Carpentry, Social Value, and an Aristocratic Mode of Production

The Iron Age tumuli around ancient Gordion provide a unique window into coalescing processes of craft specialization, elite self-definition, monumentality, and intercommunity social interactions in central Anatolia between ca. 850 and 525 BC. This paper examines the use of timber in the construction of tomb chambers at Gordion through the lenses of social value and social capital and a quantitative comparison of tomb chamber dimensions. It finds a close relationship between monumental architecture, tumulus construction, and the creation of an elite, aristocratic class based on the accumulation of social capital, enacted through the acquisition and display of timber during the ninth century bc, the Early Phrygian period. The transportation of timber from beyond the immediate hinterland, the skillful crafting employed for tomb chamber construction, the element of enchantment imparted by the scale and concentration of timber as used in a chamber, and the transformative processes of the funerary rite all establish that timber was a socially valued good at Iron Age Gordion. Groups burying in tumuli appear to have competed for its acquisition and use in mortuary architecture, evident in the close correlation between tumulus size, chamber size, and maximum timber size, in particular during the ninth century BC when compared with the roughly 300-year-long period of inhumation-tumulus construction that followed. Access to and competition over this socially valued good were important processes in the development of new elite ideologies, which included attempts at the establishment of hereditary aristocratic status, a valuation of social capital. As a specialized craft tied to this social and ideological change, carpentry appears to have operated within an aristocratic mode of production; that is, it was shaped by an ethos of distinction and legitimation. Supplementary Materials can be found appended to the online version of this article.