The Iron Age I–II Transition in the Northern Levant: An Emerging Consensus?

Abstract

The development of a refined, and widely accepted, chronological and cultural sequence has eluded the study of the Iron Age Northern Levant, despite more than a century of archaeological exploration and research. The effort has been complicated by methodological issues, in particular with the chronological implications of the rich art historical record preserved on the citadels of the Syro-Anatolian royal cities that have been excavated. The renewed investigations at Tell Tayinat (ancient Kunulua), capital of the Neo-Hittite Kingdom of Palastin/Walastin and scene of large-scale excavations by the Syrian-Hittite Expedition in the 1930s, have resulted in a tightly constructed stratigraphic and chronological cultural sequence, or “local history,” for this period. This refined “Amuq Sequence” indicates a number of culturally and historically significant transitions, including the transition from the Iron Age I to the Iron Age II, ca. 900 BCE, and it offers the prospect of forging a consensus regarding the cultural and chronological periodization of the broader Iron Age Northern Levant and Southeast Anatolia.