Elif GENÇ
(Dumlupinar University, Kütahya, Turkey)
Seyitömer Höyük is located in the Seyitömer Lignite Company’s reserve zone in Kütahya. It is an ancient habitation site measuring 150×150 meters, and is situated 23.5 meters above its surroundings. The site must be excavated completely by 2010 because the Seyitömer Lignite Company intends to mine 12 million tones of exploitable coal reserve underneath it. This is the third time this site has been the subject of a research project. The Eskisehir Museum in 1989 for one season and the Afyon Museum, from 1990 to 1995, worked at Seyitömer Höyük. Both excavations together managed to clear only about 1/10th of the mound. As a result of those archeological projects, the archaeologists learned that the mound was inhabited during the Chalcolithic, Bronze, Phrygian, Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine and Seljuk periods beginning about 5000 years ago.
The previous excavations used traditional excavation and documentation methods. Our task is to incorporate the old data and use it to help us understand the site and its remains. The challenge to the archaeologist is unique, presenting problems and solutions both in completing the task using the best archaeological methods available and as a rescue excavation. This paper will explain what we have done to bring Seyitomer into the 21st century.