (author’s photograph).

Moving Landscapes, Making Place

second half of the 13th century  with imperial

Hittite monuments, most of which bear hiero-

glyphic Luwian inscriptions, such as those at Yal-

burt (sacred spring-pool complex with inscribed

orthostats), Emirgazi (altars), Köylütolu Yayla

(limestone block associated with Hittite dam),

Hatip (rock relief) and Eflatunpınar (sacred

spring-pool complex with a cult monument)

among others (Ehringhaus 2005).

It is therefore compelling to argue, based on

the emerging archaeological and epigraphic

evidence, that the Hittite high-ranking officials

known in the Bronze Age as . (‘Sons

of the King’—Beckman 1992: 47), and the vas-

sal kings of frontier regions who held power in

southern Anatolia and northern Syria, simply

continued to sustain the control of their limited

territories in the Early Iron Age, and constituted

the socio-political infrastructure of the emerg-

ing regional polities known as the Syro-Hittite

states. The imperial Hittite practice of organ-

izing landscapes with cultic complexes and rock

reliefs featuring commemorative inscriptions

was continued among the Early Iron Age states

(including Assyria). Explicit in several of the

early hieroglyphic Luwian monuments of the

Iron Age is some form of redistribution of land

to local elite families, who then initiated the cul-

tivation of those landscapes through plantation

of orchards and vineyards and building activi-

ties, especially in the form of the construction

of new towns and roads (see e.g. Hawkins 2000:

95 [K A11a]; 240-41 [T A 1];

253 [M 8]). This phenomenon is perhaps

best illustrated by the Early Iron Age kingdom

of Melid/Malizi, presented in the next section.

Making Places in Malizi/Melid: New Cit-

ies and Commemorative Monuments in the

Malatya-Elbistan Basin

One of the earliest and prominent Early Iron Age

polities in the Syro-Hittite sphere was Malizi/

Melid, established in the Malatya plain on the

west bank of the Upper Euphrates in eastern

Turkey (Figure 3). This is a very fertile inter-

montane basin between the Taurus and Anti-

Taurus ranges, well-watered by Euphrates and

its tributaries Tohma Su and Kuru Çay as well as

copious springs in the region, historically famous

with its abundant orchards and metal resources

(Delaporte 1933: 129-132; Marcolongo and

Palmieri 1983; Frangipane 1993; Hawkins

1993a). High soil moisture concentrates around

Malatya-Arslantepe itself, while the mountainous

zones around the Malatya plain are rich with iron

and silver ores and lead deposits. Silver ore depos-

its are located in the Kiği-Keban area imme-

diately to the northeast, whereas the region of

Ergani Maden (possibly ancient Arqānia) to the

east has always been a rich source of copper for

northern Mesopotamia. Thus, due to its strategic

position and resources, the Malatya plain was a

contested frontier territory between the Hittites

and Assyrians in the Late Bronze Age (Singer

1985), and between the Assyrians, Urartians and

the kingdom of Tabal in the Middle Iron Age.

The Early Iron Age regional state of Malizi/Melid

seems eventually to have extended its territorial

control west and northwest into the Middle and

Upper Tohma Su valley, the Elbistan plain and

finally the Kuru Çay valley, as the distribution of

monuments in the landscape suggests (Figure 3).

The earliest monument of the Iron Age from

the region comes not from the Malatya plain

itself, but from the Elbistan plain to the west

(Figures 4-5). K is a massive com-

memorative stele, inscribed with a hieroglyphic

Luwian inscription. It was excavated in situ on

the mound of Karahöyük in the Elbistan plain in

1947 (Özgüç and Özgüç 1949). The monument

comes from a remarkable archaeological context:

it was excavated on the very top of the settlement

mound, on the southwest corner of the Özgüç’s

excavation trench, associated with the earliest

‘post-Hittite’ phase of the site, as the archaeolo-

gists called it (Özgüç and Özgüç 1949: 21-35).

This is a tall, tapering limestone stele, raised

66 Harmanşah

Figure 3. Map of the Early Iron Age sites and monuments of Malizi/Melid (Base Map by Peri Johnson, using ESRI Topographic Data [Creative Commons]: World

Shaded Relief, World Linear Water and World Elevation Contours).

Moving Landscapes, Making Place

on a rectangular base in the midst of a heavily

tamped earthen open plaza, with a stone trough

for offerings and sacrifices in front of it, and a 4

x 2 m stone-paved platform built directly across

from it (Figure 4). Multiple deposits of ash,

discarded pottery and animal bones associated

with the Iron Age levels immediately around

the monument as well as the floor remains of

the first Iron Age level contemporary with the

monument, indicate intensive and prolonged

cult practice at the site during the Iron Age. The

cult activity most possibly involved animal sac-

rifice and ceremonial feasting. Below the paved

platform of the ‘post-Hittite’ level of Karahöyük,

archaeologists reached ‘Hittite Empire period’

levels of the site in a limited area; this revealed a

monumental building with an assemblage of sev-

eral fragments of Hittite ceremonial vessels with

Figure 4. Elbistan Karahöyük mound, post-Hittite level Phase 2 plan: archaeological context of the hieroglyphic Luwian

stele (adapted from Özgüç and Özgüç 1949: plan 4).

68 Harmanşah

relief decoration, stamp and cylinder seals and

bronze tools (Özgüç and Özgüç 1949: 36-50).

The Karahöyük stele was carved on three sides,

and the hieroglyphic Luwian text, originally read

by Hans Güterbock, was recently published in

Hawkins’s corpus (Figure 5) (Güterbock 1949;

Hawkins 2000: 289). It is closely associated with

the south central Anatolian monuments of the

late 2nd millennium  (K-K-

B group), based on the ‘archaism’ of

its sign forms and graphic usage, and is therefore

also dated to early 12th century . This date is

supported by the archaeological context (Özgüç

and Özgüç 1949: 24, 34-35). Dedicated to the

Storm God of the land  by Armananis

‘Lord of the Pithos-Men’, the stele commemo-

rates the bequest of the land (Elbistan plain?)

and its three cities to the named ruler by a

certain ‘Great King Ir-Tešub’. According to the

inscription, when Ir-Tešub came and took over

Figure 5. Elbistan Karahöyük hieroglyphic Luwian stele (Özgüç and Özgüç 1949: pl. 49). Ankara Anatolian Civiliza-

tions Museum, Inventory no. 10754.

Moving Landscapes, Making Place

the land of  as its new ruler, he ‘found

the city empty’ (obv. line 3), settled new com-

munities there and ‘improved the land 

for houses (and) cities’ (obv. line 6) (Hawkins

2000: 291). Since later Malatya kings claimed a

genealogical connection with the Karkamišean

dynasty (see below), it is not too far-fetched to

think that the Great King who was mentioned

in the K inscription might be one

of the Karkamišean kings. Identification with

the Tarhuntašša kings, however, is also likely

(Hawkins 1993b). Strobel (2008: 664, n.128)

pointed out the possibility of linking Armaninis

with the office of a high functionary at Hattuša.

In any event, we are confronted with a monu-

ment that historically commemorates not only

the foundation of a regional polity but also its

several towns, and the cultivation of its land-

scapes. Furthermore, as archaeological evidence

clearly demonstrates, the site of the commemo-

rative monument was the locus of ceremonial

activity during the Iron Age at the urban core

of one of the major settlements in that regional

state. The correlation of these 12th-century 

historical events in the Elbistan plain mentioned

on the Karahöyük stele with the beginnings of

the kingdom of Malizi/Melid is still a matter of

debate.

The kingdom of Malizi (Melid-Milidia in

Assyrian records, Melitene in classical sources) is

known from the indigenous hieroglyphic Luwian

monuments, limited archaeological evidence, and

Assyrian and Urartian textual sources (Hawkins

1993: 33-34) (see Table 1). It was centered at the

site of Arslantepe, near Eski Malatya, identified

as the city of Malizi (Frangipane 1993). When

Tiglath-pileser I (1114–1076 ) of Assyria was

returning from his expedition to the lands of

Nairi and Daiēni in eastern Anatolia, he visited

the city Milidia which, according to the king’s

annals, submitted to him and agreed to pay a

yearly tribute of lead ore (Grayson 1991: text

A.0.87.1, column v, lines 33-41). On another

economically guided expedition to the Mediter-

ranean and the coastal states, he revisited the

Malatya plain and received tribute from the

Malizean king ‘Allumari’ (Grayson 1991: text

A.0.87.4, line 31). It seems that already at the

end of 12th century , the Malizean kingdom

was a flourishing regional state, a suggestion sup-

ported by epigraphic evidence.

The excavations at Arslantepe, the capital of

the kingdom, unfortunately do not provide a

very thorough picture of the city during the Early

Iron Age, although new archaeological work

on these levels is underway under the direction

of M. Frangipane (Alvaro 2010). According

to Frangipane’s (1993; 2004) published strati-

graphic sequence from the French and Italian

excavations at the site, Arslantepe features several

phases of monumental building activity in the

Late Bronze, Early and Middle Iron Age levels.

A monumental city gate structure of the Late

Bronze II period (Arslantepe IV: ‘Imperial Gate’,

ca. 1500–1200 ) in the northeast area of the

mound (overlying an earlier gate structure) was

built framing a central paved courtyard and had

a long architectural history at the end of the Late

Bronze Age. When it was finally destroyed by

fire, it was built over by a series of domestic struc-

tures (Pecorella 1978: 138; Puglisi and Palmieri

1966). Sometime in the course of Arslantepe III

and II periods (Neo-Hittite levels, 1200–700

), ‘two successive mudbrick defense walls on

stone foundations and... a large building to the

south of the gate area’ were constructed as well,

pointing to a substantial building program in the

area (Frangipane 1993: 48; Alvaro 2010: 276). It

is not clear, however, if this Early Iron Age build-

ing program involved a reconstruction of a city

gate. The stratigraphic correlation between the

structures excavated during separate French and

Italian projects is hard to establish, which makes

it particularly difficult to understand the length

of the Early Iron Age in Arslantepe.

According to Frangipane and Pecorella (Frangi-

pane 1993: 48-49; Pecorella 1978), the levels III

and II of the Italian dig precedes the well-known

‘Gate of the Lions’ excavated by the French team

between 1932 and 1939 (Figures 6-7). This

70 Harmanşah

Ir-Tešub, ‘Great King’



Armananis, ‘Lord of the Pithos Man’

KARAHÖYÜK

(Stele; 12th century BC)

House of Kuzi-Tešub

Dynasty A

Kuzi-TONITRUS (Kuzi-Tešub),

‘Great King, Hero, of the City Karkamiš’



PUGNUS-mili (I)



 

Runtiyas,

‘Country lord of the city Malizi’

GÜRÜN (Rock relief, late 12th century

BC);

KÖTÜKALE, (Rock relief, late 12th

century BC)

Arnuwantis (I)

‘King, Country lord of the city

Malizi’

ISPEKÇÜR

(Stele, early 11th century BC)



PUGNUS-mili (II) ‘Potent (?) king’

MALATYA 5, 7-13 (Gate orthostats,

11th-early 10th century BC)



Arnuwantis (II), ‘Country lord of

the city Malizi’

DARENDE

(Stele, late 11th-10th century BC)

Dynasty B

Taras (?), ‘The Hero, the Malizean Country Lord’

IZGIN 1,2 (Stele with two sets of inscriptions, 11th-10th centuries BC)



Wasu(?)runtiyas, ‘King’



Halpasulupis

‘Potent(?) king’

MALATYA 1

(Gate orthostat, 11th-10th centuries BC)

Table 1. Geneaology of the early Malizean kings and their titles as known from the Hieroglyphic Luwian texts of their

affiliated monuments (based on Hawkins 2000).

Moving Landscapes, Making Place

Gate of the Lions is a rebuilding of the city gate

slightly later in the Iron Age on the exact spot of

the ‘Imperial Gate’ of Level IV. It is associated

with the final building activities before the sup-

posed Assyrian takeover of the town at the time

of Sargon II. The new gate gave access to a large

stone paved court of a ‘palace with mud-brick

and wood walls extending over three terraces’

(Frangipane 1993: 50). The dating of the carved

and inscribed orthostat blocks that were found

incorporated into the Gate, on epigraphic, sty-

listic and architectural grounds, suggests that this

important structure must have been built with

spoliated blocks from earlier structures (Özyar

1991: 163, Pecorella 1967: 174). Several of the

Malatya orthostats (Malatya 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11,

12, 14) and a broken stele (Malatya 14) were

inscribed with the name of the Malizean king

-mili, who is either the direct descend-

ant of Kuzi-Tešub of Karkamiš or his grandson,

according to Hawkins’s reconstruction of the

Malatya dynasty (Hawkins 2000: 287). In any

case, the orthostats are stylistically dated to 12th

or 11th century , which seems stratigraphically

an untenable date for the Gate of the Lions struc-

ture itself.

Figure 6. Arslantepe (Malatya) topographic site plan (adapted from Delaporte 1940: pl. XI).

72 Harmanşah

In terms of landscape commemoration and

expanding settlement in Malatya’s hinterland,

however, the monuments outside Malatya are

far more revealing and informative. These free-

standing steles and rock reliefs with hieroglyphic

Luwian inscriptions are mapped in Figure 3 and

listed in Table 2, in approximate chronological

order and with reference to their geographical

location, monument type, textual content and

pictorial imagery. Of the dynasty descending

from Kuzi-Tešub, the ruler Runtiyas, son of

P-mili, is mainly known from two rock

inscriptions, one at G in the Upper Tohma

Su valley and the other at K on the

Middle Tohma Su (: Hawkins 2000: 295-

99, pl. 135-138; K: Hawkins 2000:

Figure 7. Arslantepe (Malatya) plan of the Iron Age ‘Gate of the Lions’ (adapted from Delaporte 1940: pl. XII).

Moving Landscapes, Making Place

Table 2. The kingdom of Malizi/Melid and the most prominent hieroglyphic Luwian monuments by the Malizean kings (based on Hawkins 2000).

Ruler Commemorative

Monument

Monument type and

archaeological context

Location in

Malatya plain

Inscription content Date

Armananis, Lord of the

Pithos-Men

KarahöyüK

(Ankara Anato-

lian Civilizations

Museum inv.

10754)

Stele, excavated in an urban context at the highest

part of a mound, evidence for cultic activity and

feasting.

Elbistan plain: Largest höyük

on the plain, located on

Hurman Suyu.

Dedication to Storm God of the Land Poculum.

Great King Ir-Tešub visits land and finds city empty,

improves the land with houses and cities. The land

and 3 cities bequested to Armananis.

Early 12th c. bc

Runtiyas, grandson of

Kuzi-Tešub, the Great

King, Hero of Karkamiš,

son of Pugnus-mili, Coun-

try-Lord of the city Malizi

gürün A pair of rock inscriptions in situ. Upper Tohma Su valley,

narrow gorge, on modern

Malatya-Kayseri road. NW-

most monument of the

dynasty.

Settlement policy of the k ing Runtiyas, mentioning

the city Taita(?) and mountains Zinapi (?) Naharasa

and Nama[..]. God Great Storm God, Great Goddess

Hepatu, Great God Sarruma are addressed.

Late 12th c. bc

Runtiyas, grandson of

Kuzi-Tešub, the Great

King, Hero of Karkamiš,

son of Pugnus-mili, Coun-

try-Lord of the city Malizi

KötüKale Rock inscription in situ. Middle Tohma Su valley,

modern (but now old)

Malatya-Darende road,

downstream from Darende.

Narrow gorge of the river.

Construction of a “stone road” Late 12th c. bc

Arnuwantis, grandson of

Kuzi-Tešub, the Hero, son

of Pugnus-mili, Country-

Lord of the city Malizi

IsPeKçür

(Sivas Museum

Inv. 342)

Stele, discovered in broken form (4 fragments) at

the village of İspekçür. 4-sided stele is sculpted on 3

sides, with the three figures engaged in ceremonial

activity in various spatial contexts. One is probably

goddess Hepatu (standing against an architectural

background), the second the god Sarruma (beard-

less, fringed long robe, curved lituus, shoes with

upturned toes) and (side C) the king Arnuwantis

(making libation).

Middle Tohma Su valley.

Village of İspekçür, 20 km

downstream from Darende.

Settlement policy of the k ing Arnuwantis. Early 11th c.

bc (?)

Arnuwantis, grandson of

Kuzi-Tešub, the Hero, son

of Pugnus-mili, Country-

Lord of the city Malizi

DarenDe

(Ankara Anato-

lian Civilizations

Museum)

Stele. 4-sided stele, round-topped and small, taper-

ing. On large side depicts goddess Hepatu of the

City (with cartouche also in a banquet scene), on the

narrow side Sarruma and a deified ancestor king,

standing on a lion, making libation in front of the

two gods.

Middle Tohma Su valley.

Spolia from Ulu Cami in Eski

Darende.

Foundation and settlement of a city “[...]tumani” Early 11th c.

bc (?)

Taras, the Hero, Country-

Lord of the city Malizi

IzgIn

(Ancient Oriental

Museum, Istan-

bul, inv. 7693)

Stele, tall and obelisk-like, with two sets of inscrip-

tions.

Elbistan plain, in the cem-

etery of the village I zgın.

Building activities and settlement polic y of the

Malatya king. Foundation of the city of Taita(?) and

the settlement of Malizeans to that city. Extension

of frontiers and settlement in the towns of yalIyasa-

and the city of Pythos.gr yllus are also mentioned.

Dedicated to the Storm-God.

11th-10th c.

bc (?)

Sa(?)tiruntiyas, the Hero,

Country-Lord of Malizi,

the Hero Sahwis’s son,

Runtiyas’s dear servant.

ŞIrzIRock inscription (labelled as “IPa-tarPamI-” in the

inscription) in situ.

Upper Kuru Çay valley. Near

modern Malatya-Sivas road,

carved on a rocky hillside.

The commemoration of a construction of a

monument related to the site, possibly the rock

monument itself or some architectural complex

associated with it.

Early-mid-8th

c. bc.

74 Harmanşah

299-301, pls. 139-41). The G rock inscrip-

tion commemorates the king’s settlement of new

frontier lands including the city of Taita(?) and

others, while K records the construction

of a royal road by the same ruler. At the time of

Runtiyas in the 12th century , the Malizean

regional state appears to be expanding west-

wards and controlling the Middle and Upper

Tohma Su valleys, which connected the Malatya

plain to Tabal and to the central Anatolian

plateau (Figure 3). The ruler Arnuwantis (early

11th century ), also son of P-mili and

brother of Runtiyas, seems to have preferred to

commission a series of commemorative monu-

ments in the form of steles with inscriptions and

pictorial representations. The findspots of his

two prominent steles at İ and D

suggest the continued importance of the Tohma

Su valley during his reign.

İ is a four-sided 2.27-m-tall obelisk-

like limestone stele with pictorial representa-

tions of three standing human figures on three

sides of the stele, all depicted as involved in

some sort of ceremonial activity and in various

spatial contexts (Figure 8) (Hawkins 2000: 301;

Orthmann 1971: 117). The stele was reportedly

seen in the village of İspekçür in 1907 by the

Cornell Expedition, and it was found broken in

four fragments in Gök Medrese, in Sivas, later

in 1935 (Gelb 1939: 30-31, no.28). 

is a much smaller (ht. 79 cm) round-topped

basalt stele but with similar reliefs on three sides

(Figure 9). The D stele had been used

as a spolia in the wall of Ulu Cami’s minaret in

Figure 8. İspekçür stele with hieroglyphic Luwian inscription (Malizi/Melid) (Hawkins 2000: pl. 143).

Moving Landscapes, Making Place

Eski Darende and transferred to Gök Medrese

in Sivas (Gelb 1939: 27-28; no. 18). The

inscriptions of both monuments commemorate

Arnuwantis’s accomplishments of settlement in

the region with special reference to the organiza-

tion of mountainous landscapes, which may be

associated with pictorial depiction of the hilly

landscapes on the İ stele and the three

mountains mentioned in G inscription.

The author of the I stele, Taras (written

+ra/i) ‘the Hero, the Malizean Country-

Lord’, cannot be related easily to the P-

mili dynasty since he does not give his genealogy.

The inscription, however, is still dated to the

11th–10th centuries , based on its palaeogra-

phy in agreement with the G and İ

monuments (Hawkins 2000: 314-18). I is

another obelisk-like monument of substantial

height (2.45 m), inscribed on all four sides (Fig-

ure 10). It was found in the midst of the Elbistan

plain, re-used in a modern cemetery at the vil-

lage of Izgın near the confluence of the Ceyhan

river and Hurman Suyu, and only 5 km south-

west of Karahöyük. The lengthy hieroglyphic

Luwian inscription is worth quoting here at least

in part since it commemorates the expansion of

Malizean settlement into the Elbistan plain and

the foundation of new cities:

 1

§4 wa/i-ta-‘ [mi-ia-za tá]-[... ...]-za

regio-za fines + ha-zi post-ní a-tá i-zi-i-

In my pa[ternal grandfatherl]y (?) countries, I

added frontiers upon frontiers.

§5 flumen.regio-zi-pa-wa/i-ta flumen.

regio-za post-ní a-tá i-zi-i-ha

and I added river-lands upon river-lands

§6 *428-tà-wa/i (urbs) aedificare-ha

I built the city Taita (?)

§7 max.lix.-zi-pa-wa/i (urbs) solium

-wa/i-ha

and I settled the Malizi(eans)

§8 [x-wa/i] flumen-na super+ra/i

*85-li-ia-[sa?]-sa urbs+mi-na-z<a> solium-

wa/i-ha

Figure 9. Darende stele with hieroglyphic Luwian inscription (Malizi/Melid) (Hawkins 2000: pl. 146).

76 Harmanşah

I settled the ...river (people) up in the towns

of -,

§9 pithos.gryllus-pa-wa/i-mi (urbs)

mi-ia-ti-‘ lepus+ra/i-ti há-sa?-tara / i-ti-ha

and the city . by my author-

ity...

(Hawkins 2000: 315).

The city of Taita was also mentioned in the ear-

lier G inscription (§2), which suggests that

this city was a place of renewed royal building

activity and should be placed somewhere in the

Tohma Su valley or the Elbistan plain.

The ‘Country-Lords’ of the city Malizi in the

Malatya plain gradually incorporated the Tohma

Su valley and the Elbistan basin, which consti-

tuted strategic landscapes to control the overland

route to the central Anatolian plateau and even

north Syria and Cilicia. The prominence of this

micro-region in the Early Iron Age is further sup-

ported by Tiglath-Pileser I’s visit to Melid/Malizi

on his return to Aššur from his campaign to the

Mediterranean, and his inscription of his own

rock-cut monuments at the ‘Source of the Tigris’

(Harmanşah 2007b). Unfortunately the regions

of the Malatya plain, the Tohma Su valley and

the Elbistan plain were subject to only limited

archaeological research, except for excavations

at Arslantepe and the emergency (salvage) sur-

veys related to dam construction. The survey

in Sivas and Malatya provinces carried out by

Yakar and Gürsan-Salzmann (1979: 38; see also

Yakar and Gürsan-Salzmann 1978) used only

extensive survey methods and was published

briefly. Nonetheless they report rather intense

settlement between Eski Malatya and the conflu-

ence of the Euphrates and the Tohma Su valley.

Özdoğan (1977: 25-28) and his team’s much

more intensive survey in the Lower Euphrates

Basin in the area later flooded by the Karakaya

Dam had identified 40 archaeological sites in

the ‘central district of Malatya’. At least 15 of

the surveyed sites had evidence for Middle-Late

Bronze Age occupation, while 17 are reported

for the Iron Age, suggesting a substantial conti-

nuity of settlement in the landscape, especially

Figure 10. Izgın stele with hieroglyphic Luwian inscrip-

tion (author’s photograph), Istanbul Archaeo-

logical Museum, Inventory no. 7693.

Moving Landscapes, Making Place

at large mound sites such as Pirot Höyük, Cafer

Harabesi, Kadıoturan Tepesi and Köşkerbaba

Höyük (Özdoğan 1977: 50-56). Sevin’s (1987)

survey of the Urartian frontiers on the Euphrates

in Malatya, Elazığ and Bingöl provinces focused

only on the eastern bank of the river.

The most recent surface survey in the vicinity

of Arslantepe by an Italian team reports a dearth

of Iron Age settlements, although this might be

a result of the project’s specific focus on the pre-

historic periods and the difficulties in identifying

Iron Age ceramics (Di Nocera 2005). When

the non-inscribed monuments of the Early and

Middle Iron Age, such as the lion sculpture in

Sevdiliköy (Eralp 1998) and Aslantaş (Özgüç and

Özgüç 1949: 11-15, figs. 16-17), are brought

into the picture alongside the survey data for

mapping the Malizean kingdom, the concentra-

tion of monuments in the Middle Tohma Su and

Elbistan basins is distinctive (see Figure 3 above).

Furthermore, the marking of narrow river val-

leys in the frontiers of the kingdom’s territories

with rock reliefs and inscriptions also seems to

be significant in the organization of Malizean

landscapes.

Conclusions: Moving Landscapes, Making

Place

The restless times during the Late Bronze Age-

Early Iron Age transition in northern Syria and

southern Anatolia presents us with moving land-

scapes and changing practices of place-making.

In the last century of the Hittite Empire, one

sees a gradual shift of territorial power from the

empire’s central Anatolian core in the Kızılırmak

bend to its fringes around Karkamiš in north

Syria and Tarhuntašša in Cilicia, and eventually

Tabal in Cappadocia and Malizi on the upper

Euphrates. The hallmark of these geo-political

transformations, as archaeological survey evi-

dence suggests, is a reconfiguration of the settle-

ment landscape from an urban-focused pattern

to a dispersed and rural one, from territorial

systems of imperial power to regional kingdoms

of local landholding dynasties.

The story of the beginnings of the Iron Age in

these territories, however, would be incomplete

if we were to neglect the evidence from the com-

memorative monuments, both at the time of the

late Hittite Empire and those raised in the after-

math of its collapse. These monuments appear

as steles, rock reliefs, spring monuments and

city gates that often feature hieroglyphic Luwian

inscriptions and pictorial relief programs, and

they speak to an official ideology of the state.

In many instances it is clear that, in the context

of such a fluid politically contested world, these

monuments appropriate places and landscapes

that are culturally invested with meaning or sim-

ply sacred to local populations, hence considered

as ‘places of power’ (Živković 2010). Excavations

at Elbistan Karahöyük and Malatya Arslantepe

(discussed above) demonstrate how places of

certain importance during the Late Bronze Age

in the Elbistan and Malatya plains were incorpo-

rated into the Early Iron Age kingdom of Malizi

through the raising of monuments and the con-

struction of towns. Further archaeological field-

work is necessary to understand this relationship

between Bronze Age places and settlements and

their monumentalization in the Iron Age.

Monumentalization of places usually takes

place with the benefaction of the ruling elite,

and can be understood as an intervention of

political power to the long-term biography

of places. These building projects transform

places into sites of memory, to borrow a term

from Nora (1989). While creating a break with

the past locally, they institutionalize particular

ways of connecting with that shared past by

favoring specific practices while hindering oth-

ers (Nixon 2004). In this way, one could argue

that the making of commemorative monu-

ments is the political act of (re)making places,

narrating history and configuring landscapes.

In the Malizean kingdom of the Early Iron

Age, a local dynasty seems to have established a

78 Harmanşah

unique landscape of power in the Malatya plain,

the Tohma Su valley and the Elbistan plain by

appropriating previously settled places such as

Arslantepe and Karahöyük, yet maintaining a

public discourse of renewal and regeneration.

In the commemorative inscriptions, one finds

an intriguing royal rhetoric of founding cit-

ies, settling populations in the agriculturally

cultivated frontiers, and the construction of

royal roads in an attempt to connect those

peripheral landscapes to the core of the regional

state. This formed the ideological content and

historical context of the Malizean commemo-

rative monuments. As evident from the only

archaeologically excavated monument from the

region, , the sites of the commemo-

rative steles remained loci of cultic and cer-

emonial activity at the very center of the urban

landscapes, while rock reliefs and inscriptions

marked important passes in the mountainous

landscapes of Malatya region. In the case of

the Malizean kingdom in particular and for the

other Iron Age states of Upper Mesopotamia in

general, it seems possible to draw the conceptual

correlation between the setting-up of commem-

orative royal monuments and the foundation

of cities, both of which were important tools

in the cultural politics of territorial organiza-

tion. The earliest building activities in Iron Age

centers of Karkamiš, Hama, Aleppo, ‘Ain Dara

and Zincirli in the 12th–11th centuries  were

contemporaneous with developments in the

Malizean kingdom (Mazzoni 2000: 31-37), and

arguably one could suggest that comparable set-

tlement strategies and commemorative activities

were carried out across the region.

In this study, I have advocated the adoption

of a landscape approach in archaeology that

is sensitive both to the local politics of place-

making in micro-regional contexts and to long-

term changes and fluid connections in broader

networks of settlement. I attempted to draw

attention to the moving landscapes and shifting

geographical imaginations in upper Mesopota-

mia during the Late Bronze and Early Iron Ages.

This is a dynamic time period punctuated by a

major systemic collapse in the eastern Mediter-

ranean but it is also marked with radical changes

in material culture. In addition, I focused on the

local articulations of landscapes in the confines

of the regional state of Malizi/Melid in eastern

Turkey. Discussing the variety of building

projects and monument-making activities of

the ‘country lords of Malizi’, I pointed to the

intimate relationship between founding cities,

cultivating newly acquired agricultural land,

settling populations and commemorating all

those on steles, rock reliefs and the architecture

of city gates, which themselves became hubs of

cult activity. The evidence suggests that such

state-sponsored activities of building landscapes

and making places do not necessarily take place

in a barren topography, but rather take over

and appropriate an already sedimented cultural

landscape. This can only be demonstrated con-

vincingly, however, through regionally focused

archaeological landscape projects with specific

research questions, and a critical reading of epi-

graphic sources in tandem.

Acknowledgements

This paper was developed from a short sec-

tion in my PhD dissertation ‘Spatial Narratives,

Commemorative Practices and the Building

Project: New Urban Foundations in Upper Syro-

Mesopotamia During the Early Iron Age’ (Uni-

versity of Pennsylvania 2005). It was finalized

during my fellowship at Koç University’s Research

Center for Anatolian Civilizations (Istanbul,

Turkey) in the academic year 2010-2011. I am

grateful to Scott Redford and the RCAC staff

for providing an excellent environment to work.

I am equally grateful to the editors of this jour-

nal, particularly A. Bernard Knapp and John F.

Cherry, for their patience and meticulous edito-

rial work on this paper. I also would like to thank

the two anonymous readers whose comments

Moving Landscapes, Making Place

were most helpful and constructive. I thank Peri

Johnson who kindly prepared the base map for

figures 1 and 3.

About the Author

Ömür Harmanşah is Assistant Professor of

Archaeology and Egyptology and Ancient West-

ern Asian Studies at the Joukowsky Institute for

Archaeology and the Ancient World at Brown

University. His research focuses on questions of

place and landscape in archaeology, and he writes

on cities, monuments and architectural tech-

nologies in the ancient Near East. He is currently

directing the Yalburt Archaeological Landscape

Research Project in west central Turkey.

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This article presents data on the Iron Age of eastern Anatolia. The roughly 900 years embraced by the Iron Age marked a period of radical political transformations shaped first and foremost by the rise and fall of empires. How Urartu emerged in the ninth century BCE is a question whose answer lies most immediately in the opening centuries of the Iron Age. Currently, the very roughest outlines of two different scenarios exist. In the western Armenian plateau, relatively flat settlement hierarchies (compared to the preceding Late Bronze Age) and undifferentiated built spaces in what appear to be village-like constructions at key sites in the Euphrates basin provide few clues for precursors to the kinds of consolidated political institutions that came to reproduce Urartian hegemony. At the other end of the highlands, however, especially in southern Caucasia but perhaps also further west, a political tradition characterized by imposing fortresses continued from the Late Bronze Age, potentially signaling the earliest foundations of Urartu's archipelagic fortress polity. These scenarios invite a two-pronged inquiry into the Iron 1 period focused both on the production of power and authority by an emergent political élite, perched within the stone citadels of the highland mountains, and on the constitution of social difference through routine practices among the region's subject communities.

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