Political Authority and Storage in Early-Middle Iron Age (1200-800 BCE) Central Anatolia

The Early Iron Age across the Mediterranean and Near East is increasingly being understood as a highly dynamic period socially and politically. In the context of Anatolia, the end of the Hittite Empire and the western Anatolian polities brought about varied responses throughout the geo-political landscape, which arguably influenced societies of the Middle Iron Age. This movement from the Early to Middle Iron period (ca. 1200-800 BCE) will be examined, for the dynamics which took place during these centuries were arguably instrumental in giving Middle Iron communities their appearance as we currently understand them historically and archaeologically. In examining the character of political authority during the Early-Middle Iron Age in central Anatolia, I define it as a process of coordinating material and symbolic resources in order to promulgate a sense of social order and enabling agency. I shall examine the extent to which storage practices were implicated in these socio-political developments. Storage is a means by which people manage and preserve resources for variable lengths of time, and the aim will be to examine the extent to which such management and control was involved in the workings of political authority. Two sites in separate regions of central Anatolia – Gordion and Çadır Höyük – will comprise the case studies informing the discussion. To investigate the connection between storage and political authority, I shall focus on identifying areas used for storage in the settlements, based on material culture associated with the activity; changing patterns through time; and the association between these shifts in storage patterns and other changes visible in the archaeological record. This, in turn, will allow for a discussion of the degree of connection between storage with the political authority workings at the two sites, and what this may articulate about Early-Middle Iron Age dynamics in central Anatolia.