A Hittite seal was found recently in a cinerary urn, as a grave-good of a child, in the Iron Age cremation cemetery at Kavuşan Höyük, in the upper Tigris region. This article attempts to read the inscription on the seal and to discuss its date and place of production. The reading of the name of the owner of the seal, written in Anatolian Hieroglyphic, remains problematic because of the uncertainty of the phonetic value of sign *177. Tentatively, one can read it Ḫatanu. On the basis of some parallels, the author suggests that the seal could have been produced locally in the southern region of the Hittite Empire, and that, therefore, on the basis of historic considerations, it should date to the second half of the 14th century BC.

There has been much recent research in archaeology on the dynamics of imperial systems, and valuable work has been done on the complex relationships between the Hittite state and groups on its imperial periphery. The nature of the available source material means that these relationships are usually studied from a Hittite perspective, and that interactions with the Hittites are often seen as centrally important for these groups. In this paper, however, it is argued that archaeological evidence can be used to gain insight into alternative views – views which may not necessarily privilege relationships with the Hittites over those with other groups. One well-documented example of such a group is Arzawa, a quarrelsome coalition of principalities in western Anatolia. This paper will focus on the western Anatolian site of Beycesultan, caught between the Hittite and Arzawan heartlands. It will show that people at Beycesultan did not define themselves primarily in relation to either the Hittites or the Arzawan confederacy, but had their own dynamic and shifting world-view.

Tepecik is situated in the province of Aydın, on the edge of the Çine valley that forms the southern branch of the Maeander river system. It is located on a mountain pass extending towards the south, as well as on a natural passageway through the mountain range on the western side of the Çine plain. Its location on a number of natural routes is reflected in the material culture of the site, which displays both local (western Anatolian) and Aegean elements. The Late Bronze Age cultural remains from Çine-Tepecik include a group of Mycenaean pottery, presented and assessed in this study, that can be dated to the LH III B1 to LH III C period (ca. 1320/1300–1190/1090 BC) based on decorative style and typology. Both the locally produced and imported Mycenaean ceramics at Çine-Tepecik reflect characteristic vessel forms and decorative elements of Mycenaean decorated pottery. In particular, the motifs used in the decoration of the vessels resemble those of the later phases of the Mycenaean decorative style and exemplify the decorated pottery tradition of the period. The later phases of Mycenaean culture are noteworthy for the distribution of the culture across a wide area, including the eastern Aegean islands and the coastal region of western Anatolia. The Mycenaean finds from Çine-Tepecik demand a re-evaluation and an extension of the Mycenaean cultural sphere in this period to include Çine (Marsyas).

The artefact known as the Ankara Silver Bowl bears two short Hieroglyphic Luwian inscriptions, each in a different ‘handwriting’. They tell us about the origin of the bowl in the year that Tudhaliya labarna conquered Tara/i-wa/i-zi/a. Unparalleled phrasing and tantalising historical allusions make dating and interpretation problematic. The conquest mentioned is widely held to be that of Taruisa in the Troad by the 14th-century bce Hittite king Tudhaliya I/II, but epigraphy points to a Karkamiš origin for the inscriptions and probably to a post-Empire date. Treating the text as contemporary with the conquest requires either that the bowl be classed as an exceptional Empire document or that a later Tudhaliya is intended. This paper offers a new approach. It accepts a late date, offers an amended translation and proposes that the narrative be viewed as literature alluding to the past and not as contemporary chronicle. The bowl's possible status as a relic prompts questions about the transmission of history, motives for alluding to the past and the words chosen for the purpose. An interpretation of sign *273 is ventured within a speculative scenario that encompasses the bowl's various oddities.

The cultural and political changes that happened in Anatolia after the collapse of the Hittite Empire have only recently been recognised as a significant, but as yet unexplained, phenomenon. Here we present the results of analyses of ceramics from three sites south and southwest of the present-day town of Sorgun – Çadır Höyük, Kerkenes Dağ and Tilkigediği Tepe – to identity how regional groups within the Hittite core area regrouped in the aftermath of the collapse. Ceramic analyses provide a means to assess both cultural continuity and the scale and nature of interaction in a region. Results suggest some evidence of cultural continuity at Çadır Höyük from the Late Bronze Age into the Middle Iron Age, and highlight the variable local responses in the aftermath of Hittite collapse.

The ongoing excavations initiated in 2003 on the Tepecik acropolis at Patara have brought to light many noteworthy results concerning the somewhat obscure history and archaeology of Archaic Patara. The very rich pottery finds confirming the Archaic dating of the building complex are particularly important. The building complex, which was not used during the late Hellenistic, Roman or Byzantine periods, presents a good example of Archaic planning with its well-preserved foundations. In this study, the excavation work conducted on this building complex is introduced together with the associated finds.

In 2005, during the annual ‘intensive’ archaeological survey in the peri-urban zone of Sagalassus (Pisidia, southwest Anatolia), the remains of an extensive Classical-Hellenistic settlement were identified at Düzen Tepe, 1.8km southwest of Sagalassus. The results of three seasons of site investigation (2005–2007), comprising archaeological and geophysical surveys, architectural and topographical mapping, test soundings, and archaeometric and environmental research, are presented here, together with a discussion of the settlement's most probable socio-economic background. According to the latest results of all excavated or sampled survey ceramic artefacts and AMS C14 dating of faunal remains, the (proto-)urban settlement at Düzen Tepe was inhabited during the fifth to second century BC. It is the first of its kind to shed light on the material culture of the ancient inhabitants of the region, the ‘Pisidians’.

A funerary stele of a Pannonian auxiliary soldier recovered in 1996 at Gordion (Turkey) provided the first concrete evidence of Roman military activity at the site. The Latin epitaph on the monument revealed the presence of a unit (cohors VII Breucorum c.R. equitata), previously unattested in central Turkey, within the rural environs of northern Galatia. Little is currently known about the garrisons and movements of auxiliary forces in that region, and the monument's discovery permits a fresh examination of military deployment within Rome's comparatively lightly-garrisoned provinces of Asia Minor. New archaeological fieldwork in the Roman settlement at Gordion has provided a firm context for the stele, and recently published epigraphical finds relating to the soldier's unit and its deployment strongly link the monument's presence to activities surrounding Trajan's Parthian War (AD 114–117).

During the 2008 field season at the Byzantine city of Amorium an unusual and unexpected surface find was recorded. It was a terracotta spacer pin of the type that was frequently used in Roman provincial baths. As such it provides the first evidence for the existence of a Roman-period bathhouse at Amorium, which may be regarded as a predecessor to the Byzantine bathhouse that has been excavated there.

In the summers of 1994–1998 a rescue excavation took place at Kilise Tepe, an archaeological site occupied from the Early Bronze Age to the Byzantine period, located in the Göksu valley in Cilicia in southern Turkey. This article analyses the shell finds from environmental and archaeological perspectives. Three categories of molluscs are identified: terrestrial, freshwater and marine. The first two are the remnants of local fauna that lived on or near the site; the marine shells came from the Mediterranean shore adjacent to the Göksu delta and the delta itself. There are indications that freshwater mussels served as tools. Marine shells were worn as ornaments.