Political and Cultic Landscapes in the Northeast Mediterranean, ca. 1175-675 BCE: Institutional Change and Identity Making

Abstract

This dissertation investigates the political and cultic history of the northeast Mediterranean during the Iron Age (ca. 1175 to 675 BCE) through an analysis of institutions and their connections to group identities. After the sociopolitical upheaval at the end of the Late Bronze Age, this region experienced a period of rapid regeneration and cultural differentiation. Rather than prioritizing a narrative of Late Bronze Age legacy or of Mediterranean new-comers and Aegeanization, this project aims to situate the trajectories of local traditions and innovations within regional trends through a micro-regional and multi-scalar model of glocalization. It attempts to define the modes of interaction between different communities and developments within new Iron Age entities through an investigation of material proxies and the textual record of the region. While a wealth of archaeological investigations and event histories concerning this region have been produced in recent years, a proper historical work that considers archaeological and epigraphic sources to investigate social, political, and cultic processes from the transitional phase of the Early Iron Age into the Neo-Assyrian period in this region is still lacking. The goal of this project is essentially threefold: first, it aims to provide an analysis of the developing forms of political rule, the interactions between local small kingdoms and more distant political entities, local responses to imperial pressures at the hands of Assyria, and the legacy of Bronze Age traditions and Iron Age innovations; second, it strives to illustrate regional and local trends in cultic practice with attention to continuity and change in cult space, representations, and the conceptualization of deities as a means of defining community identities centered around certain cults. Building upon the first two goals, it also seeks to understand the ways in which participation in political and cultic institutions helps shape individual and group identity making through a diachronic and micro-regional approach to the material and textual indices of the past. Lastly, the project attempts to identify synchronic developments across both the political and cultic spheres of society, in order to understand any connectivity between specific sociopolitical and cultic processes. In addition to the inherent value of a micro-history of the region, this project provides a novel interpretation of the political and cultic landscapes of the Iron Age in a central region of the eastern Mediterranean following the collapse of the Late Bronze Age political network and social structure.