Ellery Frahm and Joshua M. Feinberg 2013

“Environment and collapse: Eastern Anatolian obsidians at Urkesh (Tell Mozan, Syria) and the third-millennium Mesopotamian urban crisis,”
Journal of Archaeological Science 40, pp. 1866-1878.

Around 2200 and 2000 BC, a ‘crisis’ occurred in Ancient Near East, caused probably by a multifactor phaenomenon involving 1) aridification, 2) deurbanization, and 3) the end of the Akkadian Empire. This ‘late-third-millennium collapse’ has been archaeological investigated in many sites of Northern Mesopotamia, examining discontinuities in material culture and demography (paragraph 1).

Paragraph 2 presents the historical situation of this area between 2600-2500 BC, the period of increasing in urbanisation and social complexity (a ‘urban revolution‘), until ca. 2000 BC, when climate perturbation (drought or aridification) probably led to the desegregation of the Akkadian Empire; aftermath, in Northern Mesopotamian area, only two sites survived, namely Tell Mozan and Tell Brak.

Paragraph 3 briefly explores the history of Urkesh, from ca. 6200 BC to 1300 BC, stressing its important location along the route leading to Anatolia through the Mardin pass, Urkesh representing “a cosmopolitan city with diverse visitors or visitors with diverse itineraries” (p. 1866, abstract).

In this paper, 97 obsidian samples are examined [mostly from areas A, the Palace Area B, the Temple Area and J, the area of the Plaza], coming at least from 6 different obsidian sources located in Eastern Anatolia.

Paragraph 4 described the methods of analysis and the materials which have been analysed, mostly obsidian artefacts (and specifically obsidian blades) from EBAIII to LBAIIA (ca. 2300-1300 BC): around 820 obsidian artefacts were discovered by the IIMAS excavations (including the 97 items from Tell Mozan mentioned above).

Geochemical and magnetic analyses (both inter- and intra-source) led to the identification of sources and subsources; the results hint to a provenance of the row obsidian material from Eastern Anatolia and mostly from 6 ores: Nemrut Daǧ, Bingöol A and B, Muş, Meydan Daǧ, and Tendurek Daǧ, highlighting how “such a diversity in Eastern Anatolian sources [was] previously unknown in Mesopotamia” (p. 1871).

These new data are compared with earlier ones, leading to a better chronological definition of phases in the use of obsidian within the area (subparagraph 5.4).

Paragraph 6 discusses these new data, correlating Phases 2 and 3 with the ‘crisis’ onset, displaying centripetal and centrifugal forces about the diffusion of the obsidian material, considering the landmark role of Urkesh as a key-point, boundary zone; networks and trades are tentatively reconstructed (above all, the so-called ‘Anatolian Trade Network’, ca. 2500-2100 BC), taking into account the possible role of (semi-)nomadic groups in distributing the material and suggesting a possible Akkadian influence in obsidian crafting at Urkesh.

Summarizing up: “Here we report evidence, geochemical and magnetic signals in obsidian artefacts discovered at Tell Mozan, for changes in exchange networks and quarrying practices concurrent with a time of societal and environmental stress. With a diachronic perspective on obsidian source-use from only one site, our findings are, at present, neutral regarding the degree of deurbanization and whether the causes included climate shifts, unsustainable urban growth and subsistence practices, governmental collapse, economic forces, or societal fragmentation” (p. 1876).

[About this topic, cf. mostly Frahm 2014 and Frahm and Feinberg 2013a].