Hieroglyphic Inscriptions on Hittite Pottery from Late Bronze Kinet Höyük (Hatay, Turkey)

Late Bronze Kinet Höyük: The Hittite Seaport Izziya

Kinet Höyük is located ca. 35 km north of Iskenderun, where the narrow Erzin plain, the Issos plain of classical antiquity, is screened off on three sides by hills and mountains, and on the fourth by the sea at the back of Iskenderun Bay (Fig. 1).

Fig 1

Map of Cilicia, with ancient and modern sites mentioned in text (© Kinet Höyük Project).

The mound still sits close (ca. 500 m) to the shoreline — ancient and modern — which provides an easier access than by land; and its long occupational sequence, from Neolithic to Hellenistic times, can be attributed to the advantages it offered for sheltering boats and goods in transit. It was briefly revived for this purpose in the medieval period (12^th–14^th c AD), and again since the 1980s for oil and gas tankers belonging to international maritime consortiums. Today Kinet is enclosed by shipping firms and their storage containers for fuels, and relatively isolated except from other commercial installations along the coast. The nearest settlements are few, inland, and several kilometers distant, a pattern recurring since prehistoric times.^[6] The plain was often the seat of political tensions, and became known to classical and later historians for momentous battles that won empires for their victors.^[7] The mountainous spur at the plain’s south edge created a critical topographical border and frontier zone noted from at least Roman times until 1939, when Hatay was ceded to the Turkish Republic.^[8] On a larger scale, Eratosthenes, as recounted by Strabo, centered the cardinal axes of the inhabited Hellenistic world at the Gulf of Issos, which he considered the divide between west and east, from Gibraltar to the Indus.^[9] Strategic factors such as these suggest that Kinet’s location was long recognized as a desirable place to maintain and oversee. The site itself has been identified with the coastal town of Issos since at least the 19^th c, because its location coincides well with historical descriptions by writers such as Xenophon, Arrian, Strabo and others.^[10]

Archaeological information about Kinet Höyük’s configuration during the Late Bronze Age (Kinet Phase IV, ca. 1550 – 1150 BC) was recovered by a Bilkent University excavation project in a 300 m² exposure on the mound’s west slope, and from soundings in fields within a few hundred meters to the north and west, near its shoreline (Fig. 2).^[11]

Fig. 2

Kinet Höyük, topographical plan of site with LB excavation areas marked in yellow (© Kinet Höyük Project).

They showed that by the 16^th c BC, the site had long reached its maximum extent of ca. 5 ha with two harbor facilities: a 3.3 ha mound with an estuary on its south, and a 1.8 ha area built up around a shallow bay on its north side. A stratigraphic sequence of four architectural levels on the mound accounts for 2.5 m of discrete cultural deposits. Phase IV’s Periods 15, 14 and 13.1 document a prosperous era during Late Bronze (LB) I-II, concluded by decline during LB III Period 13.2 (1200 – 1150 BC). The bay district was also settled throughout this time.^[12] The LB I and LB II ceramic assemblages in both sectors are overwhelmingly Hittite, replicating 17 of the 20 vessel shapes defined by Schoop as diagnostic for the “middle” and “late” phases of the potters’ industry in its centers, as well as similar fabrics.^[13] They give archaeological credibility to Kinet’s pre-classical association with the Hittite place-name Izziya, a seaside location visited by Ḫattušili III’s queen Puduḫepa as reported in correspondence from Ḫattuša and Tall Āfis; and Zise, one of several towns conquered two centuries earlier by Alalaḫ’s king Idrimi, who considered them Hittite.^[14] Later, the LB III/Period 13.2 potters altered the Hittite repertoire by abandoning Hittite production standards, just as the centralized state itself was dissolving.^[15] Interlocking textual and archaeological aspects such as these thus suggest a close relationship between the central Anatolian state and the eastern Cilician seaport at Kinet.

Hieroglyphic Potmarks from LB I Kinet Period 15 (ca. 1550 – 1400 BC)

A further indication of the interaction between Hittite authorities and Late Bronze Kinet is recorded by hieroglyphic inscriptions on Kinet pottery from Periods 15 and 14, and by the contexts in which they were found. Period 15, Kinet’s first Late Bronze presence, resettled the site after an earthquake and brief abandonment earlier in the 16^th c. On the mound’s west side was founded an imposing building of administrative stature, facing the sea and overlooking the harbor like a citadel, from an elevation of 15 m (Fig. 3).

Its façade, partially exposed over a length of 21 m, included an entrance porch reached by three steps and flanked by two posts; it recalls entranceways in 2^nd-millennium Syro-Anatolian monumental architecture.^[16] Behind the façade were two parallel rows of rooms, whose deep and broad stone foundations, 1.0/1.2 m-wide without doorways, resemble formal Hittite construction. The building remained in use for one century or so without visible damage or interruption, as indicated by two phases for the foundations of its semi-sunken storage or basement rooms; and a third, final phase that preserved several courses of brick and a floor above the stone masonry. It was then abandoned and decayed, to the extent that the following architectural level assumed another layout entirely.

Finds discarded in the building’s three phases give instructive pointers for some of the activities which it housed. Among them, the manufacture of metal products in copper, silver and lead is fully documented by items that ranged from sheeting, wire and casting slags to finished products, together with tools, crucibles, and a bun ingot composed of recycled metals.^[17] The ingot belonged to the building’s final phase room 135; whereas the majority of finds were concentrated in the early phase of room 152, which was suitably equipped with a hearth and ceramic mortar to serve as a workshop. These finds illustrate an industry which existed throughout the building’s lifespan, and was typical of official structures in the ancient Near East. It included the Hittite practice of alloying copper with nickel, a technique known from Hattuša for jewelry as also the case here.^[18] Another sign of official management at Kinet in Period 15 was the use of the potmark , the Anatolian hieroglyph REX (L17), meaning ‘king/royal.’ It was found inscribed on six ordinary vessels for cooking and serving food, and accounts for 23 % (n = 6/26) of the potmarks from this period (Fig. 4).^[19] Five examples were distributed throughout the West Slope building in all its phases: a baking plate and a bowl inside the entrance porch 670 (nos. 3–4: KT 25311 a-b); a crater in room 678 behind it (no. 5: KT 25436); another crater in the gravelled area or courtyard 153 outside the metal workshop 152 (no. 2: KT 12351); and a large baking plate in room 135, together with the bun ingot (no. 6: KT 11394). The sixth example, again a baking plate, was found beside the harbor in the north field sounding OP. R, in a context that appears to be residential (no. 1: KT 13803).^[20] Vessels with this potmark were therefore present in all of the site’s excavated Late Bronze sectors, both on the mound and at its harbor. They occurred exclusively in Period 15, coinciding with the earliest manifestation of Hittite material culture at Kinet.

Fig. 3

Kinet LB I Period 15, top: architectural plan of building on the West Slope with findspots of REX potmarks; bottom: photograph of the West Slope building, from the north (© Kinet Höyük Project).

REX (L17) Potmarks from LB I Kinet Period 15 (Fig. 4)

Fabric 1 (“drab ware”): medium fine with dense fine to medium mineral inclusions, occasional ground shell and fine vegetal temper; hard-fired, light brown to medium brown/orange; occasional cream slip/thin wash.

Fabric 2 (cooking ware): coarse fabric with heavy and large mineral inclusions, ground shell; fired dark brown with black core; surface wet-smoothed.

Early Period 15

1. KT 13803 (00 R 18 L. 5). Rim D(iameter) = 40 cm. Fabric 2; REX potmark incised pre-firing. Period 15 (early), harbor district. Schoop baking plate (2011: fig. 11 b)

2. KT 12351 (99 J/L 153 L. 597). Pres. W(idth)/H(eight) = 8/9 cm; wall Th(ickness) = 1 cm. Fabric 1; REX potmark incised pre-firing. Period 15 (early), outside the metal workshop. Fragment of deep bowl/crater.

Late Period 15

1. KT 25311a (07 E/H 666 L. 1673). Rim D = 25 cm. Fabric 1; red surface with black mottling, smoothed and burnished, REX.BONUS₂ potmark incised pre-firing. Period 15 (late), entrance porch. Schoop bowl type C (2011: fig. 8 C)

2. KT 25311b (07 E/H 666 L. 1673). Rim D = 34 cm. Fabric 2; REX potmark incised pre-firing. Period 15 (late), entrance porch. Schoop baking plate (2011: fig. 11 b)

3. KT 25436 (07 E/H 678 L. 1696). Pres. W/H = 8.7/8.1 cm; wall Th = 0.8 cm. Fabric 1; REX potmark incised pre-firing. Period 15 (late), room behind entrance porch. Fragment of deep bowl/crater.

4. KT 11394 (99 J/L 135 L. 541). Rim D = 48 cm. Fabric 2; REX potmark incised pre-firing. Period 15 (late), room with bun ingot. Schoop baking plate (2011: fig. 11 b)

Fig. 4

REX potmarks on bowls and baking plates from LB I Kinet Period 15 (© Kinet Höyük Project).

Hieroglyphic Potmarks from LB II Kinet Period 14

By the start of LB II, ca. 1400 BC, the previous citadel had been replaced, after an undetermined interval, with a second stratigraphic level, Period 14, laid out on a new plan and orientation but maintaining its Hittite cultural affinities (Fig. 5).^[21]

Fig. 5

Kinet LB II Period 14, architectural plan of buildings on the West Slope, with findspots of MAGNUS.DOMUS and SPICA potmarks (© Kinet Höyük Project).

The area now divided into two sectors, and their different characters may reflect a formal change in the west slope district. A domestic structure to the south (OP. J/L) was set at a sharp angle from a larger building of better construction to the north (OP. E/H), whose orthogonal plan aligned roughly with its LB I predecessor, and like it may have served an official function. The two co-existing buildings were modified at uncoordinated moments by the addition of walls and rooms: an irregular kitchen (99) and storeroom (29/96) in the case of the south building; and a spacious kitchen (637) for the northern one. Walls in both buildings were narrow, on a domestic scale (0.8 m), and doorways were fitted with stone thresholds. The two sectors were separated by a street or court (623/609/641/607) onto which the building expansions encroached. It was paved with conglomerate slabs and gravel, and drained by a stone-lined channel (636) and terracotta drainpipe emptying into a corbelled tunnel. This open area was covered by a thick deposit of pottery and other finds, some discarded by residents over time, but the majority in use and burnt in situ by the violent fire that brought Period 14 to an end. The burnt rooms of the two buildings likewise contained large numbers of complete storage containers and tableware. Down in the harbor zone soundings, generous quantities of LB II pottery were again found associated with domestic contexts. Altogether, they provide an exceptionally well-preserved repertoire for the closing phase of this level.^[22]

Kinet’s Period 14 assemblage conformed tightly to the standards of Hittite ceramic industry’s “late” stage (14^th–13^th c, the Hittite empire), defined by a simplified approach to shapes and surface finish for purposes of mass-production. It resulted in uniformity for sizes and fabrics, and was overwhelmingly utilitarian in scope.^[23] Workshops throughout Hittite territory continued applying potters’ marks by incising simple geometric signs to distinguish – for whatever purpose – a selection of their output.^[24] At Kinet, the number of examples increased in proportion to the larger inventory of vessels (for instance, from the south house’s annexes 29/96 and 99), although they may also reflect a higher degree of supervision in the workshop. The variety of signs was also larger.^[25] Among them appears a second hieroglyphic inscription MAGNUS.DOMUS (L363.L247), meaning ‘palace’ in lieu of the earlier REX (Fig. 6). It occurs on three vessels from the west slope buildings’ destruction layer: a deep bowl/mortar and a handled vessel from the street debris (area 609/618) (no. 1: KT 24680, no. 2: KT 24019); and a deep bowl or crater from the south building’s storage annex (29/96) (no. 3: KT 9759). The cream-colored surface of the handled vessel no. 2, represented by a small sherd, is typical of east Mediterranean shipping containers known as Canaanite or Levantine jars (see below).

Fig. 6

Vessels with MAGNUS.DOMUS potmarks from LB II Kinet Period 14 (© Kinet Höyük Project).

MAGNUS.DOMUS Potmarks from LB II Kinet Period 14 (Fig. 6)

Fabric 1 (“drab ware”): medium fine with dense fine to medium mineral inclusions, occasional ground shell and fine vegetal temper; hard-fired, light brown to medium brown/orange; occasional cream slip/thin wash.

1. KT 24680 (07 E/H 609 L.1669). Rim D(iameter) = 32 cm; H(eight) = 9 cm. Fabric 1, with gray core; MAGNUS.DOMUS potmark incised pre-firing. Deep bowl with thumb impression on rim. Period 14 street, destruction layer. Schoop deep bowl (2011: fig. 1.2)

2. KT 24019 (06 E/H 585 L. 1475). Pres. W(idth)/H(eight) = 5.5/5.5 cm; wall Th(ickness) = 0.8 cm; pres. D = 30 cm. Fabric 1, cream outer surface. MAGNUS.DOMUS (upper third) potmark incised pre-firing. Sherd from shoulder of closed vessel with handle (handle broken at wall attachment); potmark placed beside top of handle. Period 14 street, destruction layer. Canaanite/Levantine jar

3. KT9759 (99 J/L 96 L. 406). Pres. W/H = 10/7 cm; wall Th = 0.9/1.1 cm. Fabric 1, with gray core; [MAGNUS^?.]DOMUS (lower half) potmark incised pre-firing. Body sherd of deep bowl or crater. Period 14 south building store room, destruction layer.

Hieroglyphic Seal Impressions from LB II Kinet Period 13.1

The third of the Late Bronze levels on the mound, Period 13.1, completed the west slope’s transformation into a residential district of small houses with courtyards (Fig. 7).

Fig. 7

Kinet LB II Period 13.1, architectural plan of buildings on the West Slope, with findspots of Hittite seal impressions (blue numbers) (© Kinet Höyük Project).

They were built directly on the burnt ruins of the preceding level, and in the south sector closely followed its wall alignments and architectural features. The others to the north were irregularly arranged around a vacant area. Its only features were a series of deep, stone-lined holes suitable for sturdy wood posts, assumed as belonging to structural elements for the houses, such as verandas or sheds. This LB II phase, like its predecessor, was modified by several generations of use, and ended in an intense fire. It produced a smaller assortment of ceramic and other remains, preserved in situ in the southern sector, and scattered elsewhere, including the open lot. The ceramic assemblage maintained its Hittite appearance; as in other parts of Hittite territory, it can hardly be distinguished from the previous period except by stratigraphic context.^[26] In the harbor zone, which was also occupied in LB II, it is therefore difficult to determine whether ceramic deposits date to Period 14 or 13.1. However, the three Late Bronze strata in OP. R provide enough evidence to show that the upper and lower zones of the site co-existed into the Hittite empire’s second and final century (1300 – 1200 BC).

In Late Bronze Kinet’s local ceramic inventory, only the two-handled transport amphoras known as Canaanite or Levantine jars represented a non-Hittite vessel type. These jars and their Middle Bronze predecessors were designed for shipping goods by boat, and manufactured for commercial purposes throughout the eastern Mediterranean. They are now collectively referred to as maritime transport containers (MTCs). MTCs have been found in shipwrecks, in a warehouse at Ugarit, and especially in secondary use in Levantine coastal sites.^[27] The Kinet examples belong to the round-shouldered “ovoid” variety of the northern Levant, and occur in all the Late Bronze periods.^[28] They were made in the standard fabric used for tableware in the Hittite tradition (Fabric 1 “drab ware”), often with the outer surface reduced to a pale color (see above, Fig. 6:2). Exceptionally, three Kinet jars were impressed with Hittite stamp seals at the top of their handles, a bureaucratic practice well attested on central Anatolian pottery throughout the 2^nd mill. BC (Fig. 8).^[29] MTCs made in Egypt were also impressed with official seals, but this practice otherwise entirely bypassed the Levant.^[30]

Hieroglyphic Seal Impressions from LB II Kinet Period 13.1 (Fig. 8)

Fabric 1 (“drab ware”): medium fine with dense fine to medium mineral inclusions, occasional ground shell and fine vegetal temper; hard-fired, light brown to medium brown/orange; occasional cream slip/thin wash.

1. KT 23784 (06 E/H 555 L. 1433). Pres. W(idth)/H(eight) = 8.6/4.5 cm (jar wall); wall Th(ickness) = 0.7 cm; handle pres. W/Th = 4.7–6.0/1.9 cm; handle pres. L = 7.3 cm; seal D(iameter) = 2.1 cm. Fabric 1; red-brown with black core, surface wet-smoothed. Canaanite/Levantine jar. On handle: stamp seal impression. Period 13.1 (late phase).

2. KT 24011 (06 E/H 597 L. 1470). Pres. W/H = 15/15 cm (jar wall); wall Th = 0.8 cm; handle W/Th = 3.7–4.7/1.6 cm; seal D = 2.4 cm. Fabric 1; light brown with gray core, surface wet-smoothed. Canaanite/Levantine jar. On handle: stamp seal impression and potmark incised before firing. Period 13.1 (early phase).

3. KT 17199 (03 K11 9 L. 23). Pres. W/H = 7.2/6.8 cm (jar wall); wall Th = 0.9 cm; handle pres. W/Th = 4.2–5.6/1.8 cm; handle pres. L = 9.3 cm; seal D = 2.0 cm. Fabric 1; orange, completely oxidized, light brown surface wet-smoothed. Canaanite/Levantine jar. On handle: stamp seal impression. *Unstratified context, medieval wash on east slope of mound.

Fig. 8

Hieroglyphic seal impressions on transport jar handles from LB II Kinet Period 13.1 (© Kinet Höyük Project).

Two of the seal-impressed jar handles were found in Period 13.1’s west slope district: on a courtyard pavement (555) and in the vacant area nearby (597). They were stamped with seals of elaborate Hittite type, featuring a decorative outer border, and a circular area in the center reserved for a profession or office in hieroglyphs. The first seal’s broad spiral pattern, small central area, and worn design suggest that it saw several centuries of service before being applied to this particular jar (no. 1: KT 23784). The second seal’s border of trees alternating with rosettes fits easily into the 13^th-c style favored by bureaucrats of the Hittite empire, however, and would be contemporary with its context. The handle was also incised with a potmark at its base (no. 2: KT 24011). A third stamped handle, from a medieval erosional deposit on the east side of the mound, belongs to a different type of circular seal altogether, with hieroglyphs exclusively and no decorative motifs (no. 3: KT 17199). Its sharp edges, and flat, shallow signs suggest that it was stamped by a metal seal with a handle, instead of a biconvex sealstone. No hieroglyphic seals were recovered in the course of the Kinet excavations, but a stone seal in the Adana Museum with the name of a scribe called Tuwakili may well come from the site.^[31] A second bifacial seal, of related provenience but different stone and shape, is in the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations in Ankara (Fig. 9a-b).^[32]

Fig. 9

Bifacial Hittite stamp seals, reportedly from Kinet Höyük: a) Adana Museum no. 1774, after Güterbock (1949, figs. 15:2, 17); b) Ankara Museum of Anatolian Civilizations AMM no. 3641/L (100-18-76), after Dinçol/Dinçol (1981, 37 pl. VII).

Outside Kinet, a Cilician distribution for Canaanite/Levantine jars stamped with Hittite seals is indicated by an example found on survey behind Iskenderun at Dağılbaz, heading towards the pass into the Amuq; and by a jar handle from Tarsus.^[33] The fabric of Kinet jars 2 and 3 matches the site’s local pottery macroscopically, but it is standard enough that these and other jars may have arrived from elsewhere in Cilicia. As a group, they point to a Hittite interest in commissioning shipping containers with official marks from regional potters, in order to regulate some aspect of maritime commercial traffic.

Philological Remarks

Potmarks and sealings on pots whose Anatolian hieroglyphic signs are specifically recognizable as if intended to be read may convey:

1. ownership/usage of the vessel and/or its content, or the (re)distribution of its content by an office;

2. the vessel’s volume with numerals and/or volume signs (depiction of pitcher, pithos etc.).^[34]

The hieroglyphic examples at Kinet would fall into these two categories, attributing an official status to the vessels (and/or its content) that displayed them.

Potmarks

Several types of potmarks from Kinet Höyük can be interpreted as hieroglyphic signs. Here we discuss three of them:

REX, L17 (Figs. 4.1–2, 4–6) ‘king/royal’. Potmarks in the form of an isosceles triangle bisected by a vertical line with a crossbar (i. e. depicting a pointed royal/divine hat) should be interpreted as the sign REX. It is not to be confused with the sign L225 URBS, an isosceles triangle filled with horizontal hatching (i. e. depicting a hill/tower^?), which in any case does not appear in the repertoire of Hittite potmarks. All tall triangles that include one horizontal and/or one vertical line (or even without an inner dividing line), should therefore be interpreted as the sign REX. This potmark sign is attested at several sites in Anatolia, including nearby Sirkeli.^[35]

REX. BONUS₂, L17 L370 (Fig. 4.3) ‘king’s/royal possession’ or ‘royal-goods’. The logogram BONUS₂can be understood here as a noun complementing REX, meaning ‘the king’s goods/wealth/property.’ ^[36] It could also serve REX as a phonetic complement: REX-su, hassu(was) = ‘royal’ in Hittite, but this reading is less likely.

MAGNUS.DOMUS, L363.L247 (Fig. 6) ‘great-house’ = palace: MAGNUS.DOMUS may refer either to ‘a palace/residence of the Hittite Great king’ represented by an office at Kinet Höyük, or to ‘the palace at Ḫattuša.’ Vessels inscribed with the hieroglyphs MAGNUS.DOMUS would have been used for royal administrative activities such as distribution of goods/rations in religious and/or secular contexts. The fragmentary inscription on Fig. 6.3 may represent these two signs, or the single sign L247 (DOMUS). In the latter case, the vessel would be connected with a local ‘palace’ here in Kinet Höyük. The term [MAGNUS.]DOMUS is attested as a potmark and on several seal impressions from the 13^th c BC.^[37] The potmark is also found at nearby Tatarlı, on a plate made by a local kiln.^[38]

The same labelling practice designated other types of official property by different signs, such as

DEUS (L360) for a religious establishment at Karkamiš; and the popular potmark SPICA (L149, grain), presumably referring to a storehouse (Fig. 10a-b). ^[39]Such signs were to be read as logograms, whether written in their incomplete (Figs. 10b: 1–2) or complete forms (Figs. 10b: 3–4), and not by their syllabic value.^[40] They merit a later comprehensive study.

Fig. 10 a-b

a) DEUS potmarks from Karkamiš (Peker 2020; © Turco-Italian Archaeological Expedition at Karkamiš); b) SPICA potmarks on bowls from LB II Kinet, Period 14: nos. 1 (KT 9782), 3 (KT 9928) and 4 (KT 10041) from the south building’s room 29/96; no. 2 (KT 24748) from the north building’s room 638 (© Kinet Höyük Project).

A Historical Context for the Hieroglyphic Potmarks at Kinet Höyük?

The implications of references to kingship and palace on the mundane table- and kitchen-wares of Late Bronze Kinet now need to be addressed in their historical framework. The political circumstances are reasonably straightforward for the 14^th–13^th c (LB II Periods 14–13), when Cilicia belonged to the Hittite New Kingdom/Empire. Less evident is the context for Hittite royal sponsorship at Kinet in the late 16^th–15^th c (LB I Period 15), when the rulers of Kizzuwatna retained its autonomous status by signing treaties with their Hittite peers of the later Old Kingdom. Under such circumstances, the use of the Anatolian court script at Kinet in the 16^th c invites questions about the integrity and location of Kizzuwatna’s eastern border, for instance; or whether underlying the Hittite treaties were concessions from Kizzuwatna in the form of property, or free access to certain routes, or seaside installations. Clarifications from sources other than material culture may be supplied by a few textual references, which suggest how Kinet at least stayed closely affiliated to Hittite officialdom from its Late Bronze inception ca. 1550. Since the evidence is better documented during the later, imperial stage of Hittite relations with Cilicia, this discussion will begin at the end of their association, in order to examine the possible conditions that established an early Hittite dependency at Kinet Höyük Izziya.

Textual records of the late 15^th to 13^th c from Boğazköy place the province Kizzuwatna within the sphere of imperial interests, notably religious ones, and its provincial administration in the hands of the royal family. Kizzuwatna’s absorption into the Hittite empire was effectively launched by king Tudḫaliya I/II (1420–1400) or II/III (ca. 1380–1355), and completed three generations later by Šuppiluliuma I (ca. 1355–1322).^[47] The dynastic cult of Kizzuwatnean Šarruma, together with the Hurrian divine couple Tešub and Ḫepat, came to be administered by the sons and/or brothers of these rulers.^[48] The active presence of Hittite princes during these two centuries is archaeologically confirmed by seals, bullae and correspondence recovered from the administrative district in Tarsus.^[49] Hittite state involvement in Cilicia thus became visibly manifested in the upper registers of central management.

The celebration of religious festivals throughout Kizzuwatna at their local cult centers also attracted the direct attention of the Hittite state and members of the imperial family, not least through their Hurrian wives including Ḫattušili III’s queen Puduḫepa. Detailed accounts of the Kizzuwatnean rituals were kept in the archives at Ḫattuša and other palatial centers, where their observance played a significant role in Hittite political affairs.^[50] Fortuitously, the festival itineraries described in these texts also provide us with a gazetteer of Kizzuwatna at exceptionally close range: it names towns, villages and temple estates; their proximity to each other and to topographic features such as mountains, rivers and sea; resources like vineyards for individual communities; and the histories of temple foundations.^[51] Some of the place names, like Tarša, continued into the classical period and beyond. This may also have been the case for the Kizzuwatnean coastal site of Izziya, whose name survived into later times and in historical tradition as Issos.^[52]

The place name Izziya appears three times among New Kingdom/Empire toponyms from Boğazköy, in texts relating to the region’s ritual landscape.^[53] A list of offerings to 40 Kizzuwatnean mountains and 40 rivers for the Ḫišuwa festival (CTH 628) connects Izziya with the sacred mountain Zara, which could reasonably be set in the mountainous topography behind Kinet.^[54] The second instance occurs in a tablet concerning the Kizzuwatnean rituals of Išḫara (CTH 641.1). The latter are especially instructive, and for this reason featured prominently, with a translation and commentary, in Goetze’s arguments resolving the location of this province and kingdom (Kizzuwatna and the Problem of Hittite Geography, 1940).^[55] The text records in detail, and over several generations of rulers, the financial endowment of a mountain shrine to the Hurrian goddess Išḫara and her attendant deities. Its founder Talzu, an early king (?) of Kizzuwatna, furnished the cult with statues and standing stones (ḫuwaši), and supplied it with a dozen villages and towns from throughout the kingdom, among them Izziya.^[56] These financial terms were maintained under his last successor Sunaššura, signatory to the final treaty with Ḫatti; and was reaffirmed by the current text’s author after it came under Hittite imperial authority. From this we learn that the cult’s organization remained intact after its assimilation by the Hittite state, and that Izziya was already designated crown property under the Kizzuwatnean kings.^[57] Its religious significance for the Hittite royal family extended into the 13^th c, as expressed in a prayer and vows spoken by Puduḫepa at Izziya to the sea and [its] gods (CTH 590).^[58]

Puduḫepa’s prayer also represents one of several textual sources situating Izziya’s geographical location on the Mediterranean seashore. The others appear in correspondence about individual journeys. A letter in Hittite from a 13^th-c official at Tall Āfis announces the itinerary of a Hittite queen, who is again certainly Puduḫepa. She is to travel overland from Āfis to Alalaḫ, a Hittite palatial center, and from there to Izziya. The trip is expected to take three days: the more likely course from Alalaḫ to Izziya was by sea, although this is not stated in the letter.^[59] References to the route taken by boats along this coast are found two generations later in a Ugaritic letter, addressed by a queen (also a Hittite princess), listing the daily stops on her journey from that city to a Cilician port [Ug. mlwm], perhaps Karataş across the bay from Kinet, and from there by river to Adaniya.^[60] Both queens would have been familiar with the Kizzuwatnean landscape, and the facilities offered by royal estates like Izziya. There is little doubt that they were furnished, and functioned, according to standards based on the Hittite lifestyle of that period.

It is more difficult to characterize the earlier stages of Kinet’s involvement with Hittite authorities, when the mid-16^th to 15^th-c kingdom of Kizzuwatna played a geopolitical role as a buffer and occasional partner with Ḫatti’s southeastern neighbors in Mittani Syria. During these years, four generations of Ḫatti kings signed parity treaties with Kizzuwatnean rulers to ensure a relationship at least nominally favorable to both parties. They followed the usual terms about mutual support in case of military aggression by outsiders; non-intervention in the affairs of neighboring countries; and the treatment of people straying into the other's territory.^[61] The texts are fragmentary, and do not preserve descriptions of their common borders. These can be found in the last of the treaties drawn up by Ḫatti, however, this time imposing conditions of subservience on its Kizzuwatnean counterpart in response to his unwelcome overtures to Mittani. The forceful restructuring of their relations apparently did not modify the course of their borders, to judge from out-dated expressions copied from earlier models of these treaties into this one; the only exception is the first entry, drawing the western border at the Lamos river (the natural topographic limit of Rough Cilicia).^[62] The eastern border is not defined in this treaty, since it was shared with Mittani and outside the treaty’s scope. It is only commented later, in the treaty between Šuppiluliuma I and the Mittanian king Šattiwaza, when Kizzuwatna had become a Hittite province without a critical border on its eastern front.^[63] The lack of information is unfortunate in the case of Kinet, which was concerned directly by political circumstances in Cilicia’s eastern border zone at this time (Period 15).

Hittite interest in securing non-aggression treaties with Kizzuwatna has long been attributed to maintaining access for Hittite armies between the Anatolian plateau and western Syria, a target for Hittite campaigns throughout its history, beginning with Ḫattušili I (or even earlier).^[64] This explanation assumed that troops descended into Cilicia from the pass in the northwestern Taurus (the Cilician Gates at Hittite Paduwanda, modern Pozantı), crossed the plain to its eastern limits at the Amanus range, and moved from there through the Bahçe Pass and south to raid the Syrian countryside and its settlements.^[65] The Trans-Cilician military highway has recently been challenged for cogent reasons, redirecting it east of Kizzuwatna during the era of the parity treaties, down the eastern passage from central Anatolia taken by earlier armies and travellers. There was, in this view, no Hittite political involvement in Kizzuwatna, even under Ḫatti’s founding kings, until its annexation at the start of the 14^th c.^[66] The concept of a kingdom called Kizzuwatna moreover appears to have been formulated for Hittite geopolitical convenience by Telipinu’s treaty, the one initiating the series; just as it disappeared at the end of the Late Bronze Hittite polity.^[67]

We are thus left with an apparent discrepancy between written Hittite references to royal property on Kinet pottery of the later 16^th and 15^th c, and the non-interference agreements of Hittite kings with their Cilician counterparts during the same period. It could be resolved if Izziya’s status as crown property had already been established by the time the earliest treaty was signed; or if the treaties included concessions between the two signatories that were not specified on the principal document, such as exclusionary clauses for certain towns. The arguments presented below for these two possibilities are admittedly speculative, but the archaeological circumstances do require attempting to find a historical explanation for them.^[68]

The first suggestion, concerning settlement status, is historically plausible. In addition to initiating the treaty policy with Cilicia and other administrative reforms, Telipinu established a network of state-run facilities in the Anatolian provinces to store tax revenues and transfer them to the Hittite capital for its projects. The supervisor (^lu₂agrig) of the collection center (e₂.^na₄kišib, ‘house of the seal/sealing house’ = warehouse/depot) disbursed supplies for religious ceremonies, temple expenses and their personnel, military equipment, and other expenditures. Each provincial warehouse had a corresponding depot in the capital, to receive its transferred goods. Provincial towns could in addition contain a ‘great house’ (e₂.gal), connected with crown estates in the locality to store their revenues, and represent the palace at Ḫattuša.^[69] Telipinu’s decree on these reforms concludes by listing 39 towns with store houses in Ḫatti, the Upper Land and the Lower Land, but there is no mention of Kizzuwatna or its festivals.^[70] By imperial times, however, collection centers had expanded throughout the Hittite provinces, including Cilicia to western Syria. In Kizzuwatna, warehouse supervisors were defined as cultic personnel, perhaps to match the title of the province's chief administrator as ‘priest of Šarruma, Tešub and Ḫepat.’^[71] Izziya and other settlements assigned to the goddess Išḫara would have been administered according to this system. Izziya may even have held the status of crown property overseen by a ‘great house,’ as suggested by the vessels inscribed MAGNUS.DOMUS and stored in its 14^th-c buildings (Figs. 5–6, Kinet Period 14).

A second option admits that Kinet represented a Hittite state institution already in the earlier Old Kingdom, gaining direct access to the maritime market in valuable goods including metals, and to international diplomacy, by rebuilding the seaport of Period 15 on the ruins of the late Middle Bronze city. State sponsorship best explains why the new foundation project applied techniques of Hittite urban type in architecture and masonry, and marked its property with the insignia of royal sponsorship. As Izziya, it retained the status of crown property for the next four centuries, eventually as a religious endowment to Išḫara. The attendant circumstances can be drawn up in tentative outline. The site was selected because it was a recognized outlet to the sea in a location with a functional harbor, preferable to the marshlands, currents and winds that discouraged landfall along the shores of the Cilician delta. It also had strategic merits: it was isolated from the delta and protected from incursions by a low ridge (Misis Dağı), which screens the Ceyhan valley from Iskenderun Bay, and restricts access to its narrow coastal plain. Finally, the bay's coast runs parallel, and ca. 35 km distant as the crow flies, to the Old Kingdom military corridor down the east flank of the Amanus mountains into Syria (the valley of the Karasu River).^[72] The bay may have been considered to provide the inland corridor with a coastal frontier zone – explicit or informal – either ceded to Telipinu when the Kizzuwatna agreements were first negotiated, or already secured by his precursors.^[73]

The seaport Izziya thus appears to have held the privileges of a Hittite stronghold with exceptional commercial interests, a royal store house, and use of the government’s early hieroglyphic notations. A comparable Hittite policy would lie behind the foundation at Soli Höyük of another seaport on Kizzuwatna’s western border, which the Sunaššura treaty added to previous boundaries. This one again consisted of a narrow coastal strip backed by mountains, and provided the Lower Land with an alternative route to the Göksu corridor through Rough Cilicia.^[74] Like Kinet, the construction of Late Bronze Soli followed Hittite standards, as did its ceramics, potmarks with the sign REX (L17), a bulla of late 16^th/early 15^th-c date, and a jar handle stamped by a 14^th-c Hittite official.^[75] These two seaports suggest that the terms written into the agreements between Ḫatti and Kizzuwatna secured political advantages beyond neutrality for the Hittite state. In a larger perspective, the new Hittite ports may be linked to an ambitious program of urban development in other late Old Kingdom frontier zones, best illustrated at present by Kuşaklı Sarissa.