Excavations at Kilise Tepe 2007-2011: The Late Bronze and Iron Ages

Abstract

Excavations at Kilise Tepe 2007-2011: The Late Bronze and Iron Ages This report on the excavations at Kilise Tepe, a joint project of the Universities of Cambridge (Pre-Classical) and Newcastle (Classical and Byzantine), covers the fieldwork undertaken in 2007-2012, and forms the second part of the definitive report, in succession to Excavations at Kilise Tepe, 1994-1998 (McDonald Institute/ British Institute at Ankara 2007). The resumption of the project gave the opportunity to address some of the unresolved issues. The work described here concentrated on the late 2nd millennium and early 1st millennium, and was targeted at throwing further light on the transition from the Late Bronze II to the early Iron Age, a pivotal time in the history of the Mediterranean and the Near East. The excavations can be summarized in three parts. In the North-West Building the plan of the best preserved Late Bronze Age phase was extended, encountering indications of the building’s probably cultic nature in the form of beads incorporated in the brickwork, and two copper torcs laid down between the IId and IIe phase, as well as a bench like installation in Room 37. An ivory stamp seal of metropolitan Hittite quality reinforces the assumption from the ceramics (and other stamp seals already found) that the settlement fell within the reach of the Hittite empire. A massive deposit of animal bone behind a large oven also suggests a more than domestic role for the North-West Building. Well stratified earlier ceramics were recovered from the previous IIIc phase. In the Stele Building, which marked a complete architectural break with the North-West Building, the initial layout of the rooms was recovered, and its dual role hosting storage and cultic activity re-affirmed, as attested by the cache of 92 astragali buried beneath the floor. During a later occupation (phase IIf) this area hosted a variety of activities including pottery and textile production and food preparation indicated by an assemblage of grindstones. The most complex stratigraphy was encountered in the Central Strip, a trench positioned to bisect the centre of the mound from west to east. Here it was possible to observe the transition from Late Bronze Age to early Iron Age. In the lowest level we reached (Level 3), though by no means the earliest occupation at the site, there was rectangular domestic architecture associated with ceramics which match the earlier phases of the Stele Building and can therefore be seen as “Late Bronze Age”. The latest Pre-Classical presence was represented by a deep plastered storage pit with a capacity of more than 60 m3, approximately dated to the 7th century by Geometric potsherds. Another deep storage pit with a capacity of 35 m3 was located some 12 m further into the mound. The stratigraphic sequence between these two earliest and latest fixed points comprised first a band of sterile packing sealing the Level 3 walls, then an open area into which, at the east end of our sounding, was sunk an arc of postholes most likely from a circular structure some 8 m in diameter. Subsequently this remained an open area, except at the edge of the mound where a house with stone foundations was built, hosting a variety of smaller pits and the occasional fire installation. This incarnation of the final report includes a comprehensive presentation of the artefactual repertoire, and of the Late Bronze and Iron Age excavations, along with a full report on the molluscs. A further report on Late Bronze Age ceramics is in preparation and the zoo-archaeological evidence is awaited for incorporation in due course.