CHAPTER XVIII - ANATOLIA, c. 4000–2300 b.c.

Summary

In a previous chapter we have witnessed the development of native Anatolian neolithic and chalcolithic cultures and their subsequent destruction at the hand of barbarians with inferior culture-traditions in the west, whereas some measure of continuity of painted pottery traditions was observed in the south. We must now continue our narrative of the development of the Late Chalcolithic cultures in their later phases during the first half of the fourth millennium.

END OF THE LATE CHALCOLITHIC PERIOD

With the burning of Mersin XVI, that intrusive culture from the Konya plain—rich in pottery, architecture and metalwork—was, if not completely eliminated, at least greatly weakened. The badly documented second half of the Late Chalcolithic period (Mersin XV–XII) is characterized by ever increasing eastern influences from North Iraq gaining at the expense of what survived of the Mersin XVI and local Halaf traditions. Mersin was refortified in level XV a and these defences lasted through the next two levels (XIV, XIII) furnishing eloquent evidence for unsettled conditions. The stratigraphical record is almost certainly incomplete and lacunae are expected after the successive destructions of Mersin XIV and XIII. Side by side with painted wares of local ‘Ubaid type, grey burnished bowls occur, having red and black counter-parts in Mersin XIV–XIII, at Tarsus and a number of other Cilician sites, as well as at Sakcagözü across the Amanus, at Tell esh-Shaikh in the ‘Amūq and at Tepe Gawra in northern Mesopotamia. These grey bowls are fashioned in imitation of stone vessels found in the same levels and the term ‘Uruk’ which is often applied to them, is not only erroneous, but would seem to be misleading, in so far as their context not only in Cilicia, but also at Tepe Gawra is unmistakably ‘Ubaid’.