The New Chronology of Iron Age GordionC. Brian Rose, Gareth Darbyshire The New Chronology of Iron Age Gordion argues that the history and archaeology of the site of Gordion, in central Turkey, have been misunderstood since the beginning of its excavation in the 1950s. The first excavation director, Rodney Young, found evidence for substantial destruction during the first decade of fieldwork; this was interpreted as proof that Gordion had been destroyed ca. 700 B.C. by the Kimmerians, a group of invaders from the Caucusus/Black Sea region, as attested in several ancient literary sources. During the last decade, however, renewed research on the archaeological evidence, within, above, and below the destruction level indicated that the catastrophe that destroyed much of Gordion occurred 100 years earlier, in 800 B.C., and was the result of a fire that quickly got out of control rather than a foreign invasion. |
Contents
Introduction | 1 |
1 The Creation of the Old Chronology | 13 |
2 Emerging Problems and Doubts | 23 |
3 Textual Evidence and the Destruction Level | 49 |
4 Artifacts | 59 |
5 Dendrochronology at Gordion | 79 |