While the problems surrounding the events which preceded and followed the accession of Ḫattušili I have long been debated with few conclusive results, the basic facts underlying these events seem, on the surface at least, reasonably straightforward. For the most part these facts are contained in (a) Ḫattušili's “Annals”, in which the king identifies himself as ŠAfTawannanna DUMU ŠEŠ-ŠU (“son of the brother of Tawannanna”), and (b) Ḫattušili's “Testament”, a speech delivered by the king during a period of illness in Kuššara, announcing to the assembled dignitaries and fighting men of Ḫatti the appointment of his grandson Muršili as heir to the throne.

The Testament in particular provides much information pertinent to the royal succession early in the Old Kingdom. Amongst other things, the document records what is commonly regarded as the first historically authentic event in Hittite history – the attempt by Ḫattušili's grandfather to appoint Labarna as ruler(?) in the town of Šanaḫuitta; this appointment was overturned by high ranking subjects of the king (probably with the support of the king's own children) who set up a “rebel regime” under the leadership of Papaḫdilmaḫ. Ḫattušili subsequently became king in Ḫattuša — perhaps the first of the Hittite kings to resettle the site after its destruction by Anitta.

The following texts were recorded in Uşak Museum and in the archaeological depots at Denizli and Hisar Köy (Attuda) during preparatory work for the R.E.C.A.M. project.

Cylindrical altar of white marble. Below the text a wreath and boucrania. Now in the garden of Uşak Museum, but probably from Sebaste (Selçikler). Height: 0·98 m. Diameter: 0·49 m. Letters: 1·8 cm. Pl.I(a).

“Year 188 (= A.D. 104), in the ninth month. Euphrastus, slave of Caesar, (prays) for the victory and eternal security of Imperator Nerva Traianus Caesar Augustus Germanicus Dacicus.”

The prayer for Trajan's victory is particularly appropriate in the year preceding the final conflict with Decebalus (105/6). Euphrastus is almost certainly to be identified with the Εὔφραστος Καίσαρος included in the list of founder members of the Gerousia of Sebaste in A.D. 99.

The following unpublished inscription from Vakıf (Heraclea-on-Salbace) was discovered during work for the R.E.C.A.M. project at Denizli. As inscriptions of the area south and west of Babadaǧ will not be included in the projected R.E.C.A.M. volumes, it seemed best to make this text available separately.

The building that forms the subject of the present paper was studied by the writer during the course of the 1977 season of survey at Oenoanda. As no excavation was possible under the terms of the expedition's permit, the study was limited to the upstanding walls, visible foundations, and accessible blocks of fallen masonry, with the result that many details of the architecture have had to remain uncertain. A systematic excavation would resolve most of these uncertainties, because there is every reason to believe that the elements for a near-complete restoration, in both plan and elevation, are lying buried on the site. Such an excavation is, however, unlikely to take place in the near future, and, since the range of buildings in Lycia which have been published in any detail remains small, it has seemed worth while to present the results of the 1977 work forthwith. Building Mk 1 is of added importance in that its function can be identified and the date of at least one of its major phases can be established on epigraphic and other grounds: it is certainly a bath-building and equally certainly achieved its final form in the Severan period.

Between 547/6 and 541/0 Cyrus the Great defeated Croesus and the Persian Empire reached the Aegean. In the years following, his general, Harpagus the Mede, subdued the coastal Greek cities and sacked Xanthos which put up a struggle to the last. It is to be assumed that the rest of Lycia fell without event. Western and southwestern Asia Minor was divided into two administrative areas, Lydia and Ionia (Yauna). Although the Lydian satrapy was often predominant, the basic unit in the southwest was Ionia which comprised during much of its existance Ionia proper, Aeolia, Caria, Lycia, Milyas, and Pamphylia. This large area left Lycia without a satrap in the proximity and consequently without a provincial court with its attendant strong official influence.

Lycian scholars have long recognized that a number of the sepulchral inscriptions of Lycia refer to certain disciplinary agents responsible for punishing persons guilty of illegal use of a tomb—e.g. by making unauthorized burials in the tomb. TL 57 provides a typical example:

There has been some fluctuation of opinion on the actual nature of the disciplinary agents involved. Many of them once thought to have been secular authorities can now quite confidently be regarded as deities or religious institutions, and this of course throws a rather different light on the nature and purpose of the penalty clauses in the inscriptions. In some cases, these clauses seem to have threatened the offender with divine retribution and nothing more, but in other cases, the offender apparently risked a more tangible form of penalty. One might then ask to whom precisely a tomb violator was answerable for his offence, and what precisely was the nature of the penalty imposed upon him.

The editors of the Athenian Tribute Lists explain the anomalous amounts of tribute (such as 1030 drachmae) paid by certain Carian towns in 453/2 as a normal assessment (1000 drachmae) augmented by a penalty for late payment. Samuel Eddy, on the other hand, suggests that the sums represent amounts which the towns had previously paid in their own currency to the King of Persia. On his view, in 453/2 an Athenian military expedition compelled the towns to pay their normal amount of tribute, but to Athens instead of Persia. It would be pointless to repeat his case, but I do have two observations to offer which tend to confirm Eddy's explanation but modify it in detail.

During the most recent campaigns (1976–79) carried out at Arslantepe, excavations were concentrated on the south-west area of the hüyük, where a stratigraphic sequence belonging to the period covering the end of the fourth and the beginning of the third millennium was identified; large areas of several levels were brought to light. With reference to this period two main phases can be clearly recognized: VI A and VI B. The former is characterized by its strong Syro-Mesopotamian connections, the latter by the considerable presence of East-Anatolian-Transcaucasian elements beside elements typical of the Upper Euphrates region.

Bereits F. W. Hasluck fand bei seinem survey über Kyzikos in den Jahren 1902–1906 drei archaische Kapitellfragmente, die zeigen, dass der Ort auch in diesem Bereich eigenständige Leistungen hervorgebracht hat, und deren Marmormaterial einen gewissen Reichtum der Stadt schon in früher Zeit im Vergleich etwa zu Larisa und Neandria zum Ausdruck brachte.

Die beiden leider verschollenen Fragmente eines kleinen ionischen Kapitells mit wenigen breiten, konvexen Volutengängen, ein fachem Rundstab und schalenförmigem Auge, gehörten wegen des geringen Echinusdurchmessers (36 cm.) wohl zu einer Votivsäule.

Recently Professor Harald Ingholt generously donated to the Yale Babylonian Collection a Hittite cylinder seal from the empire period, which has received the inventory number YBC 16575. The piece, which is of copper and measures 24·5 × 11 mm., is in excellent condition and shows little sign of wear – see Plate XX and Figure 1. According to Professor Ingholt, he purchased the seal in the 1930s in the bazaar of Beirut, a city which lies outside of the area controlled by the Hittite empire at the greatest extent of its expansion, but which at the time of the acquisition of the seal was linked by daily train service to Adana in Cilicia, the rail line running through the heart of what had once been the southern domains of the Hittites.

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.

Ancient Urartu is rightly celebrated for its fine bronzework, examples of which have been found at such sites as Toprak Kale, Altıntepe, Karmir Blur and Kayalidere. While a good deal has been written about the stylistic and typological implications of these bronzes, however, very little attention has been paid to metallurgical or technological considerations. Thus, it seems important to publish as soon as possible a series of analyses made some time ago but not hitherto made available. The material analysed comes from Toprak Kale, Altıntepe and Patnos, and dates between the 9th and 7th centuries B.C. The objects are either in the British Museum (BM) or in the Ankara Archaeological Museum (AAM). Drillings from the latter were obtained by Dr Arthur Steinberg of M.I.T., to whom thanks are due for generously allowing us to publish the results.

Twenty years ago Laroche set forth in a definitive article the evidence for the goddess Kubaba as the ancient oriental prototype of the goddess transmitted to the classical world as Kubelē or Kubēbē. Little enough new information on Kubaba has appeared since then. However, in the course of writing the entry “Kubaba” for the Reallexikon der Assyriologie, I felt that a detailed examination of the passages of the Hieroglyphic Luwian texts which refer to this goddess would be desirable, especially in order to take into account recent advances in our understanding of that script and language. What follows then is transliterations and translations of all Hieroglyphic Luwian references to Kubaba (except for uninformative fragments) and elucidatory notes. This study supplies the texts to the relevant section of Laroche's masterly sketch.