The seventh season of excavation at Can Hasan began on 9th September and stopped on 28th October; a further week was spent working on the finds and on the site. Site supervisors were Bay Altan Atılgan, and Messrs. S. W. Helms, R. Howell, and J. N. Postgate. In the House the work was undertaken by Bayan Behin Aksoy, Bayan Ülge Göker, Miss Carolyn Prater, Mrs. Cressida Ridley and Miss Monika van der Zwann. Bay Bedri Yalman represented the Turkish Government for a short period until called away to military service; his place was taken by Bay Cengiz Karadağ.

A new method of sieving was introduced this year at the suggestion of Mr. Sebastian Payne. Instead of small hand sieves, “shakers”, built under Mr. Payne's supervision, were used. Basically this type of “shaker” is three removable trays with mesh of differing size (10 mm., 5 mm., 1 mm.) set on a sprung metal framework. It was also found more practicable with soils containing a lot of grain to “wash out” the grain from the soil remaining in the last tray after the soil had received preliminary hand-searching.

Small samples from two larger deposits of grain and seeds discovered in the 1967 season's work at Can Hasan were examined by the writer, and it was thought useful to submit a short note on them before the whole deposits were examined in detail. Both of them come from Layer 5.

The first sample (Can Hasan 1967 Batch 2203) contained 14 grains of Hordeum hexastichum (Hulled six-row barley) (Fig. 1), and 5 grains of Triticum sp. which were too fragmentary to be identified more specifically than as “wheat”.

The region of Turkey whose Classical sites and monuments are discussed in this article lies wholly within the Western Taurus mountains, and consists of the eastern section of “the West Taurus Lake District”—as modern geographers now call it. The foothills of Taurus which extend around the south-western edge of the Konya Plain define both its northern and eastern limits; its western are established by the massive ranges which separate Lake Beyşehir from Lake Eğridir. Between these two mountainous regions, which join the main heights of Taurus further south, lies the rift valley occupied by Lake Beyşehir and the now partly-drained Lake Suğla.

Here is to be found the borderland of Pisidia and Lycaonia, as indicated by Strabo. To the north-west and north lies Phrygia Paroreius; to the south, the borderland of Pamphylia and Cilicia Tracheia; and to the south-east, Isauria.

The work presented here is the result of visits to the site of Comana Cappadociae, at Şar, in the kaza of Mağara, in the vilayet of Adana, on a number of occasions in the years 1963–65. In 1963 I was assisted with a grant by the University of Durham; in 1964 I was Scholar, and in 1965 Librarian, of the British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara. In the course of these visits I have been able to copy a number of previously unrecorded inscriptions and also to check, and sometimes correct, the reading of a number of others that have survived since the major activity of copyists at the site in the 1880's and 1900's. It seemed useful, while publishing these new and corrected inscriptions, to collect together from their various places of publication and republication what I hope are all the known inscriptions of the “Holy City” of Cappadocia. I list here the publications which contain inscriptions from Şar, preceded by the abbreviations used to refer to them in this article.

The site of Comana Cappadociae lies, according to Strabo (XII. 2. 3.), in a deep and narrow valley of the Antitaurus, on both banks of the river Sarus. That this description is aptly fitted by the ruins at the village of Şar, in the valley of the Göksu or Sarız çay, in the kaza of Mağara (in 1967 renamed Tufanbeyli), at the northernmost point of the vilayet of Adana, was soon noted by visitors (Plates XLIV a, b, XLV a). The best evidence for the location of Comana is given by the Tabula Peutingeriana and by the Itineraria Antoniniana, both of which show the city to be on the direct route from Caesareia (Kayseri) to Melitene (Eski Malatya). The Tabula Peutingeriana shows that the traveller had to cross a range of mountains as he approached Comana from the west, as now one can approach Şar by the direct route across the Antitaurus. The Itineraria Antoniniana (210.5–211.4) give a distance of 154 Roman miles between Melitene and Comana, while a milestone in the village at Şar, of the great series belonging to that road, bears the number 157. This close correspondence makes it certain that the ruins at Şar are those of the classical Comana, even without the cumulative circumstantial evidence of the inscriptions. The relationship of the Hittite Kummanni, and Kizzuwatna, with Comana is of course another problem which, regrettably, remains unsolved.

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.

Any examination of the geography of western Asia Minor in the second millennium B.C. must begin with the accounts of two campaigns—(a) that of Mursilis II against Arzawa, and (b) that of a Hittite king (probably also Mursilis, but perhaps Muwatallis), against the Lukka-lands and Millawanda. In each case the route followed by the Hittite army is given:

Two things are clear from these accounts. First, the campaigns start off in the same general direction, as they both pass through Sallapa. Secondly, after Sallapa they diverge. There are no names beyond Sallapa common to the two, and there is no suggestion that all the later names in each list must be closely grouped in neighbouring areas reached by a common long march from Hattusas. But it is worthwhile, I think, to try to establish more closely the relationship between the two routes, and to build up a pattern in the hope that it can be applied to existing geographical and archaeological considerations.

In another article in this volume, James Macqueen has re-examined the political geography of Western Anatolia during the Late Bronze Age on the basis of the Hittite texts. As long ago as 1957 we discussed these problems together at Beycesultan and the results that he has reached independently agree in all major points with mine, which are shown in Fig. 1. For the last fifteen years travel and exploration has carried me through most of the territory here discussed, and with this advantage the archaeologist is able to make a contribution towards the problems raised by the inadequacy of the texts which are not concerned with geographical details, but with politics. In a study of this kind an initial knowledge of the terrain and its archaeological remains is essential. In my opinion a thorough knowledge of classical, i.e. mainly Roman and Byzantine conditions in Anatolia is a definite disadvantage, for the conditions imposed by this essentially foreign occupation bear no relation to earlier patterns of settlement and the possibility of chance survivals of place names tends to distract the student of Second Millennium geography. Many of our troubles stem from rash identifications of place names of which one may single out those of Millawanda-Miletus, Lukka-Lycia and Ahhiyawa-Mycenaean Greece (or Rhodes) as key points in any geographical reconstruction.