Beycesultan 1

The mound of Beycesultan was excavated for six consecutive seasons 1954-9, by the British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara under the direction of Mr. Seton Lloyd. It is a very large mound, dominating the more fertile end of the Civril valley, through which the upper reaches of the River Menderes (Meander) wind down from their source at Dinar. In selecting this mound as the object of a long-term excavating programme in 1953, the Council of the institute were guided by two parallel lines of approach. One was a proposed attempt to investigate the location and history of the great Anatolian state called Arzawa in the Hittite period. The other was the selection of a site at which a true archaeological cross-section could be obtained of a major Bronze Age city in the heart of Western Anatolia.