Tilmen Höyük II – The Excavations in the Upper Town

The grant will support the publication program of the final report on the excavations of the citadel at Tilmen Höyük, a capital city of the Middle Bronze Age Northern Levant (Gaziantep province, South-Eastern Turkey).

The excavations of the Turco-Italian team lead by N. Marchetti between 2003 and 2008 brought to light evidence of a long sequence of occupation, dating from the Late Chalcolithic to the Late Bronze I, as well as from the Roman and early medieval periods. The most relevant contexts, however, date back to the 18th and 17th centuries BCE, when the city, certainly due to its control over trade routes connecting Northern Syria with the Anatolian Plateau, reached its floruit. The rich Middle Bronze Age capital city, probably the ancient regional Zalbar/Zalwar, came to a violent end in the 2nd half of the 17th century BCE under the blows of the Hittite king Khattushili I, but the fortified citadel survived.

A casemate fortification wall encircled the entire citadel: massive fortresses were located in key defensive spots, while a monumental stairway gave access to the Upper Town area. The royal district, with the monumental royal palace and residency and the archaic temple, were located to the south-west. To their north, squares, streets, economic and domestic quarters developed.

The excavation and exposure of large areas of the citadel and the good state of preservation of the remains, together with their monumentality, will largely add to our understanding of the urbanism of a Middle Bronze Age town, also permitting a special focus on the obscure period of transition between the Middle and the Late Bronze ages, outlining the different cultural trajectories in a border region between the rising Old and Middle Hittite Kingdom, to the north-west, and Mittani, to the East.

The director of the publication project is Dr. Valentina Orsi.
Click on the images or captions below for full-screen views:

Tilmen Hoyuk II Img2
The site of Tilmen Höyük from West. In the background, the Kurt Dağları – The Wolf Mountains – are visible.
Tilme Hoyuk II Img3
Aerial orthophoto of the palace area