Until the National Geographic Society sponsored our surveys in 1993-1994, no serious archaeological work had been done in the Kahramanmaras region of south central Turkey since 1887. A major goal of our archaeological surveys is to create a series of maps that will place the archaeological sites in their environmental settings through time.
Erosion often leaves behind ceramic and flint artifacts on the surface of archaeological sites.
These artifacts can be dated by comparisons to known sequences and allow us to study the visible remains of the ways that people have found to live with each other over six millennia. 1,100 square kilometers. Although Kahramanmaras was a quintessential periphery through most of its historic existence, early in the Iron Age, c. 1000 BC, it was the center of an independent kingdom called Gurgum. Two new major monuments of Iron Age date have been discovered in the course of our surveys. They illustrate the contacts of highlands and lowlands in our area.