4,200-year-old defensive wall unearthed at Maydos Kilisetepe

ÇANAKKALE

Works will continue at the site until the end of September. (AA Photo)

Archaeologists have unearthed a 4,200-year-old defensive wall during excavations at the Maydos Kilisetepe Mound in the Eceabat district of northwestern Türkiye’s Çanakkale province.

Excavations at the mound, located on the historic Gallipoli Peninsula, are being carried out as part of the Heritage for the Future Project with permission from the Culture and Tourism Ministry’s General Directorate of Cultural Heritage and Museums.

The excavation team, led by Göksel Sazcı, a professor at Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart University, uncovered the defensive wall at a depth of seven meters during the 17th year of excavations at the site, which is located near the sea in the district center.

Sazcı told state-run Anadolu Agency that the 2026 excavation season began on July 1 and will continue until the end of September.

He said the team is working in two separate areas this year and has pursued four main objectives since excavations began in 2010.

The first objective is to physically protect the mound, which is located within a residential area, while also informing and involving residents in educational activities to raise awareness that the site is a cultural asset that needs to be protected.

“We have achieved this, I think. There has been no damage here since the day we started excavations,” Sazcı said.

The second objective is to investigate the Early Iron Age, also known as the Dark Age.

Sazcı said the team worked in a special area this year to identify remains from the period and partially uncovered structures and destruction layers dating to the era.

Links with Thrace and Europe found

Sazcı said the third major objective was to understand the political situation of the region during the second millennium B.C. and the structure of the area during the period described by Homer.

“We obtained important results in the areas we investigated in previous years. We uncovered cultural elements that were previously unknown in the region. In particular, the region’s relations with Thrace and Eastern Europe during the second millennium B.C. were unknown,” he said.

“Based on the finds we have uncovered during the excavations, we can now make new interpretations about the region’s relations stretching from Bulgaria to Romania. We are happy about that; we achieved the result we were looking for.”

The fourth objective, Sazcı said, is to investigate the “Troy III-IV-V” periods, which are not well understood at Troy and characterize the transition from the Early Bronze Age to the Middle Bronze Age.

Sazcı recalled that finds dating to these periods had been uncovered in previous years in the northwestern section of the mound.

“This year, too, after excavating approximately seven meters of fill in an area we have been investigating for many years, we reached a defensive wall dating to the Early Bronze Age,” he said.

“We uncovered approximately four meters of the wall. We determined that it had a stone foundation slightly more than two meters high, with a mudbrick superstructure above it.”

“We also saw during our excavations that the wall was raised over time and remained in use until it lost its function. This defensive wall dates to 2100-2200 B.C. In other words, it is approximately 4,200 years old.”

Sazcı noted that the Maydos settlement was located by the sea and said the team had previously discovered fortifications from different periods in the northwestern part of the settlement, on the side facing the land.

The newly uncovered defensive wall was found in the southwestern section.

Sazcı said the team had so far investigated only about 5 percent of the site during 17 years of excavations.

“If we put it in percentage terms, we are still at the very beginning. We have been working here for 17 years, but I estimate that only 5 percent of the site has been investigated,” he said.

“My lifetime will not be enough to investigate the entire site. My students’ lifetimes will not be enough either, nor will their students’. It is a very large area.”

Sazcı described Maydos Kilisetepe as the largest mound on the Gallipoli Peninsula, noting that it is comparable in size to Hisarlık Hill, the site of ancient Troy.

“Troy has been excavated for perhaps 150 years or more. I estimate that no more than 20 percent of that area has been excavated,” he said.