The interesting village-site of Gerga was first described by G. Cousin in BCH XXIV (1900), 28–31. He was followed in 1933 by A. Laumonier, who published two articles in BCH LVIII (1934), 304–7 and LX (1936), 286–97; cf. Les Cultes Indigènes en Carie 446–51. The ruins, now known as Gâvurdamları or Gâvurpazarı, lie in the wild mountain country some 6 km. east-south-east of Eski Çine, above the valley of the Marsyas river. The nearest city is Alabanda 12 or 13 km. to the northwest. Both of the French scholars approached the site in what was then the natural way, from the west and north; but the fine new tarmac road from Çine to Yatağan has now made the approach from the south much easier, and on 6th October, 1968, I visited Gerga from this direction, crossing the Marsyas near the fine old Turkish bridge at Incekemer. The site proves to be a good deal more extensive than had previously been realised. It extends over two hills, which I call the eastern and western, though north-eastern and south-western would perhaps be more accurate. The principal centre, with the very handsome “funerary temple”, the strange statue, the curious pyramidal stelae and other features, is on the south slope of the higher eastern hill, and neither Cousin nor Laumonier seems to have penetrated much, if at all, beyond this.

In 1974 a group of copper alloy objects, including two figurines and a number of weapons, was taken to Adana Museum by a dealer from İslahiye. The objects were said to have come from a site near Kilis. One of the figurines, which has gold foil on the face, was bought by Adana Museum. Temporary closure of Adana Museum has precluded examination of this figurine. In 1975 fourteen copper alloy objects from this same group, including a figurine wearing gold and silver ornaments around the neck, were purchased from the same dealer by the Gaziantep Museum for the sum of thirty thousand Turkish Lira, then about one thousand pounds sterling. This time they were said to have come from the vicinity of Sakçagözü. Staff of Gaziantep Museum brought the existence of this hoard to the attention of the British Institute which was engaged in a restudy of material from earlier British excavations in the Sakçagözü region (French and Summers 1988). The author is extremely grateful to the Museum for allowing access to the finds, to David French for his encouragement and advice, Tuǧrul Çakar for the photography and Jane Goddard who made the drawings. This paper has benefited greatly from discussions with Drs. John Curtis, Roger Moorey, Graham Philip and Trevor Watkins. Any faults remain, of course, the responsibility of the author.

The letter preserved in the British Museum Landsdowne MS 241, f 39.3a has not, so far as I know, been published verbatim. It is mentioned by Foster (1931, 278), in his edition of the letters and other writings brought together by John Sanderson, as follows:

It is the only item of correspondence between William Harborne and James Towerson to be preserved in Sanderson's collection; it was copied out for Sanderson by his apprentice, John Hanger (see Foster 1931, ix).

In 1993, the head of an emperor was found in Pompeiopolis (Soloi or modern Viranşehir) and delivered to the Mersin Museum, where it is now on display (Pl. IX (a–d)). The head is notable because of its crystalline white marble material and its larger-than-life size. Maximum dimensions: H: 0·39 m, H (chin to crown): 0·32 m, W: 0·31 m, Th: 0·32 m.

The head had been broken from its statue-body, but has been preserved together in one piece with the neck. Its state of preservation is good, but there is the following damage to its features. Large chips have gone from the base of the neck on the left (Pl. IX (a, d)), and a smaller piece from the surface of the middle of the neck on the right. The beard on the lower side of the chin, the upper lip and the nose are broken. On the left (a, c), one larger chip has gone from the cheek, two smaller ones around the temple. A large portion of a hair lock is broken above the temple and the ear on the left. The centre of the corona civica, which might have had a jewel in its middle, has been damaged and a large portion has broken off (Pl. IX (a, b)). The surface, especially on the flesh parts, has weathered.

Over the past two decades or so, excavations at Klazomenai have unearthed a wealth of information about the Early Iron Age, showing it to have been a thriving settlement at this time. Accordingly, it is intriguing that systematic surveys in the chora of Klazomenai have turned up very few sites that can be dated to this period. In this contribution, we discuss the implications of this discrepancy between the excavation data and the survey data in terms of the relationship between the settlement and its surrounding countryside. We argue that the lack of identified sites in the chora does not mean a lack of movement or that Klazomenai was an isolated spot in an otherwise desolate landscape. Furthermore, we discuss briefly how the developments that took place during the Early Iron Age ultimately led to the emergence of the polis at the beginning of the Archaic period. Our principal aim is to highlight the importance of the survey data, not only in terms of exploring the web of relations in which Klazomenai was tangled during the Early Iron Age, but also for highlighting in more detail the diversities that existed in ancient Ionia

Black line is a polychrome overglaze painting technique that was developed in Central Asia in the late 14th century. Black-line tilework is also found in 15th- and 16th-century Anatolia, yet it is unclear how the tradition emerged in this region. This paper investigates the appearance of the technique in Anatolia and situates it in the context of Timurid (1370–1501) tilework as well as the development of Anatolian traditions of the Rum Seljuk (1077–1307) and Beylik (1071–1453) periods. The analysis is conducted by tracing the history of two tiles from the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and by stylistic, technological and contextual comparisons with Seljuk, Timurid and Ottoman examples. I suggest that the introduction of the black-line technique to Anatolia was concurrent with the introduction of yellow pigment in the 15th century. I also propose that the Metropolitan Museum tiles should be redated to the second half of the 15th century on the basis that they were produced in Anatolia by craftsmen trained in Transoxiana who were also familiar with local Rum Seljuk and Karamanid traditions. These artists introduced new eastern styles which, together with local traditions, created an exciting experimental period in Anatolian tilework production and contributed to the emergence of Ottoman tile art.

La Bactriane ne fut longtemps connue que comme un territoire limité an nord par l'Oxus, que les Perses avaient tiré de la préhistoire en l'annexant à leur empire, et dont les antécédents échappaient presque totalement. Or en 1966, les autorités afghanes récupérèrent pour le Musée de Kabul un “trésor” de vases d'or et d'argent qui aurait été trouvé fortuitement par des paysans. Il présentait l'intérêt de révéler des contacts inattendus avec la Mésopotamie du IIIe millénaire. Il aurait été trouvé au nord de Kabul, à l'est de la rivière Qunduz-ab, près de la ville de Baghlan. Curieusement, deux noms différents furent attribués au lieu de leur découverte: soit Khosh Tapa, soit Fullol, au point que l'on peut se demander s'il ne s'agirait pas de deux sites différents. Et comme les fouilles effectuées immédiatement ne donnèrent absolument rien, pas même des tessons, la question peut se poser de savoir si les paysans n'auraient pas délibérément trompé les enquêteurs sur l'origine réelle du trésor. En effet, quelques années plus tard, d'autres vases précieux apparaissaient, mais comme cela est bien plus normal, mêlés au matériel très varié mis au jour pas les clandestins, et cette fois dans une région bien déterminée: dans les nécropoles voisines et contemporaines des grandes installations explorées par les archéologues soviétiques dans la plaine de Balkh, en Bactriane occidentale. Les plus importantes de ces installations sont celles du site n° 3 de l'oasis de Dashly-tépé, datées initialement du milieu du IIe millénaire, mais qui pourraient avoir été fondées déjà dans la seconde moitié du IIIie.

The myth of Nergal and Ereshkigal has long been known to Assyriologists from a Middle Babylonian tablet found among the diplomatic archives of Tell El Amarna. The tablet had apparently been imported into Egypt, perhaps from Syria, together with a similar one inscribed with the myth of Adapa, as a school-text for the training of scribes. It was only in 1951 that fragments of a late Assyrian version of the tale were unearthed at Sultantepe. In 1953, after the numerous fragments had been baked and joined, the text was identified by the present writer and a preliminary account of it was given by him in a lecture delivered early in 1955. The cuneiform text was published in 1957 and a full edition was promised for this journal. The present article is intended to fulfil that promise. The Sultantepe tablet remains the sole authority for the late Assyrian version of the tale, not a single fragment having come to light from any other source.

Despite its regional hegemony over eastern Kilikia and a prominent role in three Roman civil wars, the house of Tarkondimotos has maintained little more than a shadowy existence on the fringe of historical accounts of the first centuries BC to AD. This paper collates the biographical and relational data of all known or conjectured members of the Tarkondimotid dynasty and its court, and places them within a historical context.

This article presents an inscribed statue base discovered at Oinoanda by Professor Martin Ferguson Smith in 2002. The new inscription is placed in its historical context, and the commentary traces the implications for our understanding of Roman army recruitment, the role of the civic élite in responding to the demands of the imperial government and the practice of heroisation in the competition for honour among the notables who were also the city's victorious athletes.

In an article published in Anatolian Studies XXVI (1976), I have questioned the accepted chronology of level VII in Alalakh, suggesting that four rather than two kings reigned in Alalakh during the period covered by the level VII archive. In the meantime two important works, bearing directly on the subject, have been published by Dr. Dominique Collon. The first is an enlargement of her thesis on the Alalakh seal impressions, including a detailed discussion of the seal impressions as well as of the overall problem of the archive and its inner division into generations (SITA, pp. 143–161). This most welcome contribution to the subject at hand adds much to our understanding of the chronology of level VII, although some of her points might be interpreted in a different way, as I hope to show below.

In her book Dr. Collon accepted the chronological system suggested by the CAH, according to which there were only two kings in Alalakh during the period of level VII. She again summarized her results in Anatolian Studies XXVII (1977), rejecting my suggested reconstruction of the chronology of the kings as well as of the generations in Alalakh.

In this article we bring together for the first time four bronze bulls' heads of impressive size and weight which seem to form a series. One is in the collection of Mr. J. J. Emery, of Cincinnati, another is in the Fogg Museum, a third is in Cleveland (Plates XVII–XVIII), and the fourth (Plate XIX) is in the Louvre. In 1954 Mr. Emery generously lent his piece to the Fogg Museum for the exhibition of “Ancient Art in American Private Collections” and, through the good offices of Miss Dorothy G. Shepherd, the Trustees of the Cleveland Museum of Art consented to send the Cleveland bull's head for a brief period. Thus I was enabled to examine and compare three of the four heads of this series. For the piece in the Louvre, which I have not seen, I am making use of photographs and measurements supplied by A. Parrot.

As R. D. Barnett was the first to point out to me, two bulls' heads of this kind were found in 1905 in the village of Guşçi, on Urmia Lake. An account of this discovery was given by “Atrpet” in the Armenian periodical Azgagrakan Handess, Revue Ethnographique publiée par la Société Ethnographique Arménienne, XXIII, Part 2, 1912, pp. 114–124.

Pichvnari lies on the Black Sea coast of Georgia, at the confluence of the Choloki and Ochkhamuri rivers, some 10km to the north of the town of Kobuleti in the Ajarian Autonomous Republic (fig 1). The site has been known since the 1950s, and excavations were carried out in both the settlement and its various cemeteries in succeeding years, under the auspices of the Batumi Archaeological Museum and the Batumi Research Institute. The site was surveyed and a notional grid-plan imposed, within which subsequent work was recorded. By the time of the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1989–90, the Pichvnari Expedition was a fixture in the Georgian archaeological calendar, but with the abrupt decline in the Georgian economy this happy state of affairs came to an end.

In 1998, however, work started again in collaboration with the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. In the spring of that year, the dig-house (part of an old kolkhoz, collective farm) was restored with the aid of the Seven Pillars of Wisdom Trust. The roof was mended, and water and electricity laid on. The first season took place in July and August, when work (briefly reported in Vickers 1998) was conducted in the areas of both the North, or ‘Colchian’, and West, or ‘Greek’, Cemeteries.

Professor F. W. König published in 1956 a note listing and describing the stones lying in the Van Museum, as far as he was able to do so from photographs of them taken in 1954 by Professor H. Gamerith and placed at his disposal. Professor König's note included two sketches, based on the photographs, of the stones as they lay; and he gave to each stone in the sketches a number by which he referred to it in his list.

Visits to the Van Museum made in the course of journeys in eastern Turkey undertaken by the writer in September 1956 (accompanied and assisted by his wife) and in September 1957 (alone) have made possible the following amplified account of the Urartian stones in the museum. The numbers assigned to the stones in König's sketches are used as a means of reference; information already available in König's note or in his Handbuch is not repeated, except that identifications made by him from the photographs are repeated (in parenthesis) to make the list complete; numbers not occurring in the series relate to stones which could not be seen to bear any Urartian inscription.

The two authors of this brief note together made a tour of Hittite monuments in Turkey in the summer of 1978. RLA arrived in İzmir from abroad a few days earlier than HGG, who was detained in İstanbul by other obligations. While waiting for him, RLA revisited the Karabel and Mt. Sipylus and thus was the first of us to notice the inscription. Since it had not been mentioned in recent years and neither of us had seen it on previous visits to the site we believed that this was a discovery. In fact it is a rediscovery, as we learned from David Hawkins, who reminded us (in correspondence) of the fact that it is included in L. Messerschmidt, CIH 1–2 (MVAG 5, 1900, 4–5 ) as Pl. XXXVIII no. 3. Messerschmidt's source was an article by Eduard Gollob published in 1882.

About three metres to the right of the recess containing the well-known seated goddess, a smaller, partly worked niche contains a large boss (Pl. IXa, arrow). Although the boss has suffered a major fracture, which perhaps led to its abandonment for relief sculpture, it has a plain surface on the side toward the goddess (Pl. IXb). The hieroglyphs are inscribed here, approximately on a level with the torso of the goddess (Pl. Xa, b, Fig. 1). The inscription is arranged in two columns; the right column, with four signs, measures 65 cm., the left one consists of three (or four? see below) signs.

Our knowledge of Urartian jewellery in precious stones and metals has remained obscure in spite of references in Assyrian texts and examples portrayed in Urartian descriptive art. This can be attributed to two causes: (a) The jewellery from illicit excavations has not reached the museums; (b) Urartian tombs and cemeteries have not as yet been subjected to sufficiently methodical systems of research. In addition, jewellery of unknown provenance which has been bought by museums has not been published. However, that brought to light at the three Urartian centres of Karmir-Blur, Altıntepe, and Patnos/Deǧirmentepe has to some degree increased our knowledge of Urartian personal ornamentation.

Jewellery

The jewellery from Altıntepe is made of gold, silver and precious stones:

1. Gold and silver buttons (Pl. XIa–c):

In the second room of the third tomb, and outside the coffin of the man, were found eight gold and six silver buttons. Thirty-two gold buttons, sewn onto the dress of the woman, were found in her sarcophagus. Thirty-eight of the large buttons are 1·75 cm. in diameter and 0·6 cm. in height. All are circular, with convex surfaces decorated at the centre with a six-petalled rosette encircled by six circles in repoussé and six granular triangles. The rosettes and circles are bordered by granules and a gold wire set between two rows of granules encircles the central design around the rim.

The Council have asked me to speak to you about the history of this Institute over the past twenty-five years; and, since I myself regard it as a “success story”, I shall try to make it something rather more than a mere sequence of reminiscences. I want therefore to tell you how the Institute came to be founded in 1947. I want to go back and recollect some of our archaeological experiences in the very different world of the nineteen-fifties – to remind you about the Institute's expansion, after Michael Gough took over the Directorship from me in 1961 – and finally to say something about how things are going in the nineteen-seventies, under the direction of Dr. D. H. French – ably assisted, as you know, by his wife and other associates. But I also want to add something about what (to use a very hackneyed expression) one may call the “wind of change” in archaeology; I mean changes in the approach to, and even in the ultimate purpose of excavating, as they are now frequently explained to me by people younger than myself.

So, let me begin at the beginning and remind you that the foundation of our Institute was almost entirely due to the initiative of one man: the late Professor John Garstang, whom everyone remembers because, as Herodotus wrote the first history of the Greeks, Garstang wrote the first history – at least in this country – and also the first geography of the Hittite Empire.