The Middle East Technical University (METU) located in Ankara, Turkey, undertook control of the diggings.

With each subsequent layer, it is hoped that proof of the Assyrians, the Hittites, the Lydians, and the Cimmerians presence will be authenticated.

In this ancient city, there were regular festivals during which women residing at Komana during the Hittite period performed sacred prostitution.

The territory of the Kingdom of Mithridates VI of Pontus, Comana Pontica was a large temple-state[2] operating in the Hellenistic period which covers ancient Greek (Hellenic) history and Mediterranean history between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the emergence of the Roman Empire as signified by the Battle of Actium[3] in 31 BC and the subsequent conquest of the ancient Egyptian Ptolemaic Kingdom the following year.

Mithridates VI claimed to be a direct descendant of Alexander the Great and had fought against the Roman Generals: Sulla, Lucullus, and Pompey.

Caesar or Antony, from the Roman emperors, gave four more schoeni (22,200 meters) worthy soil to the Comana Temple Priests (Wilson 1960, 229).

When Pontus was added to Galaticus territory in 34–35, Magnopolitic city was most likely included in Komana Pontika (IGR III, 105; Waddington et al. 1904, 109).

It is thought that 8 gray columns used in the construction of Ali Pasha's Mosque in Tokat province center may belong to the temple.

[8] Anthony Bryer and David Winfield suggested that Comana, which disappears from the historical record in Byzantine times, must have moved either to the adjacent site of Tokat, which offered better protection against Persian and Arab raids,[9] or to Dazimon, which they identify with some Hellenistic tombs in the vicinity and consider the Hellenistic forerunner to Roman Comana.

[10] However, Dazimon and Comana lie on the opposite ends of the Kazova plain (the site of the Battle of Anzen in 838).

As Paul Wittek points out, Dazimon and Tokat are both mentioned in the 13th century by Ibn Bibi[11] and Komana is recorded separately in 1347 as Komada (Κόμαδα).

The fertile lands around the hill must have played an important role in the economic structure of the temple state (Strabo 12.3.34).

During the latter half of July 1899, J. G. C. Anderson, Fellow of Christ Church, Oxford University, England, explored the central and eastern district of Asia Minor, travelling through Pontus.

Detail typographical maps were constructed using ancient Persian and Roman maps that took them along roadways that followed valleys through the Pontus Mountains, constructed initially by Persian King Darius I (c. 549–486) BCE), and maintained by the Romans until the emergence of the Kingdom of Pontus.