Beginning with Sir Leonard Woolley's final report on his excavations at
Tell Atchana, ancient Alalakh, the chronology of the site's sixteenth
and fifteenth century B.C. levels VI through IV has been largely based
on the imported Cypriot pottery: this in spite of the fact that Woolley
published only a fraction of the material and not infrequently - as this
volume points out - his classifications were incorrect. The first aim of
this study was therefore to classify and publish all the Cypriot pottery
from the site that is preserved in collections in Turkey and England,
and to re-evaluate its significance for the site's chronology. The
resulting catalogue of approximately four hundred vessels is lavishly
illustrated by photographs, many in color. The volume opens with a
concise analysis of the architecture and material culture of levels VII
through III, with special attention to the spots where Cypriot shards
were found, from their first appearance in level VI through their last
in level II. Although no Cypriot pottery was found in level VII,
reconstructions of Alalakh's history in the second millennium require
consideration of the important archaeological remains found there,
especially of level VII's archives that provide evidence for dating the
start of level VI. There is a separate treatment of the spatial and
typological distribution of the largest concentrations of Cypriot
imports in the level IV palace and tombs, and an attempt is made to
interpret these both in terms of chronology and social history. Chapter
3 continues with a detailed discussion of the types and shapes of these
imports and pursues the questions of chronology and social meaning
through a comparative analysis of exports throughout Canaan. Chapter 4
is a critical assessment of the Alalakh chronologies that have been
proposed on the basis of textual as well as archaeological data, and
includes the new Cypriot pottery evidence. The author argues for
lowering the dates for levels VI through IV by approximately a
generation.
