Located in the central region of the Anatolian mainland, Konya has played an important role in east-west and north-south cultural interactions since prehistoric times. In order to investigate the cultural geography of this region from prehistoric times to the Classical period surveys and museum work have been carried out since 1987 (Bahar 1991; Bahar et al 1996). In the course of this work some observations have been made on the Iron Age, which is a problematic subject for the central Anatolian region as well as for Anatolia as a whole. During the Iron Age the grey pottery known as Phrygian ware occurs over a wide region from the basin of the Meander in the west into central Anatolia (Mellaart 1955: 117; Dupré 1983: 82; Summers 1994: 241-52). We have previously suggested that this ware should be renamed ‘inner-west Anatolian ware’ or ‘Luwian ware’ (Bahar et al 1996: 65-7). It is significant that this pottery is encountered especially around Sarayönü and Kadınhanı where Luwian peoples were intensively settled in the second millennium BC.

The citadel of Van (Tushpa) was the main settlement of the Urartian kingdom, which dominated the regions of eastern Anatolia, Caucasia and northwestern Iran between the ninth and sixth centuries BC. Lake Van borders the site on the west, while to the south is the eastern extension of the Taurus mountains, stretching east to west and reaching 3000-3500m in height. These steep mountains, rising like a natural wall between the Urartian city and its greatest enemy the Assyrian kingdom to the south, provided an advantageous defensive feature. The capital city Tushpa, which is 1.5km east of Lake Van, and the Van plain itself are bordered on the east by the 3200m high Erek mountain. Erek mountain surrounds the east of the plain like a crescent, halting the cold winds as well as providing the water supply for agriculture in the Van plain from its rich water sources. Although the soil of the Van plain, which is 1750m above sea level, is agriculturally fertile, for many crops it is barely possible to conduct successful agriculture without irrigation. The Van plain, 9km wide and 17km long, is poor in water resources, as is well known. The water sources around Erek mountain, amongst the richest in the east Anatolian region, were used effectively in the period of the Urartian kingdom for the first time. Almost all the irrigation structures built on and around Erek mountain were built in order to irrigate the Van plain to the east of Lake Van. Most of the constructed dams and reservoirs, totalling more than ten, are still in use today, with minor restoration, despite being more than 2,700 years old. If we consider that few irrigation facilities were constructed at other water sources in the east Anatolian region, it underlines the importance of these water sources at Erek mountain and its slopes for the plain of Van. It seems that the rich water sources around Erek mountain constituted another positive condition for the foundation of the capital city of the Urartian kingdom in the Van plain.

Following a three year survey in the Samsun region between 1971 and 1973, excavations started at İkiztepe, situated on the outskirts of İkiztepe village near Bafra town, in 1974. The results obtained from the excavations since 1993 demonstrate that the Bafra region was also settled during the Late Iron Age (Bilgi 1995: 142; 1996: 157; 1997: 145).

Intensive survey and subsequent excavations located no settlements at İkiztepe after the first quarter of the second millennium BC. A monumental tomb from the Hellenistic period, however, was found at Tepe I (fig 1. Alkım et al 1988: 85-7). In addition to this tomb, comprising a dromos and two chambers built of cut stone blocks, traces of a settlement with pottery (figs 23, 27:3-6, 27:13-14) and small metal objects (figs 2-4) were found during excavations on the northern slope of Tepe I (Bilgi 1985: 55-6, pls 12-15).

The Urartian castle Ayanıs was built on a hill which stretches eventually to the water, 35km north of Van, near to a village called Aǧartı (old Ayanıs)and 250m inland from Lake Van. An inscription (Çilingiroǧlu, Salvini 1995) on the front of a monumental door that was unearthed at the southeast corner of the castle during the 1993 excavations proved that the castle was built by Rusa (Rusa II), son of Argišti, named as Rusahinili Eiduru-kai (‘Rusahinili in front of Eiduru mountain’). Our suggestion that Eiduru mountain can be equated with Süphan mountain (Çilingiroǧlu, Salvini 1995: 120) is strengthened with new information from the 16m-long inscription found on the façade of the Ayanıs temple. This inscription not only shows that Eiduru mountain gave the castle its name, but also that Eiduru was a god to whom sacrifices were made. We therefore need to add the god Eiduru to the list of Meher Kapı Gods.

Porsuk is strategically situated in the northern foothills of the Taurus mountains (see map, fig 1), controlling one of the most important passes between Cilicia and the Anatolian plateau. It seems that this area, which was in the sphere of Hittite culture during the Late Bronze Age, turns towards the southern regions of Cilicia during Porsuk period IV. We shall firstly re-examine the evidence for the Early Iron Age at Porsuk in the light of recent discoveries from a number of other sites. We will then examine evidence that might demonstrate relations between Porsuk IV and Cilicia.

During subsequent centuries the situation seems to revert to that pertaining in the LBA: relations with the plateau tend to become more intense. From this point of view, we shall have a look at the Phrygian problem. Does this zone become a Phrygian protectorate with the rise of the Gordion state? Or are the exchanges between them only commercial or diplomatic? We shall try to give a preliminary shape to a possible answer by investigating the so-called ‘Phrygian’ evidence.

The aim of the research presented in this paper was to find out more about Tarsus in the time of Sennacherib and his successors from a Mesopotamian standpoint, and to discover whether Assyrian influence persisted into subsequent periods.

Two fragments of text attributed to the Babylonian priest Berossus, who lived in Babylon under Antiochus I, have been transmitted by Eusebius and were attributed to Polyhistor and to Abydenus as intermediaries. They relate the deeds of Sennacherib in Cilicia. Both versions say that he built the city of Tarsus in the image of Babylon. Both versions say that Sennacherib defeated Ionians or Greeks in Cilicia. The version of Polyhistor claims that Sennacherib left a statue of himself in Cilicia with a record of his deeds inscribed in ‘Chaldaean’ script, and the text claims, in saying ‘as he (sc. Sennacherib) reports’, to be derived from a contemporary account of Sennacherib's deeds (Burstein 1978: 24 fn 79). Abydenus' version says that the king had his deeds inscribed truthfully and mentions that he built a ‘temple of the Athenians’ and erected bronze pillars.

The citadel of Ayanıs is situated on a hill 250m high (1866.87m in altitude) above Lake Van and 35km north of Tushpa, the capital city of the Urartians. During ongoing work at the castle between 1989 and 1997 various finds were made which belong to the period of the Urartian king Rusa II. An important group of mainly domestic pots, including a range of different shapes, were amongst these finds. Vessels such as pithoi, jars, bowls and jugs were frequently found in situ in rooms. Some of the pots found in certain areas of the citadel attract attention because of the potters' marks visible on them. During the work of the 1989–1997 seasons at Ayanıs, 2,787 pieces of Medieval and Iron Age pottery were registered. Of these sherds, 179 bear pot-marks.

This paper presents data on the painted pottery of Hasanlu II/IIIA from an analysis of field records. The excavation programme at Tepe Hasanlu was carried out between 1956 and 1977 for the University of Pennsylvania Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Archaeological Service of Iran. Period II/IIIA, the final pre-Islamic occupation of the site, dates to the Late Achaemenid-Early Hellenistic period. The painted pottery includes Western Triangle Ware, Cream-slipped Bichrome Ware, Brown-line Ware, and Classic Triangle Ware.

Site and sequence

Hasanlu is one of several large Iron Age mounds in the Qadar River valley at the southern end of Lake Urmia in western Azerbaijan, Iran. It consists of a central Citadel Mound (25m above the plain and about 200m in diameter) surrounded by an Outer Town. It was occupied from about 5500 BC to about 280 BC and again in Islamic times.

The mound of Kilise Tepe, formerly known as Maltepe, stands above the left bank of the Göksu near where the river leaves the Mut basin to plunge between cliffs down to the coast at Silifke about 45km to the southeast. It thus dominates one of the best-known routes from the Mediterranean to the central Anatolian plateau. Excavation at the site began in 1994, and confirmed the presence here of Late Bronze Age occupation, already deduced from collections of surface sherds by Mellaart and French, but also revealed Iron Age, Hellenistic and Byzantine layers. The present article addresses rather specifically the ceramic evidence for the end of the Bronze Age and subsequent Iron Age occupation, with particular emphasis on the chronological framework and certain wares in these levels not previously described.

Lidar Höyük was situated on the east bank of the Euphrates river, about 50km northwest of the provincial capital Şanlıurfa and within sight of the mound of Samsat on the opposite bank. Since 1988 these sites have been flooded by the waters of the Atatürk Dam Basin. Excavations at Lidar Höyük took place in the years from 1979 to 1987. They were conducted by the Institute für Ur- und Frühgeschichte und Vorderasiatische Archäologie of the University of Heidelberg under the direction of Hauptmann. The occupation levels reached from the Islamic down to the Chalcolithic Period. Iron Age structures were found mainly in a large trench called Q, R, S 44-45, where an unbroken stratigraphy from the 13th to the sixth century BC could be excavated.

Northeastern Anatolia during the Iron Age has long been neglected archaeologically, yet historical sources attest to its importance, located on the frontiers of the Urartian and Persian empires and witness to numerous incursions by diverse groups such as the Medes, Cimmerians and Scythians. The archaeological potential of the area was first revealed by surface surveys carried out in the 1940s and 1950s. However, with the University of Melbourne's excavations and surface survey of sites in the Bayburt and Erzurum provinces, there is now a significant body of material emerging for study.

Historical and archaeological foci have traditionally been with the centres of empires, the core or optimal areas, while it is in the periphery, or marginal areas that the dynamics of social change are most evident. These foci largely stem from the inherent difficulties involved in gleaning information on peripheral areas.

The excavations of Young at Gordion (1950–73) made an immeasurable contribution to our understanding of the Iron Age in central Anatolia. Amidst the attention paid to his discoveries of rich burial tumuli and substantial buildings within the elite quarter of the Gordion citadel mound, a series of casual drawings incised on the exterior surface of one of these buildings, Megaron 2, has received less notice. Known informally as ‘doodles’, these drawings range from small cursory sketches to larger complex pictures. They were noted in the Gordion preliminary excavation reports for the 1956 and 1957 seasons and were the subject of a brief study in Archaeology in 1969, but their significance has never been fully assessed. Yet these drawings, while hardly great art, have the potential to offer much valuable information on Phrygian interests and activities and on the Phrygians' sources of artistic inspiration in the late eighth century BC. For this reason I am undertaking a full review of all the stones with incised Phrygian drawings for publication. My goal here is to discuss the technique and subject matter of the drawings, and offer some suggestions about the artistic impetuses which lay behind them.

The ancient settlement of Sos Höyük, situated east of Erzurum, is providing a significant stratigraphic sequence of human occupation from the Late Chalcolithic to the Medieval period. This sequence includes the transition from the end of the Bronze Age into the first centuries of the Iron Age, a period which is surrounded by difficult but intriguing historical questions. At the mound of Sos Höyük evidence for this transition is starting to emerge from a relatively small operation on the northern slope, midway down the mound, in trenches M15 and L16.

The stratigraphic record at Sos Höyük together with a large range of radiocarbon readings taken from samples collected over four seasons of excavation indicate that the site was occupied throughout the late fourth/third millennium BC and intermittently in the second millennium. The earliest centuries of the second millennium BC are best defined by storage pits, wattle and daub dwellings and burials that conform generally to a tradition initially documented by Kuftin in his excavations of the Trialeti kurgan burials near Tbilisi, Georgia (Kuftin 1941; Miron, Orthmann 1995: 79–94).

The Urartian Kingdom, as is well known, played a major power role on the stage of history in eastern Anatolia in the second half of the ninth century BC and remained powerful until the second half of the seventh century BC. With their highly advanced architectural traditions and organised state structure, the Urartians take their place among the most exciting civilisations of the first half of the first millennium BC in the Near East.

Extensive detailed research and publication has been carried out on Urartian civilisation for over a hundred years, but the origin and dynamics of the development of this civilisation are still obscure. The Assyrian annals, which start from the 13th century BC, are at present the only source for understanding the early periods. These records were intended as propaganda and their accuracy is in many instances thus questionable.

In diesem Aufsatz wird die Figur des Gottes Tarhuntaš auf dem zwei figurigen Felsrelief von İvriz untersucht, und vor allem wird versucht das Attribut des Gottes zu deuten.

Dem Felsrelief des “Quellheiligtums’ von İvriz (Abb 1) wurden seit seiner Entdeckung im 17. Jh. bereits zahlreiche, verschiedenartige Untersuchungen gewidmet. Die Attribute des dort dargestellten Gottes Tarhuntaš, die wichtige Hinweise zur Bestimmung der Funktion ihres Trägers liefern könnten, blieben davon jedoch lange Zeit unberührt. Ihre Erforschung wurde sehr spät durch R D Barnett eingeleitet, der ihnen erstmalig Beachtung schenkte: Sein Interesse galt vorrangig dem spiralförmig gerillten Gegenstand, der unter dem linken Ellbogen des Gottes zum Vorschein kommt (Abb 2). Barnett zufolge gehörte er zum ‘Knauf eines Schwertes, der in Form eines Adler- oder Vogelkopfes gestaltet ist’. Als erste Untersuchung zu diesem Thema überhaupt war diese Arbeit Barnetts auch für spätere Forschungen von grundlegender Bedeutung.

The beginning of the Iron Age is generally dated to the last quarter of the second millennium BC in Anatolia and the Near East. The development of iron metallurgy allowed many tools and weapons to be produced in this period. The earliest iron finds, which are not more than a dozen, occur in the third millennium BC in Anatolia (Waldbaum 1980 discusses these early finds). Considering that pure iron occurs rarely in nature, the most important question is: what were these objects made of? Preliminary analyses of a few Bronze Age finds show that some of them contain nickel. Because of this it is generally accepted and frequently cited that these finds were made of meteoric iron.