RT Article
T1 Networks of Specialized Knowledge: Cult and Its Imagery in Early Iron Age Malizi and Palastina
JF Near Eastern archaeology
VO 86
IS 2
SP 112
OP 121
A1 Lovejoy, Nathan
LA English
YR 2023
UL https://ixtheo.de/Record/1860646522
AB Recent research focused on the regions of Malatya and the northern Levant has allowed scholars to improve our understanding of the political history of the polities of Malizi and Palastina. The present article examines recent archaeological evidence from Arslantepe and several northern Levantine sites alongside a corpus of textual and iconographic data from the upper Euphrates and the northern Levant in an attempt to identify Early Iron Age networks of cultural exchange that resulted in shared specialized cultic and artistic knowledge. While networks of interaction between these regions may have begun as a product of persistent sociopolitical ties following the fragmentation of the Hittite Empire, this article proposes that it is due to the resilience of major cult centers that Malizi and Palastina were able to exchange specialized cultic knowledge and artistic traditions and employ them in the definition of their new Iron Age cultic and political communities.
DO 10.1086/724782