THE TRANSITION FROM THE MIDDLE TO THE LATE BRONZE AGE IN THE NORTHERN LEVANT: THE EVIDENCE FROM TELL NEBI MEND, SYRIA. BY STEPHEN J.BOURKE THESIS SUBMITTED FOR THE DEGREE OF PH.D AT THE INSTITUTE OF ARCHAEOLOGY, UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, UNIVERSITY OF LONDON DECEMBER 1991 DEDICATION For my Mother Frances Catherine Bourke (1926-1965) In partial fulfilment.... 2 ABSTRACT This thesis consists of six chapters of description and analysis of the Second Millennium architecture and ceramics excavated at Tell Nebi Mend (TNM), ancient Qadesh on the Orontes. Further analysis centres on the problem of the apparent gap in occupation in many of the major sites in north-central Syria between ca. 1750-1550 B.C. Chapter One describes previous excavation and research into the archaeology of Second Millennium Syria, reviewing main discoveries and the origins of the major research problem s in the field. Chapter Two outlines the history of excavation at TNM and describes in detail the archaeological stratigraphy relevant to Second Millennium investigations, concluding with a summary of stratigraphy and a short comparative analysis of regional site histories. Chapter Three details the ceramic type series, containing sections on type description, shape, ware, and decoration analysis, and a diachronic study of variation in all of the above over the course of the Second Millennium occupation at the site. Chapter Four consists of a comparative ceramic analysis. The TNM assemblage is placed in a regional relative and absolute chronological context. A final point demonstrates the importance of comparative ceramic analysis for the elucidation of cultural inter-relationships, and alterations in these over the course of the Second Millennium. Chapter Five concentrates on the problem of the Syrian MB/LB Gap Hypothesis, and through the medium of a number of archaeological case studies central to the genesis and development of scholarship on the problem demonstrate that the problem is more a function of unnecessary assumptions about the unity of ceramic occurrences, than any real gap in occupation. A concomitant problem, the definition of MB/LB and LB I ceramic assemblages, is shown to arise from unnecessary reliance on rare imported and fine ware ceramics as the determinants of relative and absolute chronology. Local coarseware ceramics, through their ubiquity, are more suitable determinants of chronological inter-relationships. Chapter Six summarises thesis arguments, and considers the phenomenon of a widespread destruction horizon in both the northern and the southern Levant at the transition from the Middle to the Late Bronze Age. An over-reliance on enigmatic textual sources has tended to obscure the fact that the destruction horizon is too severe and too extensive to be accounted for by the textual sources. It is suggested that the horizon of destruction is likely to be more adequately accounted for by a widespread regional earthquake, similar in severity and extent to a number of historically attested geological events. Although not central to the thesis, it is suggested that this regional earthquake is to be related to the well known MB/LB period eruption of the Thera Volcano. 3 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS A very large number of people have assisted in various ways over the extended period of the writing this thesis. It is not possible to thank them all individually, so I must do so collectively. My first thanks must go to my supervisor Peter J. Parr, of the Institute of Archaeology, University College London, for suggesting the topic to me, for making available the entire TNM corpus and documentation for this research, and for tolerating endless questions to no apparent purpose. The thesis was written in part whilst I held a Commonwealth Scholarship to the United Kingdom, and in part whilst a Tutor and Temporary Lecturer in the Dept, of Archaeology of the University of Sydney. I must thank the staff of the Association of Commonwealth Universities at John Foster House, and particularly my Scholarships Officers there, for patience and tolerance of an idiosyncratic Antipodean much taken with Middle Eastern travel. Equally, I must thank Professor J.B. Hennessy for offering me the Tutorship and Temporary Lectureship at Sydney that allowed me to complete this research. My research on the Busra and Pella ceramics in April of 1987 was made possible by a grant from the Near Eastern Archaeology Foundation of the University of Sydney. My travels to Scandinavia in March of 1988 were made possible by a grant from the Childe Fund of the Institute of Archaeology, and by a grant from the Central Research Fund of the University of London. My travels to the United States in June 1988 were made possible by a second grant from the Near Eastern Archaeology Foundation of the University of Sydney. In the United Kingdom, I wish to thank Dr. Roger Moorey for patience, firm advice, and personal kindness, when this exercise in endurance came close to floundering; Mr. Jonathon Tubb of the Western Asiatic Section of the British Museum, for discussing the problems of Syrian MBIIA Painted ceramics, and the British Museum excavations at Tell es Saidiyeh; Dr. Rupert Chapman of the Palestine Exploration Fund for granting access to the PEF Library, and for much stimulating discussion on the problems surrounding the MB/LB material from Jericho; Dr. Gerald Cadogan for allowing the author to examine photographs of the Maroni Tomb I material, and for discussing LCIA foreign relations with me; The Hon. Vronwy Hankey for information on matters Mycenaean ceramic from both the Amman Temple and from the Jerash Pella tombs; Dr. Kay Prag of the Manchester University Museum, for allowing me access to the second volume of the Jerusalem excavation reports before such was readily available; Ms. Catriona Bonfiglioli of Oxford for inking a large number of the figures, and for the production of the pie-charts containing the quantitative data on the TNM ceramics. 4 1 In Scandinavia, I wish to thank Dr. Ingolf Thuesen of the Carsten Niebuhr Institute of the University of Copenhagen for facilitating access to the Hama ceramics; Dr. John Lund of the Copenhagen National Museum for granting access to the Hama fine wares on display at the museum; Professor Paul Astrom of the Institute of Classical Studies of Gothenberg University for much helpful information on the Tell es Salihiyeh material, and for detailed discussion of the stratigraphic and ceramic materials of the Late Cypriote Bronze Age; Dr. Peter Fischer of Gothenberg University for granting access to the skeletal material from the mass graves at Enkomi, for analysis. In the United States, I wish to thank Dr. Patrick McGovern for facilitating access to the University Museum collections, particularly the material from Beth Shan, Tell es Saidiyeh and Gibeon, for discussing at length the chronological and cultural problems of the LBIA period in the southern Levant, and for allowing me to examine his unpublished monograph on the Beth Shan IX-VII material; Mr. Ray Tindall, of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, and Dr. Rudolph Domemann, of the Milwaukee Public Museum, for granting access to the Tell al Judaideh material; Dr. Joanna McClellan, for much personal kindness, for discussing at length the Chicago excavations at el-Qitar, and for granting access to Dr. Thomas McClellan's then unpublished paper on the Atchana sequence; Professor Gus van Beek of the Smithsonian Institution, for allowing me to examine the MB/LB ceramics from Tell Jemmeh, and for discussing Petrie's ’Egypt over the Border' excavations with me; Professor R.H. Smith of Wooster College, Ohio, for discussing at length the largely unpublished MB/LB material from the Wooster excavations at Pella in Jordan. In the Middle East, I wish to thank Dr. Andrew Garrard, then Director of the British Institute at Amman for Archaeology and History, and Dr. Steven Hart, then Secretary/Librarian of the Amman Institute, for much personal kindness, and for allowing access to the MB/LB material from the Edom Survey Project; Mr. Rob Faulkner, for allowing me to examine the MB/LB ceramics from the Amman Institute's Amman Citadel excavations; Dr. Graham Philip, current Assistent Director of the Amman Institute, for providing me with access to his then unpublished manuscripts on Jericho MBA and Cypriot MB/LB metallurgy, and for discussing with me the many difficulties associated with the relative and absolute chronology of Syrian MB/LB metallurgy; Professor C.J. Lenzen, for allowing me to examine the MB/LB material from the Tell Irbid excavations, and for extensive discussions on the problems of the MB/LB transition in Jordan; Professor Helga Seeden of the American University at Beirut, for providing me with a complete set of her then unpublished Busra Bronze Age ceramic figures, and for extensive discussions on the Busra and Hawrani MB/LB material. In Australia, I must thank Professor J.B. Hennessy for extensive discussion of the relative and absolute chronological inter-connections between Cyprus and the Levant, for information on Stewart's Ajjul manuscript, which still remains only partially published, for access to his Stephania excavation records, 5 those of the Sydney University Pella Project, and for permission to comment on his unpublished manuscript on the fine and imported wares from the Amuq and Atchana excavations; Ms. Kathryn Eriksson, for extensive discussion on the role of Cypriot ceramics in Levantine chronological calculations, the importance of the Cypriot and Aegean ceramics from the EES excavations at Kom Rabia, Memphis, and for permission to comment on her unpublished manuscript on Cypriot and Levantine relative and absolute chronology; Dr. Lisa Giddy, then Lecturer in Archaeology at Sydney University, for providing access to several important manuscripts on the Kom Rabia ceramics, and for discussing with me the stratigraphic details of the Kom Rabia sequence; Mr.