Megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones)
Velika Deresi Tümülüsü
DatedEst. 700–50 BCE
No licensed photograph yetWe have no photograph we may publish for this site, so the interpretive 3D view leads instead.
Overview
About this site
Overview
Velika Deresi Tümülüsü is a megalithic mound in Demirköy district, Turkey. It lies at 41.8704° N, 27.6174° E.
Catalogue recordSources and licences
Where it sits in time
The site's dated range, placed against world reference points.
The scale is logarithmic: each step to the left is about ten times older than the last.
Article
Velika Deresi Tümülüsü
ContextSources for this section
- en.wikipedia.orgCC BY-SA 4.0
- en.wikipedia.orgCC BY-SA 4.0
- en.wikipedia.orgCC BY-SA 4.0
- en.wikipedia.orgCC BY-SA 4.0
- en.wikipedia.orgCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- en.wikipedia.orgCC BY-SA 4.0
- en.wikipedia.orgCC BY-SA 4.0
- en.wikipedia.orgCC BY-SA 4.0
- en.wikipedia.orgCC BY-SA 4.0
- en.wikipedia.orgCC BY-SA 4.0
Anatolia has a long tradition of piling earth over graves, and the best-known tumuli are those of the Phrygian and Lydian kingdoms of the Iron Age. Near Gordion, the Phrygian capital, there are more than a hundred tumuli of the ninth to sixth centuries BCE. Tumulus W, dated to about 850 BCE, is the earliest known there and the first known anywhere in Anatolia; inhumation burial continued until the late seventh century, when cremation began and the two customs coexisted for another century. The regional background, “Turkish tumuli”, is given below.
DatingSources for this section
- en.wikipedia.orgCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- en.wikipedia.orgCC BY-SA 4.0
No scientific date has been published for this site. Monuments of this type in Turkey are generally dated 700 BCE to 50 BCE; the site itself may fall inside or outside that range.
Anatolian mounds are the Lydian barrows of Bin Tepe and the Phrygian mounds of Gordium; the Commagene tumulus on Mount Nemrut carries a royal tomb from the 1st century BC.
Setting
3 other recorded monuments lie within 10 km (0 within 1 km, 1 within 5 km), 3 of them of the same type. In Demirköy district, Turkey, 14 of the 15 recorded monuments are of this type.
The nearest recorded monuments are Sarpdere Kale Tepe Tumulus (3.6 km south-west, megalithic mound); Balaban Dörtyol Orman Deposu Tümülüsü Ve Nekropol Alanı (8.7 km south-east, megalithic mound); Hamdibey Tumulus (9.1 km east, megalithic mound); Hamdibey Sadi Kaynaklar Tumulus (10.8 km east, megalithic mound).
ProtectionSources for this section
Sources for this section
No heritage designation is recorded for the site.
Tradition and region
About this kind of monument
Turkish tumuli
Anatolia has a long tradition of piling earth over graves, and the best-known tumuli are those of the Phrygian and Lydian kingdoms of the Iron Age. Near Gordion, the Phrygian capital, there are more than a hundred tumuli of the ninth to sixth centuries BCE. Tumulus W, dated to about 850 BCE, is the earliest known there and the first known anywhere in Anatolia; inhumation burial continued until the late seventh century, when cremation began and the two customs coexisted for another century.
The largest at Gordion is Tumulus MM, "Midas Mound", built about 740 BCE. It still stands more than fifty metres high with a diameter of about three hundred metres, and when built it was the largest tumulus in Anatolia. Young's excavation of 1957 found the royal occupant lying on purple and golden textiles in an open log coffin, with a large array of bronze vessels and pottery. The name is traditional; it reflects the fame of King Midas, and the identification is a hypothesis, not a proof.
Lydia's cemetery at Bin Tepe, "a thousand mounds", on a ridge north of Sardis near Lake Marmara, holds more than a hundred tumuli of the Lydian and Achaemenid periods; at least 149 once existed, and around 115 survive. The Tumulus of Alyattes in Lydia surpassed Tumulus MM in size some two hundred years later. Bin Tepe was listed in 2025 as part of the Sardis World Heritage Site.
Dates come from tree rings, radiocarbon and pottery; the many undug tumuli are dated only by form.
When visiting, note how the mounds sit on ridges beside routes, as markers for travellers, and how many have been cut by looters' trenches.
Paraphrased from Wikipedia: Tumulus, Wikipedia: Gordion, Wikipedia: Bin Tepe, Wikipedia: Lydia, Wikipedia: Alyattes · CC BY-SA 4.0
See it in 3D
An interpretive reconstruction of the monument, standing on the real ground at its exact point, under the sun for that place and season. Drag to look around it.
The reconstruction is ours, not a survey: it shows what a monument of this type looks like, at the size the record gives for this one.
Lore
Evidence & Lore
What the sources actually support — and, kept apart, what has been claimed.
What the evidence supports
Dates
Est. 700–50 BCEHow this date was established: Type comparisonTypical range for megalithic mounds in Turkey; this site has not been dated itself. Anatolian mounds are the Lydian barrows of Bin Tepe and the Phrygian mounds of Gordium; the Commagene tumulus on Mount Nemrut carries a royal tomb from the 1st century BC.Source for this date
Where it stands
Turkey
The pin marks the monument itself — its exact point.
- Coordinates
- 41°52′14″ N, 27°37′03″ EFor a GPS or map app: 41.87044, 27.61738
Access is as our sources describe it; we have not visited the site to check.
Nearby
The closest sites in the Atlas, by straight line.
- Megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones)Sarpdere Kale Tepe Tumulus700–50 BCE
- Megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones)Balaban Dörtyol Orman Deposu Tümülüsü Ve Nekropol Alanı700–50 BCE
- Megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones)Hamdibey Tumulus700–50 BCE
- Megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones)Hamdibey Sadi Kaynaklar Tumulus700–50 BCE
- Megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones)Kurudere Çadırlar Creek Northern Tumulus700–50 BCE
- Megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones)Kurudere Çadırlar Creek Southern Tumulus700–50 BCE
- Megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones)Kurudere İstapiş B Tümülüsü700–50 BCE
- Megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones)Kurudere İstapiş A Tümülüsü700–50 BCE
Sources
Every record behind this page, with the link it came from.
2 sources behind this page
- 01Wikidata Q139422175wikidata.org
- 02Source for this dateen.wikipedia.org
Report a correctionWrong date, name, photograph or source? Tell us and it will be put right.
Around this place
The ten nearest sites, by compass
- Sarpdere Kale Tepe Tumulus3.6 km SW
- Balaban Dörtyol Orman Deposu Tümülüsü Ve Nekropol Alanı8.7 km SE
- Hamdibey Tumulus9.1 km E
- Hamdibey Sadi Kaynaklar Tumulus11 km E
- Kurudere Çadırlar Creek Northern Tumulus11 km SW
- Kurudere Çadırlar Creek Southern Tumulus11 km SW
- Kurudere İstapiş B Tümülüsü11 km S
- Kurudere İstapiş A Tümülüsü11 km S
- Kurudere İstapiş C Tumulus11 km S
- Kurudere İstapiş D Tumulus11 km S
Credit
Text, licence and sources
Compiled from open records (Wikidata, CC0; OpenStreetMap, ODbL) and a regional background article based on Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0).
- Wikidata Q139422175CC0
- en.wikipedia.orgCC BY-SA 4.0
- en.wikipedia.orgCC BY-SA 4.0
- en.wikipedia.orgCC BY-SA 4.0
- en.wikipedia.orgCC BY-SA 4.0
- en.wikipedia.orgCC BY-SA 4.0