🇹🇷 Turkey · Ancient city
Tilmen Höyük
EB III to Byzantine · Yamhad/Amorite → Hittite → Neo-Assyrian → Byzantine
Old Babylonian Amanus-pass palace-fortress Tilmen with lion gate, archive and Yamhad vassal capital.
🇸🇾 Syria · Pyramid
Mari — Tell Hariri Ziggurat and Palace Mound
Early Bronze to Old Babylonian (2900–1759 BCE) · Sumerian, Amorite
Legendary Euphrates emporium at Tell Hariri, 120 km south-east of Deir ez-Zor, capital of Amorite kingdom under Yahdun-Lim and Zimri-Lim, sacked by Hammurabi 1761 BCE, freezing palace archive of…
🇹🇷 Turkey · Tell
Norsuntepe
Chalcolithic–Iron Age (c.4000–800 BCE) · Ubaid → Early Transcaucasian → Hurrian → Hittite → Urartian hinterland
Keban rescue tell (Ubaid–Iron Age, 35 m high, EBA palace) now submerged under Lake Keban.
🇹🇷 Turkey · Ancient city
Uşaklı Höyük (candidate Zippalanda)
Early Bronze to Iron Age (3000–600 BCE; Hittite peak 1400–1200 BCE) · Hattian → Hittite → Phrygian
Zippalanda candidate — Hittite storm-god city with palace letters and queen's festival archive.
🇹🇷 Turkey · Ancient city
Beycesultan Höyük
Late Chalcolithic to Middle Bronze to Byzantine · Western Anatolian (Troy I prelude → Hittite Luwian)
Multi-period mega-tell (c.4000 BCE Late Chalcolithic to 1200 BCE Byzantine, peak EBA–MBA) dominating Çivril Plain on Meander headwaters, excavated 1954–59 by Seton Lloyd & James Mellaart then 2007–…
🇸🇾 Syria · Tell
Tell Sakka
Early Bronze Age III–IV (c.2600–2000 BCE) · Southern Syria EB (Ghouta palace culture)
Ghouta EB palace 8 ha (c.2600–2000 BCE, wall paintings, double enceinte) 18 km SE Damascus.
🇹🇷 Turkey · Ancient city
Arslantepe (Malatya)
Late Chalcolithic to Neo-Hittite (5000 BCE–700 BCE; palace phase 3400–3000 BCE; Neo-Hittite 1200–712 BCE) · Late Chalcolithic / Kura-Araxes / Hittite / Neo-Hittite
Tell city type site for emergence of state and palace economy (3400–3000 BCE): Late Chalcolithic palace (Room A 900) with wall paintings, storerooms with mass-produced bowls, sword hoard (earliest…
🇹🇷 Turkey · Tell
Girnavaz
Early Bronze Age to Iron Age (c.3000–600 BCE) · Hurrian → Mittanian → Neo-Assyrian
Nusaybin palatial tell 13 m high (Mitanni–Assyrian palace, Nuzi ware, tablets) on Tigris watershed.
🇸🇾 Syria · Ancient city
Qatna
Early Bronze to Late Bronze (Amorite Hurrian) · Amorite then Hurrian-Mitanni Egyptian orbit
Mighty Middle Bronze (c.2800–1340 BCE) kingdom city of Qatna controlling eastern Homs basin, with 1 km-square royal palace (largest Bronze Age palace in Syria, 10,000 m²) and intact royal hypogeum…
🇦🇫 Afghanistan · Ancient city
Mundigak
Chalcolithic to Bronze Age (c.4000–2000 BCE, Helmand Culture) · Helmand / Mundigak–Shahr-i Sokhta
Helmand Culture capital 55 km NW of Kandahar — 75×32 m Bronze Age palace with 10 m sequence.