Methusalem Funding > A plea for a ‘holistic’ archaeology. Interdisciplinarity and the interaction man-environment during the Holocene at and around Sagalassos
A plea for a ‘holistic’ archaeology. Interdisciplinarity and the interaction man-environment during the Holocene at and around Sagalassos
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Coordinator |
Prof. Marc Waelkens |
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Methusalem Group |
Prof. Etienne Paulissen |
Centre |
Archaeology |
Starting date |
October 1st 2007 |
Financing |
EUR 700.000 per year |
Summary
The Sagalassos Project has been interdisciplinary from the beginning, albeit the disciplines involved have since then more than quadrupled. Our approach in this project proposal will therefore be a holistic one. After 21 years of non-intensive urban (1986-1989) and territorial (1993-1998) surveys, urban excavations and test soundings (1989-2006), urban and suburban ‘intensive’’ surveys (1999-2006) combined with geophysical research and remote sensing (2002-2005), time has come now to 1) Fill up remaining chronological/ territorial gaps in the occupation history of the region. Earlier studies were focused on chronologically and geographically well-selected areas, with an obvious focus on the town and its vicinity. However, some projects eventually raised as many new questions as the ones that were solved. We aim at extending knowledge of the Hellenistic to mid-Byzantine period both in space to include other parts of the town’s territory and in time to wipe out some of our ‘Dark Ages’. The discovery (2005) and excavation (since 2006) of the Early Iron Age (and potentially even Late Bronze Age) predecessor of Sagalassos, which is much larger than the Classical city and was mostly abandoned in the 4th century BC, at Tepe Düzen ca. 1.8 km to the southwest of the latter, now offers the possibility of studying for the first time the rather completely unknown Early Iron Age culture of Pisidia (8th-4th century BC) in almost pristine conditions. Another major chronological gap at the moment remains the Seljuk, Beylik and Ottoman periods (12th-20th centuries) as most of the ‘Pisidian’ information for that time span is either exclusively based on literary evidence or rather casual (de Planhol 1958; Flemming 1964; Höhfeld 1977; Faroqhi 1988). We therefore want to expand our current knowledge, expertise and approach to the complete Holocene and the entire territory of the city (ca. 1200 km2); 2) Produce a holistic view of Sagalassos and its territory as we intend to look at the interaction man-environment in the ‘chora’ of the Imperial city, the largest area the city ever controlled. This will lead to a ‘global or holistic archaeology’ covering this vast area throughout its occupation and identifying all potential and currently accessible environmental/human factors playing a role in its development.
Motivation by the University Board