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Excavations at Maydos Kilisetepe reveal a 4,200-year-old defense wall
Excavations at the Maydos Kilisetepe Mound on the Gallipoli Peninsula in Çanakkale have uncovered an Early Bronze Age defense wall at a depth of 7 meters. About 4 meters of the wall, dated to 2100–2200 BC, has been exposed, while only 5 percent of the mound has been examined.
Excavations at the Maydos Kilisetepe Mound on the Gallipoli Peninsula in Çanakkale have uncovered a defense wall dating back approximately 4,200 years. The wall was reached at a depth of 7 meters during work at the mound, which is located near the sea.
The work is being carried out with the permission of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism's General Directorate of Cultural Heritage and Museums, with the support of the Çanakkale Governorship and sponsorship from İÇDAŞ, as part of the Heritage for the Future Project.
The team, led by Professor Göksel Sazcı, a faculty member at Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart University's Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, is working in two separate areas in the 17th year of the excavations. The 2026 excavation season began on July 1, and the work is planned to continue until the end of September.
The excavations have four main objectives
Excavation director Professor Göksel Sazcı said they had set four main objectives for the work that began in 2010. The first objective is to physically preserve the mound within the settlement area and raise local residents' awareness that the site is a cultural asset that must be protected.
Sazcı said no damage had occurred at the site since the excavations began. Under the second objective, remains and ruins from the Dark Age, also known as the Early Iron Age, are being investigated, and some findings from the period were uncovered this year in a specific area.
The third objective is to understand the region's political structure in the second millennium BC and the conditions during the period described by Homer. Finds from previous excavations have enabled new assessments of the Maydos area's relations with Thrace and Eastern Europe. These relations were said to be connected to a geographical area extending from Bulgaria to Romania.
The fourth objective is to investigate the Troy III, IV and V periods, which are not sufficiently known at Troy and represent the transition from the Early Bronze Age to the Middle Bronze Age. Finds from these periods had previously been identified in the northwestern part of the mound.
Four meters of the wall have been exposed
This year, the Early Bronze Age defense wall was reached after approximately 7 meters of fill had been excavated. About 4 meters of the wall has been exposed, and the structure was found to have a stone foundation slightly more than 2 meters high, topped by an adobe superstructure.
The wall was found to have been raised over time and used until it lost its function. The structure dates to 2100–2200 BC and is estimated to be approximately 4,200 years old.
Fortification walls from different periods had previously been found in the northwestern section of the Maydos settlement, which lies on the seashore, on the side facing inland. The new defense wall was uncovered in the southwestern section of the settlement.
Only 5 percent of the mound has been examined
Approximately 5 percent of the Maydos Kilisetepe Mound has been examined during the excavations, which have continued for 17 years. Professor Sazcı said the mound was the largest on the Gallipoli Peninsula and was similar in size to Hisarlık Hill in Troy.
Sazcı said he estimated that no more than 20 percent of the site had been examined in Troy despite excavations continuing there for approximately 150 years, adding that work at Maydos was still in its early stages.
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