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BİLKENT EXCAVATIONS
AT
KİNET HÖYÜK
(YeŞİl-Dörtyol, HATAY)
Excavations
at the ancient port town of Kinet Höyük, classical Issos,
have been taking place since 1992 under the general direction of
M.-H. Gates, with S.N. Redford (Georgetown University) in charge
of its medieval phase since 1996.The season typically runs for 6 weeks during the summer
months, and involves faculty and students from Bilkent, as well
as archaeologists from other institutions and countries.Students participate in all aspects of fieldwork -- from
excavating and survey, to ceramic, faunal and botanical
analysis, conservation and archaeological illustration. Although
this project initially provides them with fieldwork training,
students have also advanced to supervising their own trenches
and writing graduate theses on Kinet material.Funding from Bilkent and outside sources has supported
the expansion of the project from a team of 10 persons in 1992,
to 30 in more recent years. The project is based in an
excavation house generously built by the university in 1997, at
a 10-minute walk from the site.
Ayşe
Batman and a broken jar
(photo:
M-H Gates)
Location and description of
the site
Kinet is a
medium-sized mound (3.3 ha and 26 m high) on the eastern shore
of Iskenderun Bay, the Mediterranean's northeast corner.In antiquity, it commanded 2 harbors: a small bay on its
north side, and the estuary of a river against its south flank.
Today, these have been replaced by commercial gardens,
and by
theDelta
Petroleum Company and BP Gaz, whose shipping facilities have
revived the site's ancient custom.
The mound itself, however, has not been occupied since
the Middle Ages, and this project is the first to excavate the
site.
Settlement
history
This
ancient harbor was established as early as the Late Neolithic
period, according to 6th millennium BC pottery found in later
contexts, and throughout the Chalcolithic (Late Halaf-Ubaid
cultural phases, 5th-4th millennium BC). However, excavations have so far concentrated on its Middle
and Late Bronze Age levels of the 2nd millennium BC, and an
unbroken Iron Age and Hellenistic settlement sequence. Kinet was abandoned ca. 50 BC, when its port facilities
were no longer viable. Reoccupation in medieval times (12th-14th c. AD) must
have been accompanied by the construction of an
artificial harbor beside the mound's south terrace, where Delta Petroleum has also installed off-shore pipes
and platforms to unload tankers.
Foundations of a building dating to
the Hittite period
(photo:
M-H Gates)
Medieval
comb
(Photo:M-H
Gates)
Finds from
all periods illustrate the far-flung economic and social
networks in which Kinet participated. Contacts with Cypriots, Hittites, Canaanites, Mycenaean and
Iron Age Greeks, Phoenicians, Assyrians, Phrygians, Persians and
-- finally -- Crusaders are indicated by ceramic and other
items, and shipping containers make up a significant proportion
of vessels in any phase.
Marie-Henriette Gates
____________________________
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Season
reports and brief summaries
Gates,
M.-H.
1994 "The 1992 Excavations at Kinet Höyük
(Dörtyol/Hatay)." Kazı Sonuçları Toplantısı
15/1: 193-200.
1994 "Archaeology in Turkey." AJA 98:
261.
1995 "Archaeology in Turkey."AJA 99: 227
1996 "Archaeology in Turkey."AJA 100: 293-94.
1997 “Archaeology in Turkey.”AJA 101:253-54.
1999 “Archaeological Excavations at Kinet Höyük (Yeşil-Dörtyol,
Hatay).” Kazı Sonuçları Toplantısı 20: 259-81.
2000 “1998 Excavations at Kinet Höyük (Yeşil-Dörtyol,
Hatay).” Kazı Sonuçları Toplantısı 21:
193-208.
2001 “1999 Excavations at
Kinet Höyük (Yeşil-Dörtyol, Hatay).” Kazı
Sonuçları Toplantısı 22: 203-222.
2002 "Kinet Höyük 2000
(Yeşil-Dörtyol, Hatay)."Kazı Sonuçları Toplantısı 23 in
press.
Gates,
M.-H. and Özgen,
İ.
1993 "Report on the Bilkent University Archaeological
Survey in Cilicia and the Northern Hatay (1991)." Araştirma Sonuçları Toplantısı
10: 387-94.
Topical reports
Gates,
C.
1999 “Kinet Höyük 1992-1997: The Achaemenid Persian
and Hellenistic Periods.” Olba II.2: 323-32.
Gates,
M.-H.
1999 “Kinet Höyük in Eastern Cilicia: A Case Study for
Acculturation in Ancient Harbors.”Olba II.2: 303-12.
2000 "Kinet Höyük (Hatay, Turkey) and MB Levantine
Chronology."Akkadica
119-120: 77-101.
2001 “Potmarks at Kinet Höyük and the Hittite Ceramic
Industry.” Varia Anatolica 13: 137-157.
Hodos,
T.
2000 “Kinet Höyük and Al Mina: New Views on Old
Relationships.” Pp.145-52 in Periplous. Papers on
Classical Art and Archaeology Presented to Sir John Boardman,
ed. by G.R. Tsetskhladze, A.J.N.W. Prag and A.M. Snodgrass.London:
Thames and Hudson.
Hynd,
A.
1997 A Model of Local
Continuity: The 1995 Archaeobotanical Assemblage from Kinet Höyük,
Hatay.
Unpublished M.Sc. thesis, University of Sheffield.
Ozaner,
S.
1994 "Dörtyol-Payas (Issos) Ovasında (Antakya) Tarihi Çağlardan
Günümüze Süregelen Jeomorfolojık Değişikliklerin
Kinet Höyük Üzerindeki Etkileri [Observations on
Diachronic Geomorphological Changes in the Dörtyol-Payas
(Issos) Plain (Antakya) in the Context of Kinet
Höyük]." Araştırma Sonuçları Toplantısı
12: 513-27.
Redford,
S.N.
2001 "'Port Saint Symeon Seramiği' Denilen Hatay ve
Çukurova Bölgesi Sgraffito Seramiği."V. Ortaçağ ve Türk Dönemi Kazı ve Araştırmaları
Sempozyumu: 485-90.
Songu,
F.
1997 Wave-Line Pottery from the Late Iron Age Levels of
Kinet Höyük. Unpublished M.A. thesis, Bilkent
University.
Steadman,
S.
1994 "Prehistoric Sites on the Cilician Coastal
Plain: Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age Pottery from the
1991 Bilkent Survey." Anatolian Studies 44:
85-103.
____________________________
Hittite
Period pottery
(photo: T. Çakar)
Newsletter No. 1
- 2002, Pg. 6, 7
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