A rare 2500-year-old saw, the first of its kind, discovered in Anatolia

Archaeologists conducting excavations in Çorum, the capital of the Ancient Hittite Empire in northern Turkey, discovered a 2,250-year-old saw.

Recent archaeological work in the ancient city led by Andreas Schachner from the German Archaeological Institute has added new findings to this rich collection.

Hattusha was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1986. It was the ancient capital city of the Hittite Empire, a major power in the Near East during the late Bronze Age (approximately 1600-1180 BCE).

Since 1906, excavations in Hattusha, in the Boğazkale district, have unearthed countless ancient artifacts, including a tablet with mystery language cues.

Hattusa functions as an outdoor museum and is notable for its urban planning, the kinds of buildings that have been preserved (temples, royal palaces, fortifications), the elaborate decoration of the Lions’ Gate and the Royal Gate, and the group of rock art at Yazilikaya.

Professor Andreas Schachner, who leads the excavations, told Anadolu Agency (AA) that the iron of the saw was thicker than contemporary saws, but otherwise, it is very similar to the ones used today.

“This shows us that humans do not simply modify working tools,” he said.

The ancient tool is about 20 centimeters long and was unearthed on the northwestern slope of the large castle area of ​​the ancient city.

Professor Schachner noted that the discovery is a rare one and marks the first of its kind in Anatolia in the 3rd century B.C.

“This saw was found in a building from the Galatian period in the excavation area.

The use of this building corresponds to approximately 2,250 years ago. Normally, finding a saw from this period is a very interesting thing. We did some research.

There are not many examples. We were able to identify a few examples from the later Roman periods. Still, a saw from the 3rd century BC has not yet been seen, at least in Anatolia,” Professor Dr. Andreas Schachner said.

“As far as we can tell from the holes on both sides of the saw, we think that it had a semicircular handle. Thus, the carpenter of the period may have used the saw by holding it from the wood and moving it.” Professor Dr. Schachner explained.

Hattusha also has also held UNESCO’s title of “Memory of the World” since 2001 with its cuneiform scripts representing the oldest known form of Indo-European languages.

A well-preserved lion mosaic discovered in the Ancient City of Prusias ad Hypium

Archaeologists found a lion mosaic during excavations carried out in the Ancient City of Prusias ad Hypium.

Excavations have been ongoing in the ancient city of Prusias ad Hypium, which is located in the Konuralp district of Düzce and is called the Ephesus of the western Black Sea.

The excavation team working in the area above the theater of the ancient city found the lion mosaic in a structure connected to the portico.

Experts believe that the newly discovered mosaic-tiled room represents a late Roman cult site (a space signifying the overall lifestyle of a society or group, encompassing specific values, beliefs, traditions, arts, and other cultural elements).

It was determined that the interior walls of the new find, whose wall dimensions are approximately 4.51×6.42 meters, were covered with marble plates on a thick layer of mortar and that the room had a rectangular plan in the north-south direction.

A platform foundation was also observed towards the north of the room. It was determined that the entire room was covered with a mosaic floor of finely crafted white, blue, yellow, green, and brown tesserae (small mosaic stones of various colors).

The mosaic, adorned with geometric patterns, features a border made of larger and more colorful tesserae arranged in a frame-like structure. In the center, within a smaller square frame made of smaller tesserae, a scene is depicted.

Experts state that the artifacts found in this room, with depictions of drums and flutes, indicate that it is a “Dionysus Cult Place”.

Düzce Governor Selçuk Aslan stated on his social media account, “During the ongoing excavations at Düzce Konuralp (Prusias ad Hypium) Ancient City, a well-preserved, rare mosaic depicting two lions looking at a pine tree with drums and a pan flute depicted on the tree branches,” he said.

Prusias ad Hypium, an ancient city located in the Konuralp District of Düzce was established on a hill that ran from east to west and ended in a plain.

In the 2nd century BC, the Bithynians, led by their king Prusias I, captured Kieros from the Mariandyns and Herekleia State. Prusias I improved the city and decorated it with many monuments. He also fortified it and changed its name to Prusias.

The city’s ancient theater, known locally as the Forty Steps, was built during the Hellenistic Age (300-30 BC) and includes additions from the Roman Period (30 BC-300 AD).

Massive Ancient Mosaic Floor Discovered in Turkey

Archaeological excavations in the Incesu district of the Kayseri province in Central Anatolia, Turkey have turned up the largest floor mosaic in the Cappadocia region. 

Measuring a whopping 600 square meters or more than 6,400 square feet, the tiled floor was uncovered in the Örenşehir neighborhood, within a villa that is estimated to date back to the 4th century.

The research, ongoing for three years now, has been carried out by the Nevşehir Hacı Bektaş Veli University, with the backing of the Kayseri Metropolitan Municipality. 

According to the university’s Can Erpek, who directed the excavation, the villa has roots in the Roman and Byzantine eras and was used long after the Turks arrived in Anatolia.

It encompassed a vast area and about 33 rooms, with “highly valuable” floor mosaics indicating the structure was a “high-level residence.” 

“In the Central Anatolia Region, which includes the Cappadocia region, we do not see such a large residence with floor mosaics,” Erpek said in a statement, adding, “We have not yet fully reached the boundaries of this residence.” 

In a statement, Şükrü Dursun, Kayseri’s provincial director of culture and tourism, further highlighted findings such as a Latin inscription in an area believed to be a reception hall, Greek engravings, and other geometric mosaics.  

In particular, Erpek pointed out the discovery of the name “Hyacinthos” in the inscriptions, which the archaeologists believe belongs to an administrator and the villa’s one-time resident. 

Kayseri rose from the foundations of an ancient city known as Mazaca, a key stop along trade routes between the Greek colony of Sinope to Euphrates. In the fourth century, the province formed part of the thriving cultural landscape of Anatolia, which prospered under Roman rule.

Kayseri also served as a hub of Christianity during that time, housing a major monastic complex, built by Saint Basil the Great, which has not survived. 

See more images of the mosaic below. 

1300-year-old baby footprints found in excavations at the ancient city of Assos in western Turkey

1300 years ago, a baby stepped on baked bricks prepared to make a bread-baking oven. The baby was probably just starting to walk and had only taken two steps when an older one took hold of him.

The footprints of a 1300-year-old baby unearthed during the excavations of the Ancient City of Assos bring this moment to mind.

During the excavations of the Ancient City of Assos, located in the Behramkale Village of the Ayvacık district of Çanakkale, 1650-year-old earthen grills and various types of kitchen utensils were found last month.

Uncovering the 1300-year-old baby’s footprint in the past few days will allow more data to be collected about the city.

Assos excavation head, Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart University Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Archeology Department Lecturer Prof. Dr. Nurettin Arslan conveyed the following information to the AA correspondent.

“There are embellishments on the terracotta bricks used on the floor of the hearth. But apart from these decorations, there are traces left by a child, who we estimate to be 1-1,5 years old, by taking 2 steps. Besides that, there is a trace of a dog or a cat.”

“We interpreted the find as the toddler’s stepping on the slightly dried bricks while the bricks were being produced, and then being picked up and lifted.”

“The history of this structure dates from the 7th century. So, we see the footprints of a baby on a brick from 1300 years ago. If the child had walked on all of them, it would have caused marks or deterioration on the other bricks. Because his first footprint is very deep.

Afterward, we see that the traces are more superficial as if they were suddenly removed and did not continue. We can see from his steps that he is just a toddler.

Because the steps between 2 feet are 5 centimeters We see him walking with very small steps.”

2,800-year-old ivory ornament unearthed in Hattusa archeological site in Türkiye

A 2,800-year-old ivory ornament has been discovered by archaeologists in northern Türkiye at the excavation site of Hattusa, the capital of the Hittites, one of the most ancient Anatolian civilizations

The archaeological excavations in the present-day Bogazkale district of Corum province started in 1906 and have been led by Andreas Schachner on behalf of the German Archaeological Institute since 2006.

In the 117th year of the excavations, a piece of art that can provide insight into Iron Age art was unearthed on the northwest-facing slope of the Great Fortress area of the ancient city.

The piece, nearly 30 centimeters (1 foot) in length and 10 cm in width, features a sphinx, a lion, and two trees of life etched on an ivory surface.

Speaking to Anadolu, excavation chief Schachner said the artifact was found in the Iron Age layer of the Hattusa dig site, which contains traces of many civilizations.

“Most likely, in its own period, it was added as a decoration to a wooden box or a piece of furniture made of wood.

The work is broken on its right and left sides, but the upper and lower sides are intact. So, it can be inferred that it was actually longer,” Schachner said.

“This work is a unique piece for Bogazkoy. For the first time, we are facing a work adorned with such an intense and beautifully crafted scene.

Extensive excavations have been carried out in Bogazkoy for the Iron Age, but a work with such detail has not been encountered before,” he said.

The artifact shines a light on artistic relationships in Bogazkoy in this era, extending towards southeastern Anatolia, as well in the southwestern direction, and Greece, according to Schachner. 

Roman-Era Female Statue Dated Back To 1,800 Years Ago Unearthed In Anemurium, Türkiye

Among many extraordinary finds reported from the archaeological excavations in the ancient city of Anemurium located in the province of Mersin in southern Türkiye, is a Roman-era female statue probably dated back to 1,800 years ago.

This ancient statue is believed to represent an important person according to the archaeology team led by Professor Mehmet Tekocak from one of the Konya Selçuk University, one of the largest universities in Türkiye.

The statue is believed to have collapsed and remained underground due to a strong earthquake that occurred 1,500 years ago in the ancient city of Anemurium.

Describing the statue, the archaeologists say that the dressed female statue from the Roman era has a completely well-preserved intact body.

It is reported that the statue, which is decorated with two different clothes, a chiton at the bottom and a himation on top, represents a goddess, empress or philanthropic woman belonging to an aristocratic or important family who lived there 1,800 years ago.

Both the excavation works and restorations continue on a wide area in the ancient city, located in the southern province of Mersin, throughout the year, and there are new very interesting discoveries in the ruins of Anemurium, the city which had once a strategic position and importance, especially during the Roman Empire and Byzantine Period.

During this period, Anemurium, the main settlement of the Anamur Plain, became a prestigious market and administrative center for the mentioned plain and also a trade center due to its proximity to Cyprus.

It took all day long for the teams to remove the statue. Finally, since a crane could not approach the area, the statue was removed, with the help of a small work machine with great care by an expert team from the Antalya Restoration and Conservation Regional Laboratory Directorate, and taken under protection for scientific studies, cleaning, conservation and restoration works.

“The ancient city of Anemurium is located in the Anamur district of Mersin, approximately 10 kilometers away from the city center, where findings are mainly from the 2nd century to the 6th century A.D. It is like a time capsule.

The moment you enter here, you are going back 1,800 years ago. We clearly know that the city existed 2,500 years ago.

It is also said that it goes back to the Hittites, but we have no information about this yet,” Tekocak said.

“This is an area right next to the Harbor Bath. We first started excavations in this structure to determine the characteristics and functions of the spaces of the Harbor Bath.

Later, we started excavations here to understand whether there was a relationship with the bath in this area right next to it, and we came across very interesting ruins and finds,” explained Professor Tekocak, adding that the exact place of this discovery is the lower city with many public building.

“We think that this place may be a ‘nymphaeum,’ that is, a fountain monument in ancient times. And we uncovered a very beautiful female statue decorating this fountain monument,” as cited by Hurriyet Daily News.

For now, the researchers do not know who is depicted in the statue. “Its head, arms, and feet are still missing. We later found one of her arms.

The work continues, and I hope we will find the other missing parts. It may be the portrait of someone, and if so, we will see the silhouette, picture or statue of someone who lived here 1,800 years ago for the first time.”

11,000-Year-Old Sculpture Uncovered in Turkey

Archaeologists in Turkey have unearthed a nearly 11,000-year-old statue that may depict a giant man clutching his penis, along with a life-size wild boar statue.

The two statues come from the neighboring sites of Gobekli Tepe and Karahan Tepe, which are among the oldest temple sites in the world.

The wild boar statue, which is carved from limestone, was found at Gobekli Tepe and dates to between 8700 B.C. and 8200 B.C.

It measures 4.4 feet (1.4 meters) long and 2.3 feet (0.7 m) high, the German Archaeological Institute said in a statement. Archaeologists detected red, black and white pigments on its surface, indicating that the sculpture was once painted.

Archaeologists unearthed the large sculpture of the manat the site of Karahan Tepe, about 22 miles (35 kilometers) from Gobekli Tepe. It depicts a  7.5-foot-tall (2.3 m) man, according to a translated statement from Turkey’s ministry of culture and tourism.

The person’s ribs, spines and shoulders are particularly pronounced, and the person may actually be depicted as being dead, the statement said.

These discoveries, “represent the latest spectacular finds from these sites which are transforming our understanding of pre-agricultural communities,” Benjamin Arbuckle, an anthropology professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill who was not involved with the excavations, told Live Science in an email.

Researchers also found a small sculpture of a vulture nearby at Karahan Tepe. While archaeologists didn’t say how old the newfound statues at, Karahan Tepe are, the site is around 11,000 years old and contains other sculptures and buildings.

Archaeologists used to think that the hunter-gatherer communities in southwest Asia around 11,000 years ago “were relatively simple, small in scale, and generally egalitarian,” Arbuckle said. But the discoveries at Gobekli Tepe and Karahan Tepe over the last 30 years have disproved this idea, Arbuckle said.

Gobekli Tepe is a sprawling, megalithic site filled with T-shaped pillars and sophisticated sculptures depicting animals, abstract symbols and human hands.

The site was likely used in funerary rituals, according to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.

The presence of such a massive, sophisticated complex suggests that hunter gatherer communities in the region were not as simple as once thought but rather were organized in a way that allowed them to build great works of architecture.

What was the sculptures’ purpose?

The purpose of the recently found sculptures is unclear. “The Karahan Tepe finds strike me as the most interesting,” Ted Banning, an anthropology professor at the University of Toronto who is not involved with the research, told Live Science in an email.

“Any interpretation of the statue is conjectural at this point,” Banning said but suggested it was likely that the person shown is dead. It may represent “an important ancestor associated with the building in which it was found.”

The figure’s pose may give a further clue about its purpose. “The fact that the figure is clutching its penis is also consistent with this interpretation by potentially symbolizing that this person was the progenitor of a social group, such as a lineage or clan, associated with the building,” Banning said.

Banning thinks that structures at Karahan Tepe and Gobekli Tepe may have been used as houses rather than temples, “in which case it makes a lot of sense that each would have its own lineage ancestor,” Banning said.

It’s not surprising that the wild boar sculpture has pigments, he added. “I think it’s plausible that much or even most of the sculpture at these sites was originally painted”, Banning said, noting that paint doesn’t preserve well in the archaeological record.

Archaeologists involved with the excavations did not return requests for comment at time of publication.

The Marble Head of Alexander the Great was Unearthed in Turkey

The head of a marble statue of Alexander the Great unearthed in Turkey shows the enduring popularity of the ancient ruler hundreds of years after his death, experts say.

The object was found amid the ruins of the upper levels of a Roman-era theater at Konuralp, north of Düzce and near Turkey’s northwest coast, and is thought to date to the second century. Alexander the Great died in 323 B.C, so the statue may have been made more than 400 years after his death.

The remains of other marble statues, including heads of the Greek god Apollo and the mythical monster Medusa, have also been found in the ruins of the theater, the Düzce Municipality wrote in a statement in Turkish.

Alexander was a popular figure in the ancient world long after his untimely death at age 32 at Babylon beside the Euphrates river, historian Paul Cartledge, a professor at the University of Cambridge and the author of “Alexander the Great: the Hunt for a New Past” (Overlook Press, 2004), told Live Science.

One reason for Alexander’s enduring popularity was that his successors promoted him as an ideal ruler whom they hoped to emulate. “The contenders for his throne, and therefore his empire, used his name and said ‘he was terrific,'” said Cartledge, who wasn’t involved in the new discovery.

It also became common for later rulers to make coins containing Alexander’s image as a way to legitimize their reigns, he said.

Macedonian king

After analyzing the marble head, historical experts determined it was a portrayal of Alexander, according to the statement.

“[He] is depicted with deep and upward-looking eyes … and a slightly open mouth that barely reveals its teeth,” Düzce Municipality officials said in the statement, which also noted the distinctive hairstyle on the statue.

“The two tufts of hair in the middle of the forehead, which are separated from the back and sides, are like a lion’s mane,” they said in the translated statement. “This depiction is a hairstyle unique to Alexander the Great.”

Alexander was one of the most famous rulers of the ancient world. Born in 356 B.C., he became the king of Macedonia, a territory north of Greece, in 336. His father, Philip II of Macedon, had already succeeded in uniting Greece under his rule.

Although not born in Greece, Alexander was enamored of Greek culture and spread it as he began a campaign of military conquests to the south and east, which culminated in his defeat of the powerful Persian Empire in a series of battles between 334 B.C. and 331 B.C.

Mighty empire

At its height, Alexander’s empire stretched from Greece and Egypt to Bactria, roughly in what’s now Afghanistan, to the Punjab in what’s now Pakistan. But his army refused to go any farther, and Alexander returned to Babylon, where he died a few years later—probably from an illness, but possibly from drinking too much or because he was poisoned, Cartledge said.

When the Romans conquered much of the ancient world—including the kingdom of Bithynia, in the region where the new statue was found—they, too, regarded Alexander the Great as an ideal ruler.

Indeed, Alexander’s habit of shaving his face—as opposed to sporting beards, like most past rulers did—influenced Roman emperors and led Romans to shave, because it was thought to be the correct thing for rulers to do, Cartledge said.

Alexander seemed to have taken up the habit because he wanted to be seen like the Greek god Apollo, who was portrayed without a beard.

For the same reason, many statues of Alexander portrayed his eyes looking upward toward the gods, Cartledge said, and upward-looking eyes are one feature of the statue discovered at Konuralp.