The topography and historical geography of Galatia, the area of central Anatolia which extended roughly from the modern Sivrihissar to Yozgat and which was occupied from the 3rd century B.C. by three Celtic tribes, is a subject which has remained obstinately obscure, despite its interest to Classical archaeologists and historians and to Celtic scholars. Progress in fixing the topography of the region after it became a Roman province in 25 B.C. has been made more readily, mainly thanks to two factors: first, the existence of an elaborate and important road system whose remains can still be traced on the ground, and second, the occasional find of inscriptions containing place names by which sites can be identified. No such assistance is available for the pre-Roman period, and, until comparatively recently, only three names could be placed on the map of independent Galatia without an accompanying question mark, Ancyra, Pessinus and Tavium which, under the Roman domination, became the capitals of the three Celtic tribes, the Tectosages, the Tolistobogii and the Trocmi. It was impossible to identify the other Galatian strongholds, which had disappeared from history after the organisation of the Roman province, with places named in the literary sources, even when their traces could be identified on the ground.

“Hieroglyphic inscriptions” of various types are common at Urartian sites, but even without a systematic collection and study of them as a whole it is evident that the great majority are at best only pictographic in nature. The relatively small number of such texts, their brevity, the isolated occurrence of many of the signs and the lack of repetition from site to site make it unlikely that they represent any phonetically based writing system. Indeed, the claim of some authors that there existed a local, specifically Urartian hieroglyphic script has yet to be demonstrated.

The hieroglyphic inscriptions from Altıntepe, on the other hand, clearly belong to a different category. The length and consistency of the texts strongly suggest the employment of a regular script, while the close correspondence of the signs to those of the Hittite Hieroglyphic syllabary has led a number of scholars to contend that these are purely Hittite documents. The following study will show, however, not only that the language of the inscriptions is in fact Urartian, but also that they present some rather important new evidence for the reading of Hieroglyphic Hittite itself.

Recent excavations conducted by Canadian teams at the site of Anemurium (Eski Anamur) on the coast of Rough Cilicia in southern Asia Minor have uncovered a number of substantial structures including an interesting group extending to the east of the largest baths of the city. This complex consists of several distinct areas clearly forming part of a unified plan (Fig. 1). Mosaic pavement of geometric design decorated much of the floor space of the building, which has now been identified as the palaestra of the adjoining Baths. The identification has been facilitated greatly by two inscribed mosaic panels that are worthy of special note.

The first was discovered in 1970 at the western extremity of a long narrow series of rectangular panels decorated in various geometric patterns. This formed the southern wing of a continuous corridor of mosaic, possibly roofed, that enclosed on three sides (north, east and south) the open-air courtyard of the palaestra. The western end of the area was closed by a wall separating it from a limestone-paved court beyond. Immediately in front of the inscribed panel an opening in the wall provided access to this court, probably one of several doorways communicating between the two areas. The doorway in question was subsequently blocked and the edge of the mosaic cut away on three sides to form a drainage system. This alteration was apparently associated with the isolation of the western end of the south range as a special chamber, perhaps a latrine. Considerable damage to the decorative border resulted from these modifications but, with the exception of a slight V-shaped break on the west side, the actual inscribed panel survives intact.

At the beginning of his reign, the Hittite king Mursilis II was confronted with widespread unrest amongst the territories subject to Hittite control. One of the early challenges to his authority came from Arzawa whose king Ukha-zitis defied an order to hand over rebels from Attarimma, Huwarsanassa, and Suruta who had sought refuge in his country. Mursilis answered this challenge by conducting in person a two-season military campaign against Arzawa, the details of which are recorded in the Annals for his third and fourth years. His personal intervention indicates the importance which he attached to this particular area, and there can be little doubt that Arzawa occupied a key position amongst Hittite holdings in the south west of Asia Minor in the latter half of the second millennium B.C.

During the 1972 season of the Aşvan excavations (see French, 1973, p. 77) it was decided that, given the huge quantity of charcoal recovered (292 samples) from the four sites by water-sieving and trench sampling from strata which cover a period of c. 4,500–5,000 years, an analysis of the charcoals would prove revealing. Part of the aim of the research is to evaluate what information is available from charcoals recovered by modern methods, and to determine if it is possible to draw sound conclusions about vegetational changes which have not been fully recorded for the late Holocene in Eastern Anatolia. Although some data has been made available through pollen analysis (see van Zeist, 1968, pp. 19–39) the distribution, duration and composition of the forest which existed before deforestation is not entirely understood.

A dearth of necessary data on which to base this work made contemporary studies a prerequisite. Firstly an adequate comparative collection of identified modern woods had to be built up to aid identification of ancient charcoals. Secondly, a reliable method of sub-sampling had to be devised in order to deal with the copious material.

Ties linking Britain with Ankara go back many centuries; probably the earliest evidence of them was published by David French in the last number of this Journal, in the form of a letter from Ambassador William Harborne to James Towerson dated to 1583; other evidence can certainly be gleaned from the extensive papers of the long extinct Levant Company. The present writer is able to point to a little more evidence formerly visible in Ankara itself.

Angora, the modern Ankara, now so easily reached by rail and air services, under the ancien régime must have seemed to Europeans almost forbiddingly remote.

The wildest guesses were made about its population and opinions fluctuated as to its attractions and importance. In 1700, a French traveller, Tournefort gave its population as 40,000 Moslems, 5,000 Armenians and 600 Greeks. Pococke (1737) speaks of 10,000 Christians. Poujoulat (1836–7) describes it, apart from Nicomedia, as the poorest Turkish town he had seen. He estimated its population as 20,000 Turks, 3,000 Catholic Armenians, 700 Greeks and 500 Jews. Yet in 1834–7 von Tschihatscheff spoke of it as having 8,000 Catholic Armenians, 500 Armenians of the national church, and 1,500 Greeks.

It is my intention, here, to present the background to my work in a field which I have adopted, perhaps rashly and unwisely, in the spirit of an interested amateur. The work has been centred on the road systems of Roman Asia Minor and is concerned with the surviving evidence for the course and route of Roman roads, and the topographical and geographical problems which follow on from the elucidation of these roads. At a higher level of investigation I have been considering the grade of information which is afforded by the surviving literary evidence e.g. the itineraries. My ultimate purpose is to provide material for a fresh appraisal of the historical geography of Asia Minor: such material as I can collect is specifically intended to be a contribution to a new map or maps of Roman Asia Minor.

In this article I wish to offer an outline of:

(1) the principles which underlie my approach,

(2) the definition of the categories of desired information,

(3) a practical demonstration of the methods and techniques adopted in the work.

In the last two decades, extensive excavations and new discoveries have thrown more light on the little known early religions of Anatolia. Certain religious concepts and symbols of the Neolithic and Chalcolithic periods, which are best illustrated in the religious architecture and art of Çatal Hüyük and Hacilar, may now be considered ancestral to some of the traditions and beliefs in the later Anatolian religions.

Sites like Troy, Kusura, Beycesultan, Karahüyük (Konya), Alişar, Kültepe, Alaca Hüyük, Horoztepe, Pulur (Keban) and Tarsus have provided us with material on the religious architecture and art of Bronze Age Anatolia, but, with the exception of Beycesultan, their contribution to the understanding of the early Anatolian pantheons and religions has so far been fragmentary. At Beycesultan, the various changes observed in the altar assemblages of the twin shrines, through the cultural periods of the Bronze Age, may reflect the alterations, additions and conservatism in the religions practised in South-Western Anatolia, and possibly in the other regions of Anatolia as well.

The object which we offer here, kindly entrusted to us by the British Museum for publication, is a typical and very interesting product of Hittite glyptic.

We are dealing with a stamp seal of haematite with a circular base and concave lateral surface. The handle, which is faceted, is broken in its upper part, hence there remains no trace of the “grip” which was evidently, when compared with other similar specimens, of a “hammer” or “knob” shape. The surface of the base, which is engraved, is not intact but is damaged at several points around the border. The height of the part preserved, in its highest section, is 28·5 mm., and the diameter is 29 mm.

The carved surface, as we see it, consists of two concentric areas: a central field, enclosed by a line and containing three hieroglyphic signs or characters, two of which are the same, surrounded by a border with figures in which it is possible to distinguish two groups or scenes. In the first group (a) a lion with wide open mouth and a bull with lowered head are facing each other as though about to fight, on either side of a tree with branches adorned with a tripartite motif; a similar ornament is repeated in the field above the back of the bull, alongside a v-shaped motif; another tripartite element is to be found in the empty space above the lion. The tails of the animals are characteristic: the bull has a lowered tail, its tip tripartite (to render the tuft of hair); that of the lion is turned upwards and is curved, as is often the case in Hittite scenes.

As early as 1900, with the Körte brothers' excavation of Tumulus III at Gordion, Anatolian archaeology has been aware of the existence of a Phrygian linear animal style. In 1941, further examples of the same style were retrieved from the mound of Alaettin Tepe in Konya. Since 1950 and the beginning of the University of Pennsylvania's excavations at Gordion, the corpus of examples of this style has grown considerably. While important in itself as the only attested school of early Phrygian figure painting, the style also bespeaks importance in a larger sphere, for the evidence at hand strongly suggests that the forms were derivative, adopted by the Phrygians from the world of North Syrian art. As such, the style represents an important addition to the growing list of fields in which Phrygian indebtedness to the North Syrian sphere can be documented. The present study will use the evidence of Gordion as its focal point, since this city has yielded the greatest number of examples of Phrygian linear animals.

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.

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.