2. Cilt - Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı

walling from the deepest part of the west slope’s stratigraphic sounding(1994 OP. C). At the time, it was proposed as a casemate fortification for anEarly Bronze Age settlement, but exposure and associated finds were limited.The 2007 season completed a five-year goal to open ca. 100 m 2 adjacent to it(OP. M), and connect the walling to datable occupational levels. Its identityis now confirmed as the western enclosure of an EB II residential district.Higher up the west slope, a second persistent question concerned a largebuilding, constructed when Hittite material culture was introduced to Kinetin Late Bronze I. The building’s broad foundations and layout recalled Hittitearchitecture, but the segment recovered, in 1999 OP. J/L, was too small tomake claims regarding derivation and purpose. This season, the building’splan was doubled (OP. E/H), and its resemblance to an official structurestrengthened. Finally, this building and its Late Bronze successors seemed tooccupy higher ground on the mound’s west end, like a citadel above the restof the settlement. To determine whether this impression was valid, a trenchon Kinet’s southwest rim (OP. U) was taken down to reach Late Bronze levels.Results were inconclusive, but produced a fresh look at the Iron Age sequence,and showed that transformations at specific moments in the Late and MiddleIron Ages affected the entire site.The 2007 results are presented below in chronological order. Summariesare adapted from end-of-season reports by the individual site supervisors,whose contributions to fieldwork and analysis were invaluable.Early Bronze Age/Kinet Phase VI, Lower West Slope 2Investigation of Kinet’s lower west slope was driven by the need toexplain the poorly-dated segments of massive walls that filled a small testpit, 4.5 x 2.75 m. OP. C, opened in 1994 at the current base of mound. Thislowest step in the west slope’s long stratigraphic sounding corresponded toEarly Bronze elevations. But it was isolated from occupational deposits bya modern intrusion: a municipal water pipe and its bedding trench, which2 The Early Bronze excavations are coordinated by Kinet research associate C. Eslick, whosupervised OP. M with J. Ellis. Supervisor for OP. M3: M. Akar. Both Eslick and Akar oversawthese trenches since the start of the EB W Slope project in 2003. They achieved remarkablesuccesses here, in the face of exceptionall difficult stratigraphic complexity. I am very gratefulfor their skill and perseverance.352