How difficult? Mountain roads and pathways reaching ancient Melid (Malatya) in south-eastern Anatolia. A reconsideration

The reconstruction of ancient road systems is one of the main topics of historical geography, but the possibility of tracing ancient routes, which formed pathways of cultural, economic and political interchange, often clashes with scanty historical and archaeological sources, especially in those cases in which even the identification of ancient toponyms remains doubtful. This is certainly true for the south-eastern region of Anatolia in pre-Classical times: epigraphic sources of different provenience do provide information on ancient itineraries but many uncertainties and blanks in documentation still prevent an overall comprehension of ancient road systems. The present article analyses a specific case study, the ancient site of Melid (Malitya), identified with the Arslantepe mound located in the Malatya plain. Ancient sources will be reanalysed also with the help of computational modelling, which may fill in, at least partially, the gaps of the uneven documentation and simulate the impact of the social and political interactions and changes over the ancient road system.