Nairi Lands

The Identity of the Local Communities of Eastern Anatolia, South Caucasus and Periphery During the Late Bronze and Early Iron Age. A Reassessment of the Material Culture and the Socio-Economic Landscape

Guido Guarducci

• Publisher: Oxbow Books
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781789252798
• Topic: Historia
• Subtopic: Historia antigua

This study analyses the social and symbolic value of the material culture, in particular the pottery production and the architecture, and the social structure of the local communities of a broad area encompassing Eastern Anatolia, the South Caucasus and North-western Iran during the last phase of the Late Bronze Age and the Early Iron Age. This broad area is known from the Assyrian texts as 'Nairi lands'. The second part of the study, furnishes a reassessment of pottery production characteristics and theories, as well as of the socio-economic structure and issues, tied to the sedentary and mobile local communities of the Nairi lands. The study brings into focus the characteristics, the extension and the distribution of Grooved pottery, along with other pottery typologies, by providing an accompanying online catalogue with detailed descriptions and high-resolution images of the pots and sherds obtained from public and private institutions in Turkey and Armenia. Moreover, the socio-political organisation and subsistence economy issues are addressed in order to advance a possible reconstruction of the social structure of the Nairi lands communities. Particular attention is devoted to the pastoral nomad component and the role played within the Nairi phenomenon. The study includes a very large corpus of text images and high-resolution color images of the pottery of the area under examination, gathered by the author in order to offer a reliable tool and compendium.

Part I

Introduction

1

Research introduction

1.1 The Nairi lands: Questions and issues

The Nairi lands is a geographical area encompassing regions of the Near East and the Caucasus, more specifically, the eastern part of Anatolia (Turkey), North-western Iran and the South Caucasus (Fig. 1). The Assyrian texts refer to Nairi as an ensemble of lands ruled by ‘kings’ starting from the middle of the 13th century BCE. The annals mention this area and its people consistently until the end of the Empire around the 7th century BCE. The present study focuses on the early stages of formation and development between the end of the Late Bronze Age and the end of the Early Iron Age (13th–10th centuries BCE). The succeeding period, the first part of the Middle Iron Age, introduces great transformation in the area with regard to the populations and material culture. In particular we see the genesis of the Urartian state, shifting the cultural traits of the Nairi lands towards a different socio-political landscape, which goes beyond the scope and objectives of the present study.

The apparent homogeneity of style and the broad distribution of pottery production, the paucity of architecture, the absence of a central political power, the signs of a strongly mobile type of lifestyle, and the complex relationship with external polities are only a few of the distinctive aspects related to the social groups that inhabited the Nairi lands that have been drawing an increasing interest of scholars over the last decades. In a period of intense transformation and redesign of the political and economic Near Eastern scenario, the local populations in this area emerged and expanded giving birth to a broad phenomenon that scholars, up till now, have scarcely dealt with. Understandably, the wealth of features and problems across a large number of countries is surely discouraging. Nevertheless, addressing different issues with a multidisciplinary approach is a necessary process to achieve a complete framework of the various elements and regions that composed the Nairi lands singularity and consequently establish the bonding elements, the fil rouge, that connected its communities.

The research presented in this study, in order to analyse and understand the identity of Nairi lands local communities, has led to a reassessment of these elements and issues with a socio-anthropological perspective. Identity building and expression, in particular that linked to the pottery style, communities’ formation and correlation, and the complexity of mobile-sedentary relationship, are further aspects and processes explored within the present study. These provide a wider context in which mere archaeological data and text sources acquire new values and open fresh avenues of interpretation.

The toponym Nairi (KUR.KUR na-i-ri/na-’i-ru), is known from Assyrian and also Urartian inscriptions. Most probably this is the local communities’ term for their lands, since its etymology, confronted with other languages of the period, does not produce any definitive result. In fact, Salvini (1967, 45–46) offers a range of possible meanings without reaching a solid conclusion. He claims that it is:

unlikely it can be explained with the help of Urartian Nara (population) … or the Assyrian naru (river), moreover, it is not clear whether it is related to Naharain, name of Mittani in documents of the 18th Egyptian dynasty (Schäfer 1931, 430–38) or if we possibly should connect it to the Hurrian toponym ‘Nihra’… or as a personal name (Hurrian)… which appears in the exact same form in an Urartian source (Lehmann-Haupt 1928–1935, 129) in which Nihiria (URU n-hi-ri-a-ni) is the capital of the country of Arme.

Salvini (1967, 46, endnote 18) explains that Arme recurs in Assyrian sources in connection with Šubria or with the Kašiiari Mountain (modern Tur ‘Abdin), i.e. the southern lands of Nairi, as ‘Arime’ (Luckenbill 1926–1927, I, 390). Piotrovskij (1966, 107–109; see also 35–36) as well, affirms that the Nairi toponym must definitely be put in relation to Šubria. In this respect, according to a few scholars, the Nairi lands very likely could have been, for the most part, of Hurrian derivation, possibly formed in the aftermath of the Mittani/Hanigalbat’s dismemberment. In fact, archaeological excavations at sites like Giricano, Ziyaret Tepe and Uçtepe in the Upper Tigris demonstrate a Mittani occupation during the end of the 2nd millennium BCE (Radner 2006, 276). The etymological origin of the toponym Nairi, however, remains obscure.

Other questions and issues have been raised and debated over the last few decades which are addressed and reassessed in detail in the following chapters. The definition of the socio-economic structure, the lifestyle, the material culture of the populations that inhabited the various regions of the Nairi lands, are among the main problems that await further investigation and a comprehensive examination. In fact, what is missing is a holistic approach to this broad area, taking into consideration the single elements and the various issues tied to the Nairi phenomenon and, at the same time, observe the general framework in order to gain a new perspective and perhaps new connections among the single elements. Of particular interest are the issues tied to the role played by the nomadic and/or semi-nomadic communities, their relationship with sedentary lifestyle, the social role of pottery styles along with the wide distribution of the so-called Grooved pottery, the lack of permanent structures in large areas, the presence of countless forts in most of the regions and their association with large necropoles, the chronological framing of the material culture, and the connections with the Caucasian and Iranian areas. Regrettably, most studies analyse and discuss only a few of these issues and separately, as single elements, or in other cases, restricted to a specific geographical area or site.

1.2 Objectives of the study

Building on an earlier study (Guarducci 2010), which was based on the analysis of the Iron Age layers of Hirbemerdon Tepe and its context within the Upper Tigris Region, the next natural step was that of enlarging the scope of research in order to establish the social and symbolic value of the material culture, in particular the local pottery present throughout the Nairi lands, the so-called Grooved pottery, and the overall identity of the related communities. The study addresses the above-mentioned issues, which are strictly tied to the following four main objectives of research:

a) Nairi lands concept. Establish if the various regions that compose the Nairi lands (Eastern Anatolia, South Caucasus and North-west Iran) show consistency, and to what degree, in terms of material culture, lifestyle and subsistence strategies, hence, a socio-cultural uniformity.

b) Nairi Ware: Reassess and produce a comprehensive and definitive analysis of the material culture, specifically the pottery production style and techno-morphological traits and the associated architectural features. Moreover, the pottery analysis aims at establishing the symbolic and social implications, the spatial distribution and chronological framing of this production. This analysis, at the same time, creates a reliable and comprehensive compendium of the pottery typologies and their characteristics (descriptive, archaeometric and photographic), according to the various regions and countries in which they are present.

c) Socio-economic landscape. Reassess and define the social, political and economic structures that ruled the communities of the Nairi lands, in particular the presence and degree of mobile lifestyle and the sedentary correlation, the tribal-statist organisation of the communities’ polities and the means/strategies of subsistence.

d) Identity. Trace an identity profile of the local communities of the various Nairi lands given the similarities and discrepancies shown by the historical and archaeological record, in particular the apparent style consistency of pottery production and the ethnic variety, which distinguish this area, in combination with the information yielded by a), b) and c). More specifically, establish the nature of, and the elements that compose, the shared part of the communities’ identity, manifested through their social practice.

1.3 Approaches, methodologies and resources

In order to achieve the objectives stated above, it is necessary to rely on multiple types of evidence, resources and an array of methods to obtain and produce new datasets.

The first step, indispensable to all of the following, is a comprehensive re-examination of the literature related to the main research topics. This allowed the creation of a basis necessary to confront the archaeological record with the text sources and produce a comprehensive analysis of the contexts, architecture and pottery of all the main Late Bronze–Early Iron Age sites across the Nairi lands, focusing on those belonging primarily to Eastern Anatolia but also Armenia. Particular attention was also devoted to the Middle and Neo Assyrian texts in order to gain all the historical evidence related to the Nairi lands.

The most relevant regions and sites within this area are accompanied by a detailed image repertoire for the contexts and architectural features. The pottery production of the Nairi lands is the spark of this research project and the core of the research activities, which gravitated around this fundamental aspect. Most publications feature little information on Grooved pottery and other ceramic types associated to the LBA–EIA assemblage as well as the related style issues. Very few detailed descriptions on the technical and morphological aspects of sherds and vessels are available. Moreover, there is an almost complete absence of images related to this ceramic horizon, which mainly focuses on a few drawings and low-resolution images. Quality images are very important to understand visually how specific characteristics described on paper truly appear, alone or in combination with other elements, allowing a reliable comparison with other parallel productions or typology variations. In order to obtain new, reliable descriptive and visual data, on-site visiting and documenting activities were carried out in multiple sites in Eastern Turkey and in Armenia, the main countries related to the Nairi lands phenomenon. Finally, an array of social and symbolic meanings and functions of the Nairi lands pottery style is addressed in order to establish the active role played by the Grooved and associated pottery within the communities’ identity boundaries and social practice.

Figure 1. The areas of modern countries that form the Nairi lands (in yellow).

In Turkey, specific attention was dedicated to the Upper Tigris area and, in particular, to the site of Hirbemerdon Tepe. Here a selection of pottery samples was collected for archaeometric analyses and flotations were performed on the soil samples collected from the EIA context of the site, a unicum for the entire Upper Tigris valley. In the Erzurum area, a significant amount of time was spent on the study of the collections preserved at the Archaeological Museum depot, which contained the ceramic material of all the sites of the Erzurum province and those nearby. A selection of sherds for archaeometric investigations from the site of Sos Höyük was given directly to the author by the director of the excavations, Antonio Sagona.

Two trips were arranged for the Armenian territory. The first was devoted to the observation in situ of the sites and fortifications distributed across the entire territory. The second and longer trip was dedicated to the study and recording of the collections hosted within key institutions and sites in Yerevan and its environs: the Institute of Archaeology (depot and materials under research), materials from Teghut, Karashamb, Sotk, Norabak, Margahovit; the University Museum (collection on display) materials from Talin, Artik and Shirakavan; the Museum of the City of Yerevan (depot) materials from Charbak, Karmir Berd, Goris, Eschmiazin, Mekrazor and Rasdan; the site of Metsamor (mission house depot) a few exemplars from the site. Pottery samples were also collected during this travel from three distinct sites, Margahovit, Sotk and Norabak.

At each site, pottery recording underwent a distinct process. Each sherd and complete vessel were described in detail and recorded in a dedicated database (NaLaReD: Nairi Lands Research Database), along with a series of high-resolution photographs in RAW format obtained with a Nikon D800 DSLR digital reflex full frame equipped with a 60 mm f/2.8 ED Macro, a 50 mm f/1.2 and a 24–70 mm f/2.8 ED Nikkor lens, illuminated by two 6400K colour temperature light bulbs, with a white or grey matt vinyl background and metric reference.

The collected sherd samples from Hirbemerdon Tepe, Sos Höyük, Margahovit, Sotk and Norabak have been processed by an international team directed by the CNR and University of Pisa through a series of archaeometric analyses (petrography, XRF, ICP-MS, LIBS) reported in detail with the related results in the Appendix.

The final reassessment of the socio-economic landscape, the pottery production, the related lifestyle and more generally the identity of the communities of the Nairi lands are addressed in light of the past theories, theoretical approaches, and of the information recently made available by new archaeological projects along with the analysis and combination of the data elaborated within this study.

1.4 Structure of the study

The following study is organised in eight main parts, which are composed of 12 chapters.

Following this introductory Part I, Part II specifies and explains the use of terms and concepts with reference to the main sociological and anthropological theories employed and adopted in the following chapters. By describing the value and the theoretical framework behind these elements we will be able to establish a basic array of terminological parameters to scientifically and archaeologically approach the analysis and interpretation of the distinguishing elements and manifestations of the Nairi lands. In particular, Chapter 2 focuses on the concepts of identity, ethnicity and culture. Particular attention is devoted to the style and social practice of pottery production as well as its symbolic value and meaning. Chapter 3 concentrates on the concept of community in sociology and archaeology. These are all elements that are central to the understanding of the social structure of the Nairi lands. The final part of the chapter is dedicated to specifying use and the employment of these concepts in the present study.

Part III features the geological, geographical and historical landscape of the area examined within the study. Chapter 4 takes into account the geological and environmental ‘core’, ‘periphery’ and ‘outer periphery’ of the different areas of activity of the local communities of the Nairi lands. The degree of this activity, hence the adopted labels, has been established according to ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• Acknowledgements
• Abstract
• Part I. Introduction
• Part II. Theoretical Framework
• Part III. Geographical and Historical Framework
• Part IV. The Nairi Lands Core: The Archaeological Evidence from Eastern Anatolia
• Part V. The Nairi Lands Periphery: The Archaeological Evidence from the South Caucasus
• Part VI. The Nairi Lands Outer Periphery: The Archaeological Evidence from North-Western Iran and Secondary Connections
• Part VII. Reassessment of the Nairi Lands Material Culture and Socio-Economic Landscape
• Part VIII. Final Considerations
• Appendix: Pottery sherds analyses
• Bibliography