The Dawn and Demise of Imperial Impact - Tell Atchana vs. Arslantepe in the Framework of the Hittite Expansion and Dissolution

Despite the differences in their geographical locations and cultural contexts, the sites of Alalakh and Arslantepe were both involved in the interaction network of the Late Bronze Age kingdoms and early empires. The historical events that affected the regions of south and southeastern Anatolia during the second half of the second millennium BC have especially left their imprint in the archaeological record of the two sites. This paper presents an overview of fortification systems and settlement management, luxury goods and iconography, as well as pottery production and glyptic material from Alalakh Periods 3-0 and Arslantepe IV-III, in order to analyse how these sites reacted to the impact of the expansion of the Hittite Empire and also how they developed after the collapse of the centralised polity, during a time frame stretching between 1400 and 1100 BC. The comparison offers new insights into the complexity of cross-cultural relations in the framework of imperial expansion and demise