There are as yet no temples in Western Anatolia prior to the first millennium; no counterparts for the Hittite temples further east. This may be an illusion which further discoveries will dispel, but more probably it is because the west had not yet been brought into contact with the architects and religions which influenced their eastern neighbours. Crete, Greece and the islands built no temples either in those early days: shrines, principally in palaces or private houses, were used for worship instead. There were undoubtedly shrines, as opposed to temples, in Anatolia as well; mostly from private houses, some better authenticated than others, differing in character according to time and place. It may be useful to review the evidence for shrines both in the western and the eastern regions, though with more emphasis on the former, to deduce as much as we can about their nature, and to decide which of them have acceptable claims.

Work commenced in August 1994 on a new archaeological rescue project to survey, excavate and protect the remains of a Classical and Byzantine site at Çiftlik, near Sinop on the Turkish coast of the Black Sea (Pl. XXIX (a)). The work was a collaborative project including staff from the Sinop Museum and the British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara, and staff and students from the University of Warwick. The British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara has adopted this as a new “in-house” project, run in collaboration with Mr. İsmail Tatlıcan, Director of the Sinop Museum.

The remains at Çiftlik lie at the mouth of a valley on the west side of the great bay in the Black Sea which runs south of the peninsula on the isthmus on which the city of Sinop stands. The remains of two buildings were studied in 1994. These buildings were originally constructed on silty soil consisting of winter wash material which was deposited at the valley bottom over a long period of time prior to the Classical occupation of the site. The project is very much concerned with rescue, since the coastline in this area is being seriously eroded by the sea. At least 1·5 metres of the church (the south building) has been eroded since 1990, and the low shelf in the water beside what survives has underwater remains from various Classical and Byzantine buildings.

Renfrew has rightly remarked that in Anatolian Early Bronze Age chronology “the basic problem is to decide how to correlate the Trojan early bronze age periods … with the sequence of Tarsus”. It is largely to this problem that the following article is addressed.

Professor Mellink has argued that Troy I is contemporary with Tarsus EBII on the grounds that Troy II and Tarsus EBIII appear to her to be contemporary. Since she places the start of Tarsus EBI at c. 3000 B.C. this scheme places the beginning of Troy I considerably after that date, perhaps at c. 2700 B.C. Mellaart, by contrast, disputes the equation between Troy I and Tarsus EBII and argued at first that Tarsus EBIIIa must begin later than the beginning of Troy II, envisaging a period of overlap. He has subsequently suggested that it actually follows the end of Troy II. According to this correlation Troy I would be contemporary with Tarsus EBI, and not Tarsus EBII.

The investigation of the building which is the subject of this paper was undertaken in 1975, 1977, and 1981 in the course of the survey of Oinoanda conducted by the British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara. I am most grateful to Mr. A. S. Hall, director of the survey, for inviting me to participate in it and for supporting my work on the site, to Bay Sırrı Özenir, Bay Osman Özbek and Bay Edip Özgür, successive representatives of the Turkish government, for much assistance, and to Mr. P. Forster and students of the Department of Land Survey of the North-East London Polytechnic for more technical aid.

Before discussing the building itself, some general remarks on the development of the survey are required. The initial survey of the site was begun in 1974 by a group from the North-East London Polytechnic led by Mr. A. Slade. An arbitrary bearing was defined as grid north and a datum point for levelling was arbitrarily allotted a height of 1000 m. Extension of the survey in 1977 established that the level of the acropolis summit in terms of this arbitrary datum is approximately 1095 m., whereas the actual height above sea level is 1532 m.

The aim of this paper is to discuss different possibilities for the function of the shaft found behind certain Phrygian cult façades. The purpose of the shaft is unknown, but various theories exist.

In the highlands of Phrygia, between Afyon and Eskişehir, around Türkmen Dağ, which is covered by volcanic tuff, the Phrygians created their sanctuaries and other monuments from the rock itself. These monuments have been the subject of study by several scholars. Haspels (1971, 3–19) gives a thorough account of earlier travellers and scholars. The rock-cut shrines and sanctuaries to be found in this area can be divided into two basic categories. The first category comprises monuments which consist of a façade, varying in size, generally depicting the front of a house and usually with a niche as its focal point. Sometimes there is no façade, just a niche. In the niche we can assume that the cult statue of the Phrygian Mother goddess Kybele was placed, as in a few cases the cult image of Kybele was cut straight from the rock and is still in situ.

In the first century BC, the Tarkondimotidai, an indigenous dynasty ruling over Mount Amanos and the Pyramos basin, were officially recognised as kings by the Roman triumvir Mark Antony. The dynasty weathered the transformation from the Roman Republic to Principate and continued to rule until AD 17. Since the days of Barclay Head, it has been accepted that only two members of the dynasty issued coinage and that the royal mint was located at the kingdom's supposed capital Hieropolis-Kastabala. This paper attempts to fix the identity of the Tarkondimotid monarch who issued a series of regal bronzes in the name of ‘King Philopator’. In the process, it is shown that the location of the royal mint should be moved to the city of Anazarbos, away from Hieropolis which may never have been incorporated directly within the kingdom.

Amorium is in eastern Phrygia, 170 km. south-west of Ankara, 70 km. north-east of Afyon, 12 km. east of the town of Emirdaǧ, and near the source of the Sakarya (Sangarius) (Fig. 1). It lies on the north-facing lower slopes of the mountains of Emirdaǧ (the Turkish town, previously called Aziziye, has the same name), and the ancient site of Amorium lies within the relatively recent village of Hisarköy. The mountain of Emirdaǧ gives rise to various streams which flow into a tributary of the Sakarya, and at Amorium the view to the north extends over some 50 km., showing, in the middle distance, the tree-lined course of the river, and the mountains of Sivrihisar beyond. The ancient town (which includes a large prehistoric hüyük) was mentioned by Strabo, and indeed the name of Amorium appeared earlier on coins, in the second or first century B.C. The site was rediscovered by W. J. Hamilton in 1836.

A sizeable part of the epigraphic record of the North Lycian city of Balboura concerns the erection of statues honouring athletics victors of the Antoninia Meleagria, a “musical” festival founded A.D. 158–161 by the local notable Meleager, the subject of J. J. Coulton, N. P. Milner, A. T. Reyes, “Balboura Survey: Onesimos and Meleager Part II”, AS XXXIX (1989) 41–60. In this paper the whole series of 12 Meleagria bases is published, five for the first time, together with other inscriptions demonstrating the victors' membership of the leading families of Balboura, with one possible exception (Inscr. 11). The Meleagria bases are presented in chronological order, and are referred to by the same numbers as the inscriptions they carry. The tops and front elevations of the better-preserved ones are shown on Fig. 2.

Just over a century ago the first excavations at the foot of the Serpent Column in the Hippodrome at Istanbul led to the discovery on it of the engraved names of the city-states whose contingents had fought at Plataea, thus confirming the justice of Gibbon's caustic footnote on its authenticity: that “the guardians of the most holy relics would rejoice if they were able to produce such a chain of evidence as may be alleged” from the Classical and Byzantine historians and from the accounts of European travellers.

When first set up at Delphi, the monument represented three snakes, whose intertwined bodies formed the column, and whose three heads, with gaping jaws, branched out to make a triangular support for a golden tripod. The tripod did not long survive, but the bronze column with the three heads, transported by Constantine to his new capital, apparently remained undamaged until the fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans. All three heads had, however, disappeared by the time of Gibbon, who alleged that the discrepancies in the travellers' descriptions were “occasioned only by the injuries which [the Column] has sustained from the Turks”, and reproduced Thévenot's story that Meḥemmed II, on his triumphal entry into the city, “as a trial of his strength … shattered with his iron mace or battle-axe the under-jaw of one of these monsters, which in the eyes of the Turks were the idols or talismans of the city.”

Probably the best-known, and certainly the most individual, of the monuments of the Classical period from Lycia (in south-west Anatolia) are the pillar tombs. At least 33 are known, and perhaps as many as 43, ranging in date from the mid-sixth century B.C. to the mid-fourth. It seems likely that these were the tombs of local ruling dynasts, who are known chiefly from the numismatic record, a supposition supported by the small number of pillars in comparison with all other types of tomb in Lycia, the ornate sculpture on the finest specimens, their rough chronological coincidence with the coin-issuing of dynasts in the country, and finally, the fact that the one example that can be almost positively attributed belongs to one of these dynasts (this will be discussed later). Each tomb was probably erected during the owner's lifetime, since inscriptional evidence from tombs of lesser figures certainly indicates that these were prepared during the owner's lifetime. At most of the cities in Lycia knowledge of the local dynasts is not sufficient to allow an attempt at any sort of attribution of these tombs to individuals, at least not without a great deal of work on the monuments and coinage, but at Xanthos, chief city of Lycia, knowledge of the dynasty is perhaps enough to allow some speculation.

Among the Sultantepe tablets one attracts attention by its unexpectedness. It is, to quote O. R. Gurney's description,

The Sultantepe Tablets, I, p. 4, on No. 43.

Accounts of the campaigns undertaken by Assyrian kings did not ordinarily circulate along with epics, hymns, incantations and the other categories of texts which went to make up a library in an Assyrian town. Such historical accounts were incorporated in inscriptions composed to glorify the king concerned, and however busy scribes may have been multiplying copies during the reign of a particular king, the coming to power of his successor resulted in an immediate and total neglect of these inscriptions.

The citadel of Ayanıs is situated on a hill 250m high (1866.87m in altitude) above Lake Van and 35km north of Tushpa, the capital city of the Urartians. During ongoing work at the castle between 1989 and 1997 various finds were made which belong to the period of the Urartian king Rusa II. An important group of mainly domestic pots, including a range of different shapes, were amongst these finds. Vessels such as pithoi, jars, bowls and jugs were frequently found in situ in rooms. Some of the pots found in certain areas of the citadel attract attention because of the potters' marks visible on them. During the work of the 1989–1997 seasons at Ayanıs, 2,787 pieces of Medieval and Iron Age pottery were registered. Of these sherds, 179 bear pot-marks.

The second season of the Pisidia Survey Project at Melli took place in September 1999. The site is an ancient city in the region of Pisidia, the mountainous area north of the coastal plains of Pamphylia. The ancient name of the site still remains unknown, but it is generally referred to as Melli (Vandeput et al 1999: 133–45). The team consisted of Sabri Aydal, topographer and archaeologist at the museum in Antalya; the archaeologists Ezra Erb (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven), Truus Helsen (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven), V Köse (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven) and L Vandeput (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, director). Yaprak Özkönü and Umut Doğan (Istanbul University) and Bahadir Toprak and Barış Uy (Istanbul Technical University) afforded us excellent assistance. Seher Türkmen of Alanya Museum, to whom we are very grateful for all her help, represented the Turkish government.

Intimate Connections Between Anatolia and Thrace had been suspected ever since Kazarov published his finds from Kyrillovo. Despite the peculiarities in their handles, the vases and bronzes look so distinctively Anatolian that Thrace seemed just a provincial extension of the Early Troadic Bronze Age culture as known in 1914. Since 1945 new finds from Mikhalits, taken in conjunction with Mikov's discoveries at Karanovo and those of Hamit Zubeyr Koşay, at Büyük Güllücek have put these relations in an entirely new light. Mikhalits, near Svilingrad where a depas amphikypellon had been found in 1941, lies so close to the present frontier that fuller excavation since 1945 has been impracticable. But the observations made in that year alone are sufficiently illuminating. The site is not a tell, but occupies the crest of a natural ridge, and was defended by a stone wall enclosing an area of 80–90 m. in diameter.

The three fragments of a much worn Assyrian stele to be seen in Adana Museum were not, as might have been supposed, found locally in Cilicia. Instead they have been identified as pieces found by C. F. Lehmann-Haupt in the spring of 1899, in the course of a journey down the Tigris from Siirt to Mosul. They were discovered at the village of Babil, some 25 km. south-west of the modern town of Cizre, which is situated in south-eastern Turkey on the Tigris, at the point where the present Turkish-Syrian border joins the river. Babil also now lies directly on the Turkish border. Lehmann-Haupt related the site, circumstances and finds on two occasions in his published works. The finds included “eine Anzahl von Steinfragmenten mit assyrischen Inschriften”, six of which he described perfunctorily and with considerable inaccuracy. He correctly identified parts of a stele of Assurnasirpal II, but did not attempt any further reading of the worn and broken text.

Only a few investigations on the composition of Anatolian copper and copper alloys have been carried out. Esin (1967) published analyses of 750 copper artifacts excavated from different Anatolian prehistoric sites and found that 600 of them were made of copper alloys containing deliberate quantities (i.e. more than 1%) of arsenic, lead or tin. Of these, 50% contain As between 1–6%, 25% As 1–3% and Sn 1–10% together, 20% Sn only (2–10%) and the remaining 5% Pb and/or Sn, As. The results of these analyses show that prehistoric Anatolian artifacts which are made of copper alloys have closely similar composition to Egyptian (Hedges, 1979) and Greek (Craddock, 1977) ones or at least their production technology appears to be the same. It is well known that As was added to copper around the third millennium B.C. by prehistoric metallurgists and Sn by the second millennium B.C.

The metal objects whose analyses are reported below were all found in the İkiztepe excavation during 1978 and 1979 (Alkım, 1979). İkiztepe was located on the shore of the Black Sea and Kızılırmak (Red River) during the prehistoric ages, though today it is 60 km. away from the Black Sea. It was the largest occupation site around Samsun and consisted of four different natural hüyüks. Two hüyüks numbered İkiztepe I and II have been excavated to date.

This white marble slab was cut into its present shape when the verso was incised for use as a decorative panel. An unknown amount of text is therefore missing on all sides, while a few spots in the middle make for difficult reading because of patches of mortar and some pick marks, notably in the first two lines. I am unable to guess at the original length of line, other than to say that it was considerably longer than what is preserved here.

Height, 0·24 m.; width, 0·187 m; thickness, 0·043 m.

Height of letters, 0·011–0·014 m.

At some time between 1960 and 1964, this inscription was brought to the Castle of St. Peter in Bodrum, which has in recent years doubled as the Bodrum Museum under the wise and careful supervision of Director Halık Elbe. Unfortunately, no one today knows who brought the stone in, or where it had been found, for the Museum fell heir to a vast store of material of archaeological value before any system of cataloguing could be devised.

This study of the agora at Oinoanda is based on fieldwork done in 1975, 1977, 1981 and 1983 in the course of the survey of Oinoanda conducted by the British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara under the direction of A. S. Hall, and with the cooperation and assistance of the Directorate of Antiquities at Ankara. The topographical survey of the site, which underlies Figures 1 and 2, was undertaken by students of the Northeast London Polytechnic. Since our survey permit allowed no excavation, what follows is based on the visible remains, and some important points remain uncertain. Nevertheless, the extent of the remains and the absence of later interference with the site allow for a substantial reconstruction of the buildings concerned and their chronology.

The agora of Oinoanda occupies an open space c. 87 m. by 27 m. in a depression between three low hills near the middle of the city area. To the north a spur runs out from the Acropolis hill, to the east is a small hill on the summit of which are rock cuttings for a small temple, and to the southwest is a hill which now carries a late antique fort. Between these three hills run the main streets of the city; to the south a road which skirts the hollow containing the Early Christian church Mm 3 to link up with the southern colonnaded street; to the west a much shorter road to the West Gate; and to the northeast another colonnaded street which leads between the two bath-buildings Mk 1 and Ml 1 in the direction of the Esplanade.

In two recent articles Donald Easton has responded to my arguments that fraud is involved in Schliemann's published reports of the discovery of what he called “Priam's Treasure”. The reader of our articles might easily form the opinion that we hold widely different views regarding Schliemann's credibility. In fact, we are in substantial agreement. Our differences are partly a matter of degree and partly methodological. Before discussing them in detail, however, it might be useful to outline the common ground that appears to have been established. After carefully examining Easton's articles I think it fair to say that we are agreed on the following points.

1. Schliemann's excavation notebooks are, for the most part, truthful and accurate records of the finds he made and where and when he made them. This is apparent to anyone who has examined these notebooks closely. Not only are Schliemann's reports archaeologically plausible, but, as Easton points out, “most of the detail is far too mundane to be worth falsifying.” Only a very small percentage of material in the excavation notebooks can seriously be thought to come under suspicion.

The Life of Saint Theodore of Sykeon gives a detailed picture of village life in later Roman Galatia, on the eve of the Persian and Arab invasions. Though known to be located near the intersection of a Roman highway and a river, the site of Sykeon remained unidentified in modern times. Earlier inability to locate it was attributable to mistakes made by 19th century historical geographers of Anatolia, but even after their errors were corrected by David French, the site could not be found. In September 1995 the writer and Peter Brown of Princeton University discovered a terraced slope, strewn with late Roman pottery, at Kiliseler near the village of Tahirler, south of Beypazarı. The site, and its geology, conform to the known characteristics of Sykeon, including its distance from neighbouring towns, and provide suitable settings for many of the events in the career of Saint Theodore, thus raising the hope that archaeology may now be able to supplement information available from the saint's Life.