Introduction
Ancient cities are among the most fetishized
objects in archaeological research. Dating back
at least to Fustel de Coulanges’ The Ancient City
(1874), they have been idealized, theorized, and
broadly understood as a unified sociological
and historical phenomenon. Within the field of
archaeology, it was Childe (1946) who canonized
a universalizing notion of ancient cities when he
famously framed the development of complex
societies within a series of ‘revolutions’. Following
the Agricultural Revolution when farming
appeared, the Urban Revolution brought cities
and hierarchical state-level societies. In the social
evolutionary paradigm that Childe’s work helped
Settlement History and Urban Planning at Zincirli Höyük, Southern Turkey
Jesse Casana1
and Jason T. Herrmann2
1. Department of Anthropology, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, Arkansas 72701 USA
E-mail: jcasana@uark.edu
2. Environmental Dynamics Program, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, Arkansas 72701 USA
E-mail: jherrma@uark.edu
Abstract
This paper presents results of geophysical survey at Zincirli Höyük, a 40-hectare site in southern Turkey
dating to the early first millennium bc. The site’s lower town offers ideal circumstances for magnetic gradiometry,
and survey results from this area, combined with the results of excavations from the 1890s on the
central high citadel, now reveal a nearly complete plan of the ancient city. The results therefore present a
unique opportunity to explore the relationship between the production of urban space and the social and
historical forces that drove it. Our evidence from Zincirli strongly suggests a pattern of distributed authority
in creating the built environment of the city, whereby the king and his administrators planned and
constructed the circular walls, streets, and citadel, but according to which individual elite households were
probably left to plan and build their own residential compounds. The spatial relationships of these features
raise important questions regarding social organization at Iron Age Zincirli. The results also offer a model
for understanding the unique spatiality of new cities that were founded throughout Syria and Anatolia
during the early first millennium and highlight the relationship of Zincirli to these and other planned
cities of the ancient Near East.
Keywords: Iron Age, Turkey, archaeo-geophysics, magnetic gradiometry, urbanism, Neo-Assyrian , ancient
cities
Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology 23.1 (2010) 55-80
ISSN (Print) 0952-7648
ISSN (Online) 1743-1700
©The Fund for Mediterranean Archaeology/Equinox Publishing Ltd., 2010 doi: 10.1558/jmea.v23i1.55
spawn, the city became a defining hallmark of a
stage in human progress, intrinsically linked to
the state (e.g. Adams 1966; Fox 1977; Trigger
1998). An archaeologically known culture could
be defined as a state-level society if, alongside
other criteria, a ‘city’ could be identified. Analysis
centered, therefore, around how a city should
be defined and whether specific archaeological
sites qualified for the moniker. Within this
intellectual framework, ancient cities came to be
viewed in largely mechanical, materialist terms.
Principles borrowed from geography, sociology
and economics (e.g. Burgess 1925; Wirth 1938)
could be used to model the spatial patterning of
activities within an individual city in the same
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way that its location and relationship to other
settlements in the region could be understood
through the central place theory of Christaller
(1933; see Marcus and Sabloff 2008). Any city
was thereby immediately understandable, yet
was divorced from its unique history, aesthetics
and spatiality.
In his path-breaking work, The Political Landscape
(2003), Adam T. Smith makes a radical
departure from these earlier studies, arguing
that the ancient city is not a conceptually unified
entity but is instead essentially a product
of modern scholarship. The City—with a capital
C—is therefore an inappropriate object of
study for archaeologists. Building on the works
of Lefebvre (1991), Kostof (1991; 1992) and
others, Smith (2003: 201-202) suggests that
rather than seeking to find the common elements
that constitute the conceptual heart of a
city, we should be exploring how ‘peculiarities
in physical form, environmental aesthetics and
representation were instrumental in constituting
the authority of urban political regimes’.
In a similar vein, M. Smith (2003) highlights
the importance of archaeological research that
focuses on analysis of ancient urban form as a
means to access issues of power, social organization,
economic interactions and the production
of space. Numerous such studies in the Old and
New Worlds have begun to reveal how analysis
of the spatial patterning of activities and the
production of built environments within urban
neighborhoods do much more to inform our
understanding of ancient settlement than does
treating cities in the aggregate (e.g. Keith 2003;
Moore 2003; Harmanşah 2005; Stone 2008).
Despite these possibilities for analysis of
urban landscapes, there is often a disjuncture
between the aspirations of archaeologists and
the available data. Our knowledge of urban
organization outside the monumental public
buildings or major fortifications at most ancient
cities remains frustratingly small. This issue is
particularly acute in the ancient Near East, the
proverbial heartland of cities, where architectural
plans of pre-classical periods are few and
far between. Cities of Hellenistic, Roman and
later date are often sufficiently well preserved
that their plans can be quite accurately reconstructed,
as at Jebel Khalid, Syria (Clarke et al.
2002), al-Raqqa (Challis et al. 2002–2004) and
many other sites (Ball 2001).
In contrast, earlier urban centers of the Near
East were characterized by a long tradition of
mudbrick-dominated architecture, which has
meant that in most cases even major buildings
and monumental streets are totally obscured
below eroded construction materials (Liverani
1997). At the same time, long-term settlement
at tells, often for several millennia, has
left most occupational phases deeply buried by
remains from later settlement. Furthermore,
modern archaeological excavations, working far
more systematically and scientifically than early
projects, are generally unable to undertake open
area excavations on the massive scale that would
be required to expose ancient urban plans. Most
discussions of urban organization in the ancient
Near East therefore rely on the same handful
of cases derived from large-scale excavations
conducted in the early twentieth century; the
past four decades of research would add few
examples of urban planning to the examples discussed
by Lampl (1968). These few settlements,
ranging from small villages to massive cities and
spanning several millennia, simply cannot be
representative of the diversity of plans that must
have characterized different periods, regions and
cultures of the ancient Near East.
A few archaeological projects in recent years
have sought to document urban organization
over large areas using surface survey, aerial
photography and sub-surface geophysics, as at
Kerkenes Dağ (Summers and Summers 2005),
Mashkan-Shapir (Stone and Zimansky 2006),
Tell el-Rawda (Castel and Peltenburg 2007),
Titriş Höyük (Algaze and Matney 1995) and
Ziyaret Tepe (Matney and Donkin 2006; Matney
and Rainville 2005; Matney et al. 2003).
In particular, the near-surface geophysical
Settlement History and Urban Planning at Zincirli Höyük, Southern Turkey 57
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prospection techniques some of these researchers
employed would seem to offer a solution to
the lack of urban plans in the Near East because
these methods have the ability to provide maps
of buried architecture over large areas. The
depth and complexity of most urban archaeological
sites in the Near East, however, has rendered
archaeo-geophysics far less effective than
in other parts of the world. Most instruments
commonly employed today only detect remains
that are 1-2 m below the surface, while many
Near Eastern sites possess cultural strata as
much as 40 m deep. These strata contain cities
of many different periods superimposed upon
one another, further complicating efforts to utilize
technologies such as magnetic gradiometry
which only produce plans in two dimensions.
While new approaches to geophysical investigation
at tell sites offers the possibility to produce
plans of architecture at much greater depths
and in three dimensions (Casana et al. 2008),
these techniques remain in development and are
not widely employed. Our knowledge of urban
organization in the ancient Near East therefore
remains based on a frustratingly small sample.
This paper presents results of archaeo-geophysical
survey at the site of Zincirli Höyük
in southern Turkey (Figure 1), an ancient city
that, due to its unique settlement history, architectural
traditions and physical environment, is
exceptionally well suited to magnetic gradiometry.
The majority of the 40 ha site was occupied
for only a relatively short period during the first
millennium bc, resulting in a comparatively
shallow accumulation of cultural materials. The
lack of significant subsequent occupation has left
remains of this phase in a relatively good state
of preservation. In addition, most buildings at
the site, ranging from large palaces to private
houses, were constructed of basalt gathered from
a nearby outcrop, a stone with a very strong
magnetic signature, on top of alluvial fan and
floodplain deposits that lack magnetic materials
such as basalt. As our results illustrate, these
conditions make Zincirli ideal for magnetic
gradiometry. The plan of these shallow areas of
the site, combined with the plan of monumental
buildings recovered in excavations more than
a century ago, reveal the organization of three
quarters of the ancient city. Zincirli can now
be added to the small list of archaeological sites
in the Near East where nearly complete plans
have been recovered using geophysical methods.
Analysis of our results helps situate Zincirli
within the urban traditions of the region and
offers a revealing glimpse into the development
and planning of ancient Near Eastern cities during
the early first millennium bc. Our conclusions
also demonstrate the potential for similar
studies of the organization of urban centers to
reveal the connections among the built environment,
political power, social relationships, and
settlement history in the ancient world.
Background
Zincirli (Zinjirli, Senjirli) Höyük is located at
the northern end of the Kara Su Valley, the
northernmost extension of the Levantine Rift
Valley (Figure 1). The site, situated on the western
side of the valley at the base of the Amanus
Mountains, measures approximately 40 ha in
area. The center of the site is dominated by an 8
ha, 10 m high citadel area and is surrounded by
an extensive lower town, encircled by a massive,
perfectly round fortification wall still visible at
the surface in many areas (Figure 2). The lower
town is only 1-2 m above plain level in most
areas and is partially buried on its northwestern
edge by recent alluvial fan aggradation.
Zincirli enjoys minor celebrity status among
ancient Near Eastern specialists. It first became
known to western scholars when visited by a
German team in 1883 as part of the Commagene
Expedition. Even in this first short
visit, numerous monumental relief-carved basalt
orthostats and sculptures were visible, eroding
out of the site. Excitement surrounding these discoveries
led to the launch of a German archaeological
project, which worked for five seasons
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Figure 1. Locator map showing Zincirli and other major sites mentioned in the text.
Figure 2. Top: Photo of Zincirli fortification wall following excavation in 2006. Bottom: Geomagnetic survey being
conducted in 2007. Both photos illustrate the relatively clear state of the lower town at the time of the survey.
Photos courtesy of Neubauer Expedition to Zincirli.
Settlement History and Urban Planning at Zincirli Höyük, Southern Turkey 59
©The Fund for Mediterranean Archaeology/Equinox Publishing Ltd., 2010
from 1888 to 1902 (von Luschan et al. 1898;
von Luschan 1893; von Luschan and Jacoby
1911; see Wartke 2005 for a recent summary).
Excavating on a scale that seems incomprehensible
to most modern archaeologists, the project
uncovered a massive area of the site, focusing
largely on the central citadel and monumental
gateways in the south and northeast. Most of the
fortification wall was also mapped by the team.
These excavations recovered hundreds of basalt
reliefs and statues (von Luschan 1902), as well as
an enormous quantity of other small finds (von
Luschan and Andrae 1943).
Finds from the German expedition revealed
a great deal regarding the chronology of the site
and the history of the larger region. While the
central mound was occupied since at least the
Early Bronze Age in the third millennium bc, the
earlier phases of the site are largely obscured by a
major Iron Age settlement, initially founded during
the tenth century bc and continuing through
the seventh century bc (Schloen and Fink 2007;
Lehmann 1994). The discovery of numerous
historical inscriptions—written in Akkadian,
Luwian hieroglyphics, and a local dialect of Aramaic—reveal
that the ancient name of the site
and its kingdom during the Iron Age was Sam’al,
a toponym also known from Neo-Assyrian royal
inscriptions. Finds from the expedition form an
art historical collection of great significance, and
the epigraphic materials have generated much
scholarship by philologists and Biblical scholars
over the past century. Despite the academic
interest in Zincirli, until recently there were no
further archaeological investigations after the
close of the German expedition in 1902. Early
excavations concentrated almost entirely on the
central mound, most of which was at least partially
exposed, revealing the plan of the citadel
during several phases in the Iron Age. In the
lower town, however, the Germans restricted
their excavations to two monumental gateways
and one long test trench across the southeastern
part of the site. In 2006, a University of Chicago/
Oriental Institute team began a new, large-scale
archaeological project at the site (Schloen and
Fink 2007; 2009), and the geophysical investigations
reported herein were undertaken as part of
this project during the 2007 season.
As discussed above, the lower town at Zincirli
is uniquely well suited to magnetic gradiometry
survey owing to its relatively short-lived occupation,
shallow depth, and large basalt buildings.
Today, a village has grown up on the central
mound and also covers several hectares of the
western portion of the lower town. The remainder
of the lower town, however, is reserved for
cultivation of wheat or is left uncultivated as
part of the archaeological heritage site (Figure
3). One paved road and a second gravel road
cross part of the lower town, and its eastern edge
has been damaged by the construction of a large
irrigation canal in recent years. Aside from these
intrusions, the lower town is largely free from
obstructions and was accessible to geophysical
survey at the time of our fieldwork.
Methodology
Survey at Zincirli Höyük was conducted with
a Bartington 601-2 magnetic gradiometer, an
instrument specifically designed for mapping
magnetic archaeological deposits. This instrument
has two sensors mounted on a beam
separated by one meter, enabling the operator
to survey two transects while only walking one.
One third of the geomagnetic survey was conducted
with only one sensor; two-sensor survey
commenced after our equipment was repaired.
For this survey, the gradiometer was set to be
sensitive to magnetic variation to 0.1 nanotesla
(nT) within 10nT of the zero-centered mean.
Readings above 10nT were recorded to 1nT
precision and readings above 100nT and below
−100nT are clipped.
Each survey grid is a 20 × 20 m square consisting
of 40 transects oriented east-west, spaced
50 cm in a north-south direction. In every case,
survey began in the southwest corner of the grid
and succeeding transects were surveyed in the
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opposite direction to the previous in a ‘zig-zag’
pattern. Complete survey of a 20 × 20 m grid
produces a map of magnetic intensity organized
on a grid with 40 rows and 160 columns. Survey
was restricted to areas where archaeological features
were believed to be relatively unmolested by
modern activities and where the surface was free
of obstacles. Transects and grids were truncated
when obstacles such as deep ditches, ponds, tall
vegetation or structures made the area impassable.
In the end, survey primarily covered the
wheat fields to the east of the modern village and
open areas to the south of the central acropolis.
By the end of the seven-week 2007 field season,
505 20 × 20 m squares had been surveyed, covering
a total of 20.13 ha (Figures 3-4).
Data were downloaded from the Bartington
Grad 601-2 using associated Bartington software.
This software reorganizes data collected in a zigzag
pattern into a grid. Data were downloaded
in .dat (surfer) format, and each grid includes
a header file (.hdr) that records the instrument
settings for each 20 × 20 m square. Data were
geo-referenced and pieced together to produce
Figure 3. Quickbird satellite image of Zincirli and geomagnetic survey areas completed in 2007. Note that the modern
village on the site obscures the western portion of the lower town.
Settlement History and Urban Planning at Zincirli Höyük, Southern Turkey 61
©The Fund for Mediterranean Archaeology/Equinox Publishing Ltd., 2010
a large map of the entire site using IDRISI
Andes (version 15.0) created by Clark Labs, a
raster-based GIS software designed for image
processing and spatial analysis (Figure 5a). The
first step in processing these data was to remove
directional noise, produced by slight variations
in instrument settings and calibration during
the survey and which appears as striping in each
grid. This striping was removed using a moving
window filter (Oimoen 2000) rather than the
more commonly used zero mean traverse, enabling
more adaptable sampling to drastic changes
in magnetism and rendering results less likely to
introduce interference in the form of striping
during processing (Figure 5b). Mosaic effects
between individual grids were removed using
simple map algebra and grids were then concatenated
to create a larger coverage map. For some
images, the geomagnetic data are manipulated
to show the absolute value of magnetism for
anomalies beyond a threshold of 30nT from the
mean (0nT) in order to emphasize architectural
features interpreted as being composed of basalt
(Figure 5c).
Figure 4. Geomagnetic map overlaid on a plan of the site produced by the German expedition in the 1890s. Geomagnetic
data have been processed to highlight major features.
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Figure 5. A large building in the lower town at Zincirli, as it appears in (a) a raw, unprocessed image; (b) the same image
after removal of directional noise and filtering; and (c) the image where the absolute value of magnetism is
displayed to highlight large magnetic anomalies.
Settlement History and Urban Planning at Zincirli Höyük, Southern Turkey 63
©The Fund for Mediterranean Archaeology/Equinox Publishing Ltd., 2010
Results
General Organization and Preservation
Geomagnetic survey in the lower town at Zincirli
was successful in revealing the architectural
plan of the site and the effects that modern
land use practices have had on site preservation
(Figure 4). The clearest view of Zincirli’s plan
was obtained in the north and northeastern portions
of the site where regular plowing and field
clearing for agriculture have kept the surface
relatively free of rubble and trash. In the southernmost
sections of the survey area, architecture
is also visible but the data are more cluttered,
probably because these areas, being preserved
as an archaeological heritage site, have not been
cultivated over the past century, leaving them
strewn with rubble and trash. The easternmost
survey area, where there is a notable absence of
clear, well-preserved architecture, stands in stark
contrast to the northern and southern sections.
Several faint features are visible here, suggesting
that the area may once have held similarly
dense architecture as seen in the north and
south of the site. The fact that the extents of this
architecture-poor area match the boundaries of
a modern agricultural field provides further evidence
that this field was subject to a more vigorous
plowing and clearance routine in recent
centuries than the adjacent fields were.
Aside from the eastern area of the lower town,
the entirety of the lower town area within the
ancient fortification walls was fairly densely
occupied, especially compared to sample areas
outside the walls. In one area surveyed to the
west of the walled portion of the site, virtually
no archaeological features are visible. Survey
outside of the south gate, however, revealed several
rectilinear buildings as well as the remains
of what may be an ancient road (Figure 6).
Results of recent excavations suggest that the
square structure is likely the remains of a temple
(Schloen and Fink 2009).
Fortifications
The fortifications at Zincirli, just visible at the
surface in many parts of the site, appear quite
clearly in geomagnetic data. The German expedition
carefully mapped much of the fortification
walls, which encloses an area of about 40
ha. The fortifications feature a double wall, each
measuring approximately 3 m in width with a 7
m area between them, presumably so that if the
outer wall were breeched during a siege, attackers
would be trapped between the two. Excavations
undertaken in 2006 show that the outer
wall is preserved to as much as 3 m in height,
probably a foundation upon which an even taller
mudbrick superstructure was built (Schloen and
Fink 2007; 2009). Both walls have 100 evenly
spaced towers protruding from them, creating
positions for archers to assail attacking forces.
The geomagnetic map reveals that the inner
fortification wall generally has a weaker magnetic
signature than the outer wall, due to its
greater depth from the surface and the fact that
is was constructed of smaller stones (Figure
7). Magnetic data also reveal several apparent
breaks in the inner wall, one about 100 m east
of the southern gateway and another at the
northern edge of the site, both measuring about
20 m across. If these openings were actually part
of the plan of the fortifications, they might have
enabled defenders to have access to the space
between the walls in the event of a siege.
There are three major two-chambered gateways
in the fortification system. The western
gate is today completely obscured by the modern
village, and the northeastern gate was only
partially covered by magnetic survey because
excavation was being conducted there during the
2007 season. The southern gate appears clearly
as a result of excavations by the German expedition,
removing all of the standing architecture
and clearing archaeological deposits down to
floor surface on its eastern side (Figure 6). A
subsequent excavation of the area illustrated the
precision of the geomagnetic data as virtually
every stone exposed in the shallow excavation
can be accounted for in the geomagnetic map
(Schloen and Fink 2007; 2009).
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Roadways
Several features that appear to be planned roads
through the city are visible in magnetic gradiometry
data. The most obvious of these are two
circular tracks that follow the course of the outer
fortification wall (Figure 7). Just inside the inner
fortification wall, there is a 7 m-wide space that
is largely free of architecture or other features.
In most areas of our survey this road, apparently
providing access to fortifications, is visible. A
second circular road of approximately the same
width can be traced at around 30 m inside the
outer road. This inner loop is most evident in
the northeastern part of the city where structures
face the road and rarely block it. Both roads
can also be traced in the southwest, although
cluttered data caused by rubble on the ground
surface make them less obvious. At the northern
end of our survey area, several buildings block
the path of the road, while in the southeast,
the outer ring road is readily apparent, but no
trace of the inner loop can be seen. It is tempting
to envision the outer and inner ring roads
as planned communication routes circling the
Figure 6. Close-up of southern gateway and area outside the city wall where a small temple was discovered and a possible
roadway feature appears (indicated by arrows).
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entire city, nested within the well-planned circular
city wall. If this were the case, it may be that
over the several centuries the city was occupied,
the original circular plan of the roads was eroded
as successive generations gradually built into
them, blocking them in various quarters.
We must also note the rarity of other formal,
planned communication routes through the
city. There is one road that seems to connect the
southern gateway to the citadel, and excavations
in this area show that it was at least partially
paved, signaling its monumental character. It
may represent the remains of a ceremonial, processional
road (Schloen and Fink 2007; 2009).
Gradiometry survey extended more than 100
m south of the gateway and revealed evidence
for what may be a continuation of this road in
the form of an unpaved trail leading out of the
city towards a square building that could be a
small temple, indicated by the discovery of an
orthostat in its vicinity and test excavations by
the Chicago team (Figure 6; Schloen and Fink
2009). Apart from the road leading from outside
the southern gate towards the citadel, there
are few other roadways evident in geomagnetic
data within or outside the city; if such roads
were originally part of the urban plan, they were
later obscured by construction and agriculture.
Buildings and Planning
The degree to which extant architecture visible
in geomagnetic data is the product of a single,
centrally planned building phase versus a palimpsest
of modifications over several centuries
of occupation remains uncertain. While the
German excavations on the high mound show
that it has a long history of settlement dating
back into the second and third millennia bc,
Figure 7. Close-up of the northern lower town where three circular, concentric streets are visible within the city walls.
Boxes indicate areas of 2008 excavations.
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the extensive lower town has yet to show any
evidence of pre-Iron Age settlement. The relatively
shallow stratigraphy in this part of the site
combined with the clarity of architecture supports
the interpretation that there are not many
multiple, superimposed phases of occupation in
the lower town. Ongoing excavations at Zincirli
will ultimately provide much more secure dating
for many of the buildings evident in geophysical
survey data, but some preliminary conclusions
can be suggested already. Recent excavations by
the Chicago team show several phases of use and
reworking of buildings, as in the house containing
a mortuary stele, the so-called Kuttamuwa
stele (or more properly, ‘KTMW’—Struble and
Herrmann 2009; Pardee 2009). The house
is dated to the later eighth century bc and
excavated portions of it and the surrounding
architecture show a near perfect correspondence
with geophysical data (Figure 8). The southern
building, where the stele was found, seems to
form part of a household group with numerous
discrete building units accessible via a central
alleyway. The buildings all have several phases of
flooring, and the room organization and function
changed several times over the use-life of
the building. These findings suggest that at least
some of the buildings visible in magnetic data
may have had relatively long histories of use.
The shallow nature of the deposits in general,
however, suggests that this history may have only
been across a century or two.
In several parts of the survey area, particularly
in the northern portion of the site, the plan of
complete buildings is visible (Figures 5 and 8).
Many of these structures appear to have had a
central courtyard area surrounded by banks of
rectilinear rooms. Most courtyard areas are 3-5
m on a side, while the largest such features measure
more than 25 m on a side. Many structures
seem to have formed discrete compounds with
relatively open spaces between them, unlike the
agglutinative style typical of many ancient Near
Eastern towns in which domestic houses abut
shared walls. The orientation of the buildings
is non-uniform, with some designed to face
circular roadways and others positioned in what
appears to be a more ad hoc fashion. The size of
most house compounds is considerable, measuring
from 40-150 m on a side. It is notable that
the size and plan of the house compounds in
the lower town is quite similar to the ‘Upper’
and ‘Lower’ palatial buildings excavated on the
high citadel. Both of these palaces possess large
central courtyard areas flanked by banks of rectilinear
rooms, arranged in a non-orthogonal,
asymmetric manner (Figure 9a-b). Several of
the house compounds in the lower town are
considerably larger than the Upper Palace on the
citadel, and approaching the size of the Lower
Palace.
The plans of building compounds have
numerous parallels at contemporary sites in
north Syria. The large houses of the lower town
(illustrated in Figures 5 and 9a) and the Upper
Palace at Zincirli (Figure 9b), characterized by
banks of rectilinear rooms built around a large
central courtyard, have close parallels with buildings
of the Neo-Assyrian period (ninth-seventh
centuries bc). We could look directly to the
Neo-Assyrian capitals such as ‘Residence M’ at
Khorsabad, a large residential compound outside
the Nabu Temple (Loud and Altman 1938: pl.
73) or to palatial buildings at outlying centers
such as that uncovered at Ziyaret Tepe (Matney
and Donkin 2006) and the slightly later
‘Red House’ from Tell Sheikh Hamad (Figure
9c; Kühne 2000). Parallels can also be found
in older excavations at Tell Ahmar (ThureauDangin
and Dunand 1936) and Arslan Tash
(Thureau-Dangin et al. 1931), where palatial
complexes of a plan and scale similar to those
at Zincirli, and dating to approximately the
same time period, have been uncovered. The
plans of domestic buildings at Zincirli stand
in contrast, however, to most examples known
from the northern Levant, as at Chatal Höyük
or Tell Judaidah (Haines 1971), where buildings
tend to be much smaller and densely clustered.
Even in cases where palatial buildings of the
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early first millennium bc have been found at
Levantine sites, as at Hama (Figure 9d), they
are also quite different in plan from the palaces
and large houses at Zincirli. It is notable that
the best parallels for the Zincirli buildings seem
to come from eastern areas, as this may lend
support to the arguments of numerous scholars
that Zincirli was settled by Aramaean peoples
who moved west from their traditional homeland
in the Euphrates Valley (e.g. Dion 1997;
Lipiński 2000). On the other hand, Schloen
and Fink (2009: 9-11) argue that there is little
reason to assume that Zincirli was occupied by
Aramaean conquerors and that inscriptional
evidence points instead to the development of a
local West Semitic culture.
Recent excavations show that despite their
impressive size, even the largest buildings in
the lower town were likely domestic structures
(Schloen and Fink 2009; Struble and Herrmann
2009). Excavated rooms from the large house
illustrated in Figure 5 contained stone grinders,
storage jar fragments and other evidence
of domestic activities. Notably, it was in the
smallest of the three excavated buildings where
the Chicago team uncovered the monumental
Figure 8. Two buildings in the northern lower town with 2008 excavations overlaid. The building on the southern side
of the road, apparently a moderately sized domestic building with attached shrine, was where the University
of Chicago team discovered a monumental mortuary stele.
68 Casana and Herrmann
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mortuary stele, featuring an inscription identifying
the house’s resident as a high official (Struble
and Herrmann 2009).
The fact that even smaller houses seem to
have been occupied by elite members of Zincirli
society leaves us to wonder where non-elite
residents lived. In the southwestern part of the
survey area, geomagnetic data do not reveal the
plan of individual buildings as clearly as in the
northern part of the site. Instead data are cluttered
and noisy, raising the possibility—on the
one hand—that houses in this part of the site
were smaller and more closely packed together,
and may therefore have been home to a lowerstatus
community. On the other hand, the areas
of more cluttered geomagnetic data correspond
to the parts of the site protected as an antiquities
area and have therefore not been farmed over
the past century. The lack of farming has left the
southwestern part of the site with a rockier, more
litter-strewn surface than in active agricultural
fields, suggesting that the differences we see in
geomagnetic data may be a product of differing
land use in recent decades rather than in how
space was utilized during the Iron Age. If these
southern portions of Zincirli are home to buildings
of similar plan to those in the north, we
would be left with the impression that the entire
lower town was occupied by relatively powerful
families with large houses, and that non-elite
members of society must either have lived within
these large households, at other small sites in the
region, or possibly even outside the city walls
in tents or other non-permanent structures.
Figure 9. Comparison of (a) a large building evident in geomagnetic data, the plan of which has been derived from magnetic
data illustrated in Figure 5; (b) the Upper Palace excavated at Zincirli in the 1890s; (c) the ‘Red House’
from Tell Sheikh Hamad in eastern Syria; and (d) the Iron Age palatial building from Hama in western Syria.
Settlement History and Urban Planning at Zincirli Höyük, Southern Turkey 69
©The Fund for Mediterranean Archaeology/Equinox Publishing Ltd., 2010
The resolution to this issue must await results
of ongoing excavations, which plan to uncover
portions of buildings from all parts of the site.
Discussion
The emergence of Zincirli as an urban center
in the early first millennium bc must be understood
first and foremost within the historical
and cultural context in which it was founded
and built. Recent excavations at the site strongly
suggest that the part of the site covered by the
citadel during the early first millennium bc was
abandoned at the time the historic city of Sam’al
was founded, probably during the ninth century
(Schloen and Fink 2009: 8). The underlying
mound shows evidence of occupation during
the mid-second millennium bc, and probably
earlier, but ceramic data suggest a gap in occupation
of around three to four centuries (Lehmann
1994). The city of Zincirli, with its massive fortifications
and expansive lower town, is likely an
example of a new urban foundation, rather than
the expansion of a pre-existing city.
Throughout most of ancient Near Eastern history,
the foundation of new urban centers like
Zincirli was a relatively rare event. Archaeological
survey data from the northern Levant show that
most urban centers in the region remained stable
loci of settlement throughout the third, second,
and early first millennia bc (Casana 2007). In
Mesopotamia, founding new cities was considered
an act of monumental hubris, one that
would likely result in retribution by angry deities
(Van de Mieroop 1999: 59; A. Smith 2003: 203-
206). Beginning in the late second millennium
bc, however, the Near East witnessed a rash of
new urban foundations, particularly in the Assyrian
heartland of northern Mesopotamia and in
the adjacent areas of Syria and Anatolia occupied
by Neo-Hittite and Aramaean states—the remnants
of the Hittite Empire that once ruled the
region (see Hawkins 1995).
The best known new foundations are those
of the Neo-Assyrian monarchs, first at Kar
Tulkulti-Ninurta founded by Tulkulti-Ninurta
II between 1233–1197, followed by Nimrud
(Kalhu) founded by Ashurnasirpal II in 880 bc,
Khorsabad (Dur-Šarrukin) founded by Sargon
II between 717–706 bc, and finally Nineveh,
made the capital by Sennacherib in 700 bc.
Kar Tulkulti-Ninurta and Khorsabad were both
founded on previously unoccupied ground, while
both Nimrud and Nineveh were established at
pre-existing settlements; all of these ventures
involved a massive investment of resources. The
cities were spectacular in scale, ranging from
300 ha (Khorsabad) to 750 ha (Nineveh), and all
boasted extraordinary monumental architecture,
fortifications, gardens, and waterworks. This
sudden flurry of new urban foundations is rather
striking, particularly when compared to the longheld
taboo on the practice, and for this reason it
has been the subject of much recent discussion
(e.g. Mazzoni 1994; Bunnens 1996; Barbanes
1999; Novak 2004; Harmanşah 2005).
The practice also seems to have been paralleled
by a similar activity to the west in Syria and Anatolia.
While the new cities of these regions lack
the rich historic accounts preserved in the NeoAssyrian
palaces and tend to be considerably
smaller (ranging from around 40-100 ha in size),
the similarity in vision between the two is undeniable.
New capital cities of small states, whether
Neo-Hittite, Aramaean or some other ethnic
group, were either founded at greatly expanded
settlements or on previously abandoned tells
as witnessed at Tell Halaf (Langenegger et al.
1950), Tell Rifa’at (Seton-Williams 1961; 1967),
‘Ain Dara (Abu Assaf 1990; Stone and Zimansky
1999), Karatepe (Bossert et al. 1950), Tell
Ahmar (Thureau-Dangin and Dunand 1936),
Tell Ta’yinat (Haines 1971; Harrison 2001;
2009) and Carchemish (Woolley 1921).
All of the Syro-Anatolian sites feature an elite
citadel with palaces and temples and most were
built on an earlier Bronze Age tell. The above
sites also had extensive lower towns, fortified
settlements surrounding the citadels that were
occupied primarily during the Iron Age. It is
70 Casana and Herrmann
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among these cities that we see the best parallels
for Zincirli. For example, at the nearby site of
Tell Ta’yinat, capital of a contemporary Iron
Age kingdom, excavations have revealed that an
Early Bronze Age (third millennium bc) mound
was reoccupied in the tenth or eleventh century
bc, during which time the old tell served as the
home to a Bit-Hilani-style palace and related
temples (Haines 1971; Harrison 2001; 2009).
Monumental basalt sculptural reliefs and architectural
fragments, with many parallels to those
found at Zincirli, were recovered from excavations
on the high mound. During this period,
an extensive lower town surrounded the citadel,
which was fortified by a city wall enclosing
an area of about 40 ha, roughly the same size
as Zincirli. Certainly, Zincirli must be seen as
fitting into this general cultural tradition and
urban form.
Following Joffe’s (1998) analysis, the new cities
of the Iron Age have sometimes been regarded as
‘disembedded capitals’ (Van de Mieroop 1999:
59-61; A. Smith 2003: 203-205; Wilkinson et
al. 2006: 26), in a somewhat more constrained
manner than Blanton’s (1976: 257-58) original
introduction of the concept for Monte Alban in
Mexico. According to the disembedded capital
model, new urban foundations are designed to
restructure and reorient the political and economic
landscape by physically removing centers
of administration, cult and politics to a new
location. This may be a good characterization of
at least part of the Neo-Assyrian and Syro-Anatolian
kings’ decisions to found new cities, but
the mechanics involved in actually constructing
such a city remain poorly understood. After all,
a sufficiently powerful monarch can compel his
followers to undertake construction of monumental
buildings and defensive works, but he
cannot bring the city to life; he cannot fill the
streets with teeming masses.
The writings of Neo-Assyrian kings, while
offering rich historic accounts of their building
enterprises, do not offer much insight into the
urban fabric of their new cities. For instance, in
Ashurnasirpal’s description of his new capital at
Nimrud, recorded on a monumental inscription
known as the Banquet Stele (Grayson 1991:
288-93), he offers detailed information about
the construction of his palace, numerous temples,
major canals, a massive garden, the acquisition
of exotic animals for his royal hunts, and the
establishment of festivals and feasts, but there is
almost no mention of the city’s residents, nothing
about the citizenry, architecture and streets
that presumably would have populated the lower
towns. Archaeology has not helped fill the cities
with residents either, as excavators traditionally
have focused attention primarily on citadels and
monuments. This bias in archaeological data
creates a kind of echo chamber, reinforcing the
propagandistic claims of the founders themselves
and leading some early scholars to assume that
the cities’ lower towns were largely empty (e.g.
Burckhardt 1905: 65; and see Liverani 1997).
Today researchers still have little recourse but
to concentrate their analyses on monumental
public works rather than on the fabric of neighborhoods
and residential areas (e.g. Harmanşah
2005; Gates 2003; Bunnens 1996).
The new data from Zincirli thus offer a first
glimpse of the built residential space in the new
Iron Age cities outside the citadels; they therefore
give a unique perspective on the development
of Zincirli and other similar sites. If a group
of ancient Near Eastern scholars were to have
guessed how the lower towns of the new Iron
Age cities were organized, opinions would have
certainly diverged. Some would have pointed
invariably to the organic winding alleys of Old
Babylonian Ur, and supposed that the fortified
lower towns would have been filled with similarly
dense neighborhoods. Others, inspired by
James C. Scott (1999), might have suggested
that the top-down, planned construction of the
cities implies a likely geometrical arrangement
of streets and buildings. To think of cities as
planned versus unplanned may in fact create a
false dichotomy. Spiro Kostof (1991: 10, 70-71)
famously cited the example of Siena, Italy, where
Settlement History and Urban Planning at Zincirli Höyük, Southern Turkey 71
©The Fund for Mediterranean Archaeology/Equinox Publishing Ltd., 2010
modern visitors marvel at the seemingly organic
nature of the city streets, but which began as a
formally planned geometric settlement.
A. Smith (2003: 225-26) rightly reminds us
that all built spaces are planned at some level,
whether by an individual family or by a centralized
zoning bureaucracy. The question may thus
be better phrased around who made planning
decisions and what were the underlying principles
that guided those decisions. At a place
like Old Babylonian Ur, a centralized power
planned the city’s walls, temples, and palatial
buildings, but individual neighborhoods were
governed largely like villages, where decisions
about the allocation of space were left to the kin
groups who occupied the neighborhoods (Stone
1981; Keith 2003). This more distributed spatial
power, combined with what presumably was an
aesthetic that favored a certain style, size, and
plan of domestic residence, resulted in the seemingly
unplanned nature of the residential areas of
the city.
At Zincirli, the perfectly round fortification
wall and the manner in which the interior streets
of the city mirror its course clearly attest to a significant
stamp of authority on the organization
of the lower town. The individual building units,
however, show far less adherence to geometric
principles. Some buildings front onto circular
streets, while others seem to be placed more
haphazardly within the fortifications. Occasionally,
buildings completely block the presumed
course of the street. We could argue that because
we are seeing a palimpsest of the city—all of its
use history flattened onto a single two-dimensional
magnetic map, deviations from a regular
plan are a later development, akin to Kostof’s
(1991: 70-71) example of Siena. New excavation
results, however, show that Zincirli’s lower
town probably had a very short occupational
history, perhaps less than a century, and thus we
would expect to see more elements of an original
geometric plan in residential areas, had one ever
existed. It may be more likely that we are simply
witnessing the result of embedded planning by
multiple authorities. The large fortifications, the
citadel, the gateways, and the circular streets were
undoubtedly planned by the king and his administrators.
Based on the relationship of the house
blocks in the lower town to these features, we can
also conclude that the fortifications and streets
were constructed prior to the houses, rather
than having subsequently surrounded a group
of residences already clustered at the base of the
citadel. Moreover, as discussed above, the individual
house blocks themselves are by and large
quite grand in scale, and excavated evidence,
particularly the Kuttamuwa Stele (Schloen and
Fink 2009; Struble and Herrmann 2009), points
to the fact that even smaller houses on the
periphery of the lower town were occupied by
elite members of society.
Schloen (2001) argues that during the Late
Bronze Age (1450–1200 bc), immediately preceding
the founding of Zincirli, many Near
Eastern polities were organized through a patrimonial
household model. Political power, access
to land, and much of the productive economy
were all structured around kinship ties among
extended patrimonial families arranged hierarchically
from the king downwards. If Schloen’s
reconstruction is correct and if a similar form
of social organization persisted into the early
Iron Age (a period with a less robust historical
record), it may provide a framework for interpreting
the spatial patterning of the urban landscape
at Zincirli.
The residential housing blocks in the lower
town, then, may have been the residences of
prominent patrimonial households, a fact which
would help to explain the apparent absence of
spatially manifested class distinctions, because
everyone within the city—rich or poor—would
have been connected to and resided in one of
these households. Such an explanation would
also help to interpret the heterarchical nature of
planning in the city. While the king’s household
would have planned and constructed the fortifications,
roadways, and monumental buildings,
individual households would have subsequently
72 Casana and Herrmann
©The Fund for Mediterranean Archaeology/Equinox Publishing Ltd., 2010
constructed and planned their own residences.
It would be interesting also to consider how it
was that these particular households came to be
those that established residence within the city.
Were they elite families from the region who
were privileged by the opportunity to reside
within the bosom of the king’s household? Were
the king and the other households all members
of a foreign Aramaean ethnic group that conquered
the region and thus resided within the
walls of Zincirli, like knights within a medieval
castle, exploiting the peasantry in the surrounding
countryside? Or is it possible that many of
the houses were not even permanently occupied,
and that their construction by elite families was
more a symbolic gesture to demonstrate their
fealty to the king? Future excavations at the site
will undoubtedly seek to explore these issues
further and may yield additional insights into
the preliminary interpretations we offer here.
Our new evidence for the organization of
space at Zincirli and our suggestions for its
interpretation raise questions of whether the site
offers a good model for how other new Iron Age
cities were organized. As noted above, Zincirli
bears many similarities in plan and aesthetic
to the rash of contemporary urban foundations
of the early first millennium bc, and we
might therefore assume that the lower towns at
other Neo-Hittite and/or Aramaean cities were
similarly organized. Zincirli, however, differs significantly
from many of the other contemporary
new cities in the region, as few of them exhibit
the geometric planning evident in Zincirli’s
fortifications and streets. Figure 10 illustrates a
Cold War-era CORONA satellite image of Zincirli
alongside several other sites discussed below;
these images offer high-resolution views of the
archaeological landscape from the 1960s, prior
to the destruction of many sites and features
by modern development (Casana and Cothren
2008). Most other similar Neo-Hittite or Aramaean
cities such as Tell Ahmar (Figure 10b),
Tell Ta’yinat (Figure 10c), Ain Dara, Arslan
Tash, Karatepe and others possess fortified lower
towns, but the walls do not appear to have been
built according to a geometric plan. It is possible
that in these cases, the lower town fortifications
were only built after people had settled at the
base of the citadel, thus requiring the wall to
surround an existing settlement.
In contrast, the new Neo-Assyrian foundations
show great concern for geometrically patterned
urban planning, as at Khorsabad which
is nearly a perfect square aligned on cardinal
directions, and at Nimrud, which is rectangular
and has orthogonal roadways within it (Novak
2004; Bunnens 1996). The orthogonal planning
evident in Neo-Assyrian cities almost certainly
has its roots in Mesopotamia. As early as the
thirteenth century bc, the Assyrian king TukultiNinurta
II built Kar-Tukulti-Ninurta as a rectangular
form and included at least two major
canals that ran through the city at right angles
(Eickhoff 1980: 457). Even earlier examples can
be found during the early second millennium
bc in southern Mesopotamia, as at the Old
Babylonian administrative center of Tell Harmal,
ancient Šaduppûm (Baqir 1959). While the
relationship among these scattered cases remains
speculative, by the early first millennium bc the
notion of geometric planning in a new capital
city was certainly firmly established in the NeoAssyrian
world, and the importation of such a
concept to Zincirli might easily have originated
there. Similarly, the rectilinear plan of Tell Halaf
in northeastern Syria (Figure 10d; Langenegger
et al. 1950: plan 1), capital of another small Iron
Age kingdom, may also have been borrowed
from Neo-Assyrian models.
Despite some similarities to Neo-Assyrian
planning, the most salient feature of Zincirli—
its circular plan—remains largely without parallel
in Assyria, and thus we might look naturally
to other circular and/or radial planned cities of
the ancient Near East. Perhaps the best known
such cities are the so-called Kranzhügel settlements
of the third millennium bc, found
throughout the semi-arid steppe that rings the
Syrian desert, from northern Mesopotamia to
Settlement History and Urban Planning at Zincirli Höyük, Southern Turkey 73
©The Fund for Mediterranean Archaeology/Equinox Publishing Ltd., 2010
Figure 10. Comparison of declassified CORONA satellite images for new Iron Age captials of Zincirli (a), Tell Ahmar
(b), Tell Ta’yinat (c), and Tell Halaf (d), all of which possess a high citadel surrounded by a fortified lower
town. Early Bronze Age Kranzhügel-type sites, such as Tell Beydar (e), have a superficial similarity but with
very different interior organization than Zincirli. The site of Tell Rifa’at (f), the Iron Age city of Arpad, may
be the best parallel to Zincirli, although its lower town has not yet been dated archaeologically. Note that Tell
Rifa’at is shown at half scale.
74 Casana and Herrmann
©The Fund for Mediterranean Archaeology/Equinox Publishing Ltd., 2010
the Levant (Akkermans and Schwartz 2003:
256-59). Kranzhügel or ‘wreath-mound’ settlements
are named for their characteristic form,
which involves a circular fortification system,
usually preserved as an eroded earthen mound,
surrounding a low-lying area of settlement, as at
Tell Beydar in eastern Syria (Figure 10e). Many
of these sites also possess a citadel area at the
center of the settlement on which elite residences
or monumental tombs were located, making
them look, superficially at least, very similar to
Zincirli. Several Kranzhügel-type settlements,
however, have been subjected to geophysical survey,
and the resulting data reveal that the interior
organization of the sites was radically different
than that seen at Zincirli. From Tell el-Rawda,
located east of Homs, Syria (Castel and Peltenburg
2007), to Tell Cheura in the Khabur Basin
of northern Mesopotamia (Orthmann 1995),
Kranzhügel sites seem to have been characterized
by a radial pattern of streets interspersed by
concentric circles, with residential areas neatly
packed into pie-slices surrounding a central
mound. The regularity in organization of these
settlements, so unusual in the ancient Near East,
may be the product of the unique cultural and
historical moment in which they were settled.
These sites generally have a short period of occupation
during the mid- to late third millennium
bc, and are located in an area that saw very little
settlement in subsequent periods (Kouchoukos
1998). They may therefore reflect purposeful
planning on the part of the settlers, or they may
be the product of other rules governing settlement
decision-making that produced this very
particular arrangement (Ur et al. 2007).
Numerous scholars have speculated on the
origin of formalized planning in both orthogonal
and circularly planned cities. Oppenheim
(1964: 134-35) suggested that Neo-Assyrian
cities in particular were modeled on military
camps, noting the similarities in the layout of
cities to camps as depicted in artworks (Figure
11a; other examples in King 1915). Harmanşah
(2005: 270-71) makes a similar claim, suggesting
that circular plans have their origin as nomadic
pastoral camps. Certainly there are clear parallels
between how military camps are depicted and
the plan of cities. A well-known example of a circular
fort found on a relief panel recovered from
Ashurnasirpal’s Northwest Palace in Nimrud,
dating to around 860 bc, illustrates a circular fort
surrounded by a fortification wall interspersed
by towers, with various activities going on inside
(Figure 11b; Gadd 1936: pl. 29a). The similarity
of this representation to Zincirli is striking.
As Bunnens (1996: 120) notes, however, there
is no a priori reason to assume that cities were
modeled on military camps rather than the
reverse. Mazzoni (1994: 329-30), in contrast,
suggests that circular plans of Middle Bronze
Age centers such as Mari on the Euphrates were
based on principles of unity and centrality. As
discussed above, the differences between the
interior organization of Bronze Age circular cities
and Zincirli are significant, and thus any formal
relationship between the two is likely superficial.
The only site to our knowledge that might offer
a contemporary parallel is Tell Rifa’at, the Iron
Age city of Arpad, one of the major polities in
western Syria during the period. The site was
briefly excavated in the 1960s, and while the
outer city wall was visible at the time (SetonWilliams
1961: 70), it was not mapped by the
team and today is obscured by the modern town
but is visible in CORONA satellite imagery
from the 1960s (Figure 10f). The lower town at
Tell Rifa’at is much larger than that of Zincirli,
covering more than twice the area, but in other
respects is quite similar. Ultimately, our understanding
of the relationship of Zincirli’s plan to
other cities in the region will remain preliminary
until future investigations begin to produce data
of comparable breadth to that which we have
presented here.
Conclusions
Results of geophysical survey at Zincirli provide
a robust dataset for investigating the organization
Settlement History and Urban Planning at Zincirli Höyük, Southern Turkey 75
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of an ancient Near Eastern city. Information
regarding the precise location and layout of
buildings within the city is of obvious value in
planning ongoing excavations at the site and
has already led to remarkable discoveries by
the Chicago team. Because our data offer one
of the only nearly complete urban plans in the
region, they also present a unique opportunity
to explore the relationship between the production
of urban space and the social and historical
forces that drove it. The evidence from Zincirli
strongly suggests a pattern of distributed authority
in creating the built environment of the city,
whereby the king and his administrators planned
and constructed the circular walls, streets, and
citadel, but according to which individual elite
households were probably left to plan and build
their own residential compounds. The placement
of buildings within the city vis-à-vis the roadways
further implies that the houses were constructed
subsequent to the fortifications and centrally
planned features, raising questions regarding the
identity of the lower town’s residents and their
relationship to the king. The fact that the domestic
buildings in the lower town are generally quite
large, with several approaching the size and mirroring
the plan of the palace that was uncovered
during the 1890s may indicate that many of the
residents were elite members of society. Recent
excavations support this conclusion, showing
that even moderately sized houses on the periphery
of the city were owned and occupied by high
officials, as in the case of Kuttamuwa’s house.
Moreover, there seems to be relatively little spatial
differentiation between elite and non-elite neighborhoods
within the city. These findings support
the notion that the city was organized through a
patrimonial household model, a suggestion that
will surely be tested through ongoing excavations
at the site.
Conclusions reached regarding Zincirli itself
have implications for our understanding of Near
Eastern urbanism more broadly. The construction
of a fortified lower town around an elite
citadel at Zincirli fits well within a pattern of
new urban foundations across the Near East
during the early first millennium bc. These new
centers, from the Neo-Assyrian cities in northern
Mesopotamia to the Aramaean and Neo-Hittite
polities of the Levant and Anatolia, have sometimes
been regarded as disembedded capitals. It
is possible that Zincirli offers a model for the
organization of urban space at these other cities.
However, unlike many other contemporary new
Figure 11. Relief depictions of Neo-Assyrian military camps: (a) an image from the bronze Balawat Gates showing a
rectangular, fortified enclosure (upper register); (b) a circular fortified camp from Ashurnasirpal’s Northwest
Palace at Nimrud, dating to around 860 bc (BM ANE 124548).
76 Casana and Herrmann
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capitals in the Syro-Anatolian region, Zincirli’s
fortifications and roadways adhere to a strict geometric
plan, a feature more commonly attested
at Neo-Assyrian cities to the east. Moreover, the
circular plan of the city has few contemporary
parallels, as its interior plan is strikingly different
from the circular Kranzhügel-type sites of
preceding millennia. Thus Zincirli may be more
anomalous than representative of Aramaean and
Neo-Hittite urban planning, an issue that must
await further analysis at other sites.
Future research may show the relationship
of Zincirli to other contemporary new capitals
and may also indicate how traditions of urban
planning developed during the early first millennium
bc might have informed the design of later
cities such as Neo-Babylonian Babylon (Van de
Mieroop 2003), Achaemenid Parsagadae and
Susa (Boucharlat 2001) and those of the Hellenistic
and Roman period (Ball 2001). However
these specific questions are ultimately resolved,
our results clearly demonstrate the potential for
studies of ancient cities that employ methods
aimed at documenting the organization of built
environments over large areas and that explore
their unique spatiality by reference to local historical
and cultural factors.
Acknowledgments
Field research reported herein was undertaken
as part of the University of Chicago’s Neubauer
Zincirli Expedition, conducted under the auspices
of the Directorate General of Monuments
and Museums, Turkey. Thanks go to the project
director, David Schloen, and associate director,
Amir Sumakai Fink, for their support and cooperation,
as well as to the many members of the
Zincirli team who assisted us during the project.
Remote sensing instrumentation and software
were provided by the University of Arkansas’s
Center for Advanced Spatial Technologies, while
financial support for the project was provided
by the King Fahd Center for Middle East and
Islamic Studies. Eric Jensen, Virginia Herrmann
and Benny Arubas assisted in grid layout.
About the Authors
Jesse Casana is an Associate Professor of Archaeology
in the Department of Anthropology at the
University of Arkansas. His research explores settlement
history, land use practices, and humanenvironment
relationships in the ancient Near
East. He specializes in regional archaeological
survey, archaeological remote sensing and geoarchaeology,
and currently directs field projects in
Syria, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates.
Jason T. Herrmann is a doctoral candidate in
the Environmental Dynamics Program at the
University of Arkansas and an affiliate of the University’s
Center for Advanced Spatial Technologies.
He specializes in the use of remote sensing
methods in archaeology and his research explores
the relationship between ancient humans and
the environment. He has conducted archaeogeophysical
research in the Middle East, Bolivia,
and throughout the United States.
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