ARCANE Project: Synchronizing Cultures and Civilizations of the Ancient Near East and the Eastern Mediterranean in the Third Millennium BC
The ARCANE project aims at synchronising the third millennium BC regional assemblages of archaeological material in the Near East and the Eastern Mediterranean, with the goal to produce a reliable relative and absolute chronology.
To reach this aim, it was decided to review the complete material culture, but to examine it under the specific point of view of chronological variation, leaving aside other historical and archaeological problems. A common methodology will be used by all regional groups, and participants will try to develop, in the course of the project, a common terminology in order to define both periods and different types of material.
The proposed methodology is based on three main points: 1) to concentrate on stratigraphically safe contexts and sealed assemblages (e.g. in situ material on floors, material inside a room sealed by the collapse of the roof, undisturbed, not reused graves) and on complete objects; 2) to analyse complete assemblages (combinations of co-occurring artefacts): these have to be studied together, in order to establish the co-occurrence of different types of objects in the different phases; and 3) not to limit the study to already published material, but to include as much as possible unpublished material, provided by the directors of excavations and their collaborators, which will be involved to different degrees in the project Work will proceed in successive steps: first at a regional level, by establishing regional periodizations, then at a supra-regional level, by synchronising the different regional periodizations. Finally, a general synchronisation will be attempted at...
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