In an article published in Anatolian Studies XXVI (1976), I have questioned the accepted chronology of level VII in Alalakh, suggesting that four rather than two kings reigned in Alalakh during the period covered by the level VII archive. In the meantime two important works, bearing directly on the subject, have been published by Dr. Dominique Collon. The first is an enlargement of her thesis on the Alalakh seal impressions, including a detailed discussion of the seal impressions as well as of the overall problem of the archive and its inner division into generations (SITA, pp. 143–161). This most welcome contribution to the subject at hand adds much to our understanding of the chronology of level VII, although some of her points might be interpreted in a different way, as I hope to show below.

In her book Dr. Collon accepted the chronological system suggested by the CAH, according to which there were only two kings in Alalakh during the period of level VII. She again summarized her results in Anatolian Studies XXVII (1977), rejecting my suggested reconstruction of the chronology of the kings as well as of the generations in Alalakh.

Professor F. W. König published in 1956 a note listing and describing the stones lying in the Van Museum, as far as he was able to do so from photographs of them taken in 1954 by Professor H. Gamerith and placed at his disposal. Professor König's note included two sketches, based on the photographs, of the stones as they lay; and he gave to each stone in the sketches a number by which he referred to it in his list.

Visits to the Van Museum made in the course of journeys in eastern Turkey undertaken by the writer in September 1956 (accompanied and assisted by his wife) and in September 1957 (alone) have made possible the following amplified account of the Urartian stones in the museum. The numbers assigned to the stones in König's sketches are used as a means of reference; information already available in König's note or in his Handbuch is not repeated, except that identifications made by him from the photographs are repeated (in parenthesis) to make the list complete; numbers not occurring in the series relate to stones which could not be seen to bear any Urartian inscription.

It is many years since scholars began systematically to copy and publish the inscriptions of Colonia Caesarea (Pisidian Antioch), but the site of the colony and the houses and streets of the neighbouring town of Yalvaç still have much to yield. The following inscriptions, hitherto unpublished, were collected in 1955. They are arranged here according to language. The Latin inscriptions come first: a group of architectural fragments and dedications to Roman emperors, ranging widely in date but belonging for the most part to the early fourth century, is followed by some dedications to private individuals, probably persons of good standing in the colony. The Greek inscriptions may be divided into three classes: epitaphs, dedications to the gods, and some late, Christian, fragments; official tituli are wanting.

I. In the garden of the Ortokul at Yalvaç, on a broken entablature now measuring 66 cm. in length by 42 cm. in height by 36 cm. in depth (lower surface). The letters range from 7·5 to 5·5 cm. in height. The inscription is complete above, where there is a moulding, and below (on the right at least).

The two authors of this brief note together made a tour of Hittite monuments in Turkey in the summer of 1978. RLA arrived in İzmir from abroad a few days earlier than HGG, who was detained in İstanbul by other obligations. While waiting for him, RLA revisited the Karabel and Mt. Sipylus and thus was the first of us to notice the inscription. Since it had not been mentioned in recent years and neither of us had seen it on previous visits to the site we believed that this was a discovery. In fact it is a rediscovery, as we learned from David Hawkins, who reminded us (in correspondence) of the fact that it is included in L. Messerschmidt, CIH 1–2 (MVAG 5, 1900, 4–5 ) as Pl. XXXVIII no. 3. Messerschmidt's source was an article by Eduard Gollob published in 1882.

About three metres to the right of the recess containing the well-known seated goddess, a smaller, partly worked niche contains a large boss (Pl. IXa, arrow). Although the boss has suffered a major fracture, which perhaps led to its abandonment for relief sculpture, it has a plain surface on the side toward the goddess (Pl. IXb). The hieroglyphs are inscribed here, approximately on a level with the torso of the goddess (Pl. Xa, b, Fig. 1). The inscription is arranged in two columns; the right column, with four signs, measures 65 cm., the left one consists of three (or four? see below) signs.

This report should really have appeared in Anatolian Studies XVI (1966). Dis aliter visum. During the autumn of 1965 and the first half of 1966 the present writer was either ill or in hospital, and so unable to work to any purpose.

After a fallow season in 1964, excavations at Alahan were resumed in 1965 between the 26th June and the 21st August, a period of exactly eight weeks. The average number of men employed was twenty-five. The Director was again in charge, with Mr. R. P. Harper as his deputy. Mr. G. Bakker again acted as our architect, while Mrs. Bakker dealt with small finds and conservation. Field assistants were Miss Margaret MacDonald, Messrs. T. B. Mitford (Institute Fellow for 1964–1965) and Anthony Ray. Towards the end of the excavation Mr. J. W. Hayes visited the site to advise on pottery and coins, while Miss Margaret Ramsden assisted in the tedious but skilled task of cleaning up skeletons for photographing.

The Council have asked me to speak to you about the history of this Institute over the past twenty-five years; and, since I myself regard it as a “success story”, I shall try to make it something rather more than a mere sequence of reminiscences. I want therefore to tell you how the Institute came to be founded in 1947. I want to go back and recollect some of our archaeological experiences in the very different world of the nineteen-fifties – to remind you about the Institute's expansion, after Michael Gough took over the Directorship from me in 1961 – and finally to say something about how things are going in the nineteen-seventies, under the direction of Dr. D. H. French – ably assisted, as you know, by his wife and other associates. But I also want to add something about what (to use a very hackneyed expression) one may call the “wind of change” in archaeology; I mean changes in the approach to, and even in the ultimate purpose of excavating, as they are now frequently explained to me by people younger than myself.

So, let me begin at the beginning and remind you that the foundation of our Institute was almost entirely due to the initiative of one man: the late Professor John Garstang, whom everyone remembers because, as Herodotus wrote the first history of the Greeks, Garstang wrote the first history – at least in this country – and also the first geography of the Hittite Empire.

The Alalakh tablets were published by Wiseman in 1953, and in subsequent years the main chronological problems raised by them have been treated in numerous studies. Already in 1954, Landsberger, in a comprehensive paper on the chronology, determined that the Alalakh archive was later than the days of BḪammurapi and the destruction of Mari, and suggested identifying YḪammurapi (end of the period of the Mari archives) with YḪammurapi the father of YAbbael, the first ruler of Yamḫad mentioned in the Alalakh tablets. Landsberger thus was able to form a chronological continuity between the rulers known from the Mari archives (including BḪammurapi) and the rulers known from the Alalakh archives. This suggestion was generally accepted among scholars subsequently dealing with the Alalakh material.

In the same paper, Landsberger set out a full reconstruction of the dynasties ruling in Yamḫad and in Alalakh in the period of the archive from level VII. This scheme has been modified slightly by Smith, Goetze, and Kupper, in the years following, demonstrating that YIrkabtum, who appears in the year-names in several documents from the archive (AT 33, 38, 54, 58, 64 and 65) was the heir of YNiqmiepuḫ, and contemporary with AAmmitaqum. Thus, it was determined that, in the period of the Alalakh archive, the following six kings ruled in succession at Ḫaleb: YAbbael, YYarimlim II, YNiqmiepuḫ, YIrkabtum, YḪammurapi II, YYarimlim III (the latter two are often listed in reverse order). The first four kings of this list are noted in father-son relationships, while the relationships of the two latter are unknown.

I am very happy to be able to offer to Oliver Gurney, to whom I owe many years of generous and unstinted teaching, advice and support, a token Hieroglyphic repayment for my Cuneiform debt to him. I only trust that this contribution of mine to this journal, being the first which has not had the benefit of his careful scholarship and judicious criticism, will not fall below his high standards.

Of the two large stelae found at Tell Ahmar (the ancient Til-Barsip), the mutilated TELL AHMAR 2, now in the Louvre, names as its author a certain king Hamiyatas, who presumably ruled the city Til-Barsip and its surrounding territory, although his and his kingdom's titles have been carried away by the damage to the stele. In the remains of his genealogy, Hamiyatas names Masuwarazas, perhaps his father, but perhaps grandfather or even earlier forebear. The broken stele TELL AHMAR 1, a new edition of which is here presented, has lost the name, office and titles of the author and preserves only his genealogy, “Hapatilas's great-grandson, the ruler Ariyahinas's son” (by which patronymic he must be named by us).

The inscriptions published here were recorded during the excavation at Şar, Comana Cappadociae, conducted jointly for the Ankara Archaeological Museum and the British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara by Mrs. İnci Bayburtluoğlu and the writer in August, 1967. A report of the excavation appeared in AS. XVIII, 1968, p. 149 ff.

The numerical sequence of the inscriptions continues that of “Tituli Comanorum Cappadociae” (AS. XVIII, 1968, p. 93 ff.) Again I give measurements, figures made from contact drawings of squeezes and photographs. Dimensions are in centimetres, width before height before depth.

3,08. Found outside the north side of the Kırık Kilise. Part of the top of a round limestone altar, centre hollow, 40 × 25 × 20. Top surrounded with a wreath of leaves. Inscription worn, broken left, 23 × 7; letters 2; possible traces of two more lines. Photograph Pl. Ia.

In addition to security considerations, the course of Hittite history can largely be explained by the economic motif, to control the sources and markets of metals.

The expulsion or departure of the Assyrian merchants from Anatolia at the end of Anittas' reign not only deprived the newly founded Hittite Kingdom in the central plateau of the organized trade which, among other commodities, supplied Anatolia with its imported tin (from. Assur), but also cut it off from the supply centres in the East Mediterranean and North Syria, by now under the control of the strong Yamhadian Dynasty.

In Anatolia itself the mineral-rich regions, which supplied both Anatolian and Mesopotamian provinces with copper, silver and lead, were mostly in the northern and eastern areas which the Hittites, due to the geo-political situation already pointed out by Mellaart, could not control or controlled with difficulty. This situation no doubt forced the Hittites to turn to alternative mineral-fields and supply centres in areas west of the plateau.

The four tablets published here were found in room C II, on the western side of the Assyrian acropolis at Sultantepe, during the excavations of the British Institute and the Turkish Department of Antiquities in 1951. Two of these are more or less complete, while two are only fragmentary. It is only in these last two, however, that the dates are preserved; S.U. 51/43 being dated in the eponym of Sharru-nūri, 674 B.C., and S.U. 51/43A in the eponym of Mannu-zīrni, 684 B.C. S.U. 51/36 may have had an eponym date at the end of the first line of the left edge, but that part is now lost. S.U. 51/44, contrary to the usual practice with legal documents, is undated.

There is no clear indication from the Sultantepe tablets concerning the name of the site in Assyrian times. Although the city of Ḫuzir(i)na is mentioned in line 36 of 51/36 and in a number of colophons on the literary tablets from Sultantepe, it has already been pointed out by Gurney that Sultantepe, situated about fifteen miles north of Harran, could not be identical with the city of Ḫuzirina, familiar from the Assyrian royal annals, which was situated at a distance of not more than one day's march to the west of Nasibina (Nisibis); in other words, some 130 miles to the east of Sultantepe.

This article presents an inscribed statue base discovered at Oinoanda by Professor Martin Ferguson Smith in 2002. The new inscription is placed in its historical context, and the commentary traces the implications for our understanding of Roman army recruitment, the role of the civic élite in responding to the demands of the imperial government and the practice of heroisation in the competition for honour among the notables who were also the city's victorious athletes.

Pichvnari lies on the Black Sea coast of Georgia, at the confluence of the Choloki and Ochkhamuri rivers, some 10km to the north of the town of Kobuleti in the Ajarian Autonomous Republic (fig 1). The site has been known since the 1950s, and excavations were carried out in both the settlement and its various cemeteries in succeeding years, under the auspices of the Batumi Archaeological Museum and the Batumi Research Institute. The site was surveyed and a notional grid-plan imposed, within which subsequent work was recorded. By the time of the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1989–90, the Pichvnari Expedition was a fixture in the Georgian archaeological calendar, but with the abrupt decline in the Georgian economy this happy state of affairs came to an end.

In 1998, however, work started again in collaboration with the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. In the spring of that year, the dig-house (part of an old kolkhoz, collective farm) was restored with the aid of the Seven Pillars of Wisdom Trust. The roof was mended, and water and electricity laid on. The first season took place in July and August, when work (briefly reported in Vickers 1998) was conducted in the areas of both the North, or ‘Colchian’, and West, or ‘Greek’, Cemeteries.

In this article we bring together for the first time four bronze bulls' heads of impressive size and weight which seem to form a series. One is in the collection of Mr. J. J. Emery, of Cincinnati, another is in the Fogg Museum, a third is in Cleveland (Plates XVII–XVIII), and the fourth (Plate XIX) is in the Louvre. In 1954 Mr. Emery generously lent his piece to the Fogg Museum for the exhibition of “Ancient Art in American Private Collections” and, through the good offices of Miss Dorothy G. Shepherd, the Trustees of the Cleveland Museum of Art consented to send the Cleveland bull's head for a brief period. Thus I was enabled to examine and compare three of the four heads of this series. For the piece in the Louvre, which I have not seen, I am making use of photographs and measurements supplied by A. Parrot.

As R. D. Barnett was the first to point out to me, two bulls' heads of this kind were found in 1905 in the village of Guşçi, on Urmia Lake. An account of this discovery was given by “Atrpet” in the Armenian periodical Azgagrakan Handess, Revue Ethnographique publiée par la Société Ethnographique Arménienne, XXIII, Part 2, 1912, pp. 114–124.

The purpose of this article is to publish a third version of the ancient Babylonian myth of the Twenty-one “Poultices”, and to comment on the mythological content of all three, while leaving details of the strictly medical aspects to others. The two hitherto known versions of this myth are both preserved on Late Assyrian tablets from Assur: LKA 146, the whole of which is relevant, and BAM 313, of which only part is of direct concern. The tablet published here for the first time, BM 33999, is of Late Babylonian date, probably from Babylon, and is now in the British Museum, by kind permission of whose Trustees it is available.

“Poultices” (mêlu) were a common form of Babylonian medicine. A number of drugs, usually between two and four, were combined and then applied to a person's body with the aid of a leather strap or pouch. When specified, the neck is always the part of the body involved, and the Chicago Assyrian Dictionary (sub voce) assumes that this was always the case, but perhaps it would be wise to leave the question open for the present.

The site of Nokalakevi, in western Georgia, has seen significant excavation since 1973, including, since 2001, a collaborative Anglo-Georgian project. However, the interpretation of the site has largely rested on architectural analysis of standing remains and the relative dating of deposits based on the study of ceramics. Since 2013, the Anglo-Georgian Expedition to Nokalakevi has collected a diverse dataset derived from multiple scientific techniques including optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dating of ceramics, radiocarbon dating, δ13C and δ15N analysis and 87Sr/86Sr analysis. The full results of these analyses are reported here for the first time along with implications for the interpretation of the archaeology, which include greater detail in the site chronology but also indicators of diet and migration.

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.

Of the many Byzantine churches in Cilicia which have survived, in a greater or lesser state of ruin, to the present day, there can be no doubt that the best known and most remarkable is the monastery church at Alahan in Isauria. During July, 1890, Professor W. M. Ramsay, D. G. Hogarth and A. C. Headlam visited the site, and in 1892 published their results under the title “Ecclesiastical Sites in Isauria (Cilicia Trachea)” in Supplementary Papers No. II of the Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies. This publication completely superseded that of Laborde who had been at Alahan in 1826, and to-day it is still the only authoritative work on the subject of the architecture and relief sculpture of the monastery.

Headlam's description of the site is brief and accurate. “The ruins of Koja Kalessi (i.e. Alahan) are situated about 3,000 feet above the Calycadnus valley and 4,000 feet above the sea, facing south and southwest and looking over the junction of the two great river valleys through which the branches of the ancient Calycadnus run. They consist of a large monastery with buildings of various characters too much destroyed to be easily identified, and a church in very good preservation. They are built on a terrace running due east and west, partly cut out of the side of the hill, with the ground falling away very steeply below and rising almost precipitously above.” (Pl. IX, b).

When Professor Garstang excavated part of the Middle-Late Bronze Age Necropolis at Jericho between the years 1930–1936, he made special mention in one of his reports of a scarab in a group of six from Tomb 13 (LAAA., XX 1933, pp. 36–7 and Fig. 11). He described it briefly as follows:—

“Figure of a Canaanite wearing robe and cap with Syro-Hyksos hieroglyphs in the field.”

Twenty years have elapsed since then, and other scarabs have come to light which show figures wearing the same type of dress, so that it does seem worth while to assemble them on one page to see if they form a consistent and instructive group.