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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 specic types of commemorative monuments including rock reliefs, steles and city gates. While den-
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 congured 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
© The Fund for Mediterranean Archaeology/Equinox Publishing Ltd., 2011 doi: 10.1558/jmea.v24i1.55
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
© The Fund for Mediterranean Archaeology/Equinox Publishing Ltd., 2011
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
57
© The Fund for Mediterranean Archaeology/Equinox Publishing Ltd., 2011
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
© The Fund for Mediterranean Archaeology/Equinox Publishing Ltd., 2011
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
59
© The Fund for Mediterranean Archaeology/Equinox Publishing Ltd., 2011
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
© The Fund for Mediterranean Archaeology/Equinox Publishing Ltd., 2011
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
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© The Fund for Mediterranean Archaeology/Equinox Publishing Ltd., 2011
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),
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© The Fund for Mediterranean Archaeology/Equinox Publishing Ltd., 2011
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);
(c) Kurunta’s rock relief at Hatip, southwest of
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
63
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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
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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).
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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
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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).
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© The Fund for Mediterranean Archaeology/Equinox Publishing Ltd., 2011
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
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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.
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69
© The Fund for Mediterranean Archaeology/Equinox Publishing Ltd., 2011
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
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© The Fund for Mediterranean Archaeology/Equinox Publishing Ltd., 2011
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).
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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
© The Fund for Mediterranean Archaeology/Equinox Publishing Ltd., 2011
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).
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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
© The Fund for Mediterranean Archaeology/Equinox Publishing Ltd., 2011
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).
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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-
ha
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
© The Fund for Mediterranean Archaeology/Equinox Publishing Ltd., 2011
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
77
© The Fund for Mediterranean Archaeology/Equinox Publishing Ltd., 2011
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
© The Fund for Mediterranean Archaeology/Equinox Publishing Ltd., 2011
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
79
© The Fund for Mediterranean Archaeology/Equinox Publishing Ltd., 2011
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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