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The site of Sirkeli Höyük in the province of Adana in modern Turkey is one of the largest settlement mounds in Plain Cilicia. In 2012, a geophysical survey revealed that the ancient settlement was not confined to the höyük, but also encompassed an extensive lower town to the southeast of the main mound. To gain information on the dating and development of this part of the settlement, an excavation area ("Sector F") was opened at a spot where the magnetometry survey suggested the presence of a city gate. Since then, archaeological work in this area has continuously produced new discoveries that help us understand how this residential area and its inhabitants developed throughout the periods of its occupation. Especially the Iron Age (Neo Cilician period) levels, which cover approximately the 11th–7th centuries B.C., provide important information on how this urban center of the Neo Hittite kingdom Hiyawa/Que changed over time and to which extent historical events impacted the people living in one of its residential areas. This contribution discusses the stratigraphic sequence, the pottery, and the archaeobotanical remains discovered in Sector F during the 2013–2019 campaigns, and concludes with a synthesis of the development in this area from a historical perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1937, British archaeologist John Garstang (1876-1956) excavated several trenches at the site of Kazanlı Höyük as part of the Neilson Expedition in Cilicia. The site is located in Plain Cilicia, approximately 2 km from the modern coastline (ca. 11 km east of modern-day Mersin, and 17 km west of Tarsus, roughly located by the ancient/modern road connecting these two cities). After these short trial excavations, however, Garstang's interest shifted to the site of Mersin/Yumuktepe, where he then excavated for a number of years. Apart from two very brief preliminary reports on his excavations at Kazanlı Höyük, which were published in the journal "Annals of Archaeology and Anthropology of the University of Liverpool," not much is known about his work at the site. Unpublished photographs kept in the Special Collections of the University College London (UCL) shed new light on Garstang's work at the site. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]