The three fragments of a much worn Assyrian stele to be seen in Adana Museum were not, as might have been supposed, found locally in Cilicia. Instead they have been identified as pieces found by C. F. Lehmann-Haupt in the spring of 1899, in the course of a journey down the Tigris from Siirt to Mosul. They were discovered at the village of Babil, some 25 km. south-west of the modern town of Cizre, which is situated in south-eastern Turkey on the Tigris, at the point where the present Turkish-Syrian border joins the river. Babil also now lies directly on the Turkish border. Lehmann-Haupt related the site, circumstances and finds on two occasions in his published works. The finds included “eine Anzahl von Steinfragmenten mit assyrischen Inschriften”, six of which he described perfunctorily and with considerable inaccuracy. He correctly identified parts of a stele of Assurnasirpal II, but did not attempt any further reading of the worn and broken text.

The Sumerian deluge myth is inscribed on a six-colume Nippur tablet in the University Museum, of which only the lower third is preserved. It was first published by Arno Poebel in 1914, in PBS V no. 1, and was edited by him with exemplary detail, care, and circumspection in the same year in PBS IV pp. 9–70. In 1950, I published a new translation of the text in ANET pp. 42–4 – except for a few modifications, it was based entirely on Poebel's edition. In more recent years, two scholars have made serious attempts to retranslate and reinterpret the text. In 1969, Miguel Civil published a new transliteration and translation of the myth in Lambert and Millard's atrahasis pp. 138–45 (philological notes ibid. pp. 167–74). In 1981, Thorkild Jacobsen published a new transliteration, translation and interpretation of the composition which he entitled “The Eridu Genesis”, in JBL 100/4 pp. 513–29. Both Civil and Jacobsen have made a number of significant and useful lexicographical, grammatical and interpretative suggestions. But neither of them have resolved the baffling difficulties and obscurities that abound in the text, and much of its contents still remains puzzling and enigmatic, especially the first part of the myth relating the events leading up to the divine decision to destroy mankind by sending a devastating flood on the land.

The Life of Saint Theodore of Sykeon gives a detailed picture of village life in later Roman Galatia, on the eve of the Persian and Arab invasions. Though known to be located near the intersection of a Roman highway and a river, the site of Sykeon remained unidentified in modern times. Earlier inability to locate it was attributable to mistakes made by 19th century historical geographers of Anatolia, but even after their errors were corrected by David French, the site could not be found. In September 1995 the writer and Peter Brown of Princeton University discovered a terraced slope, strewn with late Roman pottery, at Kiliseler near the village of Tahirler, south of Beypazarı. The site, and its geology, conform to the known characteristics of Sykeon, including its distance from neighbouring towns, and provide suitable settings for many of the events in the career of Saint Theodore, thus raising the hope that archaeology may now be able to supplement information available from the saint's Life.

Hittite geography and Hittite religion have for many years been among Oliver Gurney's principal interests. It therefore gives me the greatest pleasure that this small contribution in his honour deals with both these subjects, especially since the text with which it is mainly concerned is one which I first studied many years ago under his supervision. Like so many others, I owe him a debt of gratitude which can never be adequately repaid.

For many years now it has been clear that in any attempt to locate the site of Nerik the most important fact to be kept in mind is that the town was for a long period in the hands of the Gasga-peoples. Their capture of it was allegedly in the reign of Hantilis, and it was calculated that five hundred years passed before it was recovered by Hattusilis III. More probably however it fell into enemy hands in the reign of Arnuwandas I and his queen Asmunikkal, shortly after 1450 B.C. But whatever the exact details may be, it has to be accepted that any town subjected to an extended period of Gasgan occupation must have been situated to the north of Hattusas, in the direction of the area known in Classical times as Pontus. More recently there has been further evidence pointing to a similar conclusion.

Less than two thousand years ago Western Cilicia, the Cilicia Aspera of the Romans, supported a large population. Settlements in the interior were comparatively few, for the rugged character of the country forbids agriculture on any considerable scale, and communications are exceedingly difficult. On the sea-coast, however, those bays and natural anchorages which had been first the ports, and later the refuge of the pirate fleets that terrorised the Mediterranean until Pompey's campaign of 67 B.C., were thriving centres of seaborne commerce. Among the most famous of these were Corycus and Elaeusa (later Sebaste).

This is the second publication of new fragments of Diogenes discovered by participants in the Oenoanda project of the British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara. Thirteen of the twenty-three fragments which came to light in 1974 have already been published (Smith H). The present work presents the remaining ten fragments (NF 55, 57, 66, 68, 70, 73, 81, 83, 92, 101) found in 1974, forty-four fragments discovered in 1975, and one fragment (NF 94) recorded in 1976. In 1975 we discovered three more fragments recorded in the nineteenth century (HK fr. 4, 23, 25) and a piece broken off the bottom of HK fr. 42.

It is a pleasure to acknowledge, with sincere gratitude, the debt which we owe to the Republic of Turkey for generously permitting us to continue our work at Oenoanda. We are extremely grateful to Bay Hikmet Gürçay and his colleagues in the Eski Eserler ve Müzeler Genel Müdürlüǧü for their help in securing the renewal of our permit and for their kind interest in our work. We also thank Bay Salih Kütük, Director of the Fethiye Museum, and the local officials in Muǧla, Fethiye, and Seki for their courteous attention and assistance.

This was the second season of excavation at Amorium in east Phrygia, and the team worked for five weeks, from 24 July 1989. Our main aim is to trace archaeological changes and developments within the city from Hellenistic times into the Selcuk period. We carried out a general survey of the Upper Town by a regular 25-metre grid, and we also excavated three trenches, one in the Upper Town and two (which we started last year) in the Lower (Fig. 1). A preliminary analysis is underway of the pottery and small finds, which in the Late Roman and Byzantine periods appear mostly of local manufacture. There are some relevant excavation-sites in Asia Minor for study of the Late Roman period, but there is very little research geared to the so-called Dark Ages, especially inland. Amorium is a major site, virtually untouched, and the city offers a rare opportunity to examine an early Byzantine urban landscape. The excavation so far has been very successful, and has highlighted the site's great potential. Next year, we shall try to clarify the chronology, by more intensive excavation of the existing trenches.

Modern scientific excavation did not start in Turkey until the nineteen-thirties and it is therefore not surprising that Anatolian chronology has been somewhat neglected in the past.

Since the war, however, Anatolian archaeology has made rapid progress. New excavations, publication of old ones and systematic field-surveys have added a vast amount of new material, much of it stratified. These new results call for a reconsideration of Anatolian chronology, not as an adjunct to that of Syria and the Aegean, but in its own right. The recent excavations at Kültepe, near Kayseri, undertaken by T. and N. Özgüç for the Turkish Historical Society, have produced literary evidence for relating the Anatolian culture-sequences to those of Mesopotamia in and before the Hammurabi period. This new material has a direct bearing on the vexed problem of dating the Hammurabi period and the rise of the Hittite Old Kingdom and at last enables one to establish the chronology of the area, not only in relation to Mesopotamia, but also in absolute dates.

The Greek inscriptions of Lycia frequently indicate specific monetary penalties to be imposed upon any person guilty of tomb violation, and a parallel has often been drawn with certain of the indigenous inscriptions which also contain specific monetary sums, expressed as various multiples of the ada. The passages in which ada occurs have generally been thought to indicate penalties directed against wrongful use of a tomb. But this assumption is open to several serious objections, and can now perhaps be discarded in favour of a rather different interpretation, which may cast a new light on the function and purpose of the texts in question.

As a general rule, ada is found in a number of short, self-contained statements at the end of the sepulchral inscriptions.

This report presents the main results of research activities carried out at Çaltılar Höyük, northern Lycia, southwest Turkey, between 2008 and 2010. During this period, an international team undertook topographic, archaeological and geophysical surveys, together with artefact studies and analyses, aimed at determining the nature and extent of occupation at the site, and offering new data about the settlement history and material culture of this region in pre-Classical times. The results of this work suggest that the site was occupied from at least the fourth millennium (Late Chalcolithic) to the middle of the sixth century BC, a date that coincides with the Persian conquest of Lycia, with only scant evidence of use/occupation after this phase. In addition, the nature of our finds suggests that the site, despite its location in the summer pastures (yayla) and at a considerable altitude (1,250m), was well-connected to other Anatolian and Aegean regions, and probably served as more than just a minor seasonal agro-pastoral settlement, particularly during its Early Bronze Age and Late Iron Age periods of occupation. The evidence relevant to the second millennium BC is too limited at present to allow further interpretation about the nature of occupation at the site, but is significant per se, especially in view of the scanty archaeological remains of this period in the region, and despite the numerous references to the Lukka people and settlements available in documentary sources.

Following Gough, the late Roman church complex at Alahan in Isauria is usually described as a monastic site built by the emperor Zeno (AD 474–491). Recent reinterpretation of the site by Mango and Hill has suggested that it was not a monastery but a pilgrimage site. This paper argues that none of the physical evidence at the site gives good reason to think of it as built by Zeno. The usual lavish scale of imperial patronage is missing. Alahan was a rural church complex built in the late fifth or early sixth century, whose most important feature is its state of preservation.

The clarification of when and in what circumstances the various Hellenistic cities of Pisidia were founded is an important undertaking. Through the microcosm of Pisidia, such study throws valuable light upon the way in which Anatolia became hellenized. Pisidia is especially important because at the beginning of the Hellenistic period the Pisidians were hardly touched by either hellenism or urbanism. They were bellicose raiders who constituted a threat to their more urbanised neighbours. Many of the cities of Hellenistic Pisidia seem to have been established with the deliberate intention of pacifying the region.

In a recent issue of Anatolian Studies Stephen Mitchell dealt with, among others, the Pisidian city of Cretopolis. Cretopolis is of interest for several reasons, in particular because it seems to be one of the earliest military foundations of the Hellenistic period, and because the name informs us that the city was settled by Cretans. Cretans were frequently employed as mercenaries throughout the Hellenistic period, but in antiquity, as in more recent periods, Cretans made very reluctant colonists. There are very few individual Cretans attested as colonists in Egypt or elsewhere, and very few attested Cretan colonies indeed.

The use of an absolute chronological framework based on tree-ring calibrated C-14 dates has been recently proposed by D. F. Easton in his attempt “… to come to grips with the crucial and difficult dating of Troy” (Easton 1976:146). Easton points out that unlike Tarsus, whose relative dating vis-a-vis Mesopotamia and Egypt is stable, Troy's relative chronology is not agreed upon and this “impinges not only on Anatolia, but on the Aegean and Bulgaria as well”.

In establishing his chronology Easton uses, in addition to “the normal comparative methods”, two sources: (a) radiocarbon dates which, after calibration, especially when using Suess's calibration curve, affect both relative and absolute dating, (b) his reassessed stratigraphy of the Bronze Age levels at Troy (Easton 1976; 1977).

Easton in his new chronological structure has not taken into consideration certain facts and opinions surrounding tree-ring calibrated radiocarbon dating. In view of the persisting controversy regarding this scientific dating method, it is premature, at least as far as Anatolia is concerned, to replace the relative dates derived from historical synchronisms with calibrated “absolute” C-14 dates.

Between 959 and 965, Byzantine forces, directed and most often led by Nikephoros Phokas, launched a series of successful campaigns of conquest, particularly in the east. Although little studied, these conquests are significant. The subject of this article, the conquest of the Cilician plain in 965, represents the culmination of a century of Byzantine pressure on the Arab border states, of which Tarsos was the last. Simultaneously, the elimination of the Hamdanid emirate of Aleppo as a threat to the Empire helped to lay the groundwork for further successes in Syria after 965. It is the contention of this article that these objectives were intertwined and that Nikephoros Phokas followed a concerted and structured strategy through this period, aimed primarily at the conquest of Cilicia. Other objectives, though dramatic, should thus be seen as subordinate to this underlying objective.

With six rock-cut tombs of Lycian type, the region south of the city of Kibyra (in the southern part of Burdur province) is the northernmost area of their distribution. Five of these are published here for the first time. Comparison with tombs in Lycia proper suggests a date in the fourth century BC. On the basis of this date and of similar tombs found in the region of Oinoanda and in the Elmalı plain, it is argued that the existence of this type of rock-cut tomb in what was part of ancient Milyas testifies to the political and cultural expansion of Lycia under ‘king’ Perikle in the 370s BC.

Situated on the outskirts of the modern town of Kadirli is the best preserved late Roman church in eastern Cilicia. Its characteristics of design and construction are of pivotal significance for addressing the development of early Christian architecture in the region, as it represents the archetype of a definable group of churches in the upper Cilician plain, which link the building traditions of Syria with those of Anatolia and the southern shores. As it stands today, this structure known as the Alacami displays over a millennium and a half of local history, the liturgy of three different faiths and even more transitional building phases. In 1949 a full measured survey of the building was conducted by Michael and Mary Gough who in the same year were working at nearby Anazarbus. The results were never published and remained lost until 1994 when work commenced on cataloguing the Gough archive. The following study presents the full details of the Gough's survey for the first time and provides a detailed discussion of the monument in context, charting its development from the Roman period to the present day.

The 41 rock-cut tombs at Etenna provide a clear impression of this very early and widespread tradition for the region. They allow us to compare the Lycian, Pamphylian, Cilician and Pisidian rock-cut tomb architecture and understand connections and discontinuities between them. They also illustrate how features of such tombs are based on natural and technical factors, on local architectural traditions, or on the rock-cut architecture of neighbouring cultures. But basic similarities, such as the cutting of a tomb chamber in the rock, could occur without any influence from other cultural regions, for instance because of similar burial needs, similar natural materials or similar architectural knowledge. The influences between the rock-cut tombs of different regions and periods can be seen in the particular details, and their relation to local burial customs. Questions are asked, such as: if there were Lycian tombs in the Classical period, why were there no rock-cut tombs in Pamphylia in this period; why did the ‘dominant Lycian Classical culture’ not influence Pamphylia; and what were the tombs of the higher social classes of the societies of Classical Pamphylia?

The moment when the Ten Thousand sighted the Euxine is one of the most haunting scenes to come down to us from the ancient world. Retreating from Cunaxa near Babylon in 401 BC, Xenophon describes how the Greeks fought their way northwards across Kurdistan to scale the Pontic mountains, and reached the sea at the Greek city of Trapezus, already more than two centuries old. By linking Xenophon's famous account with Hadrian's inspection of his eastern frontier, their route across the mountains, and their triumphant viewpoint, can be determined with some certainty.

About 120 miles before the Greeks reached the Black Sea, the ruler of a large and prosperous city called Gymnias, probably the modern Bayburt, sent a guide to Xenophon.

On my first visit to Turkey, in 1955, I was kindly allowed to copy and photograph a number of dedications to the god Mên which are now housed in the Classical Museum, Konya ; they would have been brought from the hieron on Kara Kuyu hill, just outside the colony of Pisidian Antioch, probably after the excavations conducted by Sir W. M. Ramsay in 1912. (In his article “Studies in the Roman Province Galatia, II : Dedications at the Sanctuary of Colonia Caesarea”, JRS. VIII (1918), 107 ff., he refers by number to a list of inscriptions which he seems never to have published.) Eleven of these stones, with three uninscribed monuments, have since been published by Mr. E. N. Lane in the first part of his work on “A Re-study of the God Men”, Berytus XV (1964), 36 ff. Mr. Lane writes : “It [the unpublished material] was all found ostensibly in the course of the excavations which D. M. Robinson carried out in 1924 on the site of the forum of Antioch”.

In Anatolian Studies, Vol. XIII, 1963, there appeared I. McNeill's “The Metre of the Hittite Epic”, known here as MHE. Some implications of MHE are explored below with regard to sentence stress in Hittite.

In MHE Mr. McNeill shows that the Hittite Song of Ullikummi has a stress-based metre, and that it is built up of verses, each with four stresses and divided into two equal cola. This system accords with those of the Mesopotamian antecedents of the Hittite epic-mythological genre. MHE's prime interest is in the parallels between the Hittite and the Homeric epic forms, and in particular in the use made by each of set formulae such as are suited to oral composition.

A large part of MHE explores the variations found in the Hittite formulae. A basic formula is exemplified by Aas siunas memiskiwan dais “Ea began to speak to the gods”. Each word is stressed, and the clause fills a whole verse.