Landmark findings discovered in northwestern Türkiye

ÇANAKKALE

A 3,900-year-old cylinder seal and a 3,400-year-old lead sling stone have come to light during the archaeological excavation carried out in the Maydos Church Hill Mound in the northwestern province of Çanakkale's Eceabat district.

Göksel Sazcı, an archaeologist at Onsekiz Mart University based in Çanakkale, known for the World War I Battle of Gallipoli, told the state-run Anadolu Agency on Sept. 9 that this year's excavations started in July and will continue through the middle of this month.

Noting that this year's excavations are concentrated on layers dated to the beginning of the Middle Bronze Age, namely the 2000s B.C., known as the Troy-5 period in the region and on which they have little information, he said: “We worked in two areas during this year's excavations. First, we worked in an area related to defense systems. This area is in the southwestern part of the settlement.”

"We also opened a new trench in the northwestern part of the settlement in order to investigate this period in a wider area. During our work, we also found stone tools such as bowls, pots, spindle whorls, weaving tools, metal tools and drills used by the people of that period in their daily lives. The most interesting among the finds was a cylinder seal,” he added.

Pointing out that the tradition of the cylinder seal is actually a foreign tradition to Anatolia, Sazcı said: “This tradition first emerged in southern Mesopotamia. Thanks to the trade and relations with Anatolia, it came to the middle of Anatolia towards the end of the third millennium B.C. With the progress of trade, it came to northwestern Anatolia. We saw the closest example in Tavşanlı Mound in Kütahya in western Türkiye. Such seals were also found during the excavations in Troy. This is the first example of this type of seal found in Europe outside Anatolia."

"It is also found in Greece, but it dates to a slightly later period. We can say that this practice, which dates back to approximately 3,900 years ago, spread to Europe, and even if it did not go all the way to the interior, it may have reached the Balkans, thanks to trade,” he added.

Explaining that a lead sling stone was also among their findings, Sazcı said: “Such finds have been used since the Paleolithic era, when the hunter-gatherer lifestyle prevailed."

Noting that sling stones are generally made of stone and terracotta, he said, "The ones made of lead are very rare and are mostly found in the Hellenistic and Roman periods. Such finds are mostly known from the Mediterranean island of Crete, its Knossos settlement, and the nearby island of Cyprus.”