Amorium Excavations

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Location: 12km east of Emirdağ, at Hisar

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Years: 1987-1998, 2000-2009, 2013-present

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Zeliha Demirel Gökalp became the full Project Director by Turkish Decree of State in 2014 and conducted her first full season that summer.

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Amorium is an archaeological site in ancient Phrygia, part of central western Anatolia. It is located at the modern Turkish village of Hisarköy, near Emirdağ, Afyonkarahisar. Excavations began in 1988 under the direction of Professor R. Martin Harrison from the University of Oxford with the intention of investigating the size and nature of the Byzantine city (sixth–eleventh century). Amorium was one of the largest and most important cities in Anatolia during the early Middle Ages becoming in the second half of the seventh century the capital of the Byzantine province or theme of Anatolikon. The archaeology of Byzantine Anatolia and of the Byzantine Dark Ages (mid-seventh through early ninth century) is relatively unknown. The work at Amorium over the past twenty years has provided a wealth of information about the site, as well as some remarkable individual finds, that have shed new light on the economic and social history of the Byzantine world. In addition to excavation, there is an extensive program of conservation, aimed at the long-term preservation of the site and its monuments.

(https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/amor/hd_amor.htm)

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