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KİNET HÖYÜK EXCAVATIONS
Kinet Höyük is eastern Cilicia's largest
preclassical site. It is located at the north end of the Gulf of
Iskenderun, on the shore of the narrow plain called Issos
in classical antiquity. This place became famous when Alexander
the Great defeated the Persian king Darius III and his army here
in 333 B.C. It is likely that Kinet, the plain's dominant town,
was ancient Issos. Research at the site has recovered no
trace of that event, but has instead documented many aspects of
this ancient Mediterranean harbor's long settlement history.
Kinet
2002
Kinet's
eleventh fieldwork season took place in July-August 2002, with 5
weeks of digging and a 27-member team that included 11 Bilkent
students. Another 7 persons came in late July to conduct an
underwater survey as part of the season's broader project. Thus,
for the first time, the two components that assured the site's
prosperity as an ancient port town
Bronze stamp seal
(Photo: Tuğrul
Çakar)
were joined into one investigative effort (for
the underwater survey, see "Alexandretta Project").
Excavations
were carried out both on the high mound, and in low-lying fields
to its north. On the mound's east terrace were uncovered two
more rooms of a burnt administrative building dating to the late
Middle Bronze Age (17th-16th century B.C.), with artifacts such
as a bronze stamp seal, and pottery linking it to contemporary
Tarsus, Cyprus and western Syria.
Fibula with a nude goddess
(photo:
B. Claasz Coockson)
A Hellenistic terracotta
horse rhyton
(photo: Tuğrul Çakar)
Work on the west slope completed the previous season's
investigation of an Iron Age, Neo-Assyrian building level (ca.
700 B.C.) with a central paved courtyard; and began to
investigate its 8th-century predecessor. Finds from these
levels included a fibula in the exceptional shape of a nude
goddess holding her breasts, and a storage jar with a
Phoenician inscription.
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Medieval excavations on top of the mound, where large
courtyard houses were laid out on an orthogonal plan, also
produced a fine collection of pottery, and a
Hellenistic terracotta horse rhyton reused by a medieval
resident.
Soundings in a field to the mound's north showed that a lower
town extended for another 100 m here as late as the 5th
century B.C., when the area became silted in. The earliest
periods attested in the soundings nearest the mound were Late
Bronze Age; and Early Bronze levels appeared in a sounding 75
m beyond it. These soundings were dug to depths of 5 m, where
they stopped at the water table. A sounding in a field to the
northeast also discovered a Roman road (see "Roman Road").
Another important aspect of the season was to begin
preparations for a display for the Kinet excavations and their
finds at the Hatay Museum (Antakya), thanks to a generous
grant from the U.S. government. The exhibit will be completed
and on view by June 2003.
M-H. Gates
A Hellenistic terracotta
horse rhyton
(photo: Tuğrul Çakar)
Trench
T2 with the Roman Road
(photo:
B. Claasz Coockson)
Newsletter No. 2 - 2003, Pg. 2
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