The Malatya Plain in the Network of Interregional Relations in the Late Bronze and Iron Ages

The site of Arslantepe, known from the Hittite and Assyrian cuneiform sources as Melid/Mal(i)tiya, has always represented a natural crossroad of the rugged thoroughfares cutting through eastern Anatolia. In political and cultural terms, the settlement has been both an interface and a frontier with different cultural and political entities all through the long history of the site. Contacts, interactions, and conflicts with the Syro-Mesopotamian, Central Anatolian, and Transcaucasian worlds have characterized the development of the Arslantepe culture, in an uneven way, from time to time, probably from its early beginnings. Nevertheless, the geographic setting of the region, forming an enclosed econiche in the hearth of the Taurus mountain, also determined a sort of "protected" spot, which, in the eyes of the imperial policies investing the area in the historical periods we will deal with in the present article, was easier to submit to tribute than to conquer through a military campaign. Of course with some relevant exceptions, such as the Assyrian conquest by Sargon II.