In our 1949 budget, the Directing Committee of the Institute put at my disposal a sum of one hundred pounds, for the purpose of an excavation in collaboration with the Turkish Department of Antiquities. On discussing the matter with the Director, Dr. Hamit Koşay, I found that the mound in which he was at the moment most interested was near the small modern town of Polatli, about forty miles from Ankara, on the main railway line to Istanbul. I understood from Dr. Koşay that a large part of this mound had been quarried away by peasants in need of earth for making bricks, and that, as a result, a number of whole pots and metal objects of the Copper Age had found their way to Ankara. I was subsequently shown these objects by Bay Nuri Gökçe, Director of the Hittite Museum, and a few days later visited the site in his company.
The hüyük, which takes its name from Polatli (Plate II), is situated on the outskirts of the modern town, near a spring of water. Its height is impressive, though the area which it covers suggests that the ancient settlement which it represents would have been hardly more than a village.