Food and culture: stories of the past

The archaeology of food has increasingly attracted scholarly attention, encompassing a diverse set of data and approaches with immense potential to speak of the collective—often untold—stories of everyday choices, sustaining not only the physical, but also the social individual through time. While the two books under review are both part of this ever-expanding field, investigating food and foodways of the past, they are quite distinct in their scope.

Syro-Hittite iconography and food in practice

Figure 1. Map of Syro-Hittite kingdoms (Niehr, Herbert. The Aramaeans in ancient Syria. Leiden: Brill, 2014.)Alongside the rise of the independent Syro-Hittite kingdoms in the 1st millennium BC, a distinctive category of banquet scenes also developed in the northern Syria/southern Anatolia region. Iron Age Sam’al—modern Zincirli Höyük—was one such kingdom. This talk will explore how these scenes relate to the archaeology of food and identity by addressing the following concepts:Stylistic elements and local/regional identityLimitations of iconographic interpretationFood-related practices and archaeological correlates from Zincirli