PodcastArslantepe Mound in Turkey's Malatya added to UNESCO World Heritage List
The 8,000-year-old ancient mound of Arslantepe in southeast Turkey has been added to UNESCO's list of World Heritage Sites. The addition of the mound brings the number of World Heritage Sites in Turkey to 19.
A 30-meter-high archaeological mound in southeastern Turkey dating back some 8,000 years, Arslantepe Mound was added to the UNESCO World Heritage List, the Turkish Foreign Ministry said on July 26.
The archaeological site of Arslantepe is located on the Malatya plain, five kilometers from the city center and 15 km from the Euphrates River, said UNESCO in a statement.
“The site also testifies to the fact that these crucial changes in human history took place for the first time over a large area including, besides Mesopotamia, the Euphrates region in Eastern Anatolia,” it said.
The long history of the site, located at the crossroads of the main civilizations of the Near East, reportedly reveals crucial events and processes of change in connection with the contemporary developments in Mesopotamia, Anatolia and the South Caucasus.
“This research has enlightened the millenarian history of the Upper Euphrates region and makes Arslantepe an exceptional testimony to crucial stages in the human history: the birth of hierarchical societies, that of the first centralized political and economic systems, the origin of bureaucracy and its first working system, the rise of a systematic control on human labour, in other words, the origin of power and the State,” said UNESCO.