This book presents the structures and stratigraphy of the important Iron
Age sequence at Tille Höyuek, a mound at a crossing of the Euphrates in
eastern Turkey. The site, which was excavated between 1979 and 1990 by
the British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara, revealed ten major
structural levels of the Iron Age, spanning the period from the 11th
century to the 6th-4th centuries BC, as well as earlier and later
remains, and the wide exposure of architecture provides a sequence of
intelligible and impressive building plans. After the initial discussion
of the background and methodology of their excavation, the successive
levels are carefully described and fully illustrated. The earliest Iron
Age occupation, simple buildings among the ruins of the Late Bronze Age,
was followed by a major settlement of the Middle Iron Age, when the
Neo-Hittite kingdom of Kummuh was at its height. Most impressive
architecturally are a large palatial building centred on a courtyard
paved with a pebble mosaic, which was probably built after the Assyrian
annexation of Kummuh in 708 BC and continued in use through the seventh,
and the excellently preserved Level X with many distinctively Persian
architectural features (built in the latter half of the 6th or the early
5th century and probably lasting for a substantial time). The structures
and stratigraphy are also important as the context for the first
rigorously established ceramic sequence in this part of Turkey, which
will be presented, together with the other materials and artefacts, in
the companion to this volume (already complete in draft). Lying on the
fringes of the Mesopotamian world, and with contacts with North Syria,
North Mesopotamia, and the Levant rather than with Anatolia or the
Mediterranean, Tille casts vivid new light on the cultural and political
history of the region in the Iron Age.