Late Bronze Age Tell Atchana (Alalakh): Stratigraphy, Chronology, History AMIR SUMAKAI FINK To Joe and Jeanette Neubauer Synopsis The following work is a re-structuring of my doctoral thesis, which re-visits the Late Bronze Age stratigraphy, chronology and history of Tell Atchana as recorded by Sir Leonard Woolley in the 1930s and 1940s. I offer both a detailed analysis of the material culture of Late Bronze Age Alalakh and a political history of the region following the destruction of the Level IVW palace. My first step in this study was to understand the way in which the plans of Tell Atchana that Woolley published should be interpreted, and the implications thereof. The next was to establish the correct location, absolute and relative, of the Level IW temples. Then followed an analysis of the stratigraphy of the Levels IV–0W temples, which brought me to advance two major proposals: 1) that the Level IVAF temple had an annexe and 2) that the walls and finds attributed to the annexe to the Level IBW temple should be associated with the Paluwa Shrine, which postdates the Level IW temples. Based on the finds in each of the later temples, I corrected their dates and reassigned them to Tell Atchana levels, different from those to which they were originally assigned. This resulted, among other things, in a detailed study of the find-spot of the statue of Idrimi, now newly attributed to Level IVBF, the first half of the fourteenth century B.C.E., probably not more than a few decades after the death of Idrimi, king of Alalakh. The same stratigraphic analysis scheme that permitted me to rearrange and redate the temples was then projected on all the features and structures of Levels V–0W, as summarized in Summary Tables 1 and 2 and in the plans of Levels VA–IBF. Levels VA–IBF include all the buildings and structures of Levels V–0W, but most of them are dated differently. According to my new layout, many of these buildings are contemporaneous with different structures than they were before. In short, my approach to Late Bronze Age Alalakh is significantly different than that of previous literature, and significantly revises Woolley’s 1955 Final Report and Yener’s 2005 summary. Detailed new phase plans for Levels VA-IBF accompany this study. I conclude by presenting consequential material culture data that leads to a proposed absolute chronology of the relevant strata at Alalakh, accompanied by a discussion of the history of Alalakh in the Late Bronze Age. Although this study is by no means conclusive, I hope that it paves the way for future investigation, and that its implications will be considered not only for Alalakh and Muki, but for the Late Bronze Age Levant as a whole. iii Acknowledgements This study is a rearrangement of my dissertation, which was written at Tel Aviv University under the supervision of Professors Israel Finkelstein and Nadav Na’aman. I thank them for their advice, thoughtfulness, encouragement and patience. It is owing to my dear friend, Professor Benjamin Sass, that I chose to write on Alalakh, and that I was able to complete my mission. He nourished this project from alpha to omega. The renewal of the excavation project at Tell Atchana by the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago with the generous support of the Neubauer family was the trigger for this study. My senior role in the Tell Atchana project provided me with an intimate knowledge of the site, which is hopefully reflected in this book. I am grateful to the Director of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, Professor Gil Stein, who supported the project in its better and harder times. Professor David Schloen of the University of Chicago, who was my advisor during my studies at the University of Chicago, is also my senior partner, both during our work at Tell Atchana and in our current project at Zincirli. Many of the ideas and thoughts articulated in my work were born out of, and developed during our endless discussions of the nature of the site, the stratigraphy, and the finds. I thank David for his counsel as well as his tolerance during this long process. I would also like to thank the following colleagues and team members for sharing their ideas and knowledge with me: Dr. Stephen Batiuk, Prof. Aaron Burke, Dr. Alexis Boutin, Prof. Jesse Casana, Dr. Dominique Collon, Prof. Asa Eger, Prof. Theo van den Hout, Prof. Jacob Lauinger, Susie Helft, Leann Pace, Virginia Rimmer Herrmann, Eudora Struble and Bike Yazıcıoğlu. I consulted with many of my colleagues, teachers and friends, and sought out their advice. Among them are Prof. Dorit Aharonov, Eran Arie, Dr. Celia Bergoffen, Dr. Yoram Cohen, Prof. Eva von Dassow, Shay Gordin, Dr. Robert Hawley, Prof. Gunnar Lehmann, Prof. Jared Miller, Dr. Marina Pucci, Dr. Carole Roche, Prof. Jeremy Rutter, Prof. Itamar Singer, Dr. Sebastiano Soldi and Boaz Stavi. An early summary of some aspects of this research was presented at the 51e Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale, which took place in July 2005 at the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, as well as at the 2005 annual meeting of ASOR, which took place in Philadelphia. An early version of parts of this work is already published (Fink 2008b)—I would like to thank Inbal Samet for her editorial work on this publication, and for her helpful remarks and suggestions. The editing and formatting of the current work were undertaken by Kathryn R. and E. Tucker Morgan, and I thank them both sincerely for their diligence and undue joy in its completion. I would like to express my gratitude to the University College of London, Special Collections, for allowing me to study the archive of Sir Leonard Woolley and to the British Museum for facilitating the study of some objects and written records. I am especially thankful to Drs. Jonathan Tubb and Alexandra Fletcher, who went out of their way to help me. I gratefully acknowledge the financial support from the Dan David Scholarships, the Bimat Hahoker scholarship of Tel Aviv University and The State of Israel, The Ministry of Immigrant Absorption, which enabled me to complete this study. I achieved the greatest progress in research project during my six-month tenure at the Institute for Advanced Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (2008–2009), where I was a junior fellow in the group titled “Interconnections and Regional Narratives in Mediterranean Archaeology (ca. 1700–700 B.C.E.).” I am thankful to the IAS and indebted to the group of organizers, Profs. Aren Maeir, Assaf Yasur-Landau and Amihai Mazar, my mentor, who taught me how to dig. iv It is it due to generous support of Yad Hanadiv that selected me as a Rothschild fellow for the academic year 2009/2010 that I was able to turn this study into a published manuscript during a year of post-doctoral research in France. These post-doctorial studies are also supported by a grant of the French Embassy in Israel in collaboration with the Centre National des Oeuvres Universitaires et Scolaires of France. I am thankful to my hosts at Lyon’s Archéorient, in particulare to its director Prof. Pierre Lombard; to the Orient et Méditerranée CNRS team of Ivry-sur-Seine, directed by Prof. Christian Robin; and to Prof. André Lemaire. My work was closely monitored by my late grandmother Irena Fischer (Anyu) and my parents Chava and Shalom Fink, as well as my aunt Annie Fischer, who were relieved once it was approved. My life partner and husband Yossi Maurey went on this odyssey to Ithaca with me. “Ithaca has given us this beautiful voyage. Without her we would have never set out on the road. Wise as we have become, with so much experience, we must already have understood what Ithacas mean.” Last but not least - Joe and Jeanette Neubauer have shown me unlimited generosity, and taught me the meaning of unconditional love. I dedicate this work to them. v Table of Contents The New Stratigraphy of Tell Atchana 1 Introduction 14 Woolley’s Method and Mapping Reexamined 16 2.1 The Discovery of the Idrimi Statue 16 2.2 Grid line labels and the mislabeling of squares 17 2.3 Grid deviations and magnetic declination 21 2.4 The find-spot of the statue of Idrimi 27 The LBA Temples of Alalakh (Levels IV–0W): Archaeology and History 31 3.1 The relative and absolute locations of the Level IW temples 31 3.2 The annexes to the Levels IV–0W temples and the Paluwa Shrine 40 3.3 On the relative and absolute dating of the LBA temples at Alalakh (Levels IV-0W) 49 3.4 The find-spot of the statue of Idrimi, uncovered 56 Alalakh Under the Mittani Empire (Levels VIW–IVBF): Stratigraphy, Material Culture and History 61 4.1 Introduction 61 4.2 Level VIW 62 4.3 Levels V–IVW (–1420/1400) 63 4.4 The Dating of Levels VI–IVW 90 4.5 Level IVBF (1420/1400–1353/1341) 93 Levels III–IBF: Hittite Alalakh 120 5.1 Level IIIF (1353/1341–1320/1313) 120 5.2 Level IIABF (1320/1313–1240) 138 5.3 Level IABF (1240–1190/1185) 141 Conclusions: Alalakh in the 15th–12th Centuries 143 References 145 vi Table of Illustrations Tables and Adapted Tables Summary Table 1 2 Summary Table 2 3 Table 1. The location of grid line labels in relation to squares bearing the same name 20 Table 2. Woolley’s evolving records concerning the find-spot of the statue of Idrimi 28 Table 3.