An Evaluation of a Seal-impressed Pottery Stopper from a Workshop in the Early Bronze Age I Settlement at Hacılar Büyük Höyük (Burdur, Türkiye)

Abstract

Excavations carried out so far at Hacılar Büyük Höyük have uncovered a settlement dating to the Early Bronze Age I period. This settlement has a strong defence system, which extends from south to north on the western side of the mound and was used as a residence. It has a storage area near the centre that this system had surrounded. It is also likely that there were some public buildings and a palace/ruler’s residence in the central section of the mound that has not yet been excavated. In recent years, new trenches were opened up in the western part of the mound with the aim of finding answers to questions such as how the Western Gate was connected to the city and what the layout of the inner sections of the settlement surrounded by the city walls looked like. During the 2024 and 2025 excavation seasons, two buildings that appear to have formed a workshop complex were uncovered east of the Western Gate. Small and medium-sized jugs, a spherical-headed metal pin and awls, a schematic bone figurine, sewing needle and bone awls, and a tool formed from an antler as well as numerous goat and deer antlers and bones (some of which had been worked on) were found in and around the structures, suggesting that these buildings were not ordinary residences but were used as a workshop. A seal-impressed stopper of a pottery vessel found in this area provides insight into the use of seals and their symbolism in pre-literate times.