Madra River Delta Project
The aim of this project was the publication of prehistoric material of the Madra River Delta Project, which took place from 1994–97 under the direction of Kyriacos Lambrianides and Nigel Spencer. Original documentation of the Early Bronze Age sites Yeldeğirmentepe und Hüyücektepe was published and analysis of the material allows insights into variations in regional connectivity during prehistory.
The interdisciplinary Madra River Delta Project was carried out under the direction of Kyriacos Lambrianides and Nigel Spencer from 1994-97, and provided numerous prehistoric finds from surface surveys and exploratory excavations. The prehistoric material culture assemblage from the project has been prepared for publication by Barbara Horejs and Maria Röcklinger as part of a joint publication project with the project directors.
The close proximity of the region to the countryside of Pergamon, investigated since 2008 (see the project Survey of the prehistoric surroundings of Pergamon), allows a direct comparative analysis of micro-regional characteristics that will contribute to a new definition of the region between the so-called cultural horizons of Troy, Yortan and the Bay of İzmir in the Early Bronze Age. Typological frameworks for the finds in the Madra River Delta, contextualised within the broader cultural context, have been developed in our study based on the documentation of the survey and excavations of the Delta sites of Yeldeğirmentepe and Hüyücektepe.
In 2016 a Madra River Delta Project workshop with N. Spencer was organized in Vienna. The aim of the meeting was to discuss the final publication of the project, which has been published in the Annual of the British School at Athens volume 116, 2021. We would like to express our sincere thanks to a generous grant from The Institute for Aegean Prehistory (INSTAP) who supported our publication preparation work and the development of this online archive.