Abstract
This article presents previously unknown archaeological evidence of a mid-second-millenniumbckingdom located in central western Anatolia. Discovered during the work of the Central Lydia Archaeological Survey in the Marmara Lake basin of the Gediz Valley in western Turkey, the material evidence appears to correlate well with text-based reconstructions of Late Bronze Age historical geography drawn from Hittite archives. One site in particular—Kaymakçı—stands out as a regional capital and the results of the systematic archaeological survey allow for an understanding of local settlement patterns, moving beyond traditional correlations between historical geography and capital sites alone. Comparison with contemporary sites in central western Anatolia, furthermore, identifies material commonalities in site forms that may indicate a regional architectural tradition if not just influence from Hittite hegemony.
Highlights
The historical geography of western Anatolia in the second millennium BC has become much clearer in recent decades
Of the thirty-four sites discovered during the course of Central Lydia Archaeological Survey (CLAS) work and dated to the second millennium BC based on material remains, twenty-three were characterized by their small size and low ceramic densities (Figure 2)
While the preponderance of evidence currently suggests that this kingdom held sway over the realm known to the Hittites as the Seha River Land in the Late Bronze Age, this identification remains a prevailing theory, subject to confirmation or refutation by new evidence
Summary
The historical geography of western Anatolia in the second millennium BC has become much clearer in recent decades. The precise locations of these vassal kingdoms in western Anatolia have gained resolution recently, after nearly a century of scholarship Their existence, based on evidence provided by cuneiform tablets in archives at Hattusa, has been known since early in the twentieth century, yet only in the last thirty years have nearly continuous epigraphical, archaeological, and topographical discoveries and syntheses enabled their more confident placement on the map (Figure 1). These were dated primarily by ceramic material, drawing from western Anatolian datasets and the regional typology developed from macroscopic, chemical, and petrographic analyses.
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