Professor Antonio Sagona

Biography

Antonio (Tony) Sagona has over 20 years of experience in archaeological fieldwork, mostly in Turkey, where he co-directed, with C. Sagona, major projects at Sos Höyük and Büyüktepe Höyük. Presently, he is involved with two new major and long-term projects. One is in the Republic of Georgia, on the frontier between the ancient Near East and the Eurasian steppelands, which seeks to examine the archaeology around Tbilisi, the modern capital. The other is an historical and archaeological survey of the ANZAC Battlefield area at Galliopli. He has supervised to completion 16 PhD, 22 MA, and over 50 BA (Hons) theses, and is currently supervising a host of others. Tony Sagona has written four books, edited five others, and written many articles; he is also Editor of the journal Ancient Near Eastern Studies, and its monograph series, published by Peeters Press, in Leuven. He is an elected Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London, and a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities.

Recent Grants & Awards (from 2002)

2006-2009
A. Sagona, G. Tsetskhladze, C. Ogleby and C. Sagona, ARC DP - DP0773040 (A Study of the Archaeology of Caucasian Iberia with Implications for Grazing Management in Australia).

2005
A. Sagona, Melbourne International Collaborative Research Grant, Ref no. 18883 (Kerkenes Dagh: An Ancient Fortress in central Turkey).

2004
A. Sagona & G. Tsetskhladze, Melbourne International Collaborative Research Grant, UMC 16751 (The Mtskheta Archaeological Project)

A. Sagona, Australian Institute of Nuclear Science and Engineering (AINSE), AINGRA04132P for AMS dating (Beyond the Land of the Golden Fleece: The Mtskheta Archaeological Project).

2003
A. Sagona, Australian Institute of Nuclear Science and Engineering (AINSE), AINGRA03/101, for AMS dating (Cultural Interaction in late prehistoric Trans-Caucasus and Eastern Anatolia).

2002 
A. Sagona, Australian Institute of Nuclear Science and Engineering (AINSE), Grant no. 02/115, for AMS dating (Project title: Cultural Interaction in Late Prehistoric Trans-Caucasus).

A. Sagona, F. Andersen & A. Rainey, Univ of Melbourne Visiting Research Scholars Award, Ref. No. UMC12, 227. (Project title: Language and Ethnicity in the Levant during the second and first millennia BCE).

A. Sagona and C. Sagona, University of Melbourne, International Collaborative Research Grant, Ref. No. UMC 12,249. (Project title: Maltese Archipelago Archaeological Project).

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Research

Research strengths
The archaeology of the ancient Near East, especially Anatolia and Caucasus.

Current projects

An Archaeological Survey of the ANZAC Battlefield at Gallipoli
Type of Project: Archaeological field work
Collaborators: Assoc Prof. Chris Mackie in Classics and Archaeology, and others in many other disciplines.
This is part of a multi-disciplinary, international and collaborative project, involving the Department of Veterans’ Affairs (Canberra), Turkish and New Zealand experts, and a host of researchers from Australia. The primary aim of the project is to provide a holistic picture of the battlefield area, using archaeological, historical and literary data. My part in the project is to coordinate the extensive archaeological investigations with a view to providing the respective governments with all the essential data required for a comprehensive heritage management plan. While the focus of the survey will be the 1915 battlefield, we will record other archaeological sites and material in order to place the modern conflict in its proper cultural and geographical context.

Beyond the Land of the Golden Fleece: Archaeological Investigations at Mtskheta, Georgia (Caucasus).

Type of Project: Archaeological field work
Collaborators: Dr Gocha Tsetskhladze
This multi-disciplinary project focuses on Caucasus, the isthmus between the Black Sea and the Caspian, which has always stood as a pre-eminent frontier. Within this complex landscape lies the land of Georgia, which the ancient Greeks considered the edge of the known world, the mythical land of the Golden Fleece. This project will remove much of the obscurity that currently surrounds the archaeology of Caucasus by investigating the Iberian Kingdom and its antecedents. It aims to examine the concept of borderlands by evaluating the dramatic transformation of the society, settlement and landscape from the 2nd millennium BC to the 5th century AD in the region of Mtskheta.

Ancient Turkey and the Near East
Type of Project: Publications
My main publication projects are:

1. A book commissioned by Routledge that surveys ancient Anatolia (Turkey) from the earliest settlements to the arrival of the Greeks. It aims to integrate archaeological and textual information with a view to providing a holistic picture of the highlands north of Mesopotamia.
2. Final excavation reports of field work in north-eastern Turkey at the sites of Büyüktepe Höyük and Sos Höyük. These reports will complement the ones already published in Archaeology at the North-East Anatolian Frontier, a series published by Peeters Press.
3. Editorship of the journal and its monograph series, Ancient Near Eastern Studies

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Publications

Books

• Sagona, A. The Heritage of Eastern Turkey: From the Earliest Settlements to Islam. Macmillan, New York & Melbourne, 2006.
• Sagona, A. and Sagona, C. Archaeology at the North-East Anatolian Frontier. Vol. 1. An Historical Geography and a Survey of the Bayburt Province, Peeters Press, Louvain: xxiv + pp. 600, (2004). ISBN 90-429 1390-8
• Sagona, A. G. The Asvan Sites 3: Keban Rescue Excavations, Eastern Anatolia. The Early Bronze Age (British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara Monograph no. 18), London and Ankara: xx + 250 pp. inc. 160 figs and 3 colour plates, (1994). ISBN 1 898249 02 4. ISSN 0969–9007.
• Sagona, A. G. (1984) The Caucasian Region in the Early Bronze Age, (British Archaeological Reports International Series 214), Oxford: 3 vols, 563 pp. inc 155 figs, 4 tables, 18 maps and 24 plates, (1984). ISBN 0 86054 277 7.

Edited Books

• Rubinson, K. S. and Sagona, A. (eds) (in press) Ceramics in Transition: Chalcolithic Through Iron Age in the Caucasus and Anatolia. Peeters Press, Louvain.
• Sagona, A. and Abramishvili, M. (eds) (in press) Archaeology in Southern Caucasus: Perspectives from Georgia. Peeters Press, Louvain.
• Çilingiroglu, A. and Sagona, A. (eds) (in press) Anatolian Iron Ages 6: The Proceedings of the Sixth Anatolian Iron Ages Colloquium Held at Eskisehir, 16–20 August 2004. Peeters Press, Louvain.
• Sagona, A. (ed.) (2004) A View from The Highlands: Studies in Honour of Charles Burney, Peeters Press, Louvain: xx + 762 pp. inc. figs ISBN 90-429-1352-5.
• Sagona, A. G. (editor and senior author) (1994) Bruising the Red Earth: Ochre Mining and Ritual in Aboriginal Tasmania, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne: xvii + 186 pp. inc. 51 figs and 6 colour plates ISBN 0 522 84602 5.
• Sagona, A. G. and Zimmer, J. K. (eds) Images of the Ancient World: Archaeology at the University of Melbourne, Chisholm Institute of Technology, Melbourne: 167 pp. inc. 16 figs, 68 b/w plates and 8 colour plates. (1988).

Journal Issues

• 1-7. Sagona, A. (ed.) Ancient Near Eastern Studies vols 36–42 (1999–2005). Peeters Press, Louvain. ISSN 0065-0382.

Book Chapters (from 2002)

• Rubinson, K. S. and Sagona, A. ' Introduction' in Ceramics in Transition: Chalcolithic Through Iron Age in the Caucasus and Anatolia, edited by Rubinson, K. S. and Sagona, A. (eds). Peeters Press, Louvain.
• Sagona, A. 2006 'Ortaçad'dan önce Kars' [Kars before the Middle Ages], in Kars: Beyaz Uykusuz Uzakta, edited by F. Özdem, pp. 11-30. Istanbul: YKY. (in Turkish).
• Sagona, C. and Sagona, A. ‘The mushroom, the Magi, and the keen-sighted seer’ in The Black Sea, Greece, Anatolia and Europe in the First Millennium BC: Studies Dedicated to Jan Bouzek, edited by G. Tsetskhaladze. Brill: Leiden. (in press).
• Connor, S. and Sagona, A. ‘Environment and Society in the Late Prehistory of Southern Georgia, Caucasus’ in Les cultures du Caucase (VIème-IIIème millénaires avant notre. ère). Leurs relations avec le Proche-Orient, edited by B. Lyonnet. Paris: CNRS éditions. (in press).
• Sagona, A and Sagona, C. ‘Frontiers and Mountains: Fifteen years of archaeology in north-east Anatolia’ in Archaeology from Australia, edited by T. Murray, Australian Scholarly Publishing, Melbourne, pp. 361–373 (2004).
• Sagona, A. ‘Social boundaries and Ritual Landscapes: The Late Prehistory of Trans-Caucasus’, in A. Sagona (ed.) A View from The Highlands: Studies in Honour of Charles Burney, Peeters Press, Louvain, pp. 485–549 (2004).
• Çilingirolu, A. and A. Sagona, ‘Charles Burney in the Near Eastern Highlands’, in A. Sagona (ed.) A View from The Highlands: Studies in Honour of Charles Burney, Peeters Press, Louvain: pp. 3–12  (2004).
• Kiguradze, T. and Sagona, A. ‘On the Origins of the Kura-Araxes Cultural Complex’, in A. T. Smith and K. Rubinson (eds), Archaeology in the Borderlands: Investigations in Caucasia and Beyond, Cotsen Institute Press, Los Angeles: pp. 38–94 (2003).

Journal Articles (from 2002)

• Connor, S. E., Thomas, I., Kvavadze, E.V., Arabuli, G.J. Avakov, G. S. and Sagona, A. ‘A survey of modern pollen and vegetation along an altitudinal transect in southern Georgia, Caucasus region,’ Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology 129 (2004), pp. 229–250.
• Sagona, A. ‘Leben und Tod in dem Schatten von Paländoken Berge, Erzurum’, Georgica: Zeitschrift für Kultur, Sprache und Geschichte Georgiens und Kaukasiens 25 (2003), pp. 20–41.
• Sagona, A. ‘Comment’ on E. Hovers, S. Ilani, O. Bar-Yosef and B. Vandermeersch, “ An Early Case of Color Symbolism: Ochre Use by Modern Humans in Qafzeh Cave” in Current Anthropology 44 (Aug-Oct 2003), pp. 516.
• Sagona, A. and Sagona, C. ‘The Upper levels at Sos Höyük, Erzurum: A Reinterpretation of the 1987 Campaign’, Anatolica Antiqua 11 (2003), pp. 101–110.
• Sagona, A. ‘Archaeology at the Headwaters of the Aras’, Ancient West and East 1: pp. 46–50 (2002).

Other Publications (from 2002)

Exhibition Catalogue

• 1–6 Sagona, A. ‘Punic Urn’, ‘Cypriote ‘Tulip’ Bowl’, ‘Jar Handle with L’MLK Stamp Impression’, ‘Cypriote Horse and Rider Figurine’, ‘Phoenician Ivory Plaque’, ‘Iranian Decorated Bronze Belt’, in C. McAuliffe and P. Yule (eds), Treasures: Highlights of the Cultural Collections of the University of Melbourne, The Miegunyah Press, Carlton: pp. 68–73, 134–135, 244–247 (2003).

Conference Paper

• Sagona, A. and Sagona, C. ‘Excavations at Sos Höyük, 2000’, in Proceedings of the XXIIIth International Symposium of Anatolian Excavation (Kazi Sonuçlari Toplantisi), Ankara, vol. 1, pp. 265–268 (2002).

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