This article presents the results of scientific analyses on a selection of sherds associated with two kilns from the site of Kinet Höyük (Hatay). The kilns are dated to the eighth century BC and the end of the seventh century BC. In between these two periods, archaeological evidence suggests a period of occupation by the Neo-Assyrians. The present study assesses the impact of this occupation on the pottery industry at the site using a combined approach of thin section and neutron activation analyses. The results of these analyses additionally allow for a new classification system of local wares.

Collaborative Australian–Turkish archaeological investigations in north-eastern Anatolia, begun in 1988 in the Bayburt province (then an ilçe of Gümüşhane), continued for six weeks during June–July 1994 with excavations at Sos Höyük near Erzurum. The decision to extend the limits of the research project beyond the Bayburt plain, eastwards into the adjacent province, was based primarily on the need to address questions raised by our work in Bayburt, most notably the apparent gaps in its culture sequence. Further, we were acutely aware that in order to establish a sequence for north-east Anatolia we would need to reexamine by systematic excavations the human settlement of the Erzurum plain, long known from the early campaigns of H. Z. Koşay and his colleagues at Karaz, Güzelova and Pulur, and I. K. Kökten's pioneering surveys. Our interest in the site of Sos Höyük was roused by material excavated during a three week campaign in the summer of 1987 by a team from Atatürk University (Erzurum) and Erzurum museum. While some of the material clearly keyed into the Bayburt sequence, much of it did not. A visit to the site revealed a dense surface scatter of artefacts, especially obsidian, and substantial stratified deposits exposed by the diggings of the local villagers. The potentialities of the site were clear. With the material excavated at Büyüktepe and collected in the Bayburt province overlapping and complementing that at Sos, we would move closer toward an understanding of cultural developments in north-east Anatolia.

The rich metal deposits of Anatolia have been, for archaeologists and historians, a matter of much confusion. Small wonder, when we discover that the reporting of the basic geological data through the years has been altered, interpreted and reinterpreted to the extent that the picture no longer resembles its original form. Particularly lacking in the archaeological literature on Anatolian metal resources is an up-to-date account of the metalliferous deposits available in antiquity. Although a number of attempts have been made to give an over-all view of Anatolia's ore deposits, much of the potentially useful data is published in geological journals which, unfortunately, have been routinely ignored for their archaeological importance.

The recent article in this journal by J. Yakar is another of the attempts to interpret the movements of Anatolian peoples with respect to the natural resources of the land, in this case metal resources. However, Yakar's article draws on much out-dated information, and he is a victim of the often rash convictions of Forbes. As a corrective, let us focus on the basic geological data. Yakar suggests that the metal resources of the West and Southwest were the main impetus behind Hittite involvement in the region.

The last decade of excavations at Çadır Höyük, in the north-central region of the Anatolian plateau, has revealed a well-established Late Chalcolithic community with continuous occupation into the Early Bronze I period (mid fourth to early third millennium BC). While the Late Chalcolithic town was prosperous, with well-made houses and objects, and even monumental construction, the stability of the settlement had slipped by the Early Bronze I phase. We summarise here the results from ten seasons of work at the site and profile how the findings contribute to our understanding of Çadır's role in a larger regional context. We also offer possible explanations for the changing nature of the Çadır occupation during the periods detailed here.

In 2007 two stelae, each bearing figures of the Storm-god leading a ruler and a duplicate Hieroglyphic Luwian text, were discovered at Uluçınar (formerly Arsuz), on the Turkish coast south of Iskenderun. The inscription is the work of a Suppiluliuma, son of Manana, king of the land of Walastin, now understood as the Luwian designation of the Amuq plain with its capital at the Iron Age site of Tell Tayinat. The stelae, probably dating to the later tenth century BC, record the successful reign of the ruler and his happy relations with the Storm-god. Historically important is a passage which describes this Amuq king's victory over the Cilician plain, the city of Adana and the land of Hiyawa.

This paper focuses on the analysis of the cemetery of Demircihöyük-Sarıket, for which exists one of the largest Early Bronze Age funerary datasets published to date in Anatolia. The size and quality of the sample allow the dataset to be approached quantitatively, to determine both normative and anomalous funerary practices, and to detect distinct patterns of burial treatment for different segments of the population represented in the cemetery. Despite the small size of the community (ca 100–130 people), the results suggest a rather complex picture, in which the choice of specific burial containers, the relative wealth of grave assemblages and the selection of particular sets of items were dependent on differences in the age, gender, occupation and achieved status of the deceased. Comparison with other contemporary funerary assemblages helps to place Demircihöyük-Sarıket and these community-scale observations within their wider cultural context in central Anatolia.

When in the late nineteenth century inscriptions from Oinoanda in the Kibyratis (Fig. 1) began to be recorded and published in quantity, the relationship between Termessos Minor and Oinoanda caused a good deal of discussion. For it was in the city which everybody agreed to be Oinoanda that inscriptions set up by the boule, demos, and gerousia of the Termessians were to be found. Holleaux and Paris supposed that the two communities shared the Oinoanda hill, and Cousin added the suggestion that the late Roman fortification wall (traditionally known as the Great Wall) separated them.

This article begins by examining the frequently-invoked metaphor of Turkey as a bridge between East and West. The use of this metaphor is questioned because it implies passivity, over-simplifies the complexities of ancient communications and inter-regional exchange, and is based upon the assumption of divides that are culturally constructed. The article then examines two case-studies (the Aegean west coast and the Euphrates valley of the southeast) in order to demonstrate that the existence of different archaeological communities of practice in these regions serves to distort further the perception of differences between eastern and western Anatolia. The conclusion is put forward that a clearer distinction is definable in the practice of these two communities than in the archaeology of the ancient cultures of these two regions. Only if the divide between contemporary archaeological communities is bridged can the existence of divides between ancient communities begin to be examined. The reasons for the differences between these cultures of practice are largely historical but continue to affect the data-sets for these regions and thereby hinder the direct comparison of evidence trans-Anatolia.

At the end of a passage in Strabo's Geography (XIII, 631), where he gives an account of the foundation of Kibyra and the extent of its power in the first century B.C., we find a succinct definition of the territory of the neighbouring Milyas (τῆς ὀμόρου Μιλυάδος):

In spite of its precision, Strabo's definition of the Milyas is inadequate in several ways. First, the geographical limits are set from south to north, but not from east to west. Secondly, it is only a brief footnote to his account of the Kibyratis, and lacks comparable information about the language, settlements and history of the inhabitants of this neighbouring region. Probably a dearth of information in Strabo's sources restricted him to a statement of what was agreed to be the core of a once extensive territory; earlier writers, such as Herodotus and Polybius, had referred to the Milyas in terms which show that it extended more widely in earlier centuries.

The cultural and political changes that happened in Anatolia after the collapse of the Hittite Empire have only recently been recognised as a significant, but as yet unexplained, phenomenon. Here we present the results of analyses of ceramics from three sites south and southwest of the present-day town of Sorgun – Çadır Höyük, Kerkenes Dağ and Tilkigediği Tepe – to identity how regional groups within the Hittite core area regrouped in the aftermath of the collapse. Ceramic analyses provide a means to assess both cultural continuity and the scale and nature of interaction in a region. Results suggest some evidence of cultural continuity at Çadır Höyük from the Late Bronze Age into the Middle Iron Age, and highlight the variable local responses in the aftermath of Hittite collapse.

This article presents some results of a survey of early sites begun in the summer of 1962 within the area bounded by the modern towns of Kayseri, Sivas, Malatya and Maraş. Only a small body of relevant published material from within this area is available, and of that the bulk is datable to the later part of the Early Bronze Age, the earlier date of the remainder being variously interpreted. By undertaking this survey it was hoped to establish two things: the distribution of prehistoric pottery “cultures”; and the kind of imports from the south and east into this boundary region, which may accordingly be expected also in the deeper levels of Central Anatolian sites now being excavated, and be of assistance in dating the earliest phases of Central Anatolian prehistory.

The Antitaurus is the general name for that part of the Taurus mountain chain which separates Inner Anatolia from Cilicia, northern Syria and Mesopotamia. It comprises the sector of mountain terrain between Niğde and the Cilician Gates in the west, and the Sivas–Malatya road in the east; the southern boundary of the mountains being formed by the plains of Maraş, and Cilicia, separated by the steep Amanus ridge which runs down to the sea behind İskenderun. This extensive mountainous area, broken by steep-sided valleys and relieved by upland plains and pastures, was the barrier which, in the past as now, cut off the population of Central Anatolia from the open lands of the so-called Fertile Crescent to the south.

This article reviews progress in extensive survey work using satellite photographs along the course of the reservoir of the Birecik dam, completed in June 2000. Particular attention has been paid during field work to routes both along and across the river; here it is the east-west routes crossing the river which are examined in detail and in the context of the region's historical geography. The city of Zeugma, which has been the object of recent excavations, was the principal such crossing point but by no means the only one on the middle course of the Euphrates. A subsequent article will discuss north-south routes in the vicinity of the middle Euphrates and the question of its navigability.

In this article, the authors present a first edition of the recently found inscription TÜRKMEN-KARAHÖYÜK 1, propose an eighth-century dating and explore some of the consequences of this date for the group of inscriptions mentioning Hartapu, son of Mursili.

Beginning in the early sixth century a large-scale rebuilding programme was undertaken by the Phrygians on the City Mound at Gordion, probably with the approval of their overlords, the Lydians. This renewed activity was no doubt one factor in the appearance at this time of several new imported fine wares at Gordion. These supplement the small number of imports finding their way to Gordion during the seventh century. One large group consists of Lydian pottery belonging to several fabrics including black-on-red, bichrome, marbled ware, and black-on-buff. Detailed study of this pottery has yet to be carried out. Work here will depend heavily on the study and classification of pottery from excavations at Sardis. Another, smaller body of imported pottery came from the cities of Greece. Study of this material, mainly from Corinth, Athens, and East Greece, is being conducted by K. DeVries and is now well advanced. A third small body of pottery, originating from areas to the west and south of Gordion, is presented here. The different wares of this group are very poorly known from other West Anatolian sites, so that the Gordion material adds considerably to our understanding of each of them.

The main purpose of this article is to publish material collected from surveys in Western Anatolia, Thrace and Thessaly which were made with the intention of discovering possible links between these three areas in the period which in South-West Anatolia is called Late Chalcolithic. Such suggestions as are put forward for the construction of a relative and absolute chronology in each area are only tentative; throughout the aim has been to emphasise the problems of equating pottery cultures of adjacent regions which are thought to be contemporary.

The village of Hacilar is situated in the Vilayet of Burdur in South-west Anatolia, about 25 km. west of Burdur itself on the main road to Yeşilova and Denizli. The chalcolithic site lies about 1·5 km. west of the village and just beyond the orchards, which are irrigated by a plentiful spring at the foot of a great limestone crag which overlooks the village. It is this spring which since neolithic times has been the main reason for more or less continuous occupation in this region. Apart from the neolithic and early chalcolithic site at Hacılar there is a large Early Bronze Age mound on the northern outskirts and a classical site to the south-west of the village.

The prehistoric site is an inconspicuous mound, about 150 metres in diameter, rising to a height of not more than 1·50 m. above the level of the surrounding fields (Fig. 1 and Pl. XXIXa). The entire surface of the mound is under cultivation and a series of depressions show the holes made by a local antique-dealer in search of painted pots and small objects. About 1 km. west of the site runs the Koca Çay, the ancient Lysis, and on the eastern scarp of this river valley lies the cemetery of the Early Bronze Age settlement. Not a single burial has yet been found in the chalcolithic or neolithic levels of our site and it is therefore not unreasonable to suggest that its cemetery also may eventually be located there.

The archaeology of Early Bronze Age northeast Anatolia has often been characterised by the dominant presence of the so-called Karaz Ware, a black burnished ware often decorated in relief. In northeast Anatolia, this distinctive ceramic tradition is represented in the archaeological contexts of major excavated sites of the Erzurum plain: Karaz, Güzelova, Pulur, Büyüktepe, and Sos Höyük (Kosay, Turfan 1959; Kosay, Vary 1964; 1967; Sagona et al 1993; Sagona et al 1996). Nevertheless, it is not something unique to the sites of northeast Anatolia, but a widely occurring phenomenon at third millennium BC sites from Transcaucasia to Syria-Palestine under other names such as Kura-Araxes Ware, Early Transcaucasian Ware, or Khirbet Kerak Ware (Burney 1989: 45ff; Edens 1995: 53). Even though it is handmade, its quality, manufacture and distinctive relief decoration, and its widespread distribution in northeast Anatolia and surrounding regions, demonstrate that it had a cultural and economic value attached to it. The widespread use of this pottery may be explained as evidence of a movement of nomadic pastoral groups or traders who also brought their pots or potting techniques with them. Although the newcomers responsible for this phenomenon appear to be small in number, the intermixing of the older local Late Chalcolithic populations and newcomers seems to have led to local variations in this ware in different spatial and temporal contexts (Rothman, Kozbe 1997).

An overland route by which oriental merchandise and ideas were transmitted to the Ionian Greeks via the Anatolian plateau and the river valley routes of the west was long ago posited by Hogarth, and supported by Karo, Barnett and others, although there was little evidence from central Anatolia to confirm it. More recently this route was virtually discounted in favour of a sea route from N. Syria, especially Carchemish, through the port of Al Mina, to Greece and Etruria, via Cyprus, Rhodes and Crete, discussed by Sidney Smith, Humphrey Payne, Mrs. Maxwell-Hyslop and others, which is assumed to have been at its height in the earlier eighth century; and Barnett has also shown the importance of a third route, from Azerbaijan to Trebizond and west via the Black Sea, for which the main evidence, a tomb group from the Caucasus, is probably later seventh century.

It is clear that the second of these three routes carried the bulk of Oriental trade to Greece and the west. Undoubtedly the most important Orientalizing influences on Greece, as shown by Payne, were those from the Cypro-Levantine cultural province, and there is ample evidence of the exchange of pottery, terracottas and ornamental bronzes of Cypriot and Phoenician production between the Syrian coast, Cyprus, Rhodes, Samos, Miletus, Chios, Delos and the west.

The mountain Avla Dağ lies c. 245 km. SE. of Ankara, c. 8 km. SSE. of Ürgüp on the east side of the Damsa Çay valley, in the vilayet of Nevşehir.

Obsidian implements were first found on this site by Dr. Giorgio Pasquare of the Maden Tetkik ve Arama Enstitüsü, Ankara, during the course of a geological survey of the Ürgüp area in 1963–4. A considerable quantity of obsidian implements and flakes was collected at the time, and subsequent visits to the area by the authors have resulted in further additions to this collection.

The geological section of this paper was written by Dr. G. Pasquare, and the archaeological section by I. A. Todd.

The use of iron-bearing sands such as those of the Black Sea has often been thought of as an early source of iron ore by archaeo-metallurgists. Indeed Japan was an avid user of such material as late as the 19th century, and its use was being considered by the Turkish authorities in 1975.

The black sands of the south side of the Black Sea are very extensive, and obvious to the layman because of their unusual nature. They are also highly magnetic and quite a high proportion can be picked up with the aid of a small permanent magnet. On two occasions samples were taken and examined for their iron content and to see how reducible they were, i.e. how easy it would be for early smiths to use them. The analysis of two batches is given in Table 1. The first sample was taken from near Kirazlik, which is 42 km. west of Trabzon, and the second from sites extending from 4 km. west of Ordu to 10 km. west of Ünye. It is clear that there is not much difference in the composition from the two sites which are about 100 km. apart.