The striking wall paintings uncovered in the excavations at Çatalhöyük have fascinated archaeologists and non-archaeologists alike, and many interpretations of their content and meaning have been proposed. This article re-evaluates the claim that one of these paintings is a map of the village, with Hasan Dağ erupting above it. It is argued that the excavator's first interpretation of the objects depicted in the painting, that is, that they are a leopard skin above a panel of geometric design, is in fact a far more reasonable one, when this painting is contextualised within the entire corpus of painting and other art objects found at the site. Implications of this re-interpretation for our understanding of Neolithic spatial and symbolic representation, and the origin of mapmaking are considered, as well as the importance of the depiction of animals and felines in the Neolithic period.

Excavations and ceramic finds of the Late Chalcolithic 3 (3,700–3,500 BC) from the site of Zeytinli Bahçe, on the Turkish Euphrates, are published and discussed, with particular attention to modes of manufacture in the phase which immediately precedes the introduction of the fast wheel and mass production (middle and late Uruk). In this period, alternative modes of manufacture (coil, mould, wheel) are probable indices of experimentations in response to ever increasing economic and social needs. Ceramic classes and types are also analysed with the aim of understanding inter-regional relations in the period preceding the arrival of Uruk influence. Together with Hacınebi, Zeytinli Bahçe provides important data on Late Chalcolithic developments in the Turkish Euphrates region south of the Taurus. These help distinguish single cultural horizons, but also identify large networks of communication right down to the Iraqi Tigris. Relations of the middle Euphrates area appear to be biased eastwards, towards the Khabur river, whilst direct contacts with the regions north of the Taurus seem absent. However, indirect chronological correlations are made possible by an overview of the general distribution of ceramic typologies in the whole upper Mesopotamia and Taurus regions during the Late Chalcolithic period.

With six rock-cut tombs of Lycian type, the region south of the city of Kibyra (in the southern part of Burdur province) is the northernmost area of their distribution. Five of these are published here for the first time. Comparison with tombs in Lycia proper suggests a date in the fourth century BC. On the basis of this date and of similar tombs found in the region of Oinoanda and in the Elmalı plain, it is argued that the existence of this type of rock-cut tomb in what was part of ancient Milyas testifies to the political and cultural expansion of Lycia under ‘king’ Perikle in the 370s BC.

In the course of the late Alan Hall's survey of Oinoanda, a Graeco-Roman city of northern Lycia, between 1974 and 1983, further survey work at the site led by Stephen Mitchell in 1994 and excavations in 1997 led by the Director of Fethiye Museum, İbrahim Malkoç, and Martin Ferguson Smith, many architectural, historical and epigraphical questions have been answered or at least clarified. Other questions, however, await further fieldwork, to be carried out by others, at what is a very beautiful and forested, but rubble-strewn, waterless, and relatively inaccessible, site. In the meantime, progress can be made with the unpublished records and notes of previous campaigns. This article presents five inscribed statue bases, or their remnants, in context from the upper agora of Oinoanda.

With an overall length of about 550km, the Pontic-Cappadocian frontier was among the longest in the Roman Empire. It is also the least known, as there is a minimal amount of literary, epigraphic and archaeological evidence available for the location and identity of the province's garrison. In addition, many of the military stations known or believed to have existed on the frontier are now lost beneath the waters of the Keban dam. However, a re-examination of the available evidence, along with recent limited and spontaneous fieldwork in the region, allows for some tentative remarks to be made on the origins and early history of this frontier. These form the main subject of this article, and include the suggestion that Nero should be credited with the genesis of this frontier, not Vespasian, as usually indicated in the modern literature.

A tombstone of a legionary centurion found in Ankara proves to be of wider and greater significance than was originally recognised. Not only does it offer valuable evidence for early local recruitment patterns into the Roman legions, but, more importantly, it supplies the fifth recorded reference in the entire Roman Empire for a collegium veteranorum, a fraternity of army veterans; and the fourth known record in the whole epigraphic corpus for the albata decursio, or ‘white parade uniform’.

William Moir Calder's extraordinary volume of work is witnessed through his many publications. However, a vast resource has remained substantially untapped, namely the archives of his photographs, squeezes, maps, letters and notebooks held at the University of Aberdeen. Using the little-addressed site of ancient Colossae as the focus, Calder's notes provide interesting insights into the way he operated as a surface archaeologist in Asia Minor and yield some previously unpublished materials important for building our knowledge of ancient Colossae. In the course of investigating Calder's legacy, some new discoveries related to Colossae are also noted.

This article discusses the various ways in which the hot (caldarium) and warm (tepidarium) rooms of Roman and Byzantine bathhouses were provided with a wall heating system to complement the underfloor or hypocaust system. Several different methods were devised to create cavities in the walls through which hot air could rise. In some cases a combination of the different methods was used. One of the longest-lasting and widespread methods involved the use of terracotta spacers — small hollow terracotta tubes that were placed as wedges between the main outer wall and the inner revetted wall surface. At Amorium in Phrygia excavations of a small public bathhouse, dating to the sixth–ninth centuries AD, have brought to light a large number of these spacers, together with a few examples of much simpler spacers made out of re-used tile. Examples of both types are described in detail in an accompanying catalogue.

This article presents a study of the political and military relations of the Kingdom of Georgia and the Muslims of Anatolia from the 12th century AD up to the Mongol conquest of the region in the mid 13th century. Georgia's expansion during the 12th century and the web of marriage alliance that the Muslim rulers of Anatolia wove to protect themselves drew her into conflict even with distant principalities with which she shared no border, such as the Artukids of Mardin. Meanwhile, Erzurum appears to have been obliged to acknowledge Georgian suzerainty for much of the 12th and early 13th centuries. In the 13th century, however, the Mongol threat forced the Seljuks of Rüm and Georgia to form an alliance, and Georgians came to form a significant part of the Seljuk army. This alliance was sealed with a marriage between the Seljuk sultan and a member of the Georgian ruling house, the Bagratids, and the Seljuks appear to have derived prestige from their association with the Bagratid dynasty.