In the preceding article Professor Ahmet Ünal has announced his discovery of the long-sought textual evidence for the sword-swallower depicted on one of the relief blocks at Alaca Höyük. This figure was already recognized as a kind of “juggler” (bateleur) by Perrot and Chipiez in their prestigious first publication of these reliefs in 1887 and most writers have followed them, but John Garstang and others mistook the sword for a trumpet. It is good that this uncertainty has been finally dispelled.

In the same article Professor Ünal has made a similar claim for the other scene on the same block showing two men with a ladder, one standing half-way up, the other on the ground at its foot. He identifies them with the “ladder men” (LÚ.MEŠ GIŠ KUN5) mentioned in his texts 1 and 4 as taking part in a religious ritual which may be compared with the religious procession shown on the Alaca Höyük frieze, or with the “clown” (ALAN.ZU9) who is probably described as mounting a ladder or staircase (GIŠilaš) in his text 5 (part of another ritual, but fragmentary).

The scarabs found with the wreck at Cape Gelidonya are important for the dating of the ship. The group has been discussed in detail by Schulman in a chapter of the publication of the wreck. A new look at the scarab group after so many years may be worthwhile.

We have the following comments on Schulman's dating of these scarabs:

Scarab 1: “Late 18. or 19. Dynasty.”

In the discussion of this object “Gaza” is mentioned as the site of origin of one of the parallel pieces. However “Ancient Gaza” is the name of the 5 volumes by Petrie dealing with the excavations at Tell el-Ajjul, seven kilometres south of modern Gaza. The closest parallel to Scarab 1 is, however, at Tell el-Far'a. It has two horizontal lines under the nb sign, showing that “Lord of the Two Countries” (= Egypt) is intended in all these cases.

Scarab 2: “New Kingdom” “Early New Kingdom, more specifically … 18. Dynasty.”

It should be noted that the “short apparently meaningless vertical lines” are a duplication of the sign which usually follows an ideogram Z.1 in Gardiner's sign list. It is often duplicated thus, or appears as sign V.20 or Q.3.

Among the works of Professor John Garstang, The Land of the Hittites (1910), with its new version The Hittite Empire (1929), will remain a classic. What makes this book most valuable is the emphasis laid upon the setting of the Hittite monuments. It therefore seems appropriate to devote these pages, which are meant as a small token of gratitude to the master, to problems of this kind.

The discovery of a hitherto unknown map of Alanya dating from the early seventeenth century enables a comparison to be made between the very detailed fortifications that it depicts and those that are standing today. Such a comparative analysis should permit some inferences about the form of the Seljuk and early Ottoman fortifications that are now ruinous. The Italian military provenance of the map gives an opportunity to illuminate briefly the depredations of the Medici navy in southern and western Anatolia.

Most historians have been reluctant to use maps as evidence, the few who have done so have often fallen into the pit of misinterpretation that the former, and perhaps wiser, have avoided: but the study of the history of cartography is gradually emerging from the exclusively archaeological stage, in which it has been delving for over a century, and the corpus of information about maps has now grown to the point where no historian can afford to ignore their value as evidence, provided that he is able to evaluate them accurately. It is in evaluation that the historian of cartography owes a duty to his fellow historians.

This article discusses the various ways in which the hot (caldarium) and warm (tepidarium) rooms of Roman and Byzantine bathhouses were provided with a wall heating system to complement the underfloor or hypocaust system. Several different methods were devised to create cavities in the walls through which hot air could rise. In some cases a combination of the different methods was used. One of the longest-lasting and widespread methods involved the use of terracotta spacers — small hollow terracotta tubes that were placed as wedges between the main outer wall and the inner revetted wall surface. At Amorium in Phrygia excavations of a small public bathhouse, dating to the sixth–ninth centuries AD, have brought to light a large number of these spacers, together with a few examples of much simpler spacers made out of re-used tile. Examples of both types are described in detail in an accompanying catalogue.

The Church of St Mary is one of the most significant monuments of Ephesos, but also one of the most enigmatic. Its repeated modifications prior to its destruction created an amalgam of different phases that have proven difficult to decipher within the present remains. Written records and inscriptions suggest that this church was the venue of the riotous Ecumenical Council of AD 431, but the identification of the phase of the building that corresponds to this event is controversial. And, although the remains make it clear that at some point the church was transformed into a domed basilica, the latter’s form and date have not been established with certainty. The present article tries to fill these lacunae through a new survey of the remains of the church and a re-examination of the evidence from the archaeological excavations of the 20th century. This new investigation of wall structures and design patterns within the remains leads to new interpretations of the evidence, and sheds further light on the history of the Church of St Mary from its late antique origins to the Dark Ages.

A new building inscription (no. 1) from Oinoanda, found beside the baths building Ml 1 in 2011, dedicates the building to the Roman emperor Vespasian and his sons Titus and Domitian in AD 73. This article places the new find in the setting of the whole building complex, including the adjacent building Ml 2, which is likely to be a palaistra (wrestling-school), though rebuilt over a century later. The inscription supplies new evidence for the date of the governor of Lycia-Pamphylia, Firmus. It also points to the existence of earlier baths, which is compared to other similar indications from elsewhere in Lycia. A second, but illegible, inscription was recorded in 2012, outside a doorway leading from building Ml 1 into the peristyle building Ml 2 (no. 2). A third inscription on a statue base in building Ml 2 was also recorded (no. 3), along with two other illegible statue-base inscriptions (nos 4 and 5). The article places them in the context of the inscribed monuments found earlier at the building complex (nos 6 and 7), which may have included the small building Ml 3, and discusses them in the light of the broader phenomenon of Julio-Claudian and Flavian baths buildings in the region, and the role of the provincial governors and procurators in overseeing such building projects. This allows us to draw some conclusions about the nature and impact of Roman rule in first-century Lycia, which brought within the reach of many Lycian cities piped water, Italian-style bathing and new, improved facilities for the regionally popular heavy athletic sports of boxing, wrestling and pankration (unarmed combat).

In a recent article Dr Nadav Na'aman suggested that two rulers called Yarimlim and two called Ammitakumma succeeded each other in alternation during the period of the Level VII archive at Alalakh. This reconstruction of the chronology fails, as do all previous reconstructions, to take into account the seal impressions on the tablet envelopes. These seal impressions have now been published and the chronology which they enabled me to reconstruct is substantially that established by Rowton and Kupper. A close study of Dr Na'aman's article has not led me to alter my views and I should like to make the following points.

Dr Na'aman questions the generally accepted chronology for Alalakh on the grounds that YḪammurapi I (grandfather),AYarimlim (father) and AAmmitakumma (son) “reigned over a period of at least 125 years” and that “six kings reigned in Yamḫad concurrently with two Kings at Alalakh”. He accepts a date “circa the twenties of the 18th century B.C. (or slightly earlier)” for the beginning of the archive and therefore, presumably, for the beginning of the reign of AYarimlim.

Among the new inscriptions which have come to light during the Oenoanda surveys of 1974 to 1977 is a group of four which are of particular interest in view of their subject matter and place of origin on the site. All were found close together in 1975, among recently overthrown and heavily disturbed ruins of a building or buildings constructed against a cliff face on the lower, north-western slopes of the site. These ruins lie some 300 m. northwards along the hill-side from a set of rock-cut tombs, which were first reported by Rudolf Heberdey and Ernst Kalinka in their monograph of 1897. One inscription from this group had already been published by Maurice Holleaux and Pierre Paris in 1886 and names Κατάγραφος son of Ἀρτέμων as ἱερεύς πρὸ πολέως Λητοῦς διὰ βίου.

In 1967, a fifth season of excavation was completed at Alahan. Work, which began on 5th July and continued until 29th August, was carried out by a labour force of twenty-five workmen, of whom Ahmet Kaya, Aslan Şahin and Süleyman Uysal have not missed a season since the first exploratory sounding made on the site of the Basilica in 1955. Apart from the Director and Mrs. Gough, the members of the staff were Messrs. G. Bakker, P. Pratt and R. Wylie, architects; Mrs. Bakker and Miss M. McGregor, inventory and conservation; Messrs. A. Ray and L. Thomas, site supervisors; Misses H. Cash and M. MacDonald, and Mr. P. Percival-Price, field-assistants. Bayan Nihal Dönmez represented the Ministry of Education, and to her the expedition is grateful for practical help on many occasions. Our thanks are also due to the Institute's Council of Management, to the Russell Trust and to a private subscriber in Ankara for the funds which made the season a success.

Apart from the archaeological results, the year 1967 provided two further reasons for special gratification. As a recognition of Alahan's status as a major site in exceptionally beautiful surroundings (Pl. LVI), a good road has now been built up the mountain slope under the auspices of the Ministry of Tourism.

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 Inscribed Pillar of Xanthos remains one of the most enigmatic monuments of ancient Lycia. This article addresses the problem of the monument's authorship, but tries also to shed some light on the relative chronology of its inscriptions (a Greek epigram, a long inscription in Lycian A and a short Lycian B inscription), the relationship between the decorative sculptures of the monument and the content of the inscriptions, the political intention of the Lycian A text, and the significance of the Greek epigram for our understanding of the process of Greek acculturation. We argue that the Pillar results from the interventions of different individuals at different times and its overall design, therefore, does not represent a single and unified concept. Viewed from this perspective, several aspects of the monument, while apparently inconsistent at first glance, reveal their own ‘consistency’, which allows us to resolve the contradictions of previous interpretations.

KUB XIV 17, which belongs to the Detailed Annals for Mursili's 7th year, records a rebellion against Hittite rule in this year by the people of the Nuhassi lands. In view of the loss of the entire first column of the tablet and the very fragmentary nature of the first few lines of the second column, the events leading up to the rebellion are far from clear.

In considering what these events may have been, I would like to begin with the restorations and translation which Goetze proposes for lines 1–6 of the second column:

The purpose of this interim report is to give a description of the major architectural features of the site, the evidence for their dating, and a brief account of the artifactual remains from them. This work is necessarily incomplete: only the major excavated levels are distinguished and illustrated; a detailed division of the Medieval levels into subsidiary phases has not been attempted here; and before a complete and definitive account of the artifactual remains, especially the pottery, can be given, further work must be done on the material. This may throw new light on the problems of dating.

Fig. 1 shows the area excavated, with the exception of the step trenches dug down the north side of the mound, which are of no direct relevance to the architecture of the later periods considered here, and the trenches on the west side of the mound, dug ad hoc to investigate the later Medieval structures. These are shown in Figs. 11 and 12. The continuous thin lines in Fig. 1 indicate the internal sections which were drawn from the topsoil to the point where excavation was halted but which were later removed.

This short note is here presented as an illustration not only of the material which will be published in the final volumes but also of the aims and methods of the R.E.C.A.M. work.

Four inscriptions form the core of this article. Two are from the area of Ladik (now renamed Halicı), the ancient Laodiceia Combusta; both are unpublished. The remaining two are from Sinop, the ancient Sinope; one has been published previously, the other is a new, unpublished fragment of a known inscription. The full text of these two Sinop documents can now be significantly revised. Of the two Ladik inscriptions, one was seen in the course of my researches on the milestones of Asia Minor (CIL XVII fasc. 5); the other came to light amongst the papers left to the British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara by Professor W. M. Calder.

I am grateful to the Ministry of Culture, General-Directorate of Antiquities and Museums for permission to publish this material.