Siedlungskammer Kilikien: Studien zur Kultur- und Landschaftsgeschichte des Ebenen Kilikien.

• Author: Beckman, Gary

Siedlungskammer Kilikien: Studien zur Kultur- und Landschaftsgeschichte des Ebenen Kilikien. By SUSANNE RUTISHAUSER. Schriften zur Vorderasiatischen Archäologie, vol. 16. Wiesbaden: HARRASSOWITZ VERLAG, 2020. Pp. xiii + 212, illus. [euro]88.

This volume, which is also available through open access on the publisher's website, represents the revision of Susanne Rutishauser's 2016 doctoral dissertation at Universität Bern, written under Mirko Novák. Beautifully illustrated with informative maps and photos of landscapes and monuments, the book is a great pleasure just to browse. More importantly, it is an indispensable tool for anyone studying the history and culture of Plain Cilicia (Çukurova) from the Chalcolithic through the Byzantine period.

Rutishauser begins by reviewing the characteristics of the environment in which the history of Cilicia has unfolded, presenting concise accounts of topography, tectonics, geology, glaciology, geomorphology, soil science, hydrology, climate, fauna, and flora. From the viewpoint of the longue durée, the development of the Cilician plain since the end of the last glacial maximum has been determined by the interplay of rising sea levels with the deposition of alluvium by the area's three main rivers, the modern Tarsus, Ceyhan, and Seyhan. After centuries of procession into the sea, the coastline has receded somewhat in recent years following the building of dams upstream on these waterways (pp. 27, 35; see Abb. 2-26 on p. 32 for a map of the approximate coastline in the earlier historical period). Within the plain itself, the meandering typical of streams in alluvial landscapes has frequently altered the environment and doubtless obscured numerous earlier sites (pp. 28-31).

The author herself has been a central participant in the Swiss-Turkish mission to Sirkeli Höyük (ancient Kummanni?), a project that has employed the most advanced archaeological technologies and techniques in exploring the mound and surveying its wider region. She explains clearly the team's use of remote sensing (p. 89) and the exploitation of Corona satellite imagery (pp. 90-93), which has allowed the identification of sites invisible on the ground and of abandoned streambeds/paleocanals (pp. 170-71). Least Cost Path (kostengünstige Pfade) analysis (pp. 147-19, 155-57) is employed to determine the optimal routes of travel into and across Cilicia. Significantly, this technique, which in regard to mountain passes takes into account the...