Kerkenes

39.7535.065555555556Koordinaten: 39 ° 45 '0 "N, 35 ° 3' 56" E

Kerkenes (or Kerkenes Dagi, both names are modern) is an ancient settlement site in ancient Cappadocia in modern Turkish province of Yozgat, approximately 200 km east of Ankara near the village in the district Şahmuratlı Sorgun.

The place was first explored in 1903 by John George Clark Anderson. 1926 and 1927 took Hans Henning von der Osten and FH Blackburn explorations. Emil Forrer also visited the place 1926 1929 led Erich F. Schmidt for the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago a first short dig through. In 1993 an international project to research Kerkenes under the guidance of the British archaeologists Geoffrey Summers and Francoise Summers of the University of Technology in the Middle East in Ankara.

The Kerkenes Dagi is identified with the Hittite cult mountain Daha. After 600 BC the Medes here Pteria city was built, 547/6 BC, the Battle of Pteria took place here, which is described by Herodotus 1, 72-76. The city was destroyed by the Lydian king Croesus and then not rebuilt.

With a walled city of over 7 km and an area of ​​approximately 2.5 square kilometers, the settlement is one of the greatest ancient cities in Anatolia.

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