New evidence of Roman tomb architecture from the necropolis at Ariassos in Pisidia demonstrates distinctive features of funerary architecture in the east. Over fifty built tombs are in different states of preservation, allowing identification of some features paralleled at other sites in Pisidia, while some features seem unique to Ariassos itself. The similarity of form of one elaborate tomb to the western podium temple reflects the influence of Roman religious architecture, while other tombs reflect features grown out of indigenous Anatolian traditions.

Ariassos was founded in the Hellenistic period, and is located c. 50 km. north of the modern city of Antalya. It minted coins in the late Hellenistic period and contains buildings of Hellenistic date, including a prytaneion, bouleuterion and small temple. The majority of the ruins at the site, however, date to the Imperial period, including an extensive nymphaeum and bath complex, a triple arched gateway dating to the third century A.D., and a substantial domestic area. The site was visited in the 1880s by the Austrian team headed by K. Lanckoronski, who thought that the ruins were those of the site of Cretopolis. A few years later the site was correctly identified by a French epigraphical expedition headed by V. Bérard. The Pisidian Survey project, under British directorship, completed a new city plan, focusing attention on Ariassos after years of neglect. [See Fig. 1.]

Archaeological investigations this year at Sos Höyük, carried out by the University of Melbourne and Erzurum Museum, took place in the summer, between 2 June and 3 August. The aims for the 1995 season included activities both on the mound and off-site. Among the former objectives, was the need to expose further the Medieval settlement on the summit of the mound, and the burnt building of the Hellenistic period in trenches L14 and L13. Excavation was also required in the lower northeast trenches to clarify the depositions of the late third to second millennium B.C. In addition to these largely horizontal operations, we commenced an independent vertical sounding in J14 to obtain a immediate guide to the sequence of Iron Age deposits.

The intensive field survey of the site environs continued, as did the search for the obsidian source in the hilltops around Pasinler. A detailed palaeoecological study of the region was initiated this year. Information from promising pollen cores taken at various altitudes in the Kargapazarı Dağları, the mountain range immediately to the north of the site, will no doubt complement the faunal and botanical data from the excavations. We also conducted a magnetic survey of the ancient cemeteries surrounding the site to better define their boundaries, but human and animal disturbance often made it difficult to discriminate between burials, pits and burrows of comparable magnetic intensity. Finally, there was a concerted effort to organize and establish a new exhibition at Erzurum Museum covering the campaigns at both Büyüktepe Höyük and Sos Höyük.

As a result of its geographical location between the Old World continents, its distinctive natural resources and its innovative cultural record, the Near East is of particular interest to scholars concerned with human developments through the Pleistocene and Early Holocene. Research has focused on the nature and timing of hominid dispersals from Africa into Eurasia, the adaptations of premodern humans to Near Eastern environments, the nature of neanderthal and early modern human societies, hunter-gatherer adaptations in the later Pleistocene and the emergence of village-based farming. However, in spite of considerable concern with these phenomena, our knowledge of the early prehistory of the Near East remains geographically restricted. The best known region for the Palaeolithic is the central and southern Levant. Limited work was undertaken in the Iraqi and Iranian Zagros in the 1950s–60s, but the northern Levant and Turkey remain poorly studied. Aceramic Neolithic research has been more evenly spread, having benefited from the dam salvage projects in the Tigris-Euphrates basins and work in the central Anatolian plateau. However there are still substantial gaps in our knowledge.

In 1993, the head of an emperor was found in Pompeiopolis (Soloi or modern Viranşehir) and delivered to the Mersin Museum, where it is now on display (Pl. IX (a–d)). The head is notable because of its crystalline white marble material and its larger-than-life size. Maximum dimensions: H: 0·39 m, H (chin to crown): 0·32 m, W: 0·31 m, Th: 0·32 m.

The head had been broken from its statue-body, but has been preserved together in one piece with the neck. Its state of preservation is good, but there is the following damage to its features. Large chips have gone from the base of the neck on the left (Pl. IX (a, d)), and a smaller piece from the surface of the middle of the neck on the right. The beard on the lower side of the chin, the upper lip and the nose are broken. On the left (a, c), one larger chip has gone from the cheek, two smaller ones around the temple. A large portion of a hair lock is broken above the temple and the ear on the left. The centre of the corona civica, which might have had a jewel in its middle, has been damaged and a large portion has broken off (Pl. IX (a, b)). The surface, especially on the flesh parts, has weathered.

The Amorium Project's eighth season of excavations took place between July 4 and August 19. The team comprised Dr. Chris Lightfoot (Director), Dr. Eric Ivison (Assistant Director), Dr. Margaret Gill (Glass), Karen Barker (Conservator), Yalçın Mergen, Simon Mortimer (Field Archaeologists) and Osman Kızılkılıç (General Assistant). Seven students from universities in Turkey, Britain and the United States of America also took part in the excavations and contributed greatly to the success of the season; they were Mücahide Koçak, Ayşe Taşkın, Ferüzat Ülker and Hasan Yılmazyaşar (all from the University of Anatolia, Eskişehir), Betül Şahin (DTCF, Ankara University), Paola Pugsley (Exeter University) and Thomas Bihl (Indiana University). The government representative was Mrs. Sema Dayan from the Directorate of Monuments and Museums in Ankara. Fourteen workmen, all from Hisarköy, were employed for the four weeks of digging, while another eight men were employed on conservation and repair work both on site and at the Dig House during the full season. Kazim Eryiğit again took charge of the cooking, ably assisted by two of the village women, İlknur and Gülnur Usluer.

Among the many tombs still to be seen in the necropolis surrounding the site of Oinoanda, in northern Lycia, the mausoleum built by Licinnia Flavilla for her parents and ancestors enjoys a special distinction, which it owes both to its size and to the vast genealogical inscription, comprising twelve generations of the ancestors and connexions of Licinnia Flavilla and her younger kinsman Flavianus Diogenes, which once covered its eastern façade. The aim of this paper is to present new epigraphic evidence which indicates a second major genealogical inscription on the west end of the mausoleum, and to consider the relation of the inscriptions to the underlying building, to each other, and to the aims of Licinnia Flavilla and her kinsman Diogenes.

The mausoleum of the Licinnii lies in rubble (Pl. XV (a)) amid a group of smaller tombs at the southern end of the site, in square Lr of the B.I.A.A.'s site-plan (AnSt XLV (1995) 74, Fig. 1) about 40 m. below an isolated stretch of the Hellenistic southern wall overlooking the saddle at the southern end of the ridge on which stand the main buildings of the city. There is an easy ascent to this point from both the western and eastern sides of the ridge, and thence to the city; the mausoleum will have been conspicuous to visitors and travellers. Since antiquity all the tombs in this area have been plundered or overthrown, especially close to the wall. Three types of tomb are visible: rock-cut tombs, some with lion covers; large, free-standing sarcophagi of various designs; and sarcophagi on high, stepped platforms. An example of this last type (Pl. XV (b)) stands close by the east end of the mausoleum, a few metres to the north.

As an offshoot of the recent reevaluation of Heinrich Schliemann by Traill and others, British expatriate diplomat Frank Calvert, the father of field archaeology in the Troad, for a century consigned to being “in Schliemann's shadow”, is now receiving recognition for his extensive contributions to the topography and archaeology of the Troad. J. M. Cook pioneered a comprehensive assessment of Calvert's work in his 1973 topographical study, The Troad. He had discovered an unpublished manuscript catalogue of the Calvert Collection which a Turkish schoolteacher had saved and later given to the Istanbul Archaeological Museum. Cook mined it in the 1950's for information on Calvert's many identifications and excavations at over fifty sites in the Troad and the Chersonese. In the 1980's Traill published several articles, centred on Schliemann, which shed some light on Calvert. His study of Schliemann's diaries and correspondence with Calvert in the Gennnadius Library betrayed Schliemann's repeated attempt to diminish the significance of Calvert's excavations at Troy and his outfoxing of Calvert concerning the Helios Metope, a remarkable work of early Hellenistic sculpture. Wood and Easton uncovered hitherto unpublished correspondence between Calvert and Charles Thomas Newton (1816–1894), Keeper of Greek and Roman Antiquities at the British Museum (1861–1886). Nevertheless, until the 1990's, no work solely featured Calvert and his legacy. Gamer (1992) and Allen (1994, 1995a and b, 1996 and forthcoming) have focused on Calvert's archaeological legacy and Robinson has unearthed critical diplomatic documents contextualizing his life (1994).

In 1995 a new series of multi-disciplinary investigations were initiated by the authors into diachronic human occupation of the coastal plain at Altınova, between Ayvalık and Dikili on the Aegean coast of northwest Turkey (Fig. 1). Altınova lies approximately halfway between the much better-known (and certainly more intensively investigated) archaeological regions of Troy to the north and Bayraklı/Izmir to the south (Fig. 1). Through the plain flows the Madra Çay, and during the Holocene the river's depositional activity has created a large delta clearly visible on most maps as a projection outward into the Lesbos Channel (also known as the Mytilene/Midilli Strait), with the port of Mytilene and the marina of Thermi lying directly opposite (20 km. away) on the island of Lesbos (Fig. 1, Pl. XXII(a)). Altınova's iskele, located in a sand-spit which forms a natural marina, has developed into a modern holiday resort with 5 km. or more of holiday villas along its sandy beaches.

After three seasons of survey it is perhaps appropriate to set out briefly the aims of the project, to describe the techniques that are being developed and to make some assessment of the goals that have been achieved so far. The project is officially sponsored by the British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara and we would like to thank David French for his initial encouragement, constant help and sound advice. The research is undertaken with a permit issued by the Directorate of Monuments and Museums and we are particularly grateful to Prof. Dr Engin Özgen, the late Mr Osman Özbek, Mrs Emel Yağcı and Mr Levent Vardar for encouragement, help and advice. The work could not have been undertaken without the keen participation of representatives from the Directorate, Mr Kazım Mertek of Konya Museum (1993–94) and Mr Uğur Terzioğlu, of Samsun Museum (1995). In the province of Yozgat we have been greatly supported by the Vali, Mr Ertuğrul Ersoy, and by Mr Musa Özcan, Director of the Yozgat Museums. We were sorry to say goodbye to the Kaymakam of Sorgun, Mr F. Necmi Kurt who, after three years in office, has taken up a new post at Suluova. Although not an author of this report, we are deeply indebted to Scott Branting for his contribution to the 1995 season.