ARSLANTEPE-MALATYA, Eastern Turkey, is a 30 m. high mound with a long sequence of levels from the 6th mill.BC to the Byzantine period. The many years of estensive and stratigraphic excavation have brought to light the history of the site and the whole SE Anatolian region at the border of the Mesopotamian world. The researches at the site have allowed to better understand the origin of crucial phenomena such as the rise of the State and hierarchical societies.
The discovery of the first example of a palatial complex from 3300 BC with a great deal of in situ materials, among which thousands of seal impressions, has allowed us to reconstruct the birth of bureaucracy and centralized economy. The recent discovery of hundreds of sealings in an earlier temple area and that of a monumental "audience" building in the palace give information on an extraordinary precocious secularization
of power.
The sequence of Early Bronze levels (3rd mill.BC) have revealed the dynamics of collapse of this early palatial system and the complex relationships between pastoral nomadic and sedentary rural components in the area.
In the NE part of the site, a long and interesting sequence of the 2nd and 1st millennia BC shows that Arslantepe underwent crucial changes in the periods of formation, expansion and collapse of the Hittite Empire in Central Anatolia and became a capital of its region, strategic border between the main Near Eastern civilizations.
Recently, Arslantepe has been included by the Turkish authorities in the provisional list of the UNESCO World Cultural Heritage, a process which requires new and more compelling obligations of research, conservation and public archaeology development.
In recognition of the important results obtained, the director has been elected Foreign Member of the NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES and has obtained the DE SICA PRIZE FOR SCIENCE (2015) and ROTONDI PRIZE (2017). A DISCOVERY AWARD has been granted to the project
by the Shanghai Archaelogy Forum.
In recent years the researches at Arslantepe have applied several innovative methodologies in various scientific fields, also obtaining, in a close interdisciplinary relationship, innovative historical and
anthropological results on the rise and development of one of the earliest examples of Early State system.
- SYSTEMATIC METHODOLOGIES OF COMBINED STRATIGRAPHIC AND EXTENSIVE EXCAVATION have allowed to bring to light and thoroughly investigate large settlement areas with large amount of in situ
materials, and reconstruct, with meticulous recovering procedures, the function of rooms and buildings, identifying public and domestic spaces and their specific function. This methodology has allowed to reconstruct the organization of different societies in the course of millennia. The application of rigorous excavation strategies and methodologies have made Arslantepe a reference site for the chronology and cultural history of Anatolia, and beyond (Oxford Handbook of Ancient Anatolia, 2011).
- The sampling and study of MICRO-REMAINS AND MICRO-MORPHOLOGY OF INDIVIDUAL ROOM FLOORS started in 2013 and is greatly contributing to the reconstruction of activity areas and the organization of daily life in the successive settlements.
- ARCHAEOBOTANICAL STUDIES (Dip. di Biologia Ambientale, Sapienza University of Rome) carried out on woods, seeds and pollens are greatly contributing to the reconstruction of agricultural practices and palaeo-environment in the different periods concerned.
- ARCHAEOZOOLOGICAL RESEARCHES analyse animal breeding patterns in various periods and contribute to the study of ancient pastoralism.
- DNA ANALYSES ON ANIMAL BONES are giving results on animal population movements and genetics.
- STABLE ISOTOPE STUDIES CARRIED OUT ON VEGETAL REMAINS from various levels and periods have allowed to reconstruct important aspects of the climatic changes from 4th to 2nd millennium BCE, enlightening in particular the unstable conditions in the transition from 4th to 3rd millennium, the period of the substantial socio-political change manifested by the collapse of the Palace system and the establishment of a new course in the history of Arslantepe, made of social and political instability and conflicts between different socio-economic, cultural, and perhaps ethnic components in the region. The scientific contribution given by this research has stressed the importance of environmental and palaeoclimatic studies at micro-regional level, showing that the transition to 3rd millennium in the Malatya plain was not characterized by the same aridity process evidenced in other regions of the Near East, whereas an increasing aridity is shown in this region later, in the following phases of the 3rd millennium.
These studies, by comparing isotopes on woods and seeds, have also contributed to the understanding of agricultural practices and the possible intervention of irrigation in various periods and socio-economic contexts.
- STABLE ISOTOPE STUDIES CARRIED OUT ON ANIMAL AND HUMAN BONES in cooperation with the University of Parma is giving crucial information on: a) the original environment and provenience of human and animal populations, consequently suggesting possible migration phenomena, as well as animal breeding practices such as transhumance or nomadic pastoralism; b) diets and eating habits. The results fundamentally support the interpretation of cultural changes and events documented by the analysis of settlements and archaeological data.
- AMS C14 DATING, carried out in collaboration with the University of Naples II (Prof. Terrasi), is giving a fundamental chronological framework for all the historical and archaeological studies and a solid basis for re-constructing the chronology of the whole region.
- DNA ANALYSIS ON HUMAN BONES started in 2016, with the Hacettepe University of Ankara, the University of Heidelberg and the Max Planck Institute, Germany. Study of the Arslantepe population genetics in the framework of wider studies on European-Mediterranean and Western Asian contexts.
- ANALYSES BY SEM, XRD ED AFM ON CLAY-SEALING SAMPLES are planned to be conducted in 2017-2018 in the CNIS-NANOLAB of SAPIENZA University, in order to characterize the provenience and variability of the clay sources used in the administrative procedures carried out in the 4th millennium temples at Arslantepe. The identification of clay sources and their use in the same context will help in recognizing the nature and place of sealing practices: local or non-local, redistribution or trade, time, intensity and scale of the sealing operations.
This studies have already obtained very innovative results as for the Palace.
- MODELING BRONZE AGE LAND USE IN THE MALATYA PLAIN (with Technical University of Istanbul, B.Arikan). Archaeobotanical, geomorphological, and archaeological data are put together in a new computer simulation model for reconstructing the ancient landscape and population density in different periods.