Figurines are some of the most commonly found artefacts in Neolithic sites across the Near East. These objects have often stimulated colourful interpretations, focussing primarily on stylistic...Show moreFigurines are some of the most commonly found artefacts in Neolithic sites across the Near East. These objects have often stimulated colourful interpretations, focussing primarily on stylistic elements of the anthropomorphic subjects. Such elements, like their perceived femaleness accompanied by voluptuousness, have historically been deemed as directly linked to concerns with fertility and pregnancy, which led to the assumption of the figurines being ritual objects and representations of deities, often labelled as ‘mother- goddesses’. These interpretations essentially generalize the entirety of the figurine assemblages of the Neolithic world, and erase the possibilities of in-depth analysis of these objects. This thesis takes on a different approach, with the belief that a comprehensive analysis that aims to understand these objects should first of all focus on the assemblage of a single context (namely a single site in a given chronological frame), covering the full ‘life-span’ of the figurines within such spatial, chronological, and cultural boundaries, starting from the context of deposition, the process of manufacture and the possible uses. Stylistic observations should only be considered in association to these aspects just mentioned, in the case of possible patterns highlighting the meaning and uses of these objects. A comparative analysis of two or more assemblages could be introduced at a second stage of analysis, within pertinent geographical and chronological boundaries, in order to highlight possible differences and similarities. This approach is what was applied for the research of the figurines of two Neolithic sites of the Lake District in Western Anatolia: Hacilar and Höyücek. These sites, broadly dated to the Late Neolithic period (ca. 6,400 – 6,000 BC), present a significant corpus of figurines, which amount to 72 for Hacilar, and 84 for Höyücek, with the aims of investigating their contexts of deposition and their manufacturing processes in order to highlight possible meaning and uses that were associated to these emblematic objects withi the individual sites and in a broader regional context. The structure of this research will start with an introductory chapter on the Neolithic in the Lake District (Chapter 1), followed by a theoretical chapter that will discuss the history of figurine studies, and will frame the theoretical approach preferred for this research. The datasets of Hacilar and Höyücek will be discussed in Chapter 3 and Chapter 4, which will then be compared in their results in Chapter 5. Finally, the conclusions of this research will be presented in Chapter 6. This research has shown that the figurines of Hacilar and Höyücek had highly dynamic meanings and uses, even within the same sites, which on the one hand shows how inherently flawed the past research has been, and on the other it opens up new avenues of research around aspects like the manufacturing process, which have barely been actively studied in figurines.Show less
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...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
