Tell Tayinat (ancient Kunulua) is a large archeological mound located at the northern bend of the Orontes River, approximately 30km east of Antakya (ancient Antioch) in southeast Turkey. Strategically positioned at the crossroads between the Anatolian highlands to the north, the inland Syrian steppe to the east, and the Levantine coast to the south, Tayinat preserves a unique record of the rich cultural heritage of the region. As the royal capital of a succession of historically attested Bronze and Iron Age kingdoms (ca. 3200-600 BCE), Tayinat has been an important bellwether of social and cultural change. The university of Toronto’s Tayinat Archaeological Project (TAP) has been exploring Tayinat since 1999. TAP was conceived within the framework of the Amuq Valley Regional Projects (AVRP), which has been systematically investigating the archaeology of the North Orontes Valley since 1995. The TAP invstigations seek to document Tayinat’s exceptional cultural record, while contributing to the study of early social complexity and the rise of the first stage ordered societies in the ancient world.
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