Gerçin Höyük. Formation and Development of an Aramaean State Sanctuary

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Gercin Höyük stands as a widely visible landmark in the valley of the Karasu in southeastern Turkey, not far from the famous ruins of Zincirli. During their exploration of the site in 1890, the German excavators of Zincirli encountered the remains of a colossal statue of the weather god bearing an Aramaic inscription as well as other statue fragments. This discovery paved the way for the recognition that the main sanctuary as well as the royal necropolis of the Aramaic-Iron Age royal house of Samal was to be found there. Despite the clearly outstanding sacral significance of Gercin Höyük, no further archaeological exploration has been conducted up to the present day. Only in the context of new excavations conducted by the Oriental Institute of Chicago at Zincirli, in the course of which massive and continuing illicit excavations at Gercin Höyük have been documented, has archaeological interest once again been directed toward the site.For this reason the Institute of Near Eastern Archaeology at the Free University of Berlin, supported by the Oriental Institute, is initiating an interdisciplinary project of systematic exploration at Gercin Höyük. The primary focus of the project is on the religious use and symbolic significance of this special place. They go hand-in-hand with archaeological evidence for a state sanctuary and its possible pre-Iron Age tradition, royal graves and other material forms of dynastic ancestor worship as well as a general settlement continuity or perhaps discontinuity that stands as an important regional historical reference to the origin and development of the Aramaen state of Samal. The project combines aspects of archaeological settlement research and building history with elements of the history of religion, the research on social space and physical anthropology.