The village of Can Hasan is situated in the Kaza of Karaman, in the Vilayet of Konya, about 13 km. north-east of the town of Karaman. Can Hasan is a small village of about three hundred people, lying in a wide and fertile plain, not too far from the first low foothills of the Taurus. The approximate height of the village above sea level is 1,000 m.

Geographically the importance of Karaman and its surrounding villages lies in its unique position at the end of the route (Fig. 1) through the Taurus which begins at Silifke and follows the Gök Su (Calycadnus) as far as Mut, from where there is little difficulty in crossing the watershed between the river valley and the Karaman plain. This is one of the great routes through the Taurus and one of the easiest: there are others. All of them are used even to-day, when nomads with pack animals travel up to 300 km. through the Taurus from summer to winter pastures.

The site of Çatal Hüyük was discovered during our survey of the Konya Plain in November, 1958. Rich in surface finds of a type hitherto only known from Professor J. Garstang's excavations at Mersin on the south coast of Anatolia, its importance was soon realised. However, at the time of the discovery, we were engaged in the excavation of the equally important site of Hacılar and it was not until after the completion of excavations there that digging could be contemplated at Çatal Hüyük. After the final season at Hacılar in 1960, we were free to devote our attention to this new site.

As Hacılar showed a gap in its culture sequence exactly during the Early Neolithic period, which surface finds showed was best represented at Çatal Hüyük, it was decided to start excavations at this site to complete the sequence and throw further light on Hacılar.

The analysis of the chipped stone industry of Çatal Hüyük East presented here is based on a collection of 1,377 pieces, of which only 366 are waste flakes. The collection represents the complete assemblage of chipped stone recovered during six weeks' excavation (17th May to 29th June, 1961) by Mr. James Mellaart at which the author assisted. All stone was saved. The area excavated covers approximately two-thirds of an acre, in which nearly forty houses from the various levels were uncovered. The considerable number of chipped stone implements which we collected from the surface of the mound during our first two days at the site (the presence of which along with an Early Neolithic pottery was initially responsible for Mr. Mellaart's special interest in the site) is not presented here. Except for the pleasure of presenting some beautiful examples of pressure flaked projectile points it would not alter the facts as garnered from the excavated material.

The purpose of this short article is to draw attention to a number of features presented by these well known monuments near Beyşehir which are in need of further clarification, and to offer yet another suggestion about its original appearance.

During the last decade, a number of articles from the pen of Professors H. G. Güterbock, K. Bittel, R. Naumann and E. Laroche have been devoted to the sanctuary of Eflatun Pınar and it might be thought that there is little to add. That this is not so, I trust this article will show. These remarks are the result of three visits to these monuments in 1952, 1955 and 1957.

The Fasıllar statue (7·40 m. in height) lies in the Roman stadium of a classical site above the village of that name. Its rough condition suggests, as Güterbock has already pointed out, that it may have been unfinished and locally quarried, roughed out for transport and for some reason left there. The material is trachyte, which occurs locally. Güterbock comments on the lack of “Hittite” sherds at Fasıllar. One can go further; there is no site there earlier than the Classical one. The nearest Late Bronze Age sites are Karahisar, Evreği and Kızılviran Hüyüks. The latter site is the largest, but it is difficult to see why anyone should want to quarry a statue at Fasıllar, 50 km. away, if the statue was meant to be erected at this site, which is surrounded by trachyte rocks within a few kilometres.

The design of Justinian's domed cruciform Basilica of St. John on the hill of Ayasoluk, long an interesting, has now become an urgent question. Partly uncovered and published by Sotiriou in 1922, it was excavated more extensively by the Austrians and at last described and restored by H. Hoermann and edited by Josef Keil, with the aid of a grant from Dumbarton Oaks, in one of the most lavish Austrian volumes on Ephesus to be published to date. The seeming exhaustiveness and accuracy of this book have tempted certain syndicates to rebuild the church for the use of pilgrims to Ephesus, even though, when uncovered, it stood to a general height of merely 10 or 12 feet, about one-sixth of its original height, and even though Keil had set a wiser precedent for its treatment. “Auf grössere Wiederherstellungsarbeiten wurde, abgesehen von der Aufstellung einer Säule, verzichtet, weil solche Wiederaufstellungen erfahrungsgemäss den Anreiz zu schädigenden Umstürzen erwecken” (FE. p. 16).

The Byzantine antiquities of the Pontus have received little more than a passing glance from either travellers or archaeologists. With the exception of the town of Trebizond, the monuments of which have now been subject to study in some detail, and the monastery of Sumela which has always attracted the attention of travellers, the only published works on the subject are the article by Professor Talbot Rice containing the results of his survey journey in 1929, and the book which he wrote in co-operation with Millet. The “Studia Pontica” of Cumont and Anderson is concerned primarily with classical antiquities although Cumont in his section makes frequent reference to medieval antiquities; and the “Church of Trebizond” by the last Metropolitan of the town, Chrysanthos, is concerned more with history than with descriptions of the monuments. The not inconsiderable body of travellers to Trebizond and eastern Turkey went there, for the most part, by sea and followed one or other of the branches of the caravan road running south-eastwards to Erzurum, and on into Persia and Central Asia. It may, however, be of use to bring these accounts up to date in so far as we have followed in the footsteps of earlier travellers.

The churches of Ispir and Bayburt, standing in dominant positions in the castles which command these towns, inevitably prompt the question “Who built them?” A final answer cannot be given until the two sites are excavated or documentary sources are discovered, but the circumstantial evidence, both historical and stylistic, provides a number of indications for their origin.

Both Ispir and Bayburt stand in an area which has always been a marcher land, and in the Byzantine period it was in dispute many times between the Armenians, the Georgians and the Byzantine Empire, with the Persians and Arabs, and later the Turks also making their claims in the area. Ispir castle stands on a rock dominating the middle reaches of the River Çoruh, the Acampsis or Boas of the Ancients, and apart from commanding a part of the river valley which is wide and fertile, it is more or less a half-way halt for the direct route northwards from Erzurum across the Pontic mountains to the sea at Rize.

The publication of another article on the monastery complex at Alahan in Isauria so soon after the appearance of Professor P. Verzone's monograph and Professor G. Forsyth's paper on the same monument may seem premature, and to require some explanation. It can, however, be reasonably justified on the differing times and circumstances in which the various articles appeared.

In autumn 1955, I published “Some Recent Finds at Alahan (Koja Kalessi)”, an article based on two short visits which I had made to the monastery during 1952 and 1953. This paper coincided with the publication of the Turkish text of Professor Verzone's monograph, compiled after a stay at Alahan in the summer of the same year. Meanwhile, I had previously requested and obtained permission from the Turkish General Directorate of Museums and Antiquities to carry out limited soundings in the monastery complex, in particular in the building designated Chiesa n. 1 by Verzone. These soundings were, in fact, carried out in the interval between Verzone's visit and the publication of his monograph.

In June 1961 the writers gave three weeks to exploring the country in the neighbourhood of Alânya, the ancient Coracesium, and Gazipaşa, formerly Selinti, the ancient Selinus. This region proved to be rewarding; and we hope to pursue our investigations both there and to the east of Anamur in future years—the more so since our predecessors have been few and often hampered by the difficulties of the terrain. Some indeed, like Beaufort, travelled almost exclusively by sea; others found themselves detained by the archaeological richness of the Olba–Lamos area, and then, like Sterrett and Theodore Bent, diverted up the Calycadnus gorge into the hinterland of Isauria. Explorers of the coastlands between Manavgat and Silifke are in effect reduced to Heberdey and Wilhelm (quoted hereafter as HW) in 1892, Paribeni and Romanelli in 1913, Wilhelm and Keil in 1914. To those familiar with this country it is revealing to learn that Wilhelm's visits—for example to Sinekkalesi and Syedra, extensive sites, heavily scrub-covered—were often brief affairs; that his exploration of Seleucia above Side and indeed of all the coast lying immediately to the east of the Melas river was cut short by repeated thunder-storms.