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NEAR EASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY 64:3 (2001)

By Scott Redford, Gil Stein, Naomi
Frances Miller. Archaeological Institute
of America Monographs. New Series
no. 3. Boston: AIA, 1999. Pp. xxiv +
310, 86 figures, 74 tables, 74 plates.
0-924171-65-0. $94.00.

A

fter nearly twenty years since
initiating excavations at the
mound of Gritille, the extensive

medieval levels appear in publication.
Unfortunately, delays of this nature still
plague archaeological investigations in the
Middle East. It is irresponsible not to
publish data in a timely fashion especially
in areas where it is difficult to reexamine
the assumptions of the excavators, and
especially for excavations that are salvage-
based. This is the case for Samsat (Samo-
sata) as well as for many of the remains of
the ancient Kingdom of Commagene. The
failure to publish important sites as
Samosata increase the importance of this
Gritille publication as it fills a void in our
understanding of the geo-political and
economic importance of the upper
Euphrates basin in late antiquity. Con-
equently, despite the twenty year gap
between the project’s inception and its
publishing, this work is of high value and
offers a workable model for frontier studies.

All too often archaeological inves-

tigations focus on narrow concerns that
limit the broader implications of a site. For
many excavators, the late periods are
ignored as overlay to more prized and
valued data of earlier periods. Conse -
quently, a substantial body of knowledge is
lost or ignored in favor of earlier strata. In
many multi-component sites, excavators
treat the later levels as inconsequential
due to the fact that the historical records,
annals, political commentary—where they
exist—are deemed adequate in under-
standing the “recent past.” Historically,
the area around Gritille, as the extended

survey of the Karababa basin has proved,
is rich in archaeological and ethnographic
remains. The excavators of the medieval
levels focused their attention in these
directions in order to provide extensive
documentation of the region in its last
period as an active frontier between con-
flicting cultures and geo-political states.

Prior to hydro-electric construction

along the Euphrates, little was actually
known about the archaeological cultures
in the region, especially in the late ancient
and medieval periods. Gritille was seen as
a marginal site. Its medieval occupation
was believed to be insignificant due to a
paucity of surface remains. This assum-
ption, however, was rectified by the
1981–1984 excavations. Much of the data
published in this volume is useful for
reconstructing the fluid frontier between
the Islamic, Byzantine, Latin Crusader,
and the Armenian worlds north and east
of Samsat. In the twelfth century, the
Euphrates as a frontier was once again
strategically important. Gritille became
meaningful not only as a fortified village,
but as a site in an extended line of
communication, defense, and economic
activity. The inter-connected nature of
the frontier provided a “defense in depth”
for the region in the medieval period,
especially in limiting incursions along the
“Samsat corridor.” Arguably, Samsat was
the most important site near Gritille. It
controlled the trade along the Euphrates
as well as access into the upper plateau of
eastern Anatolia. Gritille and its neighbor
Lidar screened Samsat in a defensive
network of fortified sites. These cities also
maximized the economic potential of the
region enhancing the prestige of the ruling
social hierarchies at Samsat and Urfa. As
Gritille served Samsat in a defensive
strategy and in economic livelihood,
Samsat, in turn, was important to the city
of Urfa, the dominant community in the
region. Consequently, a hierarchy of urban
dominance created an interconnected
frontier defined by overlapping spheres of
influence that provided both strategic
protection and political control for the upper
Euphrates basin in the late medieval period.

Such concerns were not unique to the

eleventh to thirteenth centuries. The
Euphrates frontier enjoyed periods of
conflict after the Arab conquest of the

region in the seventh century but this
model of continuous conflict was not
sustainable. Access to central Anatolia
varied with the control of Samsat and
Urfa. When a strong political presence
was maintained at these sites by aggressive
Byzantine and later Armenian authorities,
the region attained a level of security and
prosperity. Periods of intense conflict were
followed by lapses into quiescence. This is
confirmed in texts and reconfirmed by
Gritille’s medieval levels that indicate
fortification, abandonment, refortification,
destruction, and a lapse into insignificance
with the absorption of the region by the
Ottoman Turks in the fifteenth and
sixteenth centuries.

Gritille possessed a limited chron-

ological horizon beginning in the Neolithic
period. The late medieval levels, confined
only to the eleventh through thirteenth
centuries, a period of great instability on
the upper Euphrates, offer substantive
data in understanding the Euphrates
frontier. The occupational levels (con-
taining nine distinct phases) are the most
detailed medieval remains in the region.
The authors place the archaeological data
in the broader context of history in a
coherent manner. This is especially
evident in the analysis of the agrarian and
pastoral economic base of the site. The
excavators have maximized the impor-
tance of the site to reflect more local
needs and concerns. As a fortified site
Gritille possessed a number of features-
walls, street plan, domestic architecture
and associated attachments such as ovens
and pits—all of which enhanced the
conditions of life along the Euphrates
frontier in the eleventh through thirteenth
centuries. Gritille fits well into the lower
organizational framework of a feudal
society that needed such fortified villages
for military and economic concerns. The
pattern is the same in the Iberian
peninsula and in central Greece along
frontiers that were interconnected by
fortified towers and villages. Such
elements helped maintain security and
control over the countryside in times of
peace as well as war.

Due to its strategic position on the

western bank of the Euphrates near to its
larger neighbor Lidar on the eastern bank,
Gritille provided essential services for the

reviews

The Archaeology of the
Frontier in the Medieval
Near East: Excavations
at Gritille, Turkey

Edited by Rachel Hallote

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regional centers of Samsat and Urfa. It is
from the region of Samsat that the
Euphrates is navigable. The strategic
importance of small fortified sites like
Gritille should not be underestimated as
outposts in a well-connected security grid
along a high intensity frontier that was
prone to periodic disturbances, especially
in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.
But Gritille was more than a fortified
frontier post. Situated in the extremely
fertile Karababa valley, it generated
revenues via a complex livestock
management system and the exploitation
of a variety of plant types that were
consumed in the major towns of Samsat
and Urfa. When Gritille was occupied it
provided a substantial amount of revenue
for the ruling aristocracies of the age.
Many of these were situated in nearby
Samsat or more distant Urfa. This is
supported by the archaeological data.
Usually, historical commentary is silent on
the processes regulating economic systems,
especially the management of livestock.
Gritille provides an example of historical
records being enhanced by anthropological
concerns about human diet and paleo-
pathological examination of human
remains. It is here that medieval Gritille’s
contribution to frontier studies is
exemplary. Agricultural organization, the
classification of plants (cereals, lentils,
fava bean, cotton, flax and viticulture)
and animals (pig, sheep, goat, and cattle,
i.e., the integration of mixed animal
husbandry), illuminate our understanding
of the medieval diet. More importantly,
the organizational model that the
excavators constructed to explain animal
culling techniques in a potentially hostile
frontier zone is insightful for under-
standing daily life. Historical records are
silent on such concerns. As the excavators
state, “medieval plant assemblages from
Gritille represent the first such assemblage
reported from this period in Anatolia and
one of the only ones in the entire Near
East.” Many of the non- edible plant
remains uncovered in the excavations may
be classified as “dye stock” communities
for wool since the site possessed
substantial herds of sheep. Both plant and
animal remains and their analysis serve to
enhance our knowledge of land
productivity and land use. This in turn
leads to a better understanding of human

population densities and their distribution
in the region.

Frontiers—political, social, cultural, or

economic—vary according to a host of
factors with the most rigid definition
applied to those areas under political
dominance. Political frontiers in the
ancient and medieval worlds, however,
should not be assumed to be rigid or
monolithic. More often they were ill-
defined and fluid. To limit analysis along
political parameters is to minimize the
nature of frontiers and their archaeological
communities as basically nodal points
along lines of defense. Scholarship is filled
with such misconceptions and is especially
evident in defining the Euphrates frontier
between Anatolia and Syria on such static
assumptions in the Roman and Byzantine
periods. Outside of its strategic value, it is
easy to minimize sites like Gritille as
outposts along a defensive perimeter that
produced little beyond a garrison
community. As the excavators have
shown, such assumptions are not
warranted. To minimize the cultural and
economic aspects of such sites is to
disregard their importance in a larger
context as social centers of interaction
and exchange between various political
and cultural groups. The excavators of
Gritille rightfully place the site into a
complex historical context between the
Christian and Islamic worlds without
diminishing its importance in frontier
studies. They have succeeded in offering
insights on historical commentary for the
region while emphasizing the character of
its archaeological culture. In this manner
Gritille is more than an historical site of
sub-regional importance. It “fleshes out”
historical concerns, especially for the
medieval Middle East by connecting
the site to the various political states
of the region.

Ron Marchese
University of Minnesota

Dangerous Places:
Health, Safety and
Archaeology

Edited by David A. Poirer and Kenneth
L. Feder, pp. 264. Westport, CT: Bergin
& Garvey, 2000. $65 (cloth).

W

hen we were very young,
archaeology seemed to contain
very few health hazards.

Sunburn, lower back pain, and hangovers
seemed the worst that could happen. This
was before sunburn became skin cancer,
lower back pain became ruptured disks,
and hangovers became kidney stones.
Diarrhea? Been there, done that.
Scorpions? I’ve seen a few, but then again,
too few to mention. But North American
archaeology, as an industry with several
hundred million dollars a year at stake,
has an especially keen perception of
the dangers.

Poirer and Feder have assembled an

eye - opening and truly frightening
collection of essays dealing with the
dangers facing field archaeologists, and
the OSHA-approved means of limiting
the practical (and legal) exposures. The
essays systematically address biological
hazards and those associated with
industrial archaeology, with the emphasis
on North America. The biological hazards
include bacteria like Lyme disease (and a
slew of other tick-borne diseases like
Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever), viruses
like rabies, Hantavirus and, of course,
plague, and most insidiously, fungi.
Histoplasmosis, and coccidiomycosis or
“Valley Fever” are serious problems in the
American Southwest, and anthrax and
tetanus are problems everywhere. Smallpox
has allegedly been eradicated, tuberculosis
is on the rise. The list goes on.

Where are these little horrors to be

found? In the very soil and deposits we
excavate. Rodents, middens, burials, and
plain old dirt are all potential disease
vectors. The dangers from industrial
contaminants are equally grave. Arsenic
was used extensively in late nineteenth
century embalming concoctions, and is
thus present in historic cemeteries. Coal-
tar plants which produced gas present a

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