ARSLANTEPE ARSLANTEPE

The occupation sequence at Arslantepe is uninterrupted from the Late Chalcolithic (V millennium BCE) to the Byzantine period.
The mound is more than 30m high and 4ha wide. The 30m are constituted by hundreds of different occupation phases, each overlying one another. The earliest exposed levels are those of Late Chalcolithic 1-2 (period VIII) and are characterized by a domestic occupation. Following periods VII and VIA see growing social and political complexity and the formation of an early state system. The Palatial complex of period VIA is a more than 4000 mq building still standing with walls 3m in height and today open to the public.
Periods VIB-C-D (Early Bronze Age) see sequences of villages occupied by more or less sedentary people as well as the Middle Bronze Age (period VA). During the Late Bronze Age (period IV) Arslantepe becomes one of the provinces of the Hittite Empire and later (period III) capital of a Neo-Hittite reign until its destruction by Sargon II of Akkad in 712 BCE. After this the site will be only randomly occupied by small households during the Roman and Byzantine periods, when the proper roman castrum of Melitene (military outpost) will be instead moved more to the east, nearer to the border of the Empire, along the river Euphrates. Last occupation of the mound is that of a Christian cemetery.