2. Cilt - Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı

of any associable cultural finds, dating this building is based on indirectevidence: the small collection of pottery mixed in with the foundation gravel,and its stratigraphic context within the OP. U sequence. They would assignthis massive construction to Period 5 (late sixth - early fifth century B.C.), yetanother phase previously attested only in OP. E/H 23 .The imposing proportions of this Period 5 building argue for a publicand/or military function. The mound’s current south slope corresponds toits location and steepness in antiquity, according to a series of Middle IronAge retaining walls built against it (sounding ST); and the building’s southernfoundations 124, because wider (w = 1.40 m.) than the others, would suit asexterior wall for a fortress or fortified enclosure. Kinet’s Period 5 coincidedwith the onset of Achaemenid Persian interests in Cilicia, a region weakenedby Neo-Babylonian deportations earlier in the sixth century, and open to thefounding of Persian military outposts 24 . OP. U’s Period 5 building wouldreflect this policy in architectural terms.Below this building and its intrusive construction techniques, earlier LateIron (Periods 6-7) and Middle Iron (Periods 8-9) deposits were recovered onlyfrom the soundings ST and DS. They included thick levelling fills known fromother trenches at the start of Periods 7 (seventh c. B.C.) and 8 (later eighthcentury B.C.), when site-wide renewal projects were undertaken. Period 8’sfill, associated with a Neo-Assyrian installation at Kinet, was richly packedwith sherds of late Middle Iron Age type from Period 9 destruction debris:painted Cypro-Cilician wares, Black-on-Red, and Late Geometric Greekimports (Pendant Semi-Circle skyphoi) (Fig. 15). Earlier Middle Iron types(Periods 11 and 10) preceded them down another 1.5 m.The earliest cultural deposits were poorly characterized, since soundingDS 177/180 was at this depth reduced to 3 m 2 , half of its initial size. Its limitedsherd sample may date to Kinet’s Early Iron Period 12; and an underlyingwall, at the base of the sounding, to Kinet’s final Late Bronze Period 13.2(below a non-architectural sequence of ca. 2.5 m.). These attributions arehighly tentative. If correct, corresponding levels on the west slope were indeedslightly elevated (by ca. 1.2 m.) above the rest of the mound. This topographicaspect of the Late Bronze mound was already suggested by a sharp incline inthe eastern part of OP. E/H. It received some support from OP. U’s lowestlevels this season.23 Gates 1999: 323-325.24 Gates 1999; Casabonne 2004.360