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Excavations at Can Hasan: First Preliminary Report, 1961

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2013

D. H. French
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Extract

The village of Can Hasan is situated in the Kaza of Karaman, in the Vilayet of Konya, about 13 km. north-east of the town of Karaman. Can Hasan is a small village of about three hundred people, lying in a wide and fertile plain, not too far from the first low foothills of the Taurus. The approximate height of the village above sea level is 1,000 m.

Geographically the importance of Karaman and its surrounding villages lies in its unique position at the end of the route (Fig. 1) through the Taurus which begins at Silifke and follows the Gök Su (Calycadnus) as far as Mut, from where there is little difficulty in crossing the watershed between the river valley and the Karaman plain. This is one of the great routes through the Taurus and one of the easiest: there are others. All of them are used even to-day, when nomads with pack animals travel up to 300 km. through the Taurus from summer to winter pastures.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Anatolian Studies , Volume 12 , December 1962 , pp. 27 - 40
Copyright
Copyright © The British Institute at Ankara 1962

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References

1 Can Hasan is the spelling on the Turkish 1 : 200,000 map. Canasun is the spelling in Kiepert and the 1950 census report, Canason in the 1955 report. The form Can Hasan, therefore, is probably a recent version of this older name.

2 To-day by the Sertavul beli.

3 DTCFD. X (1952), 167 ff.Google Scholar, map 4.

4 AS. IV (1954), 175 ff.Google Scholar, particularly 187, Figs. 62, 68, 71–5, 80, 81. These sherds are unfortunately no longer to hand.

5 AS. XI (1961), 159 ffGoogle Scholar. (to be continued). I have not seen the Neolithic sherd illustrated in AS. XI, Fig. 4: 6. No Neolithic sherds were found on a pre-excavation survey by the expedition and no stray sherds turned up during the excavation.

6 For a distribution map of Halaf ware see Mellaart, in Dawn of Civilization, 64Google Scholar.

7 There is perhaps an analogy at Hacılar where Level I was found towards the edge of the mound and Level II lay close to the surface in the middle.

8 The whole of the mound was gridded into 10 m. squares; these were labelled, as can be seen from the plan, west to east by letter, and north to south by number. Each 10 m. square was subdivided into four 5 m. squares (a, b, c, d) and all finds related to their stratigraphic position within each minor square. Sherds are marked, for example, (Batch) 85, CAN 61, S 23 a .

9 The most obvious possibility is some form of external stair to the roof and a descent by ladder from there to the ground floor.

10 A wind from the north is indicated by the line of burning; this is the Poyraz of summer and autumn, roughly June to September.

11 The finds are at present divided between the Konya and Ankara museums. The heavy stone and miscellaneous objects are in Konya, the stratified pottery and finer objects in Ankara.

12 This summary is intentionally brief. A detailed analysis is left until we have a more “significant bulk of material”.

13 It is perhaps a little too early to consider possible relations between Can Hasan and Büyük Güllücek but the question may later have to be raised whether the origins of Büyük Güllücek Late Chalcolithic should be sought in the Konya Plain.