Abstract
EXAMPLES illustrative of the whole of the remarkable range of pottery discovered by Prof. John Garstang in his archaeological investigations on the prehistoric Cilician site of Mersin in Asia Minor (see NATURE, March 18, p. 464) are to be available for study in Great Britain. Prof. Garstang, in the course of an account of his excavations before the Society of Antiquaries of London on May 11, paid a tribute to the Turkish Government not only for the facilities afforded him for excavation, but also for the generosity with which the authorities had allowed a selection of no fewer than five hundred pieces to be brought to England for exhibition on long-term loan. In making his selection, Prof. Garstang added, his aim had been to secure that the series should be as representative as possible of the whole sequence of development on this very ancient site, and also to demonstrate in the sequence the position of the remarkable early architectural remains, which had been discovered-o at present the oldest known. A number of specimens of the pottery were shown by Prof. Garstang to illustrate his lecture, including wares of the Cilician-Hittite periods, as well as of the whole range of the series of the chalcolithic culture, in which several new types are included. Attention was specially directed to the examples of the black ware with white decoration of the late chalcolithic culture of about 3000 B.C., and the trichrome ware from the sixteenth level, showing direct contact with predynastic Mesopotamia and the Tell Halaf culture. Wares from the neolithic level, still incompletely explored, were also shown. Arrangements are being made for the pottery to be allocated to the British Museum and museums at Oxford, Cambridge, Birmingham, Liverpool, Edinburgh, Glasgow and elsewhere. Prof. Garstang also spoke of his discoveries in Cilicia in a Friday evening discourse at the Royal Institution on May 12.
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Pottery from Mersin, Cilicia. Nature 143, 847 (1939). https://doi.org/10.1038/143847d0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/143847d0