Elizabeth F. Carter

Professor Emerita, Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures (NELC)

NELC Home Page

 

Education

Ph.D., University of Chicago, 1971

Areas of Interest

Near East, currently working in Turkey and southeastern Turkey; Bronze Age urban sites

Research

The Kahramanmaras archaeological project aims to produce a record of long-term cultural changes in a region at a major crossroads between highlands and lowlands along the Syro-Anatolian frontier. 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. To date two hundred and twenty-seven archaeological sites have been located on a detailed 1/25,000 map. The area covered by our extensive survey was approximately 1100 square kilometers. We have discovered, recorded, and mapped manufacturing sites (flint tools, ceramics); several quarrying facilites; extensive cemetery sites, hilltop forts, and small farmsteads. The earliest site identified (KM43) dates to the Paleolithic (ca. 250,000 BC); the latest sites are of Medieval date (11–13th centuries AD). Early in the Iron Age, Kahramanmaras was the center of an independent kingdom called Gurgum. 

ADDITIONAL LINKS

A Day in the Life of the Domuztepe Excavations 

Domuztepe 2002 Field Season 

The Incirli Stela 

Turkish Newspaper Article