Kınık Höyük, a new excavation in Southern Cappadocia, Turkey

After a four-year survey in Southern Cappadocia, in 2011 archaeological excavations began at Kınık Höyük, in the province of Nigde, Turkey. The topography of the site suggested that this was one of the regional centers of Pre-classical Anatolia. The identification is still open, but surface finds and the first two campaigns of excavation indicate that one of the main settlement phases of Kınık was during the Middle Iron Age. The latest phase of the incredibly well preserved citadel walls date to this period and are the focus of a stabilization project, with the goal of developing the site into an open-area museum.

The Middle Iron Age is also the period to which the largest group of landscape monuments found in Central Anatolia dates: the monuments of the forgotten kingdom of Tuwana -stelae and rock reliefs, from this very same region. The kingdom is still unexplored archaeologically, and Kınık must have been one of its main centers, if not its capital.

While the latest phases of the site occupation will be presented in association with the main results of the survey, the lecture will focus on the floruit of the Tuwana kingdom and its aftermath, the Late Iron Age, for which the excavations provided interesting and novel results.

Registration is closed, the event is full.

To RSVP, please email isaw@nyu.edu.