1
It is well known that Heinrich Schliemann used the
discovery of Priam’s Treasure to support his
hypothesis that he was indeed excavating Homer’s Troy
(fig. 1). His interpretation of this depositional context
leapt from a passage in the Iliad that related King Priam
morosely rummaging through his chest of treasures,
hoping to offer a ransom for the corpse of his son. In
Schliemann’s reconstruction, Priam’s Treasure was
sealed in the destruction context caused by the final
Achaean assault (Schliemann 1880: 454).
Priam’s Treasure (hereafter Treasure A) has since
been securely dated to the late Early Bronze Age in
Anatolia (about 1,000 years prior to the traditional date
for the events described in the Iliad, see chronological
chart in fig. 2). Nevertheless a kind of Trojan War in the
Early Bronze Age has provided another context to
interpret Treasure A and 16 additional deposits of
metalwork and other precious objects that have also been
securely dated to this period. The settlement of Troia II−
III suffered three destructions and it is within the climate
Anatolian Studies 59 (2009): 1−18
The treasure deposits of Troy: rethinking crisis and
agency on the Early Bronze Age citadel
Christoph Bachhuber
University of Oxford
Abstract
The treasure deposits of Troy have been largely studied in isolation from both architectural developments and other
depositional contexts in Troia II−III. The corpus has been perceived as little more than a catalogue of information that
can be assessed to outline various trends related to metallurgical production, expanding networks of exchange and
fluctuations in economic wealth. Considerations of agency have been few and limited. This study relates the content
and context of the treasures to depositional and architectural patterns that begin in Troia II. Meaningful continuities
and transformations between Troia II−III ultimately challenge the widely held reconstruction that the treasures were a
concealment of wealth in anticipation of an attack. The study arrives at an alternative explanation with a consideration
of the relationship between the destruction and abandonment of the Troia II central megaron complex and the
deposition of treasure. The central megaron complex and the treasure deposits represent two distinct and divergent
strategies of élite initiative on the citadel. The study concludes with a consideration of the inherently destabilising
practices of treasures deposition, the final destruction of Troia III and the end of the Early Bronze Age in Anatolia.
Özet
Troya’daki hazine gömüleri büyük çoğunlukla hem mimari gelişmelerden hem de Troya II−III evreleri diğer
gömülerinden bağımsız olarak incelenmiştir. Bu nedenle bu çalışmalar sonucu oluşturulmuş yazılı açıklamalar
metalurjik üretim, iletişim ağlarındaki genişleme, ekonomik refahtaki dalgalanmalar gibi farklı çizgiler izlenerek oluşturulabilecek
taslak niteliğindeki kataloklardan daha fazla bilgi vermemektedir. Dönemsel faaliyetleri göz önüne alan
çalışma çok az sayıda ve kısıtlıdır. Bu çalışma Troya II ile başlamak üzere gömüleri ve mimari modelleri ilişkilendirerek
gömünün hem içeriğini, hem de ortaya çıkarıldığı ortamı incelemektedir. Troya II ve III arasında gözlenen anlamlı
süreklilik ve değişmeler, geniş bir kesim tarafından kabul gören -hazine gömülerinin tahmin edilen bir saldırı için refahın
gizlenmesi- olduğu görüşüne karşı fikirler ortaya çıkarmıştır. Bu çalışma, Troya II merkezi megaron kompleksinde
meydana gelen yıkım ve terk edilmiş olma ile hazine gömüleri arasındaki ilişkiyi değerlendirerek alternatif bir
açıklamaya ulaşmıştır. Merkezi megaron kompleksi ile hazine gömüleri kale durumundaki bu kentte elit inisiatifinin
birbirinden farklı ve zıt iki stratejisini temsil eder. Çalışma yöre halkına miras kalmış olan düzensiz gömü uygulaması,
Troya III deki nihai yıkım ve Anadolu’da Erken Bronz Çağ’ın bitimini dikkate alarak bir sonuca ulaşmaktadır.
of recurrent settlement destruction that archaeologists
and historians have outlined a hoarding scenario for the
Trojan treasures, whereby wealth was concealed in anticipation
of an attack (see below).
Considerations of instability are clearly one relevant
approach to the problem of the treasure deposits; though
there are additional contexts and dynamics that archaeologists
have yet to explore. The three most significant for
this discussion include the strong suggestions of
banqueting and associated deposition on the Early
Bronze Age citadel, the relationship between depositional
contexts and architectural features on or near to the
citadel, and the socially-contingent response of Troy’s
inhabitants to regional and pan-regional developments
towards the end of the Early Bronze Age in western
Anatolia.
The formal deposition of banqueting equipment on
the Trojan citadel
The following discussion will relate Carl Blegen’s
chronological markers for phase IIc−III to the chronological
markers created in a recent re-excavation and
analysis by Günter Mansfeld (2001) of ‘Pinnacle E4/5’ at
the centre of the citadel. The earliest level reached in this
stratigraphic reinvestigation of the citadel is Troia II/7a
(Blegen’s phase IIc). Thus phase IIc (Blegen) is equivalent
to Troia II/7a (Mansfeld) (see fig. 2).
The destruction that terminated phase I of Blegen’s
excavations marked one of the more significant transitions
of the settlement’s history. Innovations in ceramics
began in phase IIa with one- and two-handled and
handleless tankard shapes (Blegen et al. 1950: 229),
predating the introduction of the potter’s wheel which
was the hallmark of phase IIb. New ceramic forms in
phase IIb included flat plates with polished slip and
wheelmade bowls with flaring sides (Blegen et al. 1950:
205). Phase IIb also introduced the pervasive red slipped
wares (also called red coated wares), which assume the
form of plates (both handmade and wheelmade), oneand
two-handled and handleless tankards, bowls, jugs
and storage jars. The emblematic form of the red slipped
repertoire, the depas cup, was introduced in phase IIc
(Troia II/7a) (Blegen et al. 1950: 224−37).
By the time the red slipped ware (hereafter RSW)
repertoire had reached its full assemblage in phase IIc
(Troia II/7a), the Trojans had begun to deposit this
pottery in meaningful ways. Carl Blegen’s excavations
on the Ledge, about 100m west of the citadel (fig. 3a),
identified a large rectangular basin (16m by 6m) cut out
of an overhanging ledge of limestone, filled with a
remarkable accumulation (3.5m) of depositional
material, including large quantities of pottery (almost
exclusively RSW) and faunal remains dominated by
cattle and goat, with lesser volumes of sheep, deer, pig,
dog and tortoise. The Ledge was also filled with unidentified
burnt organic matter and with numerous stone
idols, celts and spindle whorls (Blegen et al. 1950: 270−
77). On the surface this appeared to Blegen as the
settlement midden, though he could not explain the effort
invested in cutting out this large basin from an
overhanging ledge, nor the deposition of idols and celts.
Blegen raised the possibility that this was a cultic space
where burnt offerings had been made (Blegen et al. 1950:
270).
The Ledge appears to have fallen out of use in phase
IId (Troia II/7d) (Blegen et al. 1950: 270), when depositional
behaviour was transferred to numerous pits on the
citadel in phase IId (Troia II7d), a level which Blegen has
identified as the ‘Pit Period’ (Blegen et al. 1950: 206).
Blegen identified 22 pits (which he called bothroi)
concentrated in an area of the southwest corner of the
enclosure wall (both within and outside of the enclosure
corner), just south of the entrance of Megaron IIA
(Blegen et al. 1950: 206, pls 456−57) (fig. 3a). Almost
all the pits contained fragments of large pithoi, as well as
slabs of schist that may have topped these containers
(Blegen et al. 1950: 278). The bothroi were filled with
Anatolian Studies 2009
2
Fig. 1. ‘Priam’s Treasure’ as displayed and represented
by Schliemann (from Schliemann 1880: no. 14)
Bachhuber
3
Year
Periodisation of
treasure deposits
Troia
(Mansfeld
Troy
(Blegen)
Troy
(Easton)
Poliochni
Demirci-
höyük
Alaca-
höyük
Syro-
Mesop.
2000
VI V V
______ ______ ______
Ur III
2100
IV IV IV
transitional ______
Guti
_______________ ______ ______ ______ ______ ______
2200 Troia III destroyed Giallo
III/4a−d IIId destroyed
Troia II8/a−III ______ ______
(phase IIf/g−III)
intentional deposits III/3a−c IIIc III Akkad
A, B, C, J, F, L ______ ______
2300 III/2a−b IIIb
‘neue Baukonzept’ ______ ______ Giallo
III/a−e IIIa ______
______ ______ 4
II/9a−d IIg Mardikh
______ ______ Late II Latest IIB1
2400 II8/a−c IIIf Tomb H Brak L
_______________ ______ ______ ______ ______ abandoned
Megara destroyed II/7f IIe
______ ______
Troia II/7a−f (phase II/7e Mid II ED III
IIc−e) unintentional ______ IId 6−5
2500 deposits R1, N, G, Q II/7c−d ______ ______
______ Rosso
II/7a−b IIc P−Q
______ ______ ______ ______ Mardikh IIA
Phase IIa−b Pinnacle IIa−b Early II ______ O Brak K
_______________ E4/5 not ______ Verde ______ ______ ______
2600 Terminal phase I excavated I N 7 Ninevite V
R
o
y
a
l
T
o
m
b
s
Fig. 2. Chronological scheme for the developments outlined in the paper. The relative dates for Mansfeld, Blegen and
Easton reflect only their choice of chronological markers for the different phases and do not reflect the absolute dates
arrived at in their respective studies (see Mansfeld 2001; Blegen et al. 1950; Easton 1997; 2002). The absolute dates
are my own. I have arrived at the absolute dates through a combined consideration of radiocarbon and dendrochronological
data retrieved from samples taken in the recent German-Turkish excavations of ‘Pinnacle E4/5’ on the Early
Bronze Age citadel (Mansfeld 2001: 201−03) coupled with my comprehensive chronological analysis of Early Bronze
Age Anatolia (Bachhuber 2008: 20−63, Appendix 2 for radiocarbon and dendrochronological data)
many representatives of the RSW repertoire, dominated
by the flaring plates, pitchers and a few depas cups and
other tankards (Blegen et al. 1950: 285−88, 292−93,
295−96). A silver bowl was identified in one of these pits
(Blegen et al. 1950: 280−81), as were copper/bronze
garment pins, crystal pendants, bone idols and combs,
and spindle whorls. The pits were also nearly all filled
with animal bones, shellfish and ‘carbonized matter’
(Blegen et al. 1950: 206, 279−80). The current GermanTurkish
excavations have identified similar pits in later
contexts (Troia II/9d−III/1a = phase IIg/IIIa), including
two with intact pithoi and one with a floor covered in
ashes (Sazcı 2005: 55−56). Like Blegen’s ‘curious pits’,
these contained faunal remains, RSW ceramics and a
single spindle whorl.
An interpretation of the phase IIc (Troia II/7a) Ledge
context and the numerous pits on the later citadel may
begin to be apprehended within a context of ‘structural
deposition’ (after Chapman 2000). Robert Chapman
observes (in the Neolithic and Copper Ages of the
Balkans) that the contents of pits may be distinguished
regularly from the cultural layer of refuse and detritus
observed in settlements (Chapman 2000: 63). Patterns of
repetition emerge, including in the deposition of burnt
material or object sets (for example, a specific repertoire
of pottery), which suggest in his study a degree of
structure and formality (Chapman 2000: 83). I wish to
introduce similar considerations to the evidence for the
deposition of the RSW at Troia, and suggest that the
Ledge and the pits on the later citadel represent
formalised deposits of banqueting equipment and
materials.
In the past decade banqueting has been the focus of
considerable archaeological interest. Aegean prehistorians
in particular have explored in depth the interpretive
potential of banqueting activities to reconstruct
meaningful social strategies within pre-palatial and
palatial contexts (see recently Wright 2004; Halstead,
Barrett 2004; Bendall 2007: 25−65). The regions of the
east Aegean and coastal western Anatolia have been
largely left out of this dialogue (I could find one passing
reference in Wright 2004 and Halstead, Barrett 2004 to
‘EB 2’ forms in western Anatolia, see Day, Wilson 2004:
58). This is all the more notable, at least for the Early
Bronze Age, as Anatolian ceramic forms were the inspiration,
if not origin, for the Kastri/Lefkandi I repertoire,
which is widely understood to have transformed fundamentally
the ways in which Aegean societies consumed
food and drink (Rutter 1979; for recent discussion and
references, see Broodbank 2000: 309−13).
Much of the interpretive potential of banqueting
depends on the ability to differentiate a public banquet
from the prosaic day-to-day activities of food intake.
This is not a straightforward exercise in the archaeological
record. Anthropologists and archaeologists alike
have devised lists of criteria that could amount to the
material signature of a banquet (see Hayden 2001: fig.
2.1, 46−54; Junker 2001: 284−85; Dabney et al. 2004:
83). Evidence might include the presence of higher than
usual quantities of preparation and serving vessels, and a
deviation from the norm in the form, features and quality
of these vessels (Hayden 2001: fig. 2.1; Dabney et al.
2004: 82−83). The refuse of a feast should include faunal
remains, particularly of domesticated animals; and the
deposition of this material should be in non-domestic
contexts (Hayden 2001: fig. 2.1).
The depositions of the RSW and faunal remains in the
Ledge and later bothroi widely agree with these criteria
for banqueting activities. Additional evidence for
banqueting might include the presence of ceremonial or
prestige items that were used in the feast, or were intentionally
destroyed through breakage and/or burial
(Hayden 2001: fig. 2.1). The idols and celts are notable
from the Ledge deposit, as are the silver bowl,
copper/bronze garment pins, crystal pendants, bone idols
and combs from the later bothroi.
The relationship between depositional contexts and
architectural features in Troia II−−III
From the beginning of Troia II (phase II) access was
gained onto the citadel through the eastern Gate FO (fig.
3a); it would remain the main passage through all the
developments related in this paper (Easton 2002: 307−
08). In Troia II/7a (phase IIc) another and more elaborate
gate with a monumental stone-paved ramp provided an
additional passage. This was Gate FM which Schliemann
famously identified as Homer’s Scaean Gate. The
construction of Gate FM was contemporary with both the
full-fledged emergence of the RSW repertoire and the
Ledge where much of this pottery was deposited. Recent
excavations have identified a Troia III/1−2 wall built on
top of Gate FM, terminating the gate’s use on the citadel
(Sazcı 2005: 58). This development adheres to a general
trend in Troia III of decreased monumentality, which I
examine below.
Gate FM provided direct passage to the temenos of
the central megaron complex (fig. 3a, b); though Gate
FM was not the main passage onto the citadel. This was
provided by the older and more robust Gate FO. Nevertheless
the stone paving and extension of the ramp of
Gate FM provided it with an aura of material impressiveness
lacking in the main Gate FO. The entrant
through Gate FO would have also been confronted with
the enclosure surrounding the megaron complex, versus
unobstructed passage to the temenos from Gate FM (fig.
3a, b).
Anatolian Studies 2009
4
The Early Bronze Age citadel of Troia was not large
(100m in diameter) and certainly did not require two
monumentalising passages. It may be appropriate here to
reconstruct special-purpose functions for Gate FM, one
of which included joining the Troia II/7a (phase IIc)
temenos to the Ledge context about 100m to the west
(fig. 3a, b). Gate FM likely served as a public or
ceremonial passage onto and off the citadel during this
period and might have linked events on the citadel to
activities of meaningful deposition related to banqueting
at the Ledge basin, including the offerings of burnt
foodstuffs and faunal remains, the RSW repertoire, idols,
celts and spindle whorls.
The Ledge fell out of use by Troia II/7d (phase IId);
or at least ceramic forms from this period have not been
identified in the Ledge. Activities of formal deposition
were transferred to the citadel. This is observed in
Blegen’s bothroi that were located within and just outside
the temenos of the central megaron complex (fig. 3a).
These phase IId (Troia II/7d) ‘curious pits’ (after Blegen
1950: 279) contained similar banqueting equipment (the
RSW), faunal remains and burnt foodstuffs, but included
also the earliest evidence for the intentional deposition of
metal objects on the Trojan citadel − a silver bowl and
several copper/bronze garment pins. It appears that
metal had begun to be consumed in depositional contexts
that were related to banqueting activities in phase IId
(Troia II/7d).
The intentional deposition of metal in banqueting
events encourages the reconsideration of the context and
meaning of Schliemann’s treasures, which is itself faced
with several challenges. Judgments of the moral
character of Schliemann have cast doubt on the veracity
of his records, in particular his identification of ‘Priam’s
Treasure’ (Treasure A). His discovery of the deposit has
been most vocally challenged by the modern historian
David Traill (see, for example, Traill 1993; 1995), who
has accused Schliemann of purchasing or manufacturing
objects to create Priam’s Treasure (Treasure A) or,
likewise, of compiling objects previously excavated from
contexts on the Trojan citadel or other sites. It should be
emphasised that inconsistencies have only been identified
in the recording of Treasure A, and in the recording of
Treasures N, R and S (Easton 2002: 23−24). These have
involved discrepancies in the records of when specific
treasures were identified (Treasures A and R) and discrepancies
caused by the intentional or unintentional recombination
or amalgamation of deposits in the publications
(Treasures A, N, R and S). It seems the worst Schliemann
can be accused of is combining objects from separate
deposits on the citadel; for example, bolstering the size of
Priam’s Treasure with previous or additional finds.
Subsequent excavations of Troy (see below), coupled
with Donald Easton’s enduring, reasoned and careful
scrutiny of Schliemann’s work (see, for example, Easton
1984; 1997; 2002) and my own study of Troy within a
broader context in Early Bronze Age Anatolia (Bachhuber
2008), all generally support Easton’s conclusions that the
published treasures (17 datable to the Early Bronze Age)
Bachhuber
5
Fig. 3a. Locating the proximity of the Troy IIc (Troia
II/7a) Ledge and the Troy IId (Troia II/7d) bothroi
(circled) (Troia II citadel plan from Easton 1997: fig. 86)
Fig. 3b. Showing detail of Megaron IIA with the
monumental hearth and Gate FM leading into the
temenos (after Schirmer 1971: fig. 11)
were more or less as Schliemann found them − with only
minor inconsistencies in his journals and publications.
The next major hurdle for interpreting the treasures is
their relative chronology, all but ignored by Schliemann
as he excavated them. The stratigraphy of their deposition
has been outlined in five major assessments (Götze 1902:
325−43; Blegen et al. 1950: 213; Bittel 1959; Easton
1997; Sazcı, Korfmann 2000). Blegen’s excavations
uncovered the greatest volume of gold and other metal
objects in phase IIg (Blegen et al. 1950: 213, tables 7, 8);
these were confined almost exclusively to jewellery and
identified in much lesser volumes than Schliemann’s
treasures. Blegen has necessarily associated most, if not
all, of Schliemann’s treasure deposits to late phase II
(phase IIg specifically = Troia II/9a−d, see below).
Similarly, the recent German-Turkish excavations have
identified small bronzes and a highly elaborated ceramic
ritual vessel from a secure Troia II/9d−III/1 context
(phase IIg/IIIa) in a building north of the main Gate FO,
leading Göksel Sazcı and Manfred Korfmann (2000: 97)
to conclude that this was indeed the Schatzfundhorizont.1
Kurt Bittel refined Blegen’s reconstruction of
treasure depositions with greater consideration of
context. He agreed with Blegen that most, if not all, the
treasures should be associated with late phase II (Bittel
1959: 21), but made the important distinction between
three categories of deposition (Bittel 1959: 18−19): (1)
treasures that were intentionally deposited in sealed
contexts (for example, in containers placed in the
ground), including Treasure A (Priam’s Treasure) which
was deposited in a cist-like construction, and Treasures
C, D, F, E, I and M identified in ceramic vessels; (2)
treasures that were excavated on the floors or amidst the
rubble of destruction contexts, which include Treasures
B, D, J and K; (3) treasures with very dubious context
that may have been collected as stray finds on the citadel,
including Treasures O, Q, R, S. The most salient
distinction for the remainder of this discussion exists
between objects that appear to have been intentionally
deposited and those that do not appear to have been.
Donald Easton has arrived at conclusions that both
agree with Blegen’s and Bittel’s analyses and also vary to
some degree. Like Bittel, Easton observes three similar
categories of treasures, though these have a chronological
pattern not observed in Bittel’s study (see Easton 1997:
194−97). These include: (1) treasures that may not have
been intentionally deposited, as they appear to have been
identified on the floors or amidst the rubble of destruction
contexts − Treasure R2 from terminal Troy I contexts falls
into this category, as do Treasures R1, N, G and Q from
middle Troy II contexts (phase IIe−f, Troia II/7a−e) (see
figs 2 and 4a); (2) treasures that were clearly deposited
intentionally, because they were identified in containers
or placed in pits in the ground − these were identified
exclusively in late Troy II contexts (phase IIf−g, Troia
II/8−9) and include Treasures A, B, C, J, F and L (fig. 4b);
(3) Easton has also dated the last category of deposits to
late phase II (phase IIf−g, Troia II/8−9), though, like the
first category, these were identified on the floor or in the
rubble of destruction contexts and thus may not have
been intentionally deposited. The last category includes
Treasures D, K, E, O and S1−2.
Two points of intersection emerge in the analyses of
Blegen, Bittel, Sazcı and Korfmann, and Easton (respectively).
Objects that were clearly and intentionally
deposited in containers are dateable exclusively to
contexts later than phase IIc−e (Troia II/7a−e) (see also
Easton 2002: 308); and, with the exception of Treasure L,
all these intentional deposits clustered around the
building complex at the west end of the citadel that
Schliemann called das Haus des Stadtoberhauptes,
hereafter ‘the house of the city king’ (fig. 4b). It should
be noted that the authors listed above do not include as
deposited treasures the silver bowl, copper/bronze
garment pins and crystal pendants identified in Blegen’s
phase IId (Troia II/7d) ‘curious pits’, though it appears
this is where the trend of treasure deposition had begun.
The house of the city king is a building complex
constructed after the destruction and abandonment of the
central megaron complex of Troia II/7a−f (phase IIc−e).
The house of the city king represents one aspect of an
architectural transformation on the citadel that now
conclusively belongs to Troia II/8a−III (late phase II−III)
(das neue Baukonzept after Mansfeld 2001: 197, 188−
200, fig. 12:1) (fig. 4a, b). The abandonment of the
central megaron complex and its monumental hearth in
Troia II/8a (see fig. 3b for Megaron IIA hearth), the
proliferation of smaller and more shabbily constructed
buildings and the apparent transfer of activities to a
meaner ‘house of the city king’ clearly represent significant
development on the citadel.
Anatolian Studies 2009
6
1
Though see also Korfmann 2001b for a reassessment of the
relative date of Priam’s Treasure (Treasure A), which is earlier
(late phase I−IIb) than the Troia II−III Schatzfundhorizont
context of his previous conclusion, published a year earlier.
The earlier late phase I−IIb date depends ultimately on associating
Treasure A with Gate FL rather than the King’s House (see
below). Gate FL went out of use prior to phase IIc (Troia II/7a).
His reconstruction is based largely on Easton’s (1984: 146−48,
fig. 2) locating of Priam’s Treasure just west of Gate FM and on
or just beyond the walls of the phase II citadel. However, more
recently Easton (1997) has favoured associating Treasure A
with ‘the house of the city king’ along with most of the other
intentionally deposited treasures. Easton has thus moved the
treasure to the interior of the citadel diminishing the likelihood
of Korfmann’s reconstruction.
In late Troia II−III the citadel had the appearance
more of a town than a restricted seat of élite residence
and ritual activity. The citadel more closely resembled
the densely-packed town plan of the contemporary and
neighbouring island community of Poliochni (RossoGiallo)
on Lemnos in the northeast Aegean (BernabòBrea
1964, and see below) (figs 4b, 5). It is worth then
considering what manner of transformation occurred on
the citadel in the transition from Troia II to Troia III.
The most poignant observation is the destruction and
abandonment of the monumental hearth and the
surrounding central megaron complex and temenos (fig.
3b). The hearth was a fundamental social and ideological
institution in prehistoric Anatolia; the furniture had been
treated with deference since the Early Chalcolithic (for
the clustering of corpulent female figurines around
elevated hearths at level VI Hacılar, see Mellaart 1970:
pls 11, 191, 192−229; see Bachhuber 2008: 99−107 for
discussions of hearth elaboration in Early Bronze Age
Anatolia). The monumentalising of the hearth in Troia
II/7a−f (phase IIc−e) may well represent a predecessor to
the ‘hearth-wanax’ ideology that James Wright has
observed in Mycenaean palatial society, whereby ‘the
symbolism of the role of the wanax … describes a
centripetal organization located in the megaron of the
palace and focused on the hearth where the ruler is
responsible for the maintenance of the cult’ (Wright
1994: 59−60).
The destruction and abandonment of the central
megaron complex and hearth raises the question why the
late Troia II−III inhabitants of the citadel chose not to
reconstruct these monuments. A contemporary and
related development was observed above with the
abandonment of Gate FM. We might arrive closer to an
interpretation with further consideration of the role of
monumentality in this society. Numerous neo-evolutionary
studies have emphasised the role of constructing
and observing monumental structures during the initial
stages of political centralisation (for overview and
discussion, see Kolb 1994: 521−52; see also Trigger
1990). In this scenario, mobilising corvée labour towards
monumental building projects and the observance of this
monumentality can be effective in consolidating social
groups through ideological and ceremonial means rather
than via more overtly oppressive political and militaristic
ones (Bradley 1984: 73). Monumentality tends to
emphasise the social collective in both endeavour and
observance, suppressing (though not eliminating) both
socio-economic differentiation and opportunities for
individual aggrandisement (Kolb 2005: 174; Knapp
2008: 206; though see critique below for the Trojan
material).
The surge of monumentality in Troia IIa−f (phase
IIc−e) included the construction of the central megaron
complex, which remains to this day the largest building
in the Early Bronze Age of western and central Anatolia,
the construction of the monumentalising Gate FM and an
expansion and strengthening of the citadel fortifications.
These architectural developments correspond with the
earliest identification of Syrian forms in western
Bachhuber
7
Fig. 4a. Easton’s (1997) location of the treasure deposits
on the Troia II citadel. None of these were deliberately
deposited (from Easton 1997: fig. 86)
Fig. 4b. Easton’s (1997) location of the intentionally
deposited treasures on the Troia III citadel, clustering
around the ‘house of the city king’ (from Easton 1997:
fig. 87) (see fig. 2 corresponding my Troia III with
Easton’s late Troy II)
Anatolia (fig. 5 and see below). Clearly the horizons of
Troy had expanded, observed most poignantly in the
exotic objects and materials that comprise part of the
Trojan treasures (see below) (Korfmann 2001a; Easton et
al. 2002: 103). The relationship between intensified
long-distance exchange and the growth of Troia II is thus
a linear one. It is worth considering (as Korfmann has
suggested) that the élite of Troia II held a privileged
position in the greater region of western Anatolia and the
east Aegean islands in negotiating the acquisition,
display and distribution of these kinds of exotic and
desired objects.
These same individuals or select social groups would
have engaged in a number of strategies to consolidate
political authority and assert their will in the region,
including implementing the monumentalising projects of
Troia II7a−f (phase IIc−e). Nevertheless, efforts of
political centralisation at Troy may not have been as
consensual as the neo-evolutionary model outlined
above would suggest. If political unification did occur,
its hold was tenuous and probably not that expansive,
judging from the bolstering of the citadel’s fortifications
in Troia II/7a (phase IIc) and the violent destruction in
Troia II/7f (phase IIe) that terminated the existence of
Anatolian Studies 2009
8
Fig. 5. Distribution of Syrian-inspired egg-shaped and
alabastron-shaped flasks across Anatolia and adjacent
regions (circles locate furthest west identifications of the
flasks) (map after Rahmstorf 2006: fig. 5; image of flasks
after Rahmstorf 2006: fig. 4); and a few sites mentioned
in the text
the central megaron complex and monumental hearth.
The architectural seclusion of the central megaron
complex (fig. 4a) also intimates more exclusivity and
perhaps also fear than one would expect from a
successful endeavour of social cohesion (after Ian
Hodder’s comments in Kolb 1994). It is worth considering
tensions that may have existed between the
builders of the monumentalising projects and other social
groups in the region, who may not have enjoyed all the
privileges of the citadel and who did not fully succumb
to the will of the élite of Troia IIc−e.
The destruction and abandonment of the monumental
hearth and the structures that enclosed it was no trivial
decision; rather it represents a purposeful dissociation
from the material manifestations of social and
ideological power of Troia IIc−e. This was a deliberate
attempt to erase a monumental reminder of the previous
period, or to erase what archaeologists are currently interpreting
as a material manifestation of social memory (see
Richards 1996).
Do these developments suggest some manner of
crisis that began with the destruction of the monumental
Troia II/7f citadel and culminated ultimately in the final
destruction of Troia III, ending the so-called Maritime
Troia-Kultur of Early Bronze Age Troia (see Korfmann
2001c: 347−48; Sazcı 2005)? Jan Driessen has defined
a crisis (after La Barre 1971: 11) as ‘a deeply felt
frustration or basic problem with which routine
methods, secular or sacred, cannot cope’. Crisis architecture
understands specific structural and planning
changes as a material and necessarily adaptive response
to unfavorable conditions. These developments might
be observed in the decreased investment and energy
input in architecture, a change in the settlement plan
and a change in the function of buildings (Driessen
1995: 68−76). The partial abandonment, structural
decline and transfer of activities that characterise the
transition from Troia II to Troia III do adhere to
Driessen’s model (see also Zuckerman 2009 for
discussion of crisis architecture at terminal Late Bronze
Age Hazor in Canaan). Nevertheless, the late Troia II−
III neu Baukonzept phase lasted at least two centuries
(see fig. 2), and so the final and catastrophic destruction
of the Troia III citadel and the end of the Maritime
Troia-Kultur was not impending to the late Troia II
builders (E.S. Sherratt, personal communication). A
social transformation on the citadel may well have
facilitated the decline and eventual destruction of Troia
III (see below), though a crisis is not an appropriate
designation for these developments. An alternative
interpretation can be reached with more careful consideration
of the deposition of treasures near the house of
the city king in late Troia II−III.
Considering the intentionality of metal deposition
The agency behind the treasure deposits of Troy has
received little academic scrutiny. Interest in the treasures
has been mostly informed by a catalogue-like approach,
where information from these objects has been assessed
to outline various trends in material culture, including
advances in metallurgy and the emergence of a shared,
pan-regional metallurgical koine (Canby 1965; MaxwellHyslop
1971: 38−63; Branigan 1974: 106−14; Musche
1992: 101−28; Yalçın 2000: 26; Yener 2000: 67), or as a
corpus to measure rates or intensity of exchange and a
related prosperity in western Anatolia (Bass 1970; Yakar
1985: 144; Mellink 1998: 2−4; Korfmann 2001a;
Şahoğlu 2005: 340−45). Similarly, archaeometric
studies of the provenance and composition of the metal
invested in the objects have addressed related concerns
with production and exchange (Pernicka 2001; Pernicka
et al. 2003). In other words, the study of the Trojan
treasures and other intentional deposits of metal in Early
Bronze Age Anatolia has been fundamentally more
concerned with their content than their context (after
Bradley [1998: 13] who makes the same observation for
the study of hoards in Europe). The positivism engrained
in the methodology of cataloguing the deposits, and
measuring trends with them, has overshadowed, if not
distorted, the social significance of these assemblages.
The intentions of metal deposition at Troy are not
self-evident, though the rare discussions of context have
generally reconstructed these activities within the three
settlement destructions that plagued the Troia II−III
citadel, including the catastrophes that terminated the use
of the central megaron complex and later ended the
Maritime Troia-Kultur period. In this scenario, the
treasure deposits were a concealment of wealth in anticipation
of an attack (Blegen et al. 1950: 366−67; Bittel
1959: 19; Bryce 2006: 51−52). Non-mortuary metal
deposits identified within contemporary violent
destruction contexts at Poliochni (Rosso-Giallo)
(Bernabò-Brea 1964: 284−91) and Eskiyapar (the socalled
‘EB III burnt house’) (Özgüç, Temizer 1993) have
supported this reconstruction (for concealment of the
Eskiyapar hoard, see Özgüç, Temizer 1993: 613; Yakar
2000: 244; and see below for further discussion of the
Poliochni and Eskiyapar deposits).
Whilst the treasures should be interpreted within a
context of profound (and potentially destabilising) social
change, we are left wondering why numerous and potentially
useful weapons were deposited in the Trojan
treasures if this society was indeed anticipating an attack
(seven spears and nine daggers were identified in
Treasure A alone [Götze 1902: 326−31]; see also the
discussion below of the single deposit at Poliochni that
contained four bronze daggers, three spears and five axes
Bachhuber
9
[Bernabò-Brea 1964: 659, pls 171−74]). The concealment
hypothesis also does not explain why more treasure
deposits have not been identified in Early Bronze Age
levels given the high frequency of settlement destruction
contexts across Anatolia.
The discussion moves closer to an interpretation with
Manfred Korfmann’s suggestion that Priam’s Treasure
(Treasure A) represents a foundation deposit related to
the construction of an auxiliary Gate FL (Korfmann
2001b: 378−80), presumably drawing on the well-known
parallels from Mesopotamia and Egypt (for
Mesopotamia, see Ellis 1968; for Egypt, see Weinstein
1973). Whilst Korfmann’s Gate FL association is
unlikely (see note 1), his observation shifts the emphasis
away from precautionary concealment towards ritual
activity. This is wholly appropriate and worthy of more
careful consideration.
The question of ‘ritual’ versus ‘profane’ has traditionally
dominated the study of non-mortuary metal
deposition in Bronze to Iron Age northern and western
Europe (where it was practised with remarkable
frequency and subsequently given much consideration).
For example, tools, raw materials and fragmented scrap
metal have been normally associated with profane
deposits; and intact weapons, ornamental items or objects
with cosmological referents have been associated with
ritual ones (Levy 1982: 22−44, fig. 3.1; for references to
more recent adoptions of these criteria, see Fontijn 2002:
17). The emphasis on categorisation highlights a fundamental
interest in identifying with whom or what
deposits may have been associated. For example, nonritual
(or profane) hoards have been sub-categorised into
‘personal’, ‘craftsman’ and ‘industrial’ deposits, where
industrial deposits have been further categorised into
‘merchants’ and ‘founders’ (Bradley 1998: 12), based on
ever fluctuating and often contradictory criteria (Fontijn
2002: 15−18). As regards Troy, Easton (1997: 196) has
categorised the Treasure L deposit with the four
ceremonial stone axes as a ‘lapidary hoard’. Ritual
deposits, on the other hand, should not be associated with
an individual (or trade), rather they should be interpreted
as votives made to some cosmological entity. Likewise,
distinguishing ritual from profane deposits in Bronze to
Iron Age Europe has been based on inconsistent and
ambiguous criteria (Fontijn 2002: table 2.3).
In the past three decades research has been moving
beyond the categorisation of hoards, towards enquiring
why valued objects and materials were deposited in
sealed, non-mortuary contexts in the first place. These
initial interpretive studies blurred the distinction between
ritual and profane, particularly in the works of Kristian
Kristiansen (1978) and Michael Rowlands (1980), who
suggested that deposited objects and materials created
scarcities for those types of objects and materials, thus
maintaining their value within networks of exchange. All
selective deposits then, regardless of their contents,
contained within them an element of economic rationality,
or calculation. Andrew Sherratt (1993: 24) interpreted
the Trojan treasures within this formalist
framework, whereby a period of metallurgical overproduction
at Early Bronze Age Troy caused a glut in
metal supply, and a subsequent risk of devaluation. The
solution was to deposit large volumes of it in the ground
− that is, in the Trojan treasures.
The reconstructions outlined above have been criticised
as being too formalist (for example, as being too
dependent on the market forces of supply, demand and
profit motive) (Bradley 1984: 101−14; Fontijn 2002: 18),
and have been challenged with more substantivist
scenarios to account for the consumption of metal in nonmortuary
contexts. In short, the more substantivist
position moves away from considerations of production
and exchange, and places greater consideration on the
relationship between exchange and consumption. Here,
the continued circulation of resources in Bronze Age
societies was perpetuated via an aggressive social and
economic strategy to maintain exchange imbalances,
whereby conspicuously large, valuable and prestigeenhancing
material consignments were proffered
personally to exchange partners within a regional
network. The regional partners were obliged to reciprocate
this personalised gesture, and, not to be outdone,
amassed enough resources and desirables to match, if not
outdo in expenditure, the original gesture, and so on and
so forth in the classic cycle of ‘gift exchange’.
The occasion might also arise, however, to freeze the
circulation of resources by consuming them in depositional
contexts. Here, the creation of scarcity (as in the
formalist model) is not the primary impetus to consume
− but rather the conspicuous and public gesture of
material consumption/destruction provides the context
for a prestige elevating expenditure; and the act of
consuming or destroying the expenditure shields the host
from the cycle of debt obligations that are inherent in gift
exchange (for discussion, see Gregory 1982: 59−61;
Bradley 1985: 31; Voutsaki 1997: 37−40). Richard
Bradley (1998: 138−42) has likened non-mortuary
deposits of metals in Late Bronze Age northern and
western Europe to ‘gifts to the gods’ (after Gregory
1980), whereby valuable materials that might have been
expended in a gift-exchange gesture to a rival or
counterpart were publicly removed from circulation and
ultimately consumed in the earth. Here, the accumulation
of prestige becomes a more important currency
than the accumulation of materials in the deposition or
consumption of metal in public events.
Anatolian Studies 2009
10
The negotiation of prestige sets in motion useful
concepts introduced by Arjun Appadurai (1986), who
outlines how the value of objects can be created beyond
the spheres of production, supply and demand. He
suggests that activities of exchange also create value, and
assesses arenas of exchange to understand how social
interaction is related to the valuation of commodities. He
describes one such arena as a ‘tournament of value’.
These events occur periodically and within sanctioned
social contexts removed from daily and mundane social
and economic activities. The actors involved are nevertheless
brought together in a competitive arena to jostle
for social and political status, partially through the negotiation
of desirable materials and objects. The jostling
includes ‘the disposition of the central tokens of value in
the society in question’ (Appadurai 1986: 21). Such
tournaments are hosted ultimately as events to create
‘new paths of commodity flow’ (Appadurai 1986: 57).
The deposition of treasure and the transformation of
élite initiative on the Early Bronze Age citadel
The negotiation of commodities has yet to be considered
in the archaeology of Early Bronze Age Anatolia; though
considerable research has aimed to reconstruct arteries of
exchange linking the societies of the length of Anatolia to
the metal demands of Syro-Mesopotamia (see most
recently Vasıf Şahoğlu’s [2005] ‘Anatolian Trade
Network’ and Turan Efe’s [2007] ‘Great Caravan
Route’). As has been long recognised, the metal-rich
landscapes of Anatolia were bound to the metal-deficient
landscapes of Syro-Mesopotamia in a kind of World
System that emerged during the late Early Dynastic and
Akkadian periods (fig. 2), when local élites in Anatolia
vested considerable social and political capital in the
production, circulation and consumption of metal (for
relevant discussions, see Sherratt, Sherratt 1991; Sherratt
1993; 1997; Bachhuber forthcoming).
If a little oversimplified, the dynamic of gift exchange
was probably the primary mechanism used to circulate
the most highly-valued and contested materials and
commodities across Early Bronze Age Anatolia. Activities
of local metallurgical production and exchange
intensified as Anatolians developed a taste for prestigeenhancing
exotic stuff like lapis lazuli or tin (both, for
example, identified in the treasure deposits of Troy and
the royal tombs of Alacahöyük) and negotiated the acquisition
of these materials with locally-procured resources
(for example, silver and gold). Syro-Mesopotamian
commodities were probably also desired by Anatolian
élites. Machteld Mellink (1989: 323) has plausibly
suggested that the Syrian flasks identified across the
length of Anatolia in this period contained perfumed oils
(fig. 5) (though see Zimmermann 2002 for the local
imitation of the Syrian forms in central and western
Anatolia). Another possible imported commodity may
have been Syro-Mesopotamian manufactured textiles,
presuming continuity with the Assyrian Trading Colony
period and noting the primacy of textile industries in the
contemporary Palace G archives of Ebla in northern Syria
(Pettinato 1991: 165−66). This period of intensified
communication and exchange in Anatolia reached its
height ca 2500−2200 BC, contemporary with Troia II−III.
Likewise, Anatolia witnessed an unprecedented
extravagance of depositional behaviour not observed
again in the Bronze Age,2
exemplified famously in the
royal tombs of Alacahöyük (Koşay 1951: 153−88). The
practice of lavishly adorning corpses in the mortuary
practices of Alacahöyük masked a prestige-elevating
strategy of the consumption of precious objects, where
participants gathered to negotiate exotic and contested
materials as well as status during funerary rites (see
Bachhuber forthcoming). The royal burials of
Alacahöyük may be plausibly reconstructed as representing
tournaments of value, where ‘strategic skill is
culturally measured by the success with which actors
attempt diversions or subversions of culturally conventionalized
paths for the flow of things’ (Appadurai
1986: 21).
The sprinkling of metal objects in the bothroi of
Troia II/7d (phase IId) may have initiated similar
behaviour on the Trojan citadel, which escalated and
culminated in the treasure deposits of late Troia II−III.
The proposed sumptuary behaviour should thus be
studied within a continuum that began in Troia II/7a
(phase IIc ), when banqueting equipment and foodstuffs
were meaningfully deposited with idols and celts. In
Bachhuber
11
2
One remarkable exception is the site of Kınık-Kastamonu in
north-central Anatolia (Kastamonu province) (see Emre,
Çınaroğlu 1993). Construction activity unearthed a deposit of
up to 32 Hittite-period metal vessels (whole and in fragments,
one bowl was inscribed with hieroglyphs). Subsequent excavations
identified a deposit filled with ca 200 metal objects in a
well-like structure, including figurines, weaponry and
jewellery (see Gates 1997: 258; Greaves, Helwing 2001: 498−
99). A ceremonial context is suggested in the deposition of an
intact cattle skull with the objects. The same excavations
identified two architectural levels, and the site has been interpreted
as a Hittite town (on account of the vessels and hieroglyphs).
Roger Matthews and Claudia Glatz (this volume)
suggest Kınık-Kastamonu may have been a Kaska enclave, on
account of its considerable isolation in this region. In such a
scenario, the Hittite vessels may have been acquired in Kaska
raids (Matthews and Glatz, this volume). On the other hand,
they may have been acquired through less agonistic giftexchange
relationships between the Kaska and the Hittites, as
the Hittites sought to procure the mineral resources of the
northern region.
Troia II/7d (phase IId) metal objects had begun to be
deposited or consumed with similar banqueting
equipment and foodstuffs (and so the deposition of metal
had become culturally conventionalised in this period).
In such a scenario, extravagance related to banqueting
activities increased with time, observed principally in
the consumption of metal.
By late Troia II−III intimations of banqueting feature
in several metal forms deposited in the treasures. This is
most obvious in Treasure A (Priam’s Treasure) with large
bronze serving platters, normally referred to as ‘frying
pans’ or ‘skillets’ (fig. 1, bottom row), and a variety of
bronze, silver and gold drinking and serving vessels,
often in whimsical shapes like the silver anthropomorphic
flasks (fig. 6a) and the well-known gold
sauceboat (fig. 6b). Metal drinking and serving vessels
were also identified in Treasure B (Antonova et al. 1996:
cat. nos 102−03).
The majority of the objects deposited in the treasures,
namely the jewellery, weapons and ingots, does not
explicitly evoke banqueting; though just as objects
associated with depositional contexts in the Ledge and
the bothroi were not functionally associated with
banqueting activities (idols, celts, combs, garment pins,
spindle whorls), so should we accept the possibility that
the large volumes and varieties of metal forms and other
precious objects deposited in Treasure A, and numerous
other deposits besides, were similarly consumed. I
observed earlier (after Hayden 2001: fig. 2.1) that one of
the key material signatures of public banquets includes
ritual display objects that were used in the feast or
prestige items and materials that were intentionally
destroyed through breakage and/or burial. It is worth
considering whether the depositional behaviour that is so
closely associated with the ‘house of the city king’ was
also associated with banqueting in or near this building.
Unfortunately, the house of the city king was obliterated
in Schliemann’s excavations and so banqueting contexts
are challenging to reconstruct there.
The house of the city king is also conspicuous in late
Troia II−III as having replaced the grander central
megaron complex of Troia II/7a−f (phase IIc−e) as a
focus for activities on the citadel. The abandonment of
the central megaron complex and its monumental hearth
(fig. 3b), coupled with the proliferation of more shabbily
constructed and crowded buildings in late Troia II−III
(fig. 4a, b), suggests a meaningful social and ideological
transformation had occurred on the citadel that included
the deposition of treasures in probable banqueting events.
At the very least, it suggests that social and ideological
power in late Troia II−III was more heavily vested in
increasing productive capacities to generate the surplus
required for the escalating ostentation of banqueting and
treasure deposition, and less vested in mobilising corvée
labour towards the construction and maintenance of
monumentalising structures.
The developments on the late Troia II−III citadel may
well represent the decline of religious (or civic) authority
in Trojan society and the rise of a new kind of social
power based on the self-aggrandisement of a ruler
personage (after Michael Kolb’s [1994] observations on
archaeologically and oral-historically reconstructed developments
in pre-contact Hawai’i; see below). In this new
regime the political consolidation of a ruler personage was
achieved in part through hosting extravagant feasts or
consuming resources as a way of negotiating their distribution
and negotiating also status, which itself has a
tendency to communicate outward in emulative or
competitive waves. The sumptuary codes of Troia II were
thus broken in increasingly extravagant public banqueting
events, which set in motion a contagion of competitive
consumption while having reduced to irrelevancy
previous ideologies related to the hearth and megaron.
The contagion can be observed in contexts contemporary
with the late Troia II−III treasures, including the
Poliochni Rosso-Giallo deposits and the Eskiyapar ‘EB
III burnt house’ hoard. Poliochni Rosso is contemporary
with Troia II/7a−f (phase IIc−e) (fig. 2), and, like the
Trojan citadel, was near its height (at least architecturally)
in this period (see Bernabò-Brea 1964: pls 23−
25). The Poliochni Rosso settlement also underwent a
massive reconstruction effort after a destruction of
Poliochni Verde that included a strengthening of its fortifications
(Bernabò-Brea 1964: 629−30).
The élite of Poliochni Rosso had also begun to
engage in consumptive social strategies, observed in a
single deposit of four bronze daggers, three spears and
five axes identified in the floor of a room adjacent to the
largest megaron structure of the Poliochni Rosso
settlement (Bernabò-Brea 1964: 659, pls 171−74). This
should similarly be interpreted as an extravagant and
public gesture related to activities within the large
adjacent megaron.
The settlement contracted significantly in the
following Poliochni Giallo (contemporary with late Troia
II−III) (Tiné, Traverso 2001: 61), yet the society had
begun to deposit metal more frequently and had also
begun to consume precious metals, which it did not do in
the earlier period. The most well-known deposit from
Poliochni was identified in a pithos from Giallo contexts
(Tesoro del Vano 643), within a niche of a sprawling
building complex adjacent to the plaza area of Megaron
605. The pithos contained numerous gold earrings,
torques, necklaces and an elaborated pin (Bernabò-Brea
1964: 284−92). In addition to this cache, bronze
weaponry, and silver, gold, electrum, lead and bronze
Anatolian Studies 2009
12
jewellery were identified (though not very well recorded)
in several additional deposits in the Giallo settlement
(Bernabò-Brea 1964: pls 235−39; Branigan 1974: 153).
Like late Troia II−III, less investment in architectural
infrastructure was commensurate with increasingly
extravagant depositional behaviour at Poliochni.
Similar activities may be observed in the ‘EB III
burnt house’ hoard of Eskiyapar in north-central
Anatolia, which was filled with jewellery as well as
silver and electrum banqueting equipment (Özgüç,
Temizer 1993) and ‘frying pans’ of a similar style to
those identified in Treasure A at Troy (Özgüç, Temizer
1993: fig. 50). Unfortunately, very little from the Early
Bronze Age excavations at Eskiyapar has been published;
certainly not enough to comment on architectural developments
there. Nevertheless, I suggest that this ostentatious
and competitive behaviour may be one consequence
of a larger pattern of élite display across towns
and citadels in Early Bronze Age Anatolia and the east
Aegean islands, most observable at Troy, when the institution,
stratagems and whims of ruler personages had
eclipsed a more religiously-sanctioned authority of the
previous period.
But why did this transformation occur in the first
place? I suggested above that the monumentalising
projects of Troia II/7a−f (phase IIc−e) were related to
strategies of political consolidation in a region that was
just beginning to be socio-economically transformed by
expanding industries and networks of communication.
These strategies had either failed or were considered
irrelevant and worthy of forgetting in the circumstances
during late Troia II−III. If the strategies failed, a social
fragmentation in the region of Troy may have resulted in
one social group destroying the Troia II/7f (phase IIe)
citadel and overcoming the previous élite group with a
new regime and expression of power. If the strategies
had become irrelevant, a kind of evolution occurred on
the citadel whereby a continuous élite social group
adopted new strategies in a changing socio-economic and
political climate.
Evolutionary scenarios highlighting the decline of
religious authority and decreasing monumental grandeur
have been widely reconstructed in the life-cycles of states
(for references, see Kolb 1994: 533). Here, a unifying
ideology and the construction and observance of
monumentality perform a more salient role in the early
Bachhuber
13
Fig. 6. Silver anthropomorphic flasks (a) and a gold
‘sauceboat’ (b) fromTreasureA([a] after Schliemann 1880:
nos 783−84; [b] after Schliemann 1880: nos 772−73) b
a
stages of political centralisation (see above). With
political consolidation, the unifying stratagems of mobilising
corvée labour towards monumental projects
become less of a priority and new strategies based on the
aggrandisement of ruling élite personages are engaged.
Resources that were originally invested in building
projects are now channeled into person-focused activities
like extravagant banqueting and material sacrifice (Kolb
1994: 531).
A smooth transition appears not to have occurred on
the Troia II−III citadel and this raises the question of
whether a continuous élite social group existed through
the duration of this period. The political unification and
relative social order required for these evolutionary transformations
was almost certainly never achieved. The
story of Troia II−III is one of competition and conflict,
from beginning to end. The destruction and
abandonment of the central megaron complex and
monumental hearth probably represents the eradication
of social memory by a new generation of élites, who
chose to implement a different style of rule that prioritised
self-aggrandisement over collective works. These
individuals in late Troia II−III clearly held similar tastes
to the earlier Troia II élite (in ceramic consumption, some
aspects of banqueting and choice of bodily adornment)
and should not be considered as too far removed from
their predecessors. It is worth considering whether the
dramatic developments of Troia II−III were played out to
some extent by local and competing lineages. The late
Troia II−III approach to social power nevertheless fueled
socio-economic instability and it is worth concluding the
paper with a consideration of the decline of Troia III and
the termination of the Maritime Troia-Kultur.
The final destruction of Troia III and the end of the
Early Bronze Age in Anatolia
I suggested above that the sumptuary codes of Troia II
were broken in increasingly extravagant events that
included the deposition of large volumes of metal and
other precious objects. This mobilised a contagion of
competitive consumption that reduced to irrelevancy
previous consolidating ideologies related to the hearth
and megaron. Within two centuries a conflagration (in
Troia III/4d) terminated the flourishing Early Bronze Age
phase of the citadel (and the Maritime Troia-Kultur) (see
Mansfeld 2001). The destruction was but one manifestation
of a series of calamities that overtook the region of
western Anatolia, Thrace and the east Aegean islands
(Mellink 1986: 151; Şahoğlu 2005: 354−55). Here the
Early Bronze Age met a violent end.
The profound instability was contemporary also with
the collapse of the Akkadian Empire (fig. 2). The social
economies that sustained the broad region of Western
Asia were clearly no longer viable; and the most concentrated
and contentious investigations of cause and effect
of this period have focused on the fate of the Akkadians.
Explanations of Akkadian collapse range from the
imperial overextension and callousness of the Sargonid
dynasts (Yoffee 1988: 46−49) to abrupt changes in
climatic conditions that resulted in increasing aridity and
devastation of the agrarian economies that supported the
urban centres of Syro-Mesopotamia (Weiss, Courty
1993: 141−50). Alternatively, ineffective agricultural
strategies in Syro-Mesopotamia have been suggested as
the primary agent of decline (Wilkinson 1997). We
might also consider instabilities caused by the increasing
importance of maritime exchange in this period (Sherratt,
Sherratt 1991: 367−68), creating new networks that
bypassed traditional caravan arteries across Syria and
Anatolia. Regardless of the causes (which were more
than likely multiple and might include all of the above
hypotheses), the effect was high levels of instability
observable in the archaeological record, as, for example,
in northern Syro-Mesopotamia. Numerous sites in the
Khabur region were abandoned ca 2200 BC; and, further
west, several centres, including Ebla, were destroyed in
conflagrations, or were either reduced to much smallerscale
settlements or abandoned altogether in the last
centuries of the third millennium (Peltenburg 2000).
Implications for a climate-induced ecological disaster
are equally relevant to the subsistence economies of
Anatolian societies, though considerations of the collapse
of a World System-like dynamic are more germane to the
general thesis of this paper. Fragmenting socio-economic
conditions in Syro-Mesopotamia would have had certain
repercussions in Anatolia. In this scenario, a fundamental
source of legitimacy for the élites of Anatolia would have
been undermined in the disruption of material flow −
namely their self-serving manipulation of the exchange,
circulation and consumption of metal, some of which
flowed towards consumers in Syro-Mesopotamia, and the
exchange, circulation and consumption of distantlyprocured
commodities and materials, much of which
arrived via Syro-Mesopotamia.
The self-aggrandising social strategies of the élite of
late Troia II−III put greater demands on local production
and long-distance exchange than the strategies of their
predecessors. Élite legitimacy in the later phase was
necessarily more vulnerable to fluctuations in the flow of
resources. The climate of competition and conflict
fostered by self-aggrandising ruler personages would
also have weakened regional social and political
resilience against potentially destabilising socioeconomic
developments. In the last decades of the Early
Bronze Age the excesses of this extravagant,
consumptive and competitive activity would have only
Anatolian Studies 2009
14
hastened the decline of societies that were inherently
unstable across Anatolia, foreshadowing a wave of
agonistic behaviour that swept across the greater region,
ending a cosmopolitan and prosperous period in the
prehistory of Anatolia.
Conclusion
I have reconstructed contexts of intentional metal
deposition on the citadel of late Troia II−III in an effort
to highlight two divergent and temporally distinct
strategies of élite agency. The earlier initiative in Troia II
involved mobilising corvée labour towards monumentalising
projects like the construction of Gate FM, the
strengthening of the citadel fortifications and the
construction of the central megaron complex. The
construction and observance of monumentality can serve
to integrate socially and politically a regional population
and thus may be interpreted as an élite move towards
consolidation. Social and political stability was nevertheless
not achieved, as the destruction and abandonment
of the monumentalising projects of Troia II/7a−f testify.
The central megaron complex was not reconstructed and
this may be interpreted as the deliberate erasure of a
previous symbol of the earlier Troia II citadel.
Monumentality declined, though depositional activities
on the citadel had become much more extravagant. I
am particularly interested in the agency of the Trojan
treasure deposits and suggest that this activity occurred
within events akin to ‘tournaments of value’. The
treasures continue a tradition begun in Troia II/7a (phase
IIc) of formally depositing banqueting equipment and
paraphernalia. Metal had begun to be consumed in Troia
II/7d (phase IId) banqueting contexts in Blegen’s ‘curious
pits’ and culminated in the treasure deposits of late Troia
II−III. The consumption of metal in banqueting events
has been reconstructed as a prestige-elevating gesture that
succeeds in negotiating both the resources that are
consumed and the status of the consumer.
I observe a close relationship between the destruction
and abandonment of the monumentalising central
megaron complex and the intensification of the
deposition of metals on the citadel. This development
highlights a shift from a more religiously-sanctioned or
civic authority in earlier Troia II contexts towards the
self-aggrandising strategy of a ruler personage in late
Troia II−III. I interpret this transition as born out of a
conflict (probably between local lineages), rather than an
evolutionary kind of transformation within a single and
continuous élite social group.
Similar social strategies to those observed in the
treasure deposits of late Troia II−III can be observed in
other extravagant deposits across contemporary Anatolia
and the north Aegean. I describe these practices as a
Bachhuber
15
contagion of competitive consumption that had the
ultimate effect of destabilising the societies that participated
in them, heightening their vulnerability to the
profound disruptions (climatic, socio-economic or
otherwise) that menaced the end of the Early Bronze Age
in Anatolia.
Acknowledgements
I wish to thank the British Institute at Ankara for funding
to support related research. Many thanks to Barry
Cunliffe and Roger Matthews for their supervision of the
doctoral research where these ideas began to form, and to
Susan Sherratt for her comments on an early draft.
Conversations with Cyprian Broodbank and Chris
Gosden were also very helpful. Thanks also to Sinan
Ünlüsoy for his comments on the stratigraphy and
phasing of Troy. Lastly, thanks to the anonymous
reviewers for their amendments and suggestions.
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