The Regeneration of the Late Bronze Age Traditions and the Formation of the Kingdom of Malizi

In recent years, excavations and studies of the main Syro-Anatolian Late Bronze and Iron Age capitals havebeen resumed; among others, the site of Arslantepe, located in the Malatya province (SE Turkey) a few kilometres awayfrom the Upper Euphrates River. Arslantepe is identi?ed as the ancient city of Malitiya known from Hittite texts, andlater as the capital of the independent Early Iron Age reign of Malizi from inscriptions on monuments discovered at thesite and in its territory. The formation of this kingdom, at the beginning of the 12th century BC, has so far been evaluatedexclusively on the basis of the iconography and style of the bas-reliefs found at Arslantepe and the epigraphic and palaeographicanalysis of the Luwian hieroglyphic inscriptions carved on rock monuments widespread in the region. Thefundamental outcomes, concerning the continuity of the sculptural cycles and king genealogies from the Anatolian Hittiteand north-Syrian Late Bronze Age traditions can nowadays be cross-examined in the light of the newly excavatedEarly Iron Age levels at the site. The paper aims at reviewing the chronology, formation and historical development ofthe Kingdom of Malizi, setting the archaeological sequence and related remains unearthed at Arslantepe in the contextof the political evolution of the Euphrates region during the last centuries of the 2nd millennium BC.