Befund und Historisierung

Archaeological periodization schemes of material culture development in Northern Mesopotamia from 7th to 5th centuries bce traditionally refer to the sequence of dynasties. In particular, they highlight historical events related to distinguished members of the royal houses of the Sargonids, Urartians, Medes, Teispids, and Achaemenids. However, whereas the repercussions these Iron Age empires had on the history of the Near East are undeniable, the impact they had on the material culture and its development is not always equally tangible in the archaeological findings. The latter are not infrequently characterized by continuity rather than by incisive changes, as recent studies and re-evaluations of key sites in Syria, Iraq, Iran and Armenia show. This publication uses case studies to address problems that arises when the archaeological (relative concept) and historical (absolute concept) methodology use different intrinsic values of time to reconstruct history and to understand cultural material development.