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September 2, 2008
News Report of 2008 Excavations at Oymaağaç in Turkey
The Turkish Daily News has an abnormally interesting report on the ongoing excavations "at the Oymaağaç mound in the Black Sea city of Samsun's Vezirköprü district."
Like many such reports, this one almost tells us something useful.
According to Zimmermann [Thomas Zimmerman of the Anakara's Bilkent University], the most prominent findings to date at the Oymaağaç dig, which started two years ago and was expected to finish in 10 years, were the fragments of cuneiform tablets. He said they were the northernmost written sources found in Hittite Anatolia. Also, he said they had found a number of bullae, which are lumps of clay molded around a cord and stamped with a seal to prevent tampering with the contents of a container, from the Hittite imperial period in the late second millennium.. . .
Zimmerman, who is a prehistory specialist focusing on the Anatolian bronze ages, said the tiny cuneiform writing resembled that on clay tablets from the Boğazköy/Hattusha archives dealing with Nerik. He said the writings, along with several ritual texts from the Hittite period, suggested Oymaağaç had to be equated with the important Hittite cultic city of Nerik.
More details please. Don't just toy with me.
Archaeologists have exposed both Late Bronze Age and Iron Age remains. But, is this site really Nerik as the excavators seem to think/hope? Or is this the Hittite equivalent of almost knowing the location of the Ark of the Covenant? My guess is that it is more likely that the excavators are indeed excavating ancient Nerik. But a lot more work is required before even they are willing report with a very high level of certainty.
. . . [E]xcavators at the Oymaağaç mound in the Black Sea city of Samsun's Vezirköprü district are reveling in their potential find, believing the evidence is mounting and Oymaağaç will be unveiled as the holder of Nerik.
The Nerik - Oymaağaç website doesn't seem have anything from the 2008 season up as yet.
Posted by Duane Smith at September 2, 2008 7:15 PM | Read more on Archaeology |
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