Mosaic Flooring Uncovered at Kultepe-Kanesh in Central Anatolia

KAYSERI, TURKEY—Türkiye Today reports that a mosaic floor dated to more than 2,000 years ago has been unearthed in central Anatolia at the site of Kültepe-Kanesh by researchers from Turkey’s Ministry of Culture and Tourism, Ankara University, and South Korea’s National Research Institute of Cultural Heritage. Kültepe-Kanesh was first settled in the third millennium B.C. and was inhabited into the Roman period. The largest surviving section of mosaic, found under four archaeological layers dated to between 323 and 30 B.C., measures about five feet square, but smaller fragments of mosaic in the area suggest that the floor had once been larger. The flooring had been set on leveled ground covered with crushed stone, fine soil, and a layer of small river pebbles and other materials. Turkish Culture and Tourism Minister Mehmet Nuri Ersoy said that the mosaic is the first to be uncovered at the site. To read about an archive of cuneiform tablets unearthed at the site, go to “Assyrian Women of Letters.”