Michele Massa of the Department of Archaeology has received a permit to start a new archaeological excavation at Türkmen-Karahöyük, a Bronze and Iron Age site in the Konya Plain. The project is co-led with James Osborne (University of Chicago), Fatma Şahin (Çukurova University) and Hüseyin Erpehlivan (Bilecik University).
The site was a major center of the Hittite Empire (1500–1200 BC). It became famous in 2019 when, during a preliminary survey, the team discovered a Luwian hieroglyphic inscription commissioned by a Great King Hartapu that mentioned a victory over the “Land of Mushka,” a rival state in the vicinity of Eskişehir. This shows that Türkmen-Karahöyük was likely Hartapu’s capital during the Iron Age (around 750 BC). The site was eventually destroyed by fire, approximately at the time of the Roman conquest (ca. 30 BC).
The vision of the project is to create an interdisciplinary environment in which to conduct cutting-edge research and student training and involves collaboration with specialists from Türkiye, Europe and the US.
