The Hittite Seaport Izziya at Late Bronze Age Kinet Höyük (Cilicia)

Abstract

Recent excavations at Kinet Höyük, an ancient Cilician seaport in the northeastern Mediterranean, document the cultural transformations that were exerted by the Late Bronze Age Hittite state to secure its peripheral territories. During the Middle Bronze Age, Kinet Höyük had maintained its regional identity while prospering from the maritime commercial network that flourished along the Levantine coast. This regional profile changed when Kinet Höyük and its Cilician neighbors came under Hittite pressure ca. 1500 b.c.e., and adopted the material culture of central Anatolia. As the Hittite seaport Izziya, Kinet Höyük shows that the Anatolianizing process was sudden, effective, and enduring.