Polatlı Landscape Archaeology and Survey Project (PLAS) aims to investigate the imperial strategies of the Hittite Empire (c. 1650-1180 BCE) along its western border, as well as the response of the local populations to Hittite imperialism. The project puts specific emphasis on how the empire built itself on earlier local networks or the third and early second millennium BCE, and how in return, the following Iron Age states used Hittite heritage.
Project
As the first project to specifically target the Late Bronze Age in Polatlı, PLAS will systematically collect archaeological data in a regional scale to answer the following research questions:
- What was the archaeological signature of the Hittite Empire in its western frontiers? What are the sites in Polatlı to provide this data?
- What were the imperial strategies of the Hittite Empire along its western border? Did the empire control the area through larger urban centers, or was Polatlı a largely rural hinterland during the Late Bronze Age?
- What was the local response to the empire? How does the material culture in Late Bronze Age sites compare with the corpora of material in the central Hittite sites within the bend of the Kızılırmak River and with neighboring regional centers?
- What are the continuities in material practice between the Hittite Empire and the preceeding periods (Early and Middle Bronze Age, third and early second millennium BCE, respectively)?
- What are the continuities in material practice between the Hittite Empire and the following Iron Ages (c. 1000-330 BCE)?
Sponsors and Partners
The three seasons of fieldwork under the aegis of the PLAS project has been undertaken with the permit of Turkish Ministry of Culture and Tourism [Project Number YA010602(2019)]. We thank the Ministry for their kind permission. We thank the following institutions and grant schemes for their sponsorship during the field seasons and material study:
- Archaeological Institute of America, Richard C. MacDonald Iliad Endowment for Archaeological Research
- Bilkent University
- Bilkent University Faculty of Art, Design and Architecture
- Koç University Suna and İnan Kıraç Research Center for Mediterranean Civilizations (Project Number: KU AKMED 2019/P.1027)
- Temple University
- Tyler School of Art and Architecture
- ASOR Charles Harris Grant
