Melid

38.38194444444438.361111111111Koordinaten: 38 ° 22 ' 55 "N, 38 ° 21' 40" E

Arslantepe, even Arslan Tepe, Aslantepe, " Lion's Mound " was one since the 3rd millennium BC fortified settlement in Asia Minor. Today's Tell ( Dig hill ) with finds mainly from the Bronze Age in the neo- Hittite time is in eastern Anatolia, six kilometers northeast of the city of Malatya.

The early copper production is of particular interest because the population then the copper for the first time arsenic beimischte (arsenic bronze ) so you could make the first swords.

So far, to about the 6th millennium BC before returning finds. Since the Chalcolithic period (4th millennium BC) Arslantepe been continually inhabited. The oldest excavated palace dates back to 3350 BC, at about 2900 BC in the Early Bronze Age was a city wall.

A destruction horizon marks the end of Arslantepe VI A. From the following Arslantepe VI B, both typical black and red pottery and buildings with double rows of postholes to the south- Caucasian Kura - Araxes culture as conquerors.

Then it was as Malidiya the empire of the Hittites. In the 12th century BC seems to have existed a close relationship to Carchemish on the Syrian border today, as two kings derived their ancestry to King Kuzi - Teššup of Carchemish.

Later the city as Melid capital of the Neo- Hittite Empire Melid / Melidu was. In 712 BC it was conquered and destroyed by the Assyrians under Sargon II.

Excavations by L. Delaporte took place from 1932 to 1939, 1947 by Claude FA Schaeffer ( unpublished ). Since 1961, Italian archaeologists examine the Tepe. The management took over in 1990 the Roman Professor Marcella Frangipane, which is active to this day there.