EXCAVATIONS AND RESEARCHES AT ARSLANTEPE-MALATYA (TURKEY)
ARSLANTEPE-MALATYA, Eastern Turkey, is a 30 m. high mound with a long sequence of levels from the 6th mill. BC to the Byzantine period. The many years of estensive and stratigraphic excavation have brought to light the history of the site and the whole SE Anatolian region at the border of the Mesopotamian world. The researches at the site have allowed to better understand the origin of crucial phenomena such as the rise of the State and hierarchical societies.
The discovery of the first example of a palatial complex from 3300 BC with a great deal of in situ materials, among which thousands of seal impressions, has allowed us to reconstruct the birth of bureaucracy and centralized economy. The recent discovery of a tripartite temple and a unique open area for ritual activities and burials, confirm the importance of the site in the phases of development of social complexity and an earlier monumental mudbrick building might have been used by the earliest elites of Arslantepe.
In the NE part of the site, a long and interesting sequence of the 2nd and 1st millennia BC shows that Arslantepe underwent crucial changes in the periods of formation, expansion and collapse of the Hittite Empire in Central Anatolia and became a capital of its region, strategic border between the main Near Eastern civilizations.
In 2013, Arslantepe has been included by the Turkish authorities in the provisional list of the UNESCO World Cultural Heritage and an international work group to which belong members of the present project is involved in the preparation of all requirements (site management plan, conservation etc).
In recognition of the important results obtained, the director has been elected Foreign Member of the NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES, as member of the Italian ACCADEMIA DEI LINCEI (2018), has obtained the DE SICA PRIZE FOR SCIENCE (2015) and ROTONDI PRIZE (2017). A DISCOVERY AWARD has been granted to the project by the Shanghai Archaeology Forum in 2016.