The volume is the first in nearly a decade to focus a wide range of scholarship on one of the most compelling periods in the antiquity of the Mediterranean and Near East. It presents new interpretive approaches to the problems of the Bronze Age to Iron Age transformation, as well as re-assessments of a wide range of high profile sites and evidence ranging from the Ugaritic archives, Hazor, the Medinet Habu reliefs, Tiryns and Troy. Implications for a changing climate are also explored in the volume. The end of the Bronze Age in the Mediterranean and Near East is a huge challenge requiring a diverse, global, flexible and open minded strategy for its interpretation - it is too vast and complex for any one scholar or interpretive approach. The scope of this volume is great, but not overwhelming, as the papers are organized coherently into themes considering climate, exchange and interregional dynamics, iconography and perception, the built environment - cemeteries, citadels, and landscapes, and social implications for the production and consumption of pottery. Thus, Forces of Transformation is broad enough to address many of the major concerns of the end of the Bronze Age, and also to encapsulate the current position of scholarship as it relates to this problem.

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Editors’ Preface
• List of Contributors
• Part 1: Considerations of climate
  • 1 Holocene Climate Variability In The Eastern Mediterranean, And The End Of The Bronze Age
  • 2 Changes In Vernacular Architecture And Climate At The End Of The Aegean Bronze Age
• Part 2: Exchange and interregional dynamics
  • 3 Just What Collapsed? A Network Perspective On ‘Palatial’ And ‘Private’ Trade At Ugarit
  • 4 Continuity And Change: The Divergent Destinies Of Late Bronze Age Ports In Syria And Lebanon Across The Lba/Iron Age Transition
  • 5 Cultural Identity And Social Interaction In Crete At The End Of The Bronze Age (LM IIIC)
  • 6 Late Bronze Age Exchange Networks In The Western Mediterranean
  • 7 Sicily At The End Of The Bronze Age: ‘Catching The Echo’
• Part 3: Iconography and perception
  • 8 Identity, Choice, And The Year 8 Reliefs Of Ramesses III At Medinet Habu
  • 9 Warriors, Hunters And Ships In The Late Helladic IIIC Aegean: Changes In The Iconography Of Warfare?
• Part 4: Built environment – cemeteries, citadels, and landscapes
  • 10 Forces Of Transformation In Death: The Cemetery At Tel ES-SA‘Idiyeh, Jordan
  • 11 The South-Eastern Aegean In The Lh Iiic Period: What Do The Tombs Tell Us?
  • 12 The Last Days Of A Canaanite Kingdom: A View From Hazor
  • 13 The Significance Of Changes In Spatial Usage At Mycenae
  • 14 From DA-MO To ΔHMOΣ: Survival Of A Mycenaean Land Allocation Tradition In The Classical Period?
  • 15 Landscapes Of Power And Proto-Urban Developments Toward Urbanization In Bronze Age And Early Iron Age Latium Vetus
  • 16 The Iron Age Transition At Troy
• Part 5: Social implications for the production and consumption of pottery
  • 17 End Or Beginning? The Late Bronze Age To Iron Age Transformation At Troia
  • 18 Handmade And Burnished Pottery In The Eastern Mediterranean At The End Of The Bronze Age: Towards An Explanation For Its Diversity And Geographical Distribution
  • 19 The Change Of Pottery’s Social Meaning At The End Of The Bronze Age: New Evidence From Tiryns
  • 20 A Note On The Material From The Late Bronze And Early Iron Age Cemeteries Of Tel El-Far‘ah South
  • 21 The Organization Of Ceramic Production During The Transition From The Late Bronze To The Early Iron Ages: Tel Batash As A Test Case
• Bibliography