What Does Archaeology Tell Us about the Crusades?

Title: What Does Archaeology Tell Us about the Crusades? Bilkent University Excavations at Kinet Höyük, Dörtyol, Hatay

By Scott Redford (SOAS, History of Art and Archaeology)

Date: Wednesday, December 17, 2025

Time: 1630-1800

Room: C-Block Amphi

Abstract: This lecture presents the results of the Medieval-period excavations at Kinet Höyük in Hatay Province, southern Turkey, as published in the final excavation report. During the mid-12th to early 14th centuries, the region was a contested frontier between the Crusader Principality of Antioch, the Knights Templar, the Kingdom of Armenian Cilicia, and the Mamluk Sultanate. Medieval Kinet—known in Arabic sources as al-Tina and in Latin as Canamella—is described in contemporary sources as a port exporting timber from the nearby Amanos Mountains. Archaeological investigations have identified four habitation levels spanning this period, three of which ended in violent conflagration and destruction. Kinet’s strategic position on the Mediterranean coast and along the main road connecting Anatolia with northern Syria is reflected in the rich assemblage of material culture recovered at the site, including ceramics, coins, and other objects originating from across the eastern Mediterranean, inland Syria, and beyond. The combination of well-defined stratigraphy and detailed analyses of diverse materials provides rare insights into economy, settlement, warfare, and everyday life in a frontier zone during the age of the Crusades.

About the speaker: Scott Redford is the Nasser D. Khalili Professor of Islamic Art and Archaeology at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London. He received his PhD in Fine Arts from Harvard University in 1989. From 1990 to 2008, he served as director of Georgetown University’s McGhee Center for Eastern Mediterranean Studies in Alanya and taught in the School of Foreign Service’s Culture and Politics Program.

Redford has also been a visiting researcher at Bilkent University, director of ANAMED (Koç University’s Research Center for Anatolian Civilizations) from 2005 to 2015, and a faculty member at Koç University, where he taught courses on the Crusades, the Seljuks, medieval Anatolia, and Islamic architecture. His scholarship has played a central role in advancing the study of Seljuk visual culture, medieval landscapes, and the architectural expression of political authority in Anatolia and the eastern Mediterranean.

Organized by the Department of Archaeology