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Yet even the catalog is wary of answering the question central to the "mystery" of the Etruscans: where did they come from? Did they migrate from Greece or beyond? Did they travel down from the Alps? Or, as their pre- Indo-European language might suggest, were they a people indigenous to today's Tuscany who suddenly acquired the tools for rapid development? Such are the pros and cons of each theory, the French historian Dominique Briquel notes in his catalog essay, that "the problem must be held to be unresolved." ...[T]hey spoke the same language, which also existed in a written...

New artifacts have been found during excavations in Bodrum’s Ortakent and Gümüşlük neighborhoods. The artifacts will shed light on the history of Bodrum Peninsula, according to officials. The Bodrum Underwater Archaeology Museum Director Emel Özkan said that they had discovered 49 artifacts from the Mycenean era. “The number of Mycenean artifacts increased to 248 with these ones. This made our museum the richest one in terms of Mycenean artifacts among the Turkish museums,” she said. Özkan said that the artifacts, which date back to 3,500 years ago, were very important for Anatolian history, adding, “The amphora and gifts found in...

A team of archaeologists have unearthed new evidence of massive, monumental defensive works at the Citadel Mound site of ancient Gordion in Turkey. Excavations have also revealed ancient industrial activity dating back to the 11th century BCE... Brian Rose of the University of Pennsylvania and colleagues have uncovered massive defensive walls, part of a road, and industrial work spaces dated back to some of the earliest periods of the site... "Gordion’s historical significance derives from its very long and complex sequence of occupation, with seven successive settlements spanning a period of nearly 4500 years," says Rose. "What we discovered was...

A home owner living in the Melikgazi district of Kayseri province in Anatolia made a surprising discovery while clearing out an area under his house – a subterranean city, of which 4,000 square metres have been excavated so far, according to a report in Hurriyet Daily News. The region of Anatolia in Turkey is famous for its underground cities, particularly in the region of Cappadocia where more than 40 complete underground cities and 200 underground villages and tunnel towns complete with hidden passages, secret rooms, and ancient temples have been found. Mustafa Bozdemir, 50, was bequeathed a house in Melikgazi...

Underwater excavations led by Ankara UniversityÂ’s Research Center for Maritime Archaeology (ANKÃœSAM) have uncovered sunken ships ranging from the second century B.C. to the Ottoman period in Ä°zmirÂ’s Urla district. A recent excavation uncovered a ship estimated to date back 4,000 years, which experts say would make it the oldest sunken ship to have been discovered in the Mediterranean. Urla Port is one of TurkeyÂ’s rare underwater excavation sites. Professor Hayat Erkanal, the head of Limantepe excavations for the underwater ancient city of Klozemenai and director of ANKÃœSAM, said the port dates back to the seventh century B.C. Klozemenai, he...

While the history of civilization is being demolished by war and religious zealots in the rest of Iraq, in the Kurdistan Region archeologists are marveling at a stunning discovery: the remains of a long-lost temple from the biblical kingdom of Urartu, dating back to the 9th century BC. Kurdish archaeologist Dlshad Marf Zamua, who has studied the columns and other artifacts at the find, told Rudaw these were unearthed piecemeal over the past four decades by villagers going about their lives, digging for cultivation or construction. But only recently, after the discovery of life-size human statues and the unearthed columns,...

Archaeological work on the island of Gökçeada has revealed that an earthquake occurred in the region 4,700 years ago, followed by a tsunami. Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart University Geology Department Professor Doğan Perinçek said they had found the traces of the earthquake and tsunami during works between 2006 and 2008. Gökçek made a statement June 2 after an earthquake measuring 6.5 that occurred on May 24 in the region. He said both he and Professor Halime Hüryılmaz had found traces of an earthquake that occurred in 2680 B.C. following work in the area of Yenibademli. “The earthquake broke the walls of...

Excavations at a tower in the Tophane portion of Bursa’s city walls have revealed a basilica from the early Roman era that could be one of the oldest structures ever discovered in the northwestern province. Architect İbrahim Yılmaz, who has been conducting the restoration projects on Bursa’s city walls, said the Tophane city walls restoration project included an area of 1,200 square meters from the north of the Saltanat Gate to the Kaplıca Gate... Speaking about the technical features of the basilica, Yılmaz said: “There is a round apse [the place for religious ceremonies] and a window bay in front...

A team of researchers with members from several countries has found evidence of the birth of pre-ceramic Neolithic populations in a region of what is now Turkey. In their paper published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the team describes how excavations of various levels at Aşıklı Höyük, reveal the history of the people that lived there... Aşıklı Höyük is the earliest known preceramic Neolithic mound site in Central Anatolia. The oldest Levels, 4 and 5, spanning 8,200 to approximately 9,000 cal B.C., associate with round-house architecture and arguably represent the birth of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic in the...

When the British archaeologist Sir Arthur Evans discovered the 4,000-year-old Palace of Minos on Crete in 1900, he saw the vestiges of a long-lost civilization whose artefacts set it apart from later Bronze-Age Greeks. The Minoans, as Evans named them, were refugees from Northern Egypt who had been expelled by invaders from the South about 5,000 years ago, he claimed. Modern archaeologists have questioned that version of events, and now ancient DNA recovered from Cretan caves suggests that the Minoan civilization emerged from the early farmers who settled the island thousands of years earlier....

In storybook histories, the ancient city of Gordion is remembered only as the seat of King Midas, he of the golden touch, and the place where Alexander the Great struck a famous blow in legend and metaphor. Challenged to separate the strands of an impossible knot, the Gordion knot, the conqueror cut through the problem, in the manner of conquerors, with one authoritative swing of his sword. After Midas and Alexander, Gordion languished on the fringes of history, and until recently archaeologists had taken little notice of its Celtic past. Yes, European Celts — the Gauls of Roman times and ...

Indo-European tongues traced back more than 8,000 years to present-day Turkey ANCIENT SPREADThe map shows the timing and geographic expansion of Indo-European languages proposed in a new statistical analysis. The red area in what’s now Turkey is a possible birthplace of the Indo-European language family more than 8,000 years ago.Remco Bouckaert et al. Indo-European languages range throughout Europe and South Asia and even into Iran, yet the roots of this widespread family of tongues have long been controversial. A new study adds support to the proposal that the language family expanded out of Anatolia — what’s now Turkey — between...

Oldest Swords Found in Turkey By Rossella Lorenzi, Discovery News March 25, 2003 — The most ancient swords ever found were forged 5,000 years ago in what is today Turkey, according to Italian archaeologists who announced the results of chemical analysis at a recent meeting in Florence. Digging at Arslantepe, a site in the Taurus mountains of southeast Anatolia, Marcella Frangipane, professor at the department of historical science, archaeology and anthropology of antiquities of Rome University, found nine swords dating back to about 3,300 B.C. Blade and hilt were cast in one piece; moreover, three swords were beautifully inlaid with...

Ever since British jurist Sir William Jones noted in 1786 that there are marked similarities between diverse languages such as Greek, Sanskrit, and Celtic, linguists have assumed that most of the languages of Europe and the Indian subcontinent derive from a single ancient tongue. But researchers have fiercely debated just when and where this mother tongue was first spoken. Now a bold new study asserts that the common root of the 144 so-called Indo-European languages, which also include English and all the Germanic, Slavic, and Romance languages, is very ancient indeed. In this week's issue of Nature, evolutionary biologist Russell...

Study indicates a correlation between the ancient mural image and date of the Hasan Dagi volcanic eruption. First discovered and excavated in the 1960's by British archaeologist James Mellaart, the world-famous 9,000-year-old Neolithic site of Catälhöyuk in Central Anatolia, Turkey, has provided a unique window on the lives of humans at the transition from hunter-gatherer to settled agriculture societies. Among the spectacular finds was a mural or wall-painting dated to about 6600 BCE and described by its discoverer and others as depicting a volcanic eruption. Arguably regarded as the first map or graphical representation of a landscape, it featured "a...

(Abstract of article only): The role of cult and feasting in the emergence of Neolithic communities. New evidence from Göbekli Tepe, south-eastern Turkey 1Deutsches Archäologisches Institut, Orient-Abteilung, Podbielskiallee 69–71, D-14195 Berlin, Germany (Email: odi@orient.dainst.de; jn@orient.dainst.de; kls@orient.dainst.de), 2Norwegian University of Life Sciences, P.O. Box 5003, NO-1432 Aas, Norway (Email: manfred.heun@umb.no), and 3Technische Universität München, Wissenschaftszentrum Weihenstephan, Weihenstephaner Steig 20, D-85354 Freising, Germany (Email: Martin.Zarnkow@wzw.tum.de)*Author for correspondence Göbekli Tepe is one of the most important archaeological discoveries of modern times, pushing back the origins of monumentality beyond the emergence of agriculture. We are pleased to present a summary of work in progress...

Archaeologists working on Iasos on Turkey’s Aegean coast have recently discovered that the ancient city was buried under a mountain of ash caused by the explosion of Mt. Thera on Santorini 3,600 years ago. Excavation works have also revealed a sewage system that was in place in the 4,000-year-old city and tunnels to the city’s theater... Spanu said columns that were found one meter underground provided vital information about the history of the city. “Following the explosion of the volcano Thera, which also caused the destruction of the Minoan civilization on the islands of Crete and Santorini, the ancient city...

Archaeologists have unearthed evidence of a Roman presence long before the traditonal date of Roman settlement in 180 BCE - corroborating Roman historian Livy's account of the great Carthaginian general Hannibal passing through Lucca in 217 BCE... The discovery came after other finds last year which highlighted how Lucca thrived because of its strategic position on the main road that led towards Gaul. Among the treasures turned up were the remains of a well-preserved 2nd-century BC Roman house. Other digs have traced Lucca's beginnings under the Etruscans, a people who once ruled much of central Italy including Rome. Lucca's foundation...

A head belonging to a statue of the goddess of health that was stored in the garden of the Eskiflehir Archaeology Museum has been stolen, reported the Anatolia news agency on Tuesday. Artifacts languishing on the grounds of Eskiflehir Archeology Museum are waiting for restoration to begin.

DISCOVERY: Oldest lighthouse at ancient Roman port The New Anatolian / Ankara 06 February 2008 Turkish archaeologists unearthed a 2000-year-old lighthouse at the ancient Roman port of Patara, near southern town of Kas, Antalya, discovering probably the oldest such structure that managed to remain intact. The 12-meter-high lighthouse was built under the reign of Emperor Nero who ruled from 54 to 68, Professor Havva Iskan Isik, head of the excavation team reported. "The oldest known lighthouse is the one in Alexandria but there is nothing left of it. So, the lighthouse at the Patara port is the oldest one that...