Coba Höyük

Coba Höyük, also known as Sakçe Gözü or Sakçagözü, is an archaeological site in southeastern Anatolia. It is located about three kilometres north-west of the modern village of Sakçagözü in Gaziantep Province, Turkey. The site was occupied in the Pottery Neolithic, Halaf, Ubaid, Late Chalcolithic/Uruk and Neo-Hittite periods. The site has now been destroyed by modern activities.

Coba Höyük

Shown within Turkey
Alternative name	Sakçe Gözü or Sakçagözü
Location	Nurdağı, Gaziantep Province, Turkey
Region	Mesopotamia
Coordinates	37°11′12″N 36°53′29″E
Type	Settlement
Length	140 m (460 ft)
Width	90 m (300 ft)
Area	1.25 ha (3.1 acres)
Height	6 m (20 ft)
History
Periods	Pottery Neolithic, Halaf, Ubaid, Late Chalcolithic/Uruk and Neo-Hittite
Site notes
Excavation dates	1908, 1911, 1949
Archaeologists	John Garstang, John d'Arcy Waechter

History

The site appears to have been occupied on and off from the second half of the seventh millennium BC until the first millennium BC. The excavations were small scale and an exact stratigraphical sequence cannot reliably be constructed.

Iron Age

In the first millennium BC the site was part of a Neo-Hittite state, the name of the city is not known. City walls and a palace of the bit-hilani^[1] type were found at the site and date to around 730-700 B.C.

Archaeology

Lion hunt scene, found in the remains of the palace

The site was visited by Mary Scott Stevenson in 1881 who noted that there were three basalt orthostats depicting a lion hunt on the wall of a private home there.^[2] The site visited by Karl Humann and Felix von Luschan in 1890 where they made some sketches and also removed the three orthostats to take to the Pergamon Museum in Berlin.^[3] John Garstang was the first excavator in 1908 and 1911.^[4][5][6][7] He was interested in the Hittite material on the surface of the site and discovered the portico of a bit hilani Hittite palace, now in Ankara, as well as the earliest excavated Halaf period material culture.

The site was re-excavated in 1949 by a team led by John d'Arcy Waechter, after the removal of the portico by the Turkish authorities in 1939 at the outbreak of the Second World War clearing the surface of the mound.^[8]

Objects excavated at Sakçagözü can be found at museums such as the Vorderasiatisches Museum in Berlin, the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations in Ankara, and the Istanbul Museum of Ancient Oriental Works. "Coba bowls" were named after their first description from the excavations at Coba Höyük.

See also

• Tilmen Hoyuk

Referencezs

1. A plan of the hilani type building on page 146 (fig.1 "Sakje Guezi") in Podium Structures with Lateral Access by Ilan Sharon and Anabel Zarzecki-Peleg in "Confronting the Past: Archaeological and Historical Essays on Ancient Israel in Honor of William G. Dever", 2006, ISBN 1-57506-117-1, ISBN 978-1-57506-117-7
2. M. Scott-Stevenson, "Our ride through Asia Minor", London, Chapman and Hill, 1881
3. Karl Humann and Otto Puchstein, "Reisen in Kleinasien und Nordsyrien", Berlin, Dietrich Reimer, 1890
4. John Garstang, "Excavations at Sakje-Geuzi, in North Syria: preliminary report for 1908", University of Liverpool Annals of Archaeology and Anthropology 1, pp. 98-117, 1908
5. John Garstang, "Second Interim Report on the Excavations at Sakje-Geuzi in North Syria, 1911", University of Liverpool Annals of Archaeology and Anthropology 5, pp. 63-72, 1913
6. John Garstang, W. J. Phythian-Adams, V. Seton-Williams, "Third Report on the excavations at Sakje-Geuzi, 1908-1911", University of Liverpool Annals of Archaeology and Anthropology 24/3-4, pp. 119-140, 1937
7. Ali Çi̇fçi̇, "John Garstang and Sakçagözü Excavations (1908-1911)", Tarih İncelemeleri Dergisi. Xxxiv / 2, pp. 369-386, 2019
8. du Plat Taylor, J., Seton Williams, M. V., and Waechter, J., "The Excavations at Sakce Gözü", Iraq, vol. 12, no. 2. pp. 53–138, 1950

Further reading

• B. Genç, “Osmanlı Arşivleri’nde John Garstang ve Sakçagözü” John Garstang’s Footsteps Across Anatolia / Anadolu’da John Garstang’ın Ayak İzleri", (ed.) A. M. Greaves. İstanbul, Koç Üniversitesi Anadolu Medeniyetleri Araştırma Merkezi, pp. 103-114, 2015

External links

• Reliefs from Sakçagözü on the "Hittite monuments" website.
• Coba Höyük's page on the TAY project