2. Cilt - Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı

severed OP. C’s walls from what would have run up to their eastern (interior)faces. To sidestep the pipe and associate deposits with these walls, they had tobe approached over a larger area. This slow process started 5 m. up the slope.A first effort was short-lived (1995 OP. M). It was reactivated in earnest andon a suitable scale this decade, when OP. M reopened together with two newtrenches set to its north and south, for a total N-S length of 28 m (2003 OPs.M, M2, M3). OPs. M and M3 continued for the next four seasons, producingan illustrative sample, ca. 210 m 2 , of EB III and EB II Kinet. It evolved over14 individual phases with multiple sub-phases in OP. M, and a shorter butroughly integrated sequence of 11 phases in OP. M3. ‘94 OP. C’s superposedsets of walls belong to OP. M’s phases 12, 13 and 14, dated to EB II. At leastas significant, however, is the information these operations have providedfor Kinet’s EB settlements, and the difference between its EB II and EB IIIversions.Excavated in OP. M (9 x 10.5 m.) this season were two separate levels ofhousing that co-existed with the main upper phase of the fortification wall,itself under multiple repairs and reinforcements during the lifespans of thehousing. In the earlier level, Phase 13, three small, one-room units were seton either side of a courtyard (Figs. 2-3). Their very clean bricks were laid withequally clean mortar, but without stone foundations, unlike EB III and latermasonry at Kinet. Walls were thick relative to room size, with an interiorbuttress to lend support for the roof. Rooms were furnished with builtinbenches and ledges, and beautifully plastered with repeated coatings oflime. These domestic units had been emptied and abandoned while still in areasonable state of repair, then deliberately filled in. Walls thus stood up to0.85 m. high.Three sub-phases were articulated for M’s phase 13, but it was undergoingcontinual modifications. The fortifications also saw irregular and periodicreinforcements, planned without much care except to ensure solidity. Largemudbrick slabs were strengthened here and there with stones, layers of wovenmats and loose reeds (preserved as phytoliths), the occasional stretch of stonefoundations, and crosswalls for casemates. Some crosswalls may be residualdomestic architecture, eventually merged into the fortifications. Depositswere full of debris, as was the material from which the bricks were made;this construction contrasted sharply with the tidiness of the housing districtit protected.353