“The king at the gate”. Monumental fortifications and the rise of local elites at Arslantepe at the end of the 2nd Millennium

Description

This paper aims at presenting the results of recent investigations on the Early Iron Age at Arslantepe/Malatya (SE Turkey), which yielded important new data on the rise and collapse of a local power that used figurative representation at the town’s gate to express its authority. The 12th century BCE was one of the most relevant periods of transformation in the Syro-Anatolian region, which saw the decline of the Hittite Empire and the emergence of independent polities that re-elaborated the imperial tradition in original ways. The breakdown of the empire was not a generalized event, rather a process developing in an uneven temporal and geographic range. The Arslantepe case shows that the collapse was delayed, as it was contained by the rising of a local elite, which adopted strategies of territorial control and manifestation of power through the use of monumental buildings and sculptured reliefs. The archaeological evidence from Arslantepe will be presented and correlated with the...

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