Anatolia is a geographic and historical term denoting the westernmost

protrusion of Asia, comprising the majority of the Republic of Turkey

Priams Treasure is a cache of gold and other artifacts discovered by classical archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann from ancient Troy, and assigned the artifacts to the Homeric king Priam
Priam's Treasure today remains a subject of international dispute. Apparently, Schliemann smuggled Priam's Treasure out of Anatolia Later Schliemann traded some treasure to the government of the Ottoman Empire in exchange for permission to dig at Troy again. It is located in the Istanbul Archaeology Museum. The rest was acquired in 1881 by the Royal Museums of Berlin in whose hands it remained until 1945, when it disappeared from a protective bunker beneath the Berlin Zoo

Schliemann had distinguished seven superimposed prehistoric cities at Troy Schliemann was at first skeptical about the identification of Hissarlik with Troy but was persuaded by Calvert and took over Calvert's excavations on the eastern half of the Hissarlik site, which was on Calvert's property. Troy VII has been identified with the Hittite Wilusa, and is generally (but not conclusively) identified with Homeric Troy. Drpfeld had dated these from 3000-700 BC identifying VI, which he dated from 1500-1000BC, as the Homeric city Aberg

Bronzezeitliche und Fruheisenzeitliche Chronologie, where he

in

his

equated the II city with the Shaft graves of Mycenae, giving a date for it of 1600-1450

Portion of the legendary walls of Troy (VII), identified as the site of the Trojan War (ca. 1200 BC)

From 1932 onwards an American Expedition under C. W. Blegen began fresh excavation at Troy, with the intention of examining new areas and checking the earlier stratigraphy

American Journals of Archaeology

Troy I is revealed as a little township which Blegen refusing Abergs suggestion dates before 2500 BC Troy II a city which was to play so great a role in the development of European metallurgy is dated by Blegen to between 2500-2300 BC the settlements of Troy III, IV and V formally describe as villages, appeared to have been of greater importance whereas Troy VI was a city destroyed by an earthquake.

Kum tepe is a site in the Troas (north west Anatolia) Excavated by the
American Expedition under Blegen is claimed as earlier even than Troy I Kumtepe has four layers, Kumtepe IA, IB, IC and II. The last two have been largely disturbed in the twentieth century. The remaining and relatively undisturbed IA and IB are of special interest to the archaeologists, because these are older than other settlements in the region. Around 4800 BC the first settlement in Kumtepe was founded. The inhabitants lived on fishing, and their diet included oysters. The dead were buried, but without grave gifts. Although Kumtepe belongs to Neolithic, the occupants used also copper. Around 4500 BC the settlement was abandoned. Around 3700 BC new settlers came to Kumtepe. The people of this new culture, Kumtepe B, built relatively large houses with multiple rooms, sometimes a porch. They also practiced animal husbandry and agriculture. The main domestic animals were goats and sheep, bred not only for meat but for milk and wool as well. They knew lead and bronze along with copper. Shortly after 3000 BC these people probably colonised Yassitepe and Hissarlik

Yortan Culture dated to 2700-2500 BC- the cemetery

Yortan was contemporary with Troy I

excavated in

The cemetery was in use over a long time but, unfortunately, the site has been badly plundered. Many examples of Yortan pottery are housed in archaeological museums in Istanbul, Oxford, Paris, Brussels and Berlin, as well as in the British Museum. This type of black-slipped and burnished beak-spouted jug is found in almost every grave in western Anatolia in the mid-third millennium BC as a burial offering. Many of them have white painted motifs or raised knobs around the body, and sometime a combination of the two. It is not clear whether the vessels themselves or their contents were considered important. Similar white-painted, black-burnished pottery was exported to Mersin on the coast of south-east Turkey.

Miss Winifred Lambss Excavation at Thermi published in 1928 in her Excavation at Thermi in Lesbos, revealed a succession of five superimposed township of which towns I-IV are contemporary with Troy I and Thermi V with Troy II.
Important artefacts are arrow heads, female figurine, pendants and pottery

Hittite
The beginning of our modern knowledge of the Hittites dates from 1736 when Jean Otter discovered the famous relief at Ibriz in south Cappadocia The Hittites were a Bronze Age people of Anatolia. They established a kingdom centered at Hattusa in north-central Anatolia c. the 18th century BC. The Hittite empire reached its height c. the 14th century BC, encompassing a large part of Anatolia, north-western Syria about as far south as the mouth of the Litani River (in present-day Lebanon), and eastward into upper Mesopotamia In 1812 Burckhardt discovered one of the Hammat inscription. Four stones exist covered with ideographic designs in a character as yet quite unknown. The latest researches of Mr George Smith, however, indicate that the inscriptions are probably of Hittite origin, and other relics of that once powerful nation resembling the Hammat stones have been discovered farther east Other finds of the same time and of seals and seal inscription were made during the early 19th century. But little interest were taken in them until the period 1860-65

In 1861 Georges Perrot the art historian was sent to investigate the Monument of Augustus at Ankara and went on the front there to the Cappadocian Hills east of the rivers Halys and Sangarius. He at the Turkish village called Boghaz qeiu about 90 miles east of Ankara within the bend of the Halys river he found the remains of a vast fortified city with sculptures quite unlike the then known ancient art from Mesopotamia, Egypt or the Aegean In 1870 the Hammat Inscription was rediscovered and several other founds for the first time. In 1972 Richard Burton in his Unexplored Syria published a transcription of the Hammat Inscription and Dr. W. Wright and Irish Missionary at Damascus got the Hammat stone sent to the Constantinople Museum and two sets of plaster casts send to the British Museum.

Bronze tablet from Boazky dating from 1235 BC

In 1906-08 German and Turkish excavator under Prof. Hugo Winckler excavated the site found by Perrot and revealed Boazkale as the capital of Hittites the city of Hattosas One of the most important discoveries at the site has been the cuneiform royal archives of clay tablets, consisting of official correspondence and contracts, as well as legal codes, procedures for cult ceremony, oracular prophecies and literature of the ancient Near East. One particularly important tablet, currently on display at the Istanbul Archaeology Museum, details the terms of a peace settlement reached years after the Battle of Kadesh between the Hittites and the Egyptians under Ramesses II, in 1259 or 1258 BC

Hoyuk (Eyuk) near Aladga, some 20miles north of the Boazkale, Kul tepe, north of Kaisariyeh, Akalan near Samsam, Senjrili (the ancient Samal) and Sakge geuzu

Senjrili was excavated by the Germans Von lescham. Hoyuk and many other sites was visited by the Expedition of the Liverpool University Institute of Archaeology, which started work in Anatolia in 1907 under John Garstang and which excavated Sakje Geuzu the following year
This work continued by Prof. Garstang for over 40 years, illuminating in the excavation of Mersin and his appointment as a director of the British school of archaeology in Ankara in 1947 revealed 23 levels of occupation, the earliest dating from ca. 6300 BC. Fortifications were put up around 4500 BC, but the site appears to have been abandoned between 3200 BC and 1200 BC

A. E. Cowleys The Hittites (1920) Contenaus Elements de Bibliographic Hittite (Paris 1922) In 1893 Chantre made archaeological expedition in Anatolia which included a sondage through Orta Huyuk in central Anatolia. His findings were published In 1903 J.L. Myres compared these Cappadocian painted pottery with the Bronze age painted pottery from Cyprus and Sicily and the then little known Thessalian painted pottery this comparison was sustained by De Morgan in his Prehistorie Orientale ( 1927)

In 1926 De Genouillac published the Anatolian painted pottery in his Ceramique Cappadociaeenne, suggested two distinct periods , pottery painted in dark on white slip i. resembling the painted ware from Thessaly and ii. the Trans- Danube area At Sakje Geuzu, Garstang distinguished four occupations which he labeled i. early Neolithic, ii. later Neolithic, iii. early painted and iv. Later painted. The Neolithic pottery included a black ware sometime decorated with a white incised pattern

The Oriental institute of the University of Chicago in the mid twenties planned a full investigation of Hittites civilization by exploration, survey and excavation The Exploration began in 1926 when in one season, Von der Osten found over 300 new sites in Anatolia. The most promising of these were Huyuk/ Alishar Huyuk and Ankara

Von der Osten and E.F. Schmidt did a complete excavation at Alishar Huyuk, a mound 100 feet high between 1927 and 1932 Reports published in Communications and Publications of the Oriental Institute, constitute one of the most important contribution to archaeological scholarship made in the 20th century Four principal levels were distinguished as follows: Alishar A, a chalcolithic culture (classified in some of the earlier reports as neolithic), characterized by self coloured black to red pottery and dated to the forth millennium BC; Alishar B, a copper age culture (classified in the earlier reports as Alishar I), with five structural levels occupying 2 meters of deposit and dated from 3000-2400 BC;

Alishar C and early Bronze Age cultures (classified in the earlier report as Alishar III), characterized by the Cappadocian painted pottery and dated from 2400 BC
Alishar D ascribed to the rise of the 1st Hittite empire circa 2000 BC, which is represented by (classified in the earlier reports as Alishar II).

Ahlatlibel
The site is located near Anakara where Dr. Hamit Zubeyr Kosay, director of Antiquity and Museum in Turkey found settlements and burials of the copper age comparable with Alishar B

Dr. Kosay also excavated Alaka 35miles north of where he found a forth millennium chalcolithic culture comparable with Alishar A represented by four building levels and characterized by a coarse greyand pink ware with, in addition, about 5% of an unusual black slipped ware with geometrical designs in black paint and incised or dotted pattern succeeded by a pre Hittite culture with Kosay dates from 3000-2100 BC and calls copper age and alternatively old or early bronze age and equates with Alishar B and C.
Kosay found 13 rich graves, which he describes as those of 13 members of a royal family whose bodies were placed inside jars; accompanying the burials were metal sun discs, idol and figures of bulls and stags and ornaments, weapons and vessels many of them made of gold

A preliminary study of remains in the Sicilian plain by Gjerstad was followed in 1936-37 by the Neilson Expedition under Garstang which listed over a 100 Huyuk in the small area studied, made preliminary excavation at Chaushli Huyuk

levels 12 to 16 were classified as chalcolithic

Level 12 which underlay a gap in the sequence was classified as late chalcolithic and dated to about 300 BC

levels 13 and 14 were classified as middle Mersin chalcolithic ii with Uruk wares in it
levels 15 and 15a were classified as middle Mersin chalcolithic i and contain wares resembling those of Arpachiyah and Alubaid level 16 was classified as standard Mersin chalcolithic described as contemporary with tell Halaf Polychrome wares and dated to 3600 BC and earlier

Beneath this Halaf Chalcolithic were found first a culture with painted pottery recalling to some extent that of Ninneveh I and II which was considered to be Pre Halaf in date and classify and proto chalcolithic neolithic culture with worked Obsidian tools and black and brown burnished pottery and polished stone axes.

Atchana- Alalakh
excavated by Woolley in 1946 and 1947. It was rebuilt as the ancient Hittite capital of what is now the province of Hatay, in Turkey, which was destroyed in 1200 BC and which had 9 periods of occupation going back from 1200 BC to the 20th century Before this 9 periods Woolley discovered a developed copper age culture with plain and painted pottery showing astonishingly little change for at least 1500 years

Tayanat
Chicago Expedition found Neolithic and chalcolithic remains and in 1947 Woolley excavated a low mound two miles west of Atchana which yielded plain and painted pottery, flints, and obsidian tools, some seals and fragments of copper. The chalcolithic painted pottery at Tayanat and at the site west of Alalakh compares closely with that found at Mersin while the burnished ware from Tyanat compare with earlier unpainted ware of Anatolia.

Kara tepe
At Kara tepe, in the foothills of the Taurus, a neo Hittite city was found in 1945 with sculptures showing Aegean influence and inscription of great value some of which refer to the Danuna, Danauna or Danau, who have long been identified with the Danaoi who fought on the side of the Achaeans at Troy.

Palestine, Syrian and Cyprus

Burckhardt discovered Petra in 1809 After that Edward Robinson published the results of surveys made from 1938 to 1852 in his Biblical Researches in Palestine. In 1860, Renan made valuable surveys in Phoenicia.

Palestine Exploration fund founded in London in 1865- embarked in

1870 on a survey of antiquities under the direction of Condor, Tyrwhite Drake and later a young sapper who ultimately became lord Kitchener. Excavation began with Warrens work in and around Jerusalem in 1867 and the work of Petrie and Bliss at Tell-el-Huseey in 1891-92.

Tell Jezer
The site of gezer was identified at tell Jezer in the 19th century by Clermont- Ganneau and was excavated by R.A.S Macalister for the Palestine Exploration Fund in 1902-08 where he found early Neolithic dwellers in caves.

Tell er-Rumeileh
The site lying southeast of Gezer was excavated for the Palestine Exploration fund by Dr. Duncan Machenzie in 1911-12 and reexcavated by Professor Elihu Grant, of Haverford College, from 1928 onwards. The excavations reveal a succession of cities from 2000 B.C. to its destruction by Nebuchadnezzer II around 600 B.C.

Megiddo (modern Tell-el Mutesellim)

The site was first excavated by Schumacher, of the Deutsche Orient Gesellschaft, who made sondage through the mound 1903-05. Large scale excavation was undertaken again in 1925 Oriental Institute of Chicago first under C S Fisher and later under P L O Guy and Gordon Loud. Megiddo was revealed as a city in the early Bronze Age with continuing occupations until near the end of the 12th century when the Cannanite city was destroyed, while the Israelite occupation began about half a century later. In 1937 Gordon Loud excavated the palaces of the princess who at Megiddo ruled on behalf of the Egyptian Pharaohs.

Shamra (ancient Ugarit)

The site was discovered by Schaeffer. And revealed a long succession of cultures going back to the Neolithic, where plain and incised pottery occurs which Schaeffer compares with the Neolithic of Mersin and others with the Neolithic of Nineveh and Tell Hassunah. A flourishing chalcolithic city succeeded the Neolithic settlement and in the second millennium BC, this city was mentioned by Ugarit in the Tell el Amarna letters. The site was destroyed by an earthquake in the middle of 14th century. While Shaeffer was excavating year after year at Ras Shamra, Garstang began at Jericho. Jericho had been first excavated by Prof. Ernst Sellin, of the Deutsche, Orient Gesellshaft, in 1907-09. Other two important site comparable to Jericho was studied by Rene Neuville and they are El khiam (1930-34) and Teleilat Chassul close to Jericho.

Lachish
identified first at Umm Lakis and later by Petrie at Tell el Hesy where he dug in 1891. In 1933 was again excavated by WellcomeMarston Archaeological Expedition under J.L Starkey. These excavations revealed cave dwelling settlement in the Early Bronze Age giving way to succession of cities

Neolithic culture: as in Jericho, Ras shamra, El Khiam

and Tahunian.

Chalcolithic : sometime called as Jerichoan Cannanite Bronze Age- great developments of cities
many of them acting as trading centres with the Egyptian to the south, the Hittites to the north, Mesopotamian city states to the eat and Mycenaeans on the west.

Fourth Stage- The destruction of these Bronze Age

cultures around 1400-1200 BC by invaders, from the North, west and south.

Dummler went to Cyprus and was able to relate some of the finds of Cretan archaeology with materials already found in Greece and Aegean. In 1865, General Louis palma di Cesnola was appointed American Consul in Cyprus. His collection went to the Metropolitan Museum of New York His work was published in his Cyprus: its Ancient Cities, Tombs and Temples (1877)

Cyprus museum was founded in 1883