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Archaeologists in Denizli’s Cal district say this year’s excavation at Asagiseyit Hoyuk—hoyuk means an ancient settlement mound—exposed a burned house dating back 4,500 years and the curtain wall of a Hellenistic-period fort roughly 2,300 years old.
Assoc. Prof. Erim Konakci, who has led the long-running dig for Izmir Democracy University since 2001, added that the mound preserves continuous occupation from the Late Chalcolithic through the Roman era in what is now Türkiye.
Konakci’s team documented four successive architectural phases from the Early Bronze Age, including the charred remains of a domestic building whose north and south walls survive to a striking height.
Inside, they identified everyday objects—ceramic vessels, figurines, and tools of bone and bronze—alongside botanical traces of wheat, fig and grape.
He noted that jars placed within house interiors also held infant burials, a practice sometimes seen in early urban communities. The presence of grape pips suggests that the district’s now-famous viticulture has roots stretching back millennia.
“It was exciting to encounter building groups we know date to 4,500 years ago within a cultural deposit three to four meters deep,” Konakci said.
In a second excavation area, the team uncovered a fortification wall that they date to 280 B.C. While "Hellenistic" refers to the centuries after Alexander the Great, Konakci linked this local construction to regional turbulence between the Galatians and the Seleucid kingdom.
After a clash remembered locally as the “Elephant War,” Seleucid authorities sought to secure their domains with lookout posts and compact forts. Asagiseyit Hoyuk, set on a strategic rise, appears to have functioned as one such security node rather than a purely agrarian outpost.
Because later settlement did not overbuild the fort, archaeologists can expose the structure with minimal disturbance.
Konakci underlined that Hellenistic fort excavations are relatively few in the region, making the site and its forthcoming finds especially valuable for understanding frontier defense in western Anatolia.
The mound has yielded evidence for at least eight phases of habitation between the Late Chalcolithic and the Roman period.
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