A Land in Between

The Orontes Valley in western Syria is a land ‘in between’, positioned between the small trading centres of the coast and the huge urban agglomerations of the Euphrates Valley and the Syro-Mesopotamian plains beyond. As such, it provides a critical missing link in our understanding of the archaeology of this region in the early urban age.

A Land in Between documents the material culture and socio-political relationships of the Orontes Valley and its neighbours from the fourth through to the second millennium BCE. The authors demonstrate that the valley was an important conduit for the exchange of knowledge and goods that fuelled the first urban age in western Syria. This lays the foundation for a comparative perspective, providing a clearer understanding of key differences between the Orontes region and its neighbours, and insights into how patterns of material and political association changed over time.

Melissa Kennedy is a Research Associate at the University of Western Australia for the Project Aerial Archaeology in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (AAKSAU).

Introduction: A Land In-Between – The Orontes Valley in the Early Urban Age by Melissa A. Kennedy

1. Northern Levantine Spheres of Interaction: The Role of the ’Amuq Plain in the Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age by Lynn Welton
2. The Origin of Caliciform Ware in Inland Northern Syria During the Mid-Third Millennium BC: A View from Tell Mardikh/Ebla and Hama by Agnese Vacca
3. Ebla in the Third Millennium BC: Architecture and Urban Planning by Frances Pinnock
4. A Matter of Style: Ceramic Evidence of Contacts Between the Orontes Valley and the Southern Levant During the Mid–Late Third Millennium BC by Marta D’Andrea
5. Militarisation and the Changing Socio-Political Landscape of the Northern Levant in the Early Bronze Age IVB by Melissa A. Kennedy
6. Evolutions of Pottery Production Over a Millennium: Petrographic Analysis of the EB Ceramic Assemblage from Tell Arqa by Mathilde Jean
7. The 1968 Survey in the Beqa‘ of Lebanon and Its Relevance to the Archaeology of the Central Levant Ca. 2500–2000/1900 BC by Kay Prag
8. Sequence, Chronology and Culture at Tell Nebi Mend in the Middle and Late Bronze Ages by Stephen J. Bourke

About the contributors
Index

Format: paperback
Size: 250 × 176 × 15 mm
276 pages
Copyright: © 2020
ISBN: 9781743327180
Publication: 01 Dec 2020
Series: Adapa Monographs