Date: 17 February 2022
Time: 18:30 (Türkiye local time, GMT +3)

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For this month’s talk, ANAMED will feature Nicolò Marchetti. Moderated by Hasan Peker, their talk will focus on ten seasons of renewed archaeological excavations and conservation activities have taken place between 2011 and 2021 at Karkemish (modern Karkamış Höyük, Gaziantep). The Karkemish archaeological project revolves around an international cooperation framework, one which involves not only specialists from many fields, but also several universities, museums, public authorities and private bodies uniting their efforts towards shared goals and priorities, including the long-awaited opening of the site, laying within a military area, to public visit. This multidisciplinary and multi-partner perspective responds to a contemporary view in which integration (also intended as continuous feedback between all involved participants) is the method chosen for facing the complexities and the challenges posed by an anthropological approach, both as far as the past and the present are concerned. The lecture highlights some of our main results obtained in the field. As for the Hittite Empire period, in the last four seasons of Turco-Italian excavations of the Universities of Bologna, Istanbul, and Gaziantep at Karkemish, over 500 clay sealings with seal impression(s) (possibly from the period of Ini-Tešub of Karkemish, mid-13th century BCE) were retrieved in a LB II stratum of Area C East in the Lower Palace area. An in-depth evaluation of new officials, titles and professions, and hieroglyphic and cuneiform legends on both stamp and cylinder seal impressions from this archive will be presented, as well as the multiple countersealing practices attested. Most interestingly, these administrative practices continued also during the following Iron I level. Several new results have also been obtained for the Iron II and III periods. The Karkemish excavations are supported by the University of Bologna, by the Italian Ministries for Foreign Affairs and that for Universities and Research and by Sanko Holding, in full cooperation with the Turkish Ministry of Culture and Tourism, General Directorate of Cultural Heritage and Museums. 

This online talk will be held in English. Please register this event in advance from here.

Nicolò Marchetti, Archaeologist, PhD, Professor of Archaeology and Art History of the Ancient Near East at the Department of History and Cultures, Alma Mater Studiorum – University of Bologna. He directs since 2011 the Turco-Italian archaeological excavations at Karkemish and since 2019 the Iraqi-Italian project at Nineveh East, has directed those at Tilmen Höyük (2003-2008), Taşlı Geçit Höyük (2009-2010, Türkiye), Jericho (1997-2000, Palestine), and participated in the Ebla excavations in Syria for 8 seasons between 1990 and 1997. He has authored over 100 research articles and books as La coroplastica eblaita e siriana nel Bronzo Medio. Campagne 1964-1980 (2001, Sapienza University of Rome) and La statuaria regale nella Mesopotamia protodinastica (2006, Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, translated as Royal Statuary of Early Dynastic Mesopotamia, 2011, Eisenbrauns, with G. Marchesi), has edited and co-edited several excavation reports and proceedings, among which ARCHAIA Case Studies on Research Planning, Characterisation, Conservation and Management of Archaeological Sites (2008, British Archaeological Reports, with I. Thuesen), Ebla and its Landscape. Early State Formation in the Ancient Near East (2013, Left Coast Press/Routledge), Karkemish. An Ancient Capital on the Euphrates (2014, Ante Quem), Urbanized Landscapes in Early Syro-Mesopotamia and Prehispanic Mesoamerica. Papers of a Cross-Cultural Seminar held in Honor of Robert McCormick Adams (2018, Harrassowitz, with D. Domenici). He is the editor of the open access series OrientLab (www.orientlab.net/pubs) and chairman of  the open access publishing house 1088press (www.1088press.it). 

Hasan Peker is a faculty member at the Istanbul University, Department of Ancient Languages and Cultures. He holds BA’s in Hittitology and Near Eastern Archaeology, an MA and a PhD (2009) in Hittitology from the Istanbul University. He has taught Hittite and Luwian at Koç University between 2015–2016. He is teaching Hittite, Luwian, Akkadian and Ancient Egyptian at Istanbul and Boğaziçi Universities. He is interested in the political history and chronology of Anatolia and Syria in the Late Bronze and Iron Ages. In his latest publications he has reconstructed the new chronologies of the Late Hittite Kingdom Karkamis and Gurgum (Maraş). He is the Deputy Director of the Turco-Italian Archaeological Expedition at Karkemish. He is a Member of Turkish Institute of Archaeology, ICOMOS Türkiye and Chercheurs associés of IFEA.