The Amuq Region during the Iron Age I–II: Formation, Organisation and Development of a Community

Abstract: The Amuq region, located at the crossroads between Cilicia, Anatolia, Syria and Mesopotamia has always played a crucial role in understanding interaction and acculturation processes between different cultural groups. The archaeological discoveries of the last twenty years in Aleppo, Tell Tayinat, and in the Amuq provided important elements on the Iron Age I, proving that at least since the 11th century BC the region was the core of an independent policy; its material culture, known from old and recent excavations at Tell Tayinat, Tell Atchana, Chatal Höyük, Sabuniye, and Tell Judeidah, shows Anatolian, Mycenaean and north-Syrian (local) features mixed and melted to shape a new horizon of material culture. This article provides a short summary on the historical evidence at our disposal and an overview on the archaeology for the Iron Age I–II in the Amuq; it focuses on the processes of formation of a community, whose material culture seems to be a balance between Late Bronze Age legacy and Iron Age innovations, and investigates the geographical spread of this material in the neighbouring regions with a special focus on the Iron Age I and II, before the Assyrian conquest of Tell Tayinat (738 BC).