Karel Van Lerberghe

The Sea Peoples, from Cuneiform Tablets to Carbon Dating

The 13th century BC witnessed the zenith of the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean civilizations which declined at the end of the Bronze Age, ∼3200 years ago. Weakening of this ancient flourishing Mediterranean world shifted the political and economic centres of gravity away from the Levant towards Classical Greece and Rome, and led, in the long term, to the emergence of the modern western civilizations. Textual evidence from cuneiform tablets and Egyptian reliefs from the New Kingdom relate that seafaring tribes, the Sea Peoples, were the final catalyst that put the fall of cities and states in motion. However, the lack of a stratified radiocarbon-based archaeology for the Sea People event has led to a floating historical chronology derived from a variety of sources spanning dispersed areas. Here, we report a stratified radiocarbon-based archaeology with anchor points in ancient epigraphic-literary sources, Hittite-Levantine-Egyptian kings and astronomical observations to precisely date the Sea People event. By confronting historical and science-based archaeology, we establish an absolute age range of 1192–1190 BC for terminal destructions and cultural collapse in the northern Levant. This radiocarbon-based archaeology has far-reaching implications for the wider Mediterranean, where an elaborate network of international relations and commercial activities are intertwined with the history of civilizations.

Wild or cultivated Olea europaea L. in the eastern Mediterranean during the middle-late Holocene? A pollen-numerical approach

Assessment of the wild or cultivated origin of Olea europaea L. during the middle to late Holocene according to pollen analyses is of palaeoecological and evolutionary interest as olive is thought to be one of the earliest cultivated trees and is still one of the most important fruit trees of the eastern Mediterranean. This paper considers data from the Bronze—Iron Age harbour-town, Tell Tweini, of the Ugarit Kingdom, in the Syrian coastal lowland near Jableh (17 m a.s.l.) and from the Hellenistic—Roman Moatra-Bereket (1410 m a.s.l.), in the territory of Sagalassos, in Turkey’s western Taurus Mountains. Both of these sites have recorded the rise and collapse of early eastern Mediterranean urban systems from 4200 to 1600 cal. yr BP. The Syrian data suggest that the Olea pollen-type originated from wild varieties during the Bronze and Iron Ages despite archaeological evidence for olive cultivation in the northern Levant. For Turkey, the results of the pollen-numerical analyses support the existing archaeological evidence of a wealthy oleoculture in Hellenistic and Roman Anatolia and suggest important anthropogenic pressures on local ecosystems.

Medieval coastal Syrian vegetation patterns in the principality of Antioch

The coastal area of Jableh, in the vicinity of the Saladin and Al-Marquab castles, is a fertile alluvial plain located on the northwestern part of Syria, in what was once the crusader Principality of Antioch. In order to detail the coastal environment during the crusader period in the Middle East, palynological analyses have been conducted on the underlying coastal-alluvial deposits. The recovered sediments represent a continuous record of the environmental history of the area spanning a c. AD 850—1850 cal. yr period, from the Muslim Era up to and including the late Ottoman times. During the local crusader period (AD 1100—1270), the area was dominated by an arborescent mattoral mixed with a xerophytic shrub-steppe. The alluvial plain was slightly waterlogged and colonized by a wetland meadow with an open vegetation of steppe-like character on bare surfaces and fresh arable soils. The riparian and open deciduous riverine forests were weakly developed. Signs of agricultural activities are mainly recorded for the High Medieval period (AD 1000—1300), with an increase of vineyards in the coastal area. Since c. AD 1250 cal. yr until the end of the crusader period, agricultural activities never reached the same intensity as during the Mameluke Sultanate and the Ottoman Empire.

Provenancing East Mediterranean cedar wood with the 87Sr/86Sr strontium isotope ratio

Abstract87Sr/86Sr isotope ratios of cedar wood from forests in the East Mediterranean have been compiled in order to investigate the feasibility of provenancing archaeological cedar wood finds. Cedrus sp. forests furnished a great amount of wood in antiquity, for purposes ranging from ship to temple construction, and for fashioning cult statues and sarcophagi. The 87Sr/86Sr signatures of archaeological cedar samples may be compared with the preliminary dataset presented here to help determine the geographic origin of wooden artifacts. Sample sites include two forest areas in the Troodos Massif of Cyprus, five in the Lebanon, and two in Turkey’s Taurus Mountains. Sr ratios for wood varieties (i.e., early heartwood, late heartwood, sapwood, and twig wood) demonstrate relative uniformity between the xylem types frequently recovered from archaeological contexts. As such, this pilot study also assesses important issues of archaeological sampling and the geographical factors that influence Sr uptake in cedar trees of this region. While the regional signatures are distinct in most cases, small sample sizes and range overlap indicate the need for additional methods to make a case for a certain source forest. Alone, this method continues to be best used to disprove assumed wood provenances.