Küllüoba Höyüğü

Küllüoba Mound is located 35 km southeast of the center of Eskişehir Province, 15 km northeast of Seyitgazi District, 1,300 meters south of Yenikent Village. The mound measures 300 x 150 meters and rises 10 meters in height. It is situated north of the Phrygian mountainous region, west of the upper Sakarya plains. All natural transportation routes coming from the areas of Ankara, Konya and Afyon converge in the region where Küllüoba is located and from there extend westward to the Eskişehir, İznik, İnegöl plains. These westward roads continue to the North Aegean, South Marmara, and consequently the Balkans.

Excavations

Excavations at the mound were initiated in 1996 under the presidency of the Eskişehir Archaeology Museum and the scientific direction of Prof. Dr. Turan Efe from the Department of Prehistory and Early Asian Archaeology of Istanbul University. The excavation work is financed by the Istanbul University Scientific Research Projects Executive Secretariat, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism and INSTAP (The Institute for Aegean Prehistory). The excavation work has continued up to the present day.

Stratification

It is stated that there was continuous settlement at the mound from the Late Chalcolithic Period to the end of the Early Bronze Age. In addition, because of pottery finds in the upper layers that are claimed to belong to the Middle Chalcolithic Period, it is thought that the settlement history extends to earlier periods. The latest dated finds belong to the Early Bronze Age Phase III, i.e., the Transition Period to the Middle Bronze Age. On the other hand, a settlement of the Late Hellenistic Period has been detected in the fields to the south and southeast of the settlement. The stratification in the western part of the mound was formerly as follows.

Phase 1 Early Bronze Age II beginnings

Phase 2 Early Bronze Age I

Phases 3 – 5 Transition from the Late Chalcolithic Period to the Early Bronze Age

6th phase Late Chalcolithic period

In the eastern part of the mound, a stratification of Early Bronze Age I at the bottom and Early Bronze Age II at the top is mentioned.

Finds

The settlement at the end of the Early Bronze Age II phase consists of an upper city and a lower city surrounded by a mudbrick wall. In the central square of the upper city, a complex of a palace defined as a megaron with multiple rooms and two similar structures has been uncovered. The houses built adjacent to the wall and facing the square, arranged on a radial plan, indicate that the “Anatolian type settlement plan,” also found at Demircihöyük within the borders of Eskişehir Province and at Pulur / Sakyol Mound in Tunceli, was applied in the Küllüoba upper city.

It is suggested that the megaron complex dated to the end of the Early Bronze Age II phase may be of Western Anatolian origin and that Mycenaean period palaces were inspired by this plan. From the Early Bronze Age II phase onward, settlements in Western Anatolia expanded and the upper city (acropolis) / lower city structure began to take shape. It is also argued that the differentiation between lower city and upper city at Küllüoba formed in the Early Bronze Age I phase. In the second phase, it is noted that the buildings in the citadel area increasingly acquired a monumental character. In this phase, larger stones began to be used in foundations, and megaron or megaron-like structures also appear.

Architectural finds of the Early Bronze Age Phase III are quite limited. Our information about Küllüoba for this period is based mainly on pottery finds. The material of this period is contemporary with Troy II–III and shows more parallelism with Troy II. The unique works of Küllüoba are depas vessels. While depas vessels used as drinking containers in Central and Western Anatolia in the Early Bronze Age are on average 20–30 cm long, Küllüoba depas vessels are 40–50 cm long.

Evaluation

The Syrian-type bottle found in the excavations indicates that the settlement was located on the Early Bronze Age "Great Caravan Route" between Cilicia and Troy. The other finds also support the identification of a trade route from Mesopotamia passing through the settlement.

It is suggested that the Küllüoba settlement dates earlier than the Demircihöyük settlement located 75 km to the west.

Monumental structures dated to the end of Early Bronze Age Phase II and regarded as palaces are seen as a reflection in architecture of the real emergence of an administrative cadre, and the first examples in Western Anatolia appear in this phase.

Küllüoba contributed significantly to a more reliable dating of the Early Bronze Age chronology of Western Anatolia and also provides a new perspective on the scale of intensive trade that emerged between distant regions in the second half of the Early Bronze Age, as well as on the development of urbanism in Western Anatolia and the Aegean world.