Hacımusalar Höyük is located in the center of the Elmalı basin, just to the south of the prominent rock formation know today as Çatal Tepe. The basin contains a wealth of ancient sites, few of which have been explored in any detail (at least eight prehistoric mounds [3rd millennium B.C. or earlier], Iron Age burial tumuli, tombs and occupation sites dating from the Iron Age through modern times). The most well-known archaeological work in the Elmalı basin was conducted by M. Mellink at the prehistoric sites of Karataş-Semayük and Bağbaşı.Important burial tumuli of Iron Age and Classical date have also been excavated at Kızılbel, Karaburun and Bayındır, the latter two just to the north of the Elmalı basin.
Hacımusalar Höyük is the largest höyük in the basin and one of the largest in the whole of southwestern Anatolia. The roughly bowl-shaped mound measures approximately 200 m. in diameter north-south and 250 m. east-west (taken on the top of the höyük). The highest point (1058.37 m. above sea level) means that the mound rises over 15.00–16.00 m. above the plain. The slopes on the north and west are very steep, but those on the east and south are less so, especially on the south, where today an automobile can easily climb to the top. This configuration is the result of two phenomena. The first is the presence of massive EBA II remains in the west and north, over which the historical settlement developed, also spreading to the east and south. The second is a massive mudbrick wall that encircled the höyük in the historical period; this is the Early City Wall, which has been exposed in excavations on the northern rim and the eastern slope. The wall appears to have been constructed in the 8th–7th centuries B.C. (based upon current analyses of pottery found in layers that ran under the wall in excavations on the northern rim). A monumental entrance, not yet excavated, was at the east.
Bean and Harrison (1967) suggested that Hacımusalar Höyük was ancient Choma, a name occurring on Roman dedicatory and funerary inscriptions that Bean had found in the neighboring modern villages of Sarılar and Hacımusalar. The name was also known from late Roman numismatic evidence and Byzantine ecclesiastical sources, the later of which mentioned that Choma was the seat of a bishop. The identification of Hacımusalar Höyük as Roman Choma was confirmed by the discovery in the 2000 field season of an inscribed statue base just to the south of the Byzantine church on the mound. The inscription preserves the name Choma in its first line.
The basin and the site of Hacımusalar Höyük were mentioned already by travelers in the 19th century A.D. From 1993-2002, an archaeological team lead by Ilknur Özgen conducted excavations and regional survey in the surrounding basin. Five large areas on the mound were explored, of which three were located on the rim and/or the slopes of the höyük. Excavations in the Western Slope area revealed a thick deposit of Early Bronze Age levels (approximately 12.00–13.00 m. deep). Excavations in the Northern Rim area exposed a section of the Early City Wall, a dump of the 7th–6th centuries B.C., another dump of the later 4th century B.C., and domestic architecture of the Hellenistic period. Excavations on the Eastern Slope brought to light an exceptionally well-preserved section of the Early City Wall (including a tower probably for a gate) as well as a later city wall built in stone (the Late City Wall) constructed in the mid–late 4th century B.C.
Two excavation areas were located in the center of the höyük. In one, the Byzantine Church Area, a large, multi-phased basilica-type church was found, with phases ranging from the Early to the Late Byzantine periods. Excavations in the Central Area, to the northwest of the Byzantine Church Area, recovered pit and fill deposits of the 7th–6th centuries B.C. and two superimposed rectangular structures (the Early Central Building and the Late Central Building) that date to the late Hellenistic and Flavian periods respectively.
To date, evidence for Middle and Late Bronze Age on the site is almost non-existent, suggesting a long period of abandonment post-EBA down into the early part of the first millennium B.C. This abandonment may have been due, at least partially, to rising water levels in the two lakes in the eastern half of the basin. By the 8th/7th centuries B.C., if not earlier, a settlement developed on the mound with a monumental mud-brick city wall (the Early City Wall). Another long phase of abandonment lasted from the 6th through mid-4th centuries B.C., after which there was a vigorous resettlement that included the construction of a new city wall (the Late City Wall). A third gap in occupation occurred from c. 100 B.C. to the Flavian period; thereafter occupation continued (at least in the Central Area and the Byzantine Church Area) until the Late Byzantine period.
