The pottery and the architecture of Halaf Period of Kerküşti Höyük

Kerküşti Höyük is located north of Şanlıurfa/Viranşehir ? Nusaybin highway, southwest of Derik in Mardin province. Kerküşti was first excavated as a salvage project in 1981 by the Mardin Museum. 2005-06 rescue operations that conducted by the cooperation of the Mardin Museum and Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart University, Department of Archaeology, took place within the limit of the road construction area in the northern part of the actual highway.The aim of this dissertation is to determine the Kerküşti Höyük in the Halaf Culture by means of its architecture and its pottery exposed in 2005-06 rescue operations. In this study, the pottery of Kerküşti Höyük was studied in details and the architecture of the site was defined. The statigraphy of the Halaf Period is established due to the results of the distribution of pottery and the position of buildings and of their relations. The functional characteristics of the building remains were explained through space analyses as well as the relations of the open areas were determined. All of these analyses were showed through drawings, pictures and charts. At the end of the analyses of ware, form and decoration styles on pottery of the Halaf site of Kerküşti Höyük by cataloguesation and statistical works, their similarities were searched in the other Halaf sites.In the conclusion part, some recommendations were offered about the role of Kerküşti Höyük in Late Neolithic/Early Chalcolithic Periods.