Excavations in Beşiktaş shedding more light on Istanbul’s ancient past

Ongoing excavations in Istanbul's Beşiktaş district are offering surprising and significant clues about the history of the ancient city, with one archeologist boasting the district as "Istanbul's Göbeklitepe."

Beşiktaş, located right at the heart of Istanbul by the Bosphorus, is presently a middle-class, busy quarter of the city. Every day, tens of thousands of people go through the district to commute in heavy, congested traffic. 
It looks like an unlikely place where archeologists could make important discoveries. But the excavations in Beşiktaş, which has been going on for around five years now, are revealing some astonishing insights about this ancient city's past. 

Recently, terracotta potteries, which were found eight meters below the surface at the archeological sites believed to be belonging to a period between 4,500 and 5,000 B.C during the chalcolithic era, suggest that "Istanbul's history" goes back to much earlier times than previously thought. 

"This was truly unexpected both for Istanbul and Beşiktaş…very significant archeological findings these are," said Rahmi Asal, the director of the Istanbul Archeological Museums. 

The excavations in the district, overseen by the Istanbul Archeological Museums, has been ongoing since 2016 on the site where a metro line between Kabataş and Mahmutbey, going through Beşiktaş, is currently being built. 

Previously Kurgan-type tombs from the bronze age - oldest of such tombs ever found in Turkey - were unearthed at the archaeological site.

Inside and around those 46 Kurgans, a total of 115 tombs have been unearthed. 

At the excavation site, there are 109 tombs where bodies were buried and cremated and there are also other tombs where bodies were directly buried....