Beycesultan
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Beycesultan () is an archaeological site in western
Anatolia Anatolia, tr, Anadolu Yarımadası), and the Anatolian plateau, also known as Asia Minor, is a large peninsula in Western Asia and the westernmost protrusion of the Asian continent. It constitutes the major part of modern-day Turkey. The re ...
, located about 5 km southwest of the modern-day city of
Çivril Çivril is a town and district of Denizli Province in the inner Aegean region of Turkey. Çivril district area neighbors those of two districts of Uşak Province to its north, namely Sivaslı and Karahallı, and four districts of Afyonkarahisar P ...
in the
Denizli Province Denizli Province ( tr, ) is a province of Turkey in Western Anatolia, on high ground above the Aegean coast. Neighbouring provinces are Uşak to the north, Burdur, Isparta, Afyon to the east, Aydın, Manisa to the west and Muğla to the south. ...
of
Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a list of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolia, Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with ...
. It lies in a bend of an old tributary of
Büyük Menderes River The Büyük Menderes River (historically the Maeander or Meander, from Ancient Greek: Μαίανδρος, ''Maíandros''; tr, Büyük Menderes Irmağı), is a river in southwestern Turkey. It rises in west central Turkey near Dinar before fl ...
( Maeander River).


History


Late Chalcolithic

Beycesultan was occupied beginning in the Late
Chalcolithic The Copper Age, also called the Chalcolithic (; from grc-gre, χαλκός ''khalkós'', "copper" and  ''líthos'', "stone") or (A)eneolithic (from Latin '' aeneus'' "of copper"), is an archaeological period characterized by regular ...
period. This large mound is almost 1 km in diameter and 25 m high.


Early Bronze

The settlement increased in size and prominence through the 3rd millennium, with notable religious and civil buildings.


Middle Bronze

Development peaked early in the 2nd millennium with the construction of a massive palace and associated structures. The palace was abandoned and then destroyed circa 1700 BC. To this point, the orientation of Beycesultan was strongly influenced from the west, mainly the Aegean and
Crete Crete ( el, Κρήτη, translit=, Modern: , Ancient: ) is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the 88th largest island in the world and the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, after Sicily, Sardinia, Cyprus, and ...
.


Late Bronze

After a few centuries of semi-abandonment, Beycesultan began to rise again, this time more influenced by the Hittite regions of Anatolia. Though smaller than the earlier city, the site was of impressive size. This second flowering of Beycesultan was completely destroyed circa 1200 BC as were many locations in Anatolia at that time.


Later Periods

The site was also the occupied, to a lesser scale, in the
Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...
,
Seljuk Seljuk or Saljuq (سلجوق) may refer to: * Seljuk Empire (1051–1153), a medieval empire in the Middle East and central Asia * Seljuk dynasty (c. 950–1307), the ruling dynasty of the Seljuk Empire and subsequent polities * Seljuk (warlord) (di ...
and Ottoman period. It has been hypothesized that it is the Byzantine town and bishopry "Ilouza" (Ιλούζα), and possibly the Hittite
Wilusa Wilusa ( hit, ) or Wilusiya was a Late Bronze Age city in western Anatolia known from references in fragmentary Hittites, Hittite records. The city is notable for its identification with the archaeological site of Troy, and thus its potential con ...
. However,
Fred Woudhuizen Frederik Christiaan Woudhuizen (Zutphen, 13 February 1959 – Heiloo, 28 September 2021) was an independent scholar who studied ancient Indo-European languages, hieroglyphic Luvian/Luwian, and Mediterranean protohistory. He was the former editor ...
, maintains that the name of the site can be positively identified as
Mira Mira (), designation Omicron Ceti (ο Ceti, abbreviated Omicron Cet, ο Cet), is a red-giant star estimated to be 200–400 light-years from the Sun in the constellation Cetus. ο Ceti is a binary stellar system, consisting of a varia ...
based on epigraphic testimony.


Archaeology

The site of Beycesultan consists of two mounds, divided by the old trading road. The maximum height of 25 meters is at the western mound and the entire site is around a kilometer in diameter. In early 1950s
James Mellaart James Mellaart FBA (14 November 1925 – 29 July 2012) was an English archaeologist and author who is noted for his discovery of the Neolithic settlement of Çatalhöyük in Turkey. He was expelled from Turkey when he was suspected of involvem ...
discovered specimens of "champagne-glass" style pottery in a Late Bronze Age context near the site. A search identified the höyük (
mound A mound is a heaped pile of earth, gravel, sand, rocks, or debris. Most commonly, mounds are earthen formations such as hills and mountains, particularly if they appear artificial. A mound may be any rounded area of topographically higher el ...
) of Beycesultan upstream of the Menderes river.
Seton Lloyd Seton Howard Frederick Lloyd, CBE (30 May 1902, Birmingham, England – 7 January 1996, Faringdon, England), was an English archaeologist. He was President of the British School of Archaeology in Iraq, Director of the British Institute of Archaeo ...
, along with James Mellaart, excavated Beycesultan on behalf of the British Institute of Archaeology at
Ankara Ankara ( , ; ), historically known as Ancyra and Angora, is the capital of Turkey. Located in the central part of Anatolia, the city has a population of 5.1 million in its urban center and over 5.7 million in Ankara Province, maki ...
for six seasons from 1954 to 1959 with each dig lasting around two months. A renewed survey of the site and its region was conducted from 2002 to 2007 by Eşref Abay of the
Ege University Ege University or Aegean University ( tr, Ege Üniversitesi) is a public research university in Bornova, İzmir. It was founded in 1955 with the faculties of Medicine and Agriculture. It is the first university to start courses in İzmir and the ...
and new excavations at the site conducted under his direction beginning in 2007. Work continues to the present in conjunction with
Adnan Menderes University Adnan ( ar, عدنان, 'adnān) is the traditional ancestor of the Adnanite Arabs of Northern, Western, Eastern and Central Arabia, as opposed to the Qahtanite Arabs of Southern Arabia who descend from Qahtan. His ancestry can be traced back t ...
.
F. Dedeoğlu-E. Abay, “Beycesultan Höyük Excavation Project: New Archaeological Evidence from Late Bronze Age Layers”, Arkeoloji Dergisi, vol. 17, pp. 1-39, 2014 While no epigraphic material has been found as yet, a few seals have been recovered. The early excavators reported "a row of small houses that had been destroyed by fire", with the champagne-glass pottery. There was also a palace "whose plan suggested ...
Knossos Knossos (also Cnossos, both pronounced ; grc, Κνωσός, Knōsós, ; Linear B: ''Ko-no-so'') is the largest Bronze Age archaeological site on Crete and has been called Europe's oldest city. Settled as early as the Neolithic period, the na ...
", which was cleared out before its destruction: :At one entrance of the palace was a kind of bathroom, where visitors washed themselves before making their bows at court. One odd feature of the inner chambers: floors raised about a yard above the ground. Beneath the floors were small passages. They suggest air ducts of a heating system, but nothing of the sort is known to have existed until 1,000 years later. Outside the palace, :Most interesting was a row of little shops. One was a Bronze Age pub with sunken vats for the wine supply and a lavish supply of glasses for serving the customers. It also had
knucklebones Knucklebones, also known as scatter jacks, snobs, astragalus, tali, dibs, fivestones, jacks, or jackstones, among many other names, is a game of dexterity played with a number of small objects that are thrown up, caught, and manipulated in va ...
, a gambling game that did the duty of a modern bar's chuck-a-luck.


Notes


See also

*
Cities of the ancient Near East The earliest cities in history were in the ancient Near East, an area covering roughly that of the modern Middle East: its history began in the 4th millennium BC and ended, depending on the interpretation of the term, either with the conquest by ...


References

*Seton Lloyd and James Mellaart, Beycesultan I. The Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age Levels, Occasional Publication of the British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara, no. 6, 1962 *Seton Lloyd, Beycesultan II. Middle Bronze Age Architecture and Pottery, Occasional Publication of the British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara, no. 8, 1962 *James Mellaart and Ann Murray, Beycesultan III pt. 1. Late Bronze Age architecture, Occasional Publication of the British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara, 1995, *James Mellaart and Ann Murray, Beycesultan III pt. 2. Late Bronze Age and Phrygian Pottery and Middle and Late Bronze Age Small Objects, Occasional Publication of the British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara, 1995,


External links


Beycesultan Excavations - British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara

Idol from Beycesultan, Turkey - 3rd Millennium - Harvard Art Museums

4,000-year-old textile mill unearthed in western Turkey - Hürriyet Daily News September 24 2020
* * {{Authority control Hittite cities Archaeological sites of ancient Anatolia Former populated places in Turkey Archaeological sites in the Aegean Region History of Denizli Province Buildings and structures in Denizli Province