Gibala and the East Mediterranean. A multidisciplinary research project investigating cultural interaction between Tell Tweini and the East Mediterranean in the bronze and Iron Ages.

The coastal area of Syria has always been a crossroads for the exchange of goods and ideas due to its strategic situation between the main civilizations of the time: the Aegean, Mesopotamia and Anatolia. Economic interaction between the palace economies of Crete and the Levant is demonstrated as early as the 3rd millennium B.C.E. and Sargon, king of Akkad (ca. 2.300 B.C.E.) claims that all countries between the Persian Gulf (Dilmun) and Magan on one side and Kaptaru (Crete) and Anaku (Cyprus ?) on the other,submitted to his authority. The aims of the project are to further explore the Bronze and Iron Age strata at Tell Tweini, continuing to employ up-o-date scientific techniques and focussing on changes in technology (ceramic, metallurgical and agricultural technologies),socio-economic strategies and how these changes can shed light on interrelations with the Aegean and Cypriot centres.

Keywords:Iron ages, Bronze ages

Disciplines:Archaeology, Theory and methodology of archaeology, Other history and archaeology, History, Economic history