Abstract
EXCAVATIONS at Mersin in Cilicia by the Neilson Expedition to the Near East of the University of Liverpool during the present season have more than justified the anticipation of last year that this site would afford evidence of settlement and early cultural development equal in antiquity to, if not surpassing, anything yet recorded in the Mosopotamian region. According to Prof. Garstang's preliminary report on this season's work (The Times, March 10), the sixteenth level of excavation has been found to contain the well-preserved remains of a fortified city—a whole group of great buildings laid out with plan and purpose. This level lies twenty feet below the imperial Hittito fortress uncovered last year; and in it chalcolithic deposits lie beneath a stratified series of building levels, in which the culture is related to the early predynastic Mesopotamian cultures of Uruk and Tell Ubaid. The cultural affinity with predynastic Mesopotamia of the sixteenth level itself is demonstrated by evidence of direct contact with the polychrome phase of the still older Tell Halaf culture. Prof. Garstang's approximate dating assigning this cultural level at Mersin to 3600 B.C. is therefore to be regarded as by no means excessively high; while the line of fortifications with its abutting ‘married quarters’, and the chief's residence, all brick-built and not of stone, it is to be noted, thus constitute the oldest known example of architecture.
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Early Civilization and Cultural Relations in Cilicia. Nature 143, 464–465 (1939). https://doi.org/10.1038/143464c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/143464c0