Posted on 06/04/2006 3:50:08 PM PDT by blam
Ancient stone tablets could shed light on Surtepe excavations
Wednesday, May 31, 2006
Results are being presented this week at the 28th International Congress on Excavations, Surveys and Research in Turkey, which started on Monday in Çanakkale, a western province that is also home to the ruins of ancient Troy
ANKARA - Turkish Daily News
Ancient stone tablets and seals unearthed during archaeological excavations at the Surtepe tumulus, seven kilometers north of Birecik in the southeastern province of Þanlýurfa, could shed light on other ancient structures discovered in the area.
A team of experts headed by project director Jesus Gil Fuensanta of Spain who have been working in the area as part of the Tilbes salvage project, discovered a monumental building -- believed to belong to the Persian-Achaemenid period prior to the conquest by Alexander the Great -- at the Surtepe mound during excavations in 2005.
Surtepe is a large site covering 50 hectares and is believed to have been an area of settlement even during the Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze ages (fourth and third millennia B.C.).
Fuensanta explained in a statement issued on Monday that the Persian building "was found in a place formerly uncovered by villagers.”
"It had an official use until the early fourth century B.C. Up to three meters of its massive mud-brick walls were preserved, and it has traces of a paved court. During the 2005 excavations, different rooms of the building were also excavated. On the inside, which was partly burnt, were typical Achaemenid pots and fragments and administrative artifacts."
Among the finds in the site are a royal glass seal in the Achaemenid style that had been disfigured by fire and depicts a fertility scene with a leader praying, said Fuensanta.
Another impression on a jar shows a typical iconograph of royal worship. Experts say the excavations provided evidence of ostraca (ceramic fragments with inscriptions). According to Herbert Sauren, a German specialist in ancient Semitic languages, one of the seals has official Aramaic (the administrative language of the Achaemenids) writing and refers to the capacity of a vessel.
Fuensanta believes that an enigmatic finding from the same archaeological season, a stone tablet with an inscription, could be associated with the Persian building. According to a preliminary study by Sauren the inscription on the find was made in Semitic, in use around the middle of first millennium B.C. The language has the main elements of usual big groups of Semitic languages. After Sauren's translation and interpretation, it was discovered that the stone document was issued by the leader of this city (Surtepe, the ancient name of which is not yet clear) to thank a deity for his assumption of power.
Separately, assistant team leader Eduardo Crivelli noticed that the few animal bones found at the site mostly belonged to horses, the statement said. The horse was a regular theme in Persian iconography of the period, it added.
The results of the studies are being presented this week at the 28th International Congress on Excavations, Surveys and Research in Turkey, which started on Monday in Çanakkale, a western province that is also home to the ruins of ancient Troy.
Some 274 presentations were scheduled for the five-day congress, held at Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart University's Terzioðlu campus with the participation of numerous Turkish and foreign archaeologists who have been working in different ancient sites throughout Turkey.
One of them, Professor Ernst Pernicka of Germany's Tübingen University -- who is currently heading the excavation team working at ancient Troy -- was also in attendance.
Pernicka, who replaced Professor Manfred Osman Korfmann upon his unexpected death last August, told reporters during the conference that he was planning to finalize the scientific studies Korfmann had launched on ancient Troy and to present the results of these studies in the near future.
Pernicka also said he would continue efforts started by Korfmann to have the ancient treasures of Troy returned to Turkey.
GGG Ping.
I love this stuff! Archaeological finds that is ... Archaeologist really dig the past.
:groan:
Yeah, they got the dirt on all them old dudes!
Seriously, though.
What do you think a top archaeologist urns?
If we ever learn your address, you're doomed.
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If we ever learn your address, you're doomed.See, you're in big trowel now.
Deep corpolite too.
:'D
I wonder if the archaeologists involved are making any trenchant comments?
They're too stoned.
They're too stoned from all that dust.
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