Sakce Gozu

a village 25 km northeast of the city of Islahiye, in Gaziantep Vilayet, southern Turkey, near which the English archaeologist J. Garstang uncovered the remains of a fortified palace of the post-Hittite period (ancient name unknown). The excavations were conducted in 1907, 1908, 1911, and 1949.

A structure of the bit hilani type, with a portico along its facade and flanked by two towers, was unearthed at the palace in Sakce Gozu. It had sculptured column bases and reliefs on the orthostates (stone slabs), which were executed in the eighth century B.C. in the Syro-Hittite style with a strong Aramaic and Assyrian influence. The oldest representation of a griffin with a bird’s head was also found here. The palace was erected on a tell that contained cultural layers from the beginning of the sixth millennium B.C. (the Syro-Cilician Neolithic) through the second millennium B.C.