CALL. 01.03.2017: Digging up Complex Urban Sites: Integrative Approaches to the Archaeology of Külte
FECHA LÍMITE/DEADLINE/SCADENZA: 01/03/2017
FECHA CONGRESO/CONGRESS DATE/DATA CONGRESSO: 04-05-06-07 /08/2017
LUGAR/LOCATION/LUOGO: Kültepe (Kayseri, Turkey)
ORGANIZADOR/ORGANIZER/ORGANIZZATORE: Fikri Kulakoǧlu (Ankara University); Levent Atici (University of Nevada)
INFO: kultepe.kim3@gmail.com
CALL:
This is the first call for participants to contribute a paper to the 3rd International Meeting at Kültepe that will take place between August 4th and 7th in Kayseri, Turkey at the archaeological site of Kültepe. MISSION STATEMENT
The archaeological site of Kültepe or the ancient city of Kanesh is a two-part urban center consisting of a 21-meter-high city mound and the fortified administrative quarter, mainly occupied by palaces and temples, surrounded by an extensive lower city that has conventionally been referred to as the kārum of Kaneš. The mound has yielded a long cultural sequence with 18 building levels dating from the Early Bronze Age to the late Roman period, whereas the lower city contains four discrete, well-defined horizontal strata. The earliest levels, IV and III, cover the transitional period from the late Early Bronze Age to the early Middle Bronze Age, whereas Level II, which has yielded cuneiform tablets, cylinder seals and ample other evidence for the presence of Assyrian merchants living alongside native Anatolians, dates to the Middle Bronze Age. We must emphasize from the onset that Kanesh has vast horizontal areas already excavated with traditional methods for almost 60 years. Most residential and nonresidential areas within the excavated portion of the lower city to date were previously emptied out with partial recovery of selected find categories; only street deposits were left intact therein. For this, the present excavation campaign at the site has adopted, since its inception in 2006, an interdisciplinary and integrative approach and focused on the implementation of modern recovery and analytical methods to ensure accurate, representative, and meaningful archaeological research. The ongoing excavations employ a rigorous sampling strategy and target intact and undisturbed contexts including houses, streets, workshops, and administrative structures for the representation of a multitude of activities at the site and to generate statistically viable, meaningful, significant, and representative sample sizes. A first and foremost goal of KIM 3 is to further explore approaches to the archaeology of complex urban sites using Kültepe-Kanesh as a case study. A special emphasis is placed on current multidisciplinary approaches presenting clearly-defined and theoretically-grounded methodological problems. The conference aims to integrate the whole spectrum of field and laboratory research that have been taking place and amassing new data at Kültepe since 2006 under the scientific directorship of Prof. Fikri Kulakoğlu of Ankara University. The subtext of the conference is to generate synergizing interactions among researchers studying the archaeological site of Kültepe or the ancient city of Kanesh. More specifically, archaeologists excavating its deep deposits and recording its complex urban stratigraphy; archaeometrists dating and fine-tuning its long cultural sequence; specialists analyzing its rich artifactual, ecofactual, and geofactual assemblages, as well as its urban landscapes and built environments; and historians transliterating its rich textual corpus will coalesce around a shared intellectual agenda to form synthetic interpretations that will better contextualize and integrate all aspects of the exciting ongoing research at Kültepe. This approach has a potential to generate new research questions and agendas and to lead to new collaborations that will add to the increasing body of collectively generated knowledge. The meeting comprises three major sessions that feature ongoing field and laboratory research conducted at Kültepe and related sites in Anatolia and adjacent areas. Each session will be chaired by a moderator who will encourage and facilitate dialogue and discussion among the participants and the audience. Participants of each session will probe contemporary theoretical and methodological issues related to the specific subfields embedded within one of the three broader research frameworks. The final day of KIM 3 will be dedicated to a roundtable that will be facilitated by session chairs and the KIM 3 organizers and that will bring all the conveners together to identify and highlight best practices and to provide recommendations for how the research at Kültepe be best integrated. TIMETABLE
1. We hereby invite proposals for 30 papers to be presented at the KIM 3. To participate, please express interest (our emails are at the end of this document) and submit a proposal with a title and abstract (ca. 200 words) by March 1st, 2017. This will allow us to approve and assign submissions to appropriate sessions provided that they align well with the mission and agenda of the KIM 3. 2. Following the abstract submission, participants will be assigned to one of the three sessions and will be asked to submit an extended abstract (ca. 800 words) by June 1st, 2017. This is required to ensure that the session chairs and conference organizers can be able to develop an informed agenda for the discussions and the final workshop that will integrate research at Kültepe. 3. Please note that English is the main language of the conference and the proceedings publication, a peer-reviewed sub-series of the journal Subartu (Brepols: Turnhout). Article submissions to KIM 3 proceedings will be due by January 1st, 2018, with the final publication is set for spring of 2018. 4. All participants are required to fund their own trip to Kayseri. Beyond that everything is fully financed, including accommodations, meals and local transportation. Meetings take place in the conference hall at the site itself, where also coffee and refreshments will be served during the day. Evenings will feature talks in the field by scholars working on material from the site. Attendees will also enjoy barbecue dinners within sight of the site. No formal attire is required, but you may consider bringing shorts for the day and a warm sweater for sitting outside after sundown. We look forward to seeing you at Kültepe. Fikri Kulakoğlu & Levent Atici