3. Imperial Connections. Interactions and Expansion from Assyria to the Roman Period

This volume contains the papers presented at Sessions 3 (Imperial frontiers: the Assyrian periphery and interactions between Assyria and neighbouring kingdoms during the first millennium B) and 5 (West vs East: from Hellenism to the Roman expansion in the Near East) of the 5th edition of the “Broadening Horizons” Conference, which was held at the University of Udine from 5th to 8th June 2017. Broadening Horizons is an international meeting that aims to offer an opportunity for relatively informal discussion, especially (though not exclusively) for young/early career archaeologists specialized in the ancient Near East and disciplines relevant to the main theme of each congress session. All the papers have passed a double blind peer-review process and provide significant contributions on a number of topics – among which material culture (e.g. pottery tradition and architecture), settlement pattern, social changes, cultural transmission and economic dynamics – that are of fundamental importance for the archaeology of Mesopotamia and the Levant.

Katia Gavagnin is a recognized expert/honorary fellow on the Humanities Department at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice. She is a member of The Land of Nineveh Archaeological Project where she is in charge of the study and publications of the Third and First Millennium BC pottery, and she is also field responsible of one excavation area of the Kurdish-Italian Gir-e Gomel Archaeological Project. Her interest is mainly dedicated on Third Millennium BC and Neo-Assyrian period in Upper Mesopotamia, with special focus on pottery and settlement patterns. She is also working in Southern Caucasus as a member of the Shida-Kartli Archaeological Project and Lagodekhi Archaeological Project in Georgia. She took part to several excavations in Italy, Syria, Iraqi Kurdistan and Georgia.

Rocco Palermo is a Researcher and Lecturer at the University of Groningen (Netherlands), and Associate Director of the Erbil Plain Archaeological Survey (Iraqi Kurdistan, Harvard University). In addition to EPAS, he is also member of the Land of Nineveh Archaeological Project (Udine) and the Suleymaniah Governorate Archaeological Survey (Paris), both projects operating in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. Since 2019 he is also co-field director of the excavation at Tell Aliawa (Iraqi Kurdistan), within the framework of the Italian Mission in the Erbil Plain (University of Milan). He is currently involved, as project director, in the intensive survey and excavations at the site of Girdi Matrab (Erbil plain). He has also carried out extensive fieldwork in Syria (Tell Barri), and Jordan ( Jerash). His major research interests are the formation and development of imperial landscapes through the archaeological record, the Graeco-Roman Near East, the Roman borderland in the East, and the role of remote-sensing and spatial analyses in the archaeological research. He is the author of On the Edge of Empires. North Mesopotamia during the Roman Period (Routledge, 2019).