From Mitanni to Middle Assyrians: Changes in Settlement Patterns and Agriculture in the Land of Hanigalbat

When Middle Assyrians conquered the land of Hanigalbat during the 14th and 13th century, they did several changes in the settlement systems of the area. This paper is mainly concerned with the changes happened during the transitional phase from the Mitanni to the Middle Assyrian period. Several works have been lately published about the Middle Assyrians in general but the Mitanni period has been generally neglected. The research of this paper tackles the subject through a bibliographical overview of the current archaeological data concerning the period. The questions which are going to be investigated in this paper about the transition from Mitanni to Middle Assyrians are: What changes did the Middle Assyrians brought to the administrative system of the area? What changes do we see in the settlement system? How did the agricultural economy evolved, what are the results of the intensification of agriculture and how did this affect the changes in settlement systems? In order to answer...Show moreWhen Middle Assyrians conquered the land of Hanigalbat during the 14th and 13th century, they did several changes in the settlement systems of the area. This paper is mainly concerned with the changes happened during the transitional phase from the Mitanni to the Middle Assyrian period. Several works have been lately published about the Middle Assyrians in general but the Mitanni period has been generally neglected. The research of this paper tackles the subject through a bibliographical overview of the current archaeological data concerning the period. The questions which are going to be investigated in this paper about the transition from Mitanni to Middle Assyrians are: What changes did the Middle Assyrians brought to the administrative system of the area? What changes do we see in the settlement system? How did the agricultural economy evolved, what are the results of the intensification of agriculture and how did this affect the changes in settlement systems? In order to answer those questions the paper is divided in 4 chapters. In the first chapter I do a historical overview of the periods from the 15th to the 13th century BC. The historical overview is important to create the context in which I am going to work and it provides crucial information about the names of certain sites which will be investigated. In the first chapter I also provide a brief state of the archaeological research of the periods. In the second chapter I thoroughly investigate three areas, t e Balīḫ Valley, the Upper Ḫābūr Valle and t e Upper igris regi n. I pr vide general information of the areas and examination of certain sites which are used as examples. At the end of each subchapter there are conclusions concerning each specific region. The third chapter deals with agriculture and the changes of agriculture during the early period of the Middle Assyrian Empire. In order to examine the subject of agriculture I use two well documented sites, Tell Sabi Abyad and Dūr-Katlimmu. These sites have been chose because they provide us with important textual evidence and allow the reconstruction of their agricultural productivity. The study of agriculture allows us to see the role of agriculture in the settlement changes of the period.In the final chapter I firstly present a discussion in order to create a theoretical framework for the changes on settlement systems. In this part I discuss the policies used by Middle Assyrian in each region and the reasons behind certain decisions on changing the settlement patterns of an area. The last part of the chapter contains the conclusions and results of the research. The purpose of this MA thesis is to recreate certain aspects of the transitions from the Mitanni Empire to the Middle Assyrian Empire with main focus on the changes of settlement patterns.Show less

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From Mitanni to Middle Assyrians: Changes in Settlement Patterns and Agriculture in the Land of Hanigalbat