The Tell Kurdu Excavation Project investigates a large settlement site dating from the sixth and fifth millennium BCE in the Amuq Plain in the southern province of Hatay. The excavations are co-directed by Rana Özbal (Koç University) and Fokke Gerritsen (Netherlands Institute in Turkey). The excavations have been ongoing since 2022.
Tell Kurdu is a large settlement site dating from the sixth and fifth millennium BCE. It is located in the Amuq Plain in the southern province of Hatay, at the crossroads of the Northern Mesopotamian Plains to the East, the Anatolian Highlands to the North and the Levantine coastal regions to the South. The sixth and fifth millenniums belong to the Chalcolithic period in West Asia, a relatively understudied era between the preceding Neolithic with the establishment of farming societies and the following Bronze Ages with the appearance of literate, urban state societies and empires. The Tell Kurdu Excavations aim to shed light on the intermediate period by studying a wide range of topics and questions. The expectation is that it will demonstrate that the Chalcolithic period was much less of a cultural standstill than has often been assumed.
The Tell Kurdu Excavations are carried out with permission and support from the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of the Republic of Türkiye.
Further support is provided by the Netherlands Institute in Turkey (Istanbul), Koç University (Istanbul), Mustafa Kemal University (Hatay), and Antakya Archaeology Museum (Hatay).