Alfred Biliotti, British vice-consul at Trebizond, spent nine days at Satala in 1874. He is well known as an enquiring and meticulous observer. The account of his visit, in a consular paper in the British Museum, remains by far the best description of the legionary fortress, and holds several items of particular interest.

Biliotti was able to record at leisure structural remains in an altogether better state of preservation than is true today. His 18 ft walls, with traces of ashlar facing, are now reduced to rubble cores visible, except at the north-east and south-east angles, only in eroded sections (Figs. 1, 2). Of the square projecting towers there is now barely a trace. The supposed look-out towers reported on the surrounding mountain tops are known from no other source.

His are the only excavations on record in Armenia Minor, and at any point on the limes itself between Trapezus and the rescue work north of the Keban dam.

His account is a valuable source for social conditions in the villages during the late Ottoman period. The way of life at Satala depended on techniques that can have changed little since Roman times, and survived virtually unaltered until the introduction of tractors in the later 1960s.

In the course of the late Alan Hall's survey of Oinoanda, a Graeco-Roman city of northern Lycia, between 1974 and 1983, further survey work at the site led by Stephen Mitchell in 1994 and excavations in 1997 led by the Director of Fethiye Museum, İbrahim Malkoç, and Martin Ferguson Smith, many architectural, historical and epigraphical questions have been answered or at least clarified. Other questions, however, await further fieldwork, to be carried out by others, at what is a very beautiful and forested, but rubble-strewn, waterless, and relatively inaccessible, site. In the meantime, progress can be made with the unpublished records and notes of previous campaigns. This article presents five inscribed statue bases, or their remnants, in context from the upper agora of Oinoanda.

Accessed in late 1964 into Burdur Museum not long after the latter had been formally constituted, inv. no. 292 is the only inscribed monument there which bears the word paramone. This rectangular marble bomos with a phiale top, corner acroteria and a decorative moulding around its outer edge, carries relief decoration and text on all four faces. The monument warrants a little more discussion than can be allowed in the catalogue which we are preparing of the inscriptions in that Museum. No provenance is stated in the Museum Inventory register; we must settle on a general origin within the province of Pisidia.

The site of Tell esh Sheikh was excavated in 1947 and 1948 as part of the British project at Alalakh-Tell Atchana in the Amuq plain. It is located two miles west of Tell Tayinat, which adjoins Alalakh, with the mound of Tabara al Akrad one and a half miles east. Other sites on the eastern edge of the plain include Çatal Höyük and Judeidah. Woolley discusses Tell esh Sheikh in the reports of excavations at Alalakh. The seals are described most fully by Buchanan, based on information and sketches supplied to him by the excavators. The present study reflects research done in the Antakya Museum and references to its inventory books. As stated by Buchanan, the seals are distributed over seven levels at the site and include a number of gables made of bone. Further information regarding archaeological context is lacking, according to David French, who is reviewing documentation and finds for the forthcoming publication of the Tell esh Sheikh excavation.

An investigation of seals and sealings at such sites as Norşuntepe and Değirmentepe in eastern Anatolia, and Tepe Gawra in northern Mesopotamia, has provided close parallels for materials, shapes, motifs and styles found in the Tell esh Sheikh seal corpus. Such associations in part confirm results of pottery analysis but also raise questions about the correlation of pottery and seal chronology, and about relations between sites on the Cilician plain and regions closer to the resource-rich areas in the northeast. A review of findings follows below.

To offer Richard Barnett remarks about Assyrian reliefs is a matter of self-indulgence. I wanted to have the reaction of this scholar most likely to be interested in my ideas about the meaning of the two principal scenes of the Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III (858–24 B.C.); the role of the ziggurat in Assyria, on which I will touch only slightly; and a fragment from the reliefs of Sennacherib (704–681 B.C.). I have had to appeal for his aid for the classification of the latter since he is preparing the publication of the collected reliefs from the palace of Sennacherib with the help of Erica Bleibtreu.

Each of the two scenes at the top of Shalmaneser's obelisk, Plate I, a—b, shows a foreign prince kneeling before the Assyrian king with hands and beard touching the ground in the posture of the greatest humility. The lower scene is often reproduced alone because the foreign ruler is Jehu of Israel, whose biblical association is of interest to the general public. The similarity of the two scenes, is unique and invites a search into its meaning. Fortunately, the identity of both foreign rulers is indicated in the inscription above the scenes.

Die einstmals kreisrunde, flache Bronzescheibe, angeblich aus Ostanatolien, die hier vorgestellt wird (Pl. XXX–XXXI), befand sich 1981 für kurze Zeit im Labor der Prähistorischen Staatssammlung, München. Die Form des Bleches, die bisher bekannten Beschlagblechen nicht genau entspricht, die historische Darstellung auf dem umlaufenden Fries und das Mittelemblem verdienen eine genauere Behandlung.

Die Scheibe: Die durchschnittlich auf eine Dicke von ungefähr 1/2 mm. ausgehämmerte Bronzescheibe wird durch 4 konzentrische getriebene Wülste in einen mittleren Kreis, drei Zonen und einen Rand aufgeteilt (Fig. 1, Pl. XXXa). Im Übrigen ist sie ganz flach, und das dürfte auch ihrem antiken Zustand entsprechen: sie muß allerdings einmal brutal quer gefaltet gewesen sein, wovon eine Reihe von Rissen und Knicken herrühren, die von links unten nach rechts oben verlaufen (Pl. XXXa); an den Enden dieser Faltung ist auch der Rand am weitesten ausgerissen. Die nachträgliche Begradigung dieser Partie ist wohl modern. Links oben und rechts unten jedoch ist der offenbar ursprünglache flache Zustand bewahrt.

In the winter of 1974 farmers working in their fields near the village of Selimiye about fifteen kilometres south-east of Ceyhan uncovered a small round limestone altar bearing an image in relief of the goddess Athena (Pl. XVII a). The form and attributes of the figure—left hand on shield, left leg slightly bent, Nike on right hand, aegis on breast—clearly indicate that the relief owes much to Pheidias' great chryselephantine statue in Athens. It may thus be added to a considerable number of representations dating back to Hellenistic times that show the interest in Pheidias' masterpiece in southeastern Asia Minor. In itself it is important as an addition to the handful of reliefs depicting one of the most famous monuments of antiquity.

The altar joins a number of other similar monuments, mostly funerary in nature, of varying dimensions in the Adana regional museum. Its height is 0·64 m., its diameter at the base 0·38 m. It consists of a flat round base supporting a series of mouldings (torus, cyma reversa, fillet—Fig. 1a), a central drum divided unequally into a lower and a slightly projecting upper section, a further series of mouldings (fillet, ovolo—Fig. 1b) above which rises a biconical rim with flattened edge, a short continuation of the drum and finally a capping moulding (much mutilated in our specimen). The top is slightly convex with a shallow, rough depression in the middle 0·011 m. deep and 0·11 m. in diameter. Except for the relief and surrounding area the whole stone is dressed down with a claw chisel. There is some entasis apparent in the central portion of the drum.

The funerary banquet, a frequent theme in ancient sculpture and painting, has been thoroughly studied in recent years. The addition to the corpus of a newly discovered grave stele from Sardis (Pl. XIIIa) is of particular interest because it is a demonstrably local piece of work, with a Lydian inscription carved above a figured relief.

The piece was found in the summer of 1977 by villagers and was reportedly discovered in the east bank of the Pactolus river bed, to the south of the area “Pactolus Cliff”. The slab, which is of local whitish marble, tapers slightly toward the top. Its height is 0·41 m., its width at the bottom is 0·30 m., and its approximate original width at the top was 0·26 m. There is no border at the edge of the stone, but a small ledge protrudes at the bottom of the relief stone. The back has been left rough and unfinished.

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.

In Autumn 1997 a small team led by the Director of Fethiye Museum İbrahim Malkoç and Professor Martin F. Smith began excavations in the Upper Agora of Oinoanda. This area, long known as the ‘Esplanade’, following Cousin (1892: 56–58), is shown below to have been the Hellenistic and early Imperial agora of the city. A sondage was opened on the west side of the Upper Agora, and in so doing soil was removed around the lower half of a circular base which had appeared to be in situ (figs 1,2, and fig 3 where the base has the inventory number YÇ 1200). A previously unsuspected inscription was discovered upside down and located towards the present bottom of the base, from which it is apparent that the base had been re-used upside down, perhaps already in Antiquity.

In the small collection of antiquities in the Municipality building (Belediye) of Taşköprü, in the vilayet of Kastamonu, there is a Latin inscription which is said to have been recently brought from the Karasayit Cami (formerly the Kurşunlu Mektep) in Taşköprü itself. It was declared on the authority of the Belediye Reisi, Bay Mustafa Yılmaz to whom I am greatly indebted for his help and assistance, that the stone had been recovered from the foundations of the old school. The stone was carried, it may be presumed, from the site of Pompeiopolis, situated across the river, immediately above the Ottoman bridge. I saw the inscription on 4th October, 1976, in company with Bay Nurettin Çakir, Assistant at the Antiquities Museum of Kastamonu, while carrying out, on behalf of the RECAM project, that section of the programme which concerns Kastamonu and Taşköprü.

The inscription is well cut and the lettering is good. The stone is chipped at the front on both the left and the right edges but the top and sides have not been broken. The lower part of the inscription, however, is lost. The space and, therefore, the number of letters to be restored on each edge can be estimated by extrapolating a line from the two sides of the block.

This article stems from the writer's discovery in 1955 of an inscribed sarcophagus at Prymnessus, the modern Süğlün, 8 km. south-east of Afyon. It had been intended to follow this up by a reexamination of the stone itself and by an intensive survey, on the ground, of the ancient topography of the valley of the Phrygian Caÿster. But the necessary field-work has been prevented by various considerations, both inside and outside Turkey, and it seems only fair to others interested in this part of Phrygia to publish the inscription and draw at least preliminary conclusions from it.

Süğlün; reused as a horse-trough in a fountain, Güvercinlik Çeşmesi, at the south end of the village. Pink trachyte sarcophagus, moulded above, buried below, with tabula ansata. Height 0·57 m. plus, width 2·07 m., thickness 0·83 m., letters 0·03–0·04 m.

The Hittite cylinder seal discussed here (Figs. 1–4) was purchased by Sir Max Mallowan in the 'thirties while he was working in northern Syria. In the division of his collections it was allotted to the Fitzwilliam Museum, in Cambridge, which received it in 1966. Extensive use has severely worn the engraved surface, and even the two large old chips have been smoothed over. Despite the loss of all details, such as facial features, each element of the composition can be recognized or restored. In the chipped area are fragments of the main figure, the Storm-god raising a mace and standing on the shoulders of two Mountain-gods. Before the Storm-god and facing him is the Sun-god, winged disk overhead, two kneeling animal-headed supporting figures below. The Storm-god is followed by a deity in walking position, over a bull. A many-branched tree, repeated in the impression, closes the three-part composition, and a cross with approximately equal arms occupies a place between the tree and the upraised mace. Simple incised lines mark the top and bottom edges of the engraved surface. There seems to be no form that can unquestionably be called a Hittite hieroglyph.

Since the first European visited Alaca Hüyük 150 years ago the site has been noted for its gateway dating from the Hittite empire, fourteenth and thirteenth centuries B.C. Within a few decades of the discovery, excavations revealed a large number of sculptured orthostats flanking the entry, but the piers with sphinx protomes have always been above ground and have given the entrance its name, the Sphinx Gate. Nineteenth-century travellers noted on the inner face of the eastern sphinx pier the fragmentary representation of a figure above a two-headed eagle clutching two rabbits (Pl. XXXIX, a). The relief is visible to everyone entering the city through this gateway. The parallel figure on the other pier, the subject of this report, has rarely been mentioned.

The late morning sun highlights remnants of a female figure on the inner face of the western sphinx pier (Fig. 1, Pl. XXXVIII, a, b). The upper part, from a point below the waist, and the whole front are destroyed, but there is no doubt of the back contour of the long robe, its surface covered by a series of striations sweeping down and back into the train.