ABSTRACT

The city on Kerkenes Dag, the largest pre-Hellenistic site so far known on the Anatolian plateau, is situated on a low, undulating granitic mountain-top (alt. c. 1,500m.), the sinuous city wall skillfully laid out along the rim.

In 1995 eight summer weeks were spent in the field, despite some shortfall in funding partly compensated for by help in kind. The slightly reduced team, through hard work and commitment, fulfilled all objectives. Focus was on extensive geophysical survey and urban mapping. Results were surprising and exciting, not only confirming earlier ideas but adding new dimensions to the city and to future research. The current phase of research is progressing as planned with a final fieldwork season in 1996, during which small test trenches will be dug to aid interpretation of geophysical results and to address other specific problems. The urban plan was extended by checking balloon photographs (taken 1993/94) against remains on the ground and producing annotated plans on acetate overlays which, when rectified, are combined with the topographic map. Detailed stone plans and written descriptions of the two known temples were made, the Byzantine and earlier fortifications on the Kale and the church complex at its foot were planned and the regional survey completed.

It is now possible to see something of the dynamics of the city. The separation of space into secular/administrative, military, religious, residential (with some ranking or stratification based on size) and other (functions not yet established) is becoming clearer. There was no separation of the “palatial” area from the rest of the city, suggesting that the rulers could depend on loyalty from the urban population, an observation that has implications for identification of the inhabitants and their relationship with the rural population. There seems to have been military access to all parts of the defensive wall or, via the gates, to meet rapidly an advancing army.

Preliminaiy conclusions

1. The huge defensive system of wall, towers and buttresses, gates and glacis, and what is interpreted as a military area (stables, paddocks, barracks, exercise ground etc.) were not completed. These huge defensive works were probably abandoned some time before the desertion of the city.
   
2. The city appears to have been destroyed by fire, presumably by Croesus c. 547 B.C.
3. Only the Kale was occupied in the subsequent period.
4. As revealed by the geophysical survey, the great stone walled enclosures, visible on the surface and the balloon photographs, are full of buildings, yards and other features not apparent on the ground. Many are assumed to be dwellings, although others would have had specialized functions. Test trenches in 1996 will address the problems of function. It should then be possible to make very realistic estimates of the urban population based on the number of household units.
5. The regional survey, completed in 1995, provides a picture of changing settlement pattern from the latest chalcolithic to the Roman/Byzantine period in a c.Skm radius. This shifting settlement pattern is related to developing exploitation of the landscape and resultant change (deforestation and erosion).