Arslantepe Mound

The world's earliest known swords came out of Arslantepe, a 30-metre-high mound on the Malatya plain near the Euphrates whose layers run from at least the 6th millennium BCE into medieval times. Within them archaeologists found an extraordinary mudbrick palace complex of the 4th millennium — evidence of an emerging state and its bureaucracy before writing existed — plus a rich Royal Tomb and later Hittite levels. UNESCO inscribed the tell in 2021.