Kalehöyük at the very center of history in Anatolia

The revelations from the ancient site of Kalehöyük in Central Anatolia have provided traces from at least seven different civilizations, but even more are believed to lie below the surface, says Japanese Professor Sachihiro OmuraAnatolia has long been a crossroads of civilization, but Kalehöyük in the very center of Anatolia might just have reason to claim that it is at the center of it all.

Archaeologists working at the site, in the province of K?r?ehir's Kaman district, have revealed the traces of seven different civilizations over the past 30 years.

"The Ottomans are on the top layer. They are followed by the Seljuk, Byzantine, Roman, Phrygian, Hittite and Assyrian civilizations. There is also the Mycenaean culture below these civilizations in the 3,000s as well as other cultures, but we haven't reached them yet. Cultures are on top of each other here. Kalehöyük is the very center of Central Anatolia," said Sachihiro Omura, a Japanese professor who has been focusing on Hittite history in the area since 1985. 

Omura said they had started excavations in 1985 in Kalehöyük, where Italians and American had worked before, with surface surveys, discovering a cultural heritage stretching back nearly 5,500 years in the region.
 
Kalehöyük needs at least 50 more years of excavations, Omura said.

"This place is home to world history," Omura said. "Here, working on the artifacts found during excavations means reading world history. In my opinion, Anatolia is so important in terms of world history. For example, I have worked in Egypt, but it has a single culture unlike Anatolia or Greece. Anatolia has history before the Hittites." 

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