Korea's National Research Institute of Cultural Heritage has uncovered the remains of a Hellenistic-era mosaic at Kultepe in central Turkey. The Kyunghyang Shinmun reported on the 29th that it comes 78 years after full-scale excavation began in 1948.
According to the Kyunghyang Shinmun, the institute, under the Korea Heritage Service, worked with Turkey's Ministry of Culture and Tourism and Ankara University to excavate a Hellenistic mosaic structure dating from roughly 323 to 30 BC at Kultepe. Professor Fikri Kulakoglu of Ankara University, at a press briefing in Seoul on the 27th, praised the Korean researchers, saying in effect that Koreans are sharp and thorough.
광고 문의 · 300×250Kultepe is an ancient city near Kayseri in central Anatolia. It was the capital of the Kanesh kingdom before the Hittite empire and a trading center for Assyrian merchants. About 23,500 cuneiform clay tablets recording merchants' deals and daily life from some 4,000 years ago were found there, and they were inscribed on UNESCO's Memory of the World register in 2015.
Hellenistic daily life surfaces in a Bronze Age city
In April 2024 the two countries agreed to widen cooperation on heritage conservation and restoration and to excavate Kultepe jointly. The Korean team did about 45 days of fieldwork in each of last year and this year, and found traces of Hellenistic-era construction east of the Warsama palace in the upper city. The mosaic building is thought to date from around 300 BC; builders packed a foundation of stone and earth and then laid small river pebbles for the floor.
Mosaics are rare in central Anatolia. Professor Kulakoglu said that because skilled craftsmen were required, the site was probably important and may have been a sacred place used for rituals. The area yielded traces of at least three buildings and four overlapping occupation layers, showing how buildings were rebuilt and spaces reused.
The Korean team records the site and finds with three-dimensional surveying to produce precise drawings, and paleoenvironment and conservation specialists have taken part from the start, analyzing mosaic materials and animal bones. Pottery, which comes out in tens of thousands of pieces per season, is recorded digitally to cut errors and time. Researchers from five countries, Korea, the United States, Italy, Japan and Australia, take part, with the Korean team joining last year.
Turkey is preparing to apply next year to inscribe Kultepe, on its World Heritage tentative list since 2014. The two countries will hold a third excavation season from May to July next year, and to mark the 70th anniversary of diplomatic ties the National Palace Museum of Korea will host a special exhibition from August to October on the joint findings. Park Yun-jung, head of the archaeology division, called the work a turning point that widens Korea's overseas surveys from sites of its own ancient history to joint research on world ancient civilizations.
