Thursday, June 19, 2025

The assembled palace of Samosata: object vibrancy in 1st C. BCE Commagene

This dissertation develops an innovative approach to cultural transformation in the kingdom of Commagene (modern south-east Turkey) during the 1st c. BCE, focusing on a palatial context in the capital Samosata. It unlocks two corpora of archaeological legacy data, which pertain to salvage excavations undertaken by a team of the Middle East Technical University (Ankara) in the period 1978-1989, in the wake of the site’s flooding by the Euphrates river. The dissertation integrates the excavation documentation with archaeological material nowadays stored at the Archaeological Museum of Adiyaman. In addition to a conventional analysis of the chronology, lay-out and architectural character of the palace, a critique is formulated on the problematic character of acculturative and anthropocentric approaches still characterizing scholarship dealing with ‘Hellenism in the East’. As an alternative, it is proposed to reconceptualize the palace of Samosata as a heterogenous and vibrant...Show more
Supervisor
Versluys, M.J.
Co-supervisor
Blömer, M.
Committee
Kolen, J.; Fontijn, D.R.; Winter, E.; Pitts, M.; Hoo, M.
Qualification
Doctor (dr.)
Awarding Institution
Faculty of Archaeoleogy, Leiden University
Date
2022-05-24

Funding

Sponsorship
This PhD research was conducted within the framework of the NWO-funded VICI project ‘Innovating Objects. The Impact of global connections and the formation of the Roman Empire (ca. 200-30 BC)’, directed by prof. dr. M.J. Versluys.

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