Umm el-Marra and the Western Expansion of the Mittani Empire in Northwestern Syria
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Date
2014-03-21
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Johns Hopkins University
Abstract
The Bronze Age occupation of Umm el-Marra, a medium-sized regional center in western Syria, lasted, with varying degrees of intensity, for more than a millennium. During this time, the communities who inhabited the site and the political regimes that ruled them left their unique marks on the built environment and material culture. This dissertation studies these phenomena during the Late Bronze Age occupation of Umm el-Marra in the mid-second millennium through a synthesis of the excavation records of the site, archaeological comparanda, textual evidence, ethnoarchaeology, and applicable theory.
The Mittani Empire was the dominant power in northern Syria during the Late Bronze occupation of Umm el-Marra. Most of what is known about Mittani comes from external sources, many of whom were antagonistic and, thus, provide a biased view of the empire and its inhabitants. Through analysis of the Late Bronze Age levels at Umm el-Marra, this work provides an evaluation and exploration of the nature of everyday life in the Mittani empire. As such, it offers a new resource for understanding Mittani, in particular, and the functioning of imperial regimes in general, from the perspective of daily lived existence in households, neighborhoods, and a specific community.
As communities and their constituent families change over time, they have different needs of the dwellings and landscapes they inhabit. These shifting needs are often reflected in the built environment. In this dissertation, I approach the interpretation of the excavated data through a temporal rubric to create a better understanding of how the members of the Late Bronze Age community of Umm el-Marra experienced their world.
This dissertation suggests that the Late Bronze Age occupation of Umm el-Marra was an attempt by Mittani to create a node of control on the Jabbul Plain to help incorporate the region into the empire. The fortunes of Late Bronze Age Umm el-Marra rose and fell with those of Mittani. Both waning political fortunes and the community’s internal demographic shifts led to the gradual abandonment of much of the site before its destruction. This archaeologically visible process sheds light on the life-cycle of communities and the nature of abandonment.
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Keywords
Mittani, Late Bronze Age, Umm el-Marra