Tell Ushayer: A Late Bronze Age Fortress in North Jordan

在靠近约旦北部伊尔比德的Tell Ushayer进行的一项考古初步研究揭示了青铜和铁器时代晚期一种极其有趣的建筑结构的证据。在它的高原上，Tell被一堵不朽的圆形防御墙包围着。石墙围成的聚落面积只有0.6公顷左右。这就是为什么该遗址被解读为一座堡垒，而不是一个自然生长的定居点。陶器证据强调了这种解释，这表明在青铜时代晚期之前没有职业。相反，一切都支持在大约14米高的人工抬高的底层上建造严格规划的堡垒。该项目旨在调查Tell Ushayer堡垒的建筑历史和建筑布局，包括它在铁器时代早期遗址坍塌之前的内部占领。它讨论了遗址在区域发展和大规模关系的背景下的相关性和功能，这些背景塑造了青铜时代晚期国际化和全球化时期的图景。通过体积建筑分析，将计算堡垒建设背后的能量，以便在当代规划战略和控制等级的背景下，为劳动力和时间之间的关系建立可测量的参数。该遗址在铁器时代早期后期被遗弃的原因，以及在铁器时代二期中断后重新安置的原因，最终推动了对青铜时代晚期政治制度崩溃后的社会发展及其物化的研究视角，直到希腊化时代。

An archaeological pilot study at Tell Ushayer, close to Irbid in North Jordan, has brought to light evidence for an extremely interesting architectural structure of the Late Bronze and Iron Age. On its plateau, the Tell is surrounded by a monumental circular fortification wall. The stone wall encloses a settlement area of about only 0.6ha. That is why the site rather is interpreted as a fortress than a naturally grown settlement. This interpretation is stressed by pottery evidence, which indicates no occupation prior to the Late Bronze Age. Instead, everything speaks in favor of a strictly planned fortress construction erected on an artificially raised substratum of about 14m height.The project aims to investigate the building history and the architectural layout of the fortress on Tell Ushayer including its intramural occupation until the collapse of the site in the Early Iron Age. It discusses the relevance and the function of the site in the context of regional developments and large-scale relations, which shape the picture of an internationalized and globalized period in the Late Bronze Age. By means of a volumetric architectural analysis, the energy behind the construction of the fortress will be calculated in order to establish measurable parameters for the relation between labor and time in the context of contemporary strategies of planning and hierarchies of control. The reasons for the abandonment of the site in an advanced phase of the Early Iron Age and its resettlement after a hiatus during the Iron Age II, finally drives the research perspectives towards social developments and their materializations after the collapse of the Late Bronze Age political systems until Hellenistic times.