The plan of the Cappadocia Gate is now fully revealed (Fig. 52). A slanted entrance passage gave way to a rectangular court in which a cultic idol and a stele were set up. In subsequent stages inclined stone paving was laid in the passage and court. The enclosed rear section of the gate, on the other hand, was provided with a central pavement from the beginning. The wide façades at both the front and the back of the rear section housed double doors of wood above which we may reconstruct elevated walkways behind parapets. An enemy force ascending the unroofed entrance passage would have find itself trapped in the court, assailed from above on all sides as it attempted to attack closed doors.

     Completion of Excavations at the Cappadocia Gate
     This sophisticated military architecture (Figs 52 to 55) is utterly different from that of Late Bronze Age, and indeed from the Iron Age gates of Neo-Hittite cities. However, the ninth-century citadel at Gordion and, contemporaneous with our gate, the city gate at Lydian Sardis, bear some resemblance that again demonstrates west Anatolian characteristics at Kerkenes. Although the Cappadocia Gate was destroyed by fire when the city was put to the torch, there is no evidence that the gate was taken by force when the city was captured.
     At the start of the season the remains of a person, crushed to death by falling masonry while attempting to flee through the burning gate, were lifted by Prof Yılmaz Erdal and his students (Figs 56 to 58). This skeleton, revealed in 2010 but reburied because of the danger of working beneath the tall walls of the gate in wet weather, is now in the anthropology laboratory at Hacettepe University. This brings the number of victims killed when the gate collapsed to two.
     Excavation and recording of the gate rear passage proceeded in June (Figs 58 and 59). The slots in which the two façades that held large double doors controlling the entrance to the city were fully uncovered. It was subsequently understood that under the base of these two partitions there was a series of horizontal timbers (Fig. 60). Three iron straps that most probably held the door planks together were found amongst the burnt debris (Fig. 61).
    Then came the discovery of an antithetical pair of crouching sphinxes, largely complete, carved on the front of a large sandstone plinth (Figs 62 and 63). A socket in the top of the plinth secured the tenon of an extraordinary sculpture carved from soft limestone, elements of which were covered with compass-cut scales (Fig. 64). Only a portion of this statue survives, and that was smashed into pieces. This discovery was made in the north corner of the rear section of the gate. The back corners were trimmed away so that the plinth fitted across the corner of the room leaving only a small triangular void behind, the waste fragments being packed under the plinth to level it (Fig. 65). At some stage before the fire this sculpture was closed off by a wall that was of very poor construction (Fig. 66), comprising footings of small stones below mudbrick and incorporating wooden uprights to support a flimsy roof. There seems to have been a narrow doorway in the northwestern end of this wall. Why should the sculpture have been hidden from view in this manner? It will not be possible to address that crucial question before the slow and arduous task of putting together enough of the incomplete three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle has revealed exactly what was represented.
     Fragments of the plinth and statue were carefully packed and labelled (Fig. 67). It would have been impossible to drag the plinth out of the trench (Fig. 68) had it not been split into smaller sections as a result of the fire and collapse.
     Finally, in the closing days of the excavation in September, an exquisite gold and electrum ornament was found (Fig. 1). This unique piece lay directly beneath the burnt doors of the rear façade in the centre of the entrance. Surely it was lost in the panic of flight as escapees dashed through the burning gate. Whether it was dropped by one or other of the two whose remains we found in the destruction, or by someone more fortunate, we shall never know.
     A small sondage dug at the north corner of the Middle Tower was supervised by Ferhat Can (Fig. 69). The excavation revealed an unexpectedly deep base and well-stratified layers of deposit laid during the construction phase of the towers beneath a series of surfaces some of which were earlier than the stone pavement (Fig. 70).

     Results
     Excavations at the Cappadocia Gate were completed in September 2011. An unsuspected configuration of timber-framed partitions and doors was revealed between the two rear towers (Fig. 71). One can also imagine how daunting the array of front towers would have been to anyone approaching from the south (Fig. 72).

     Architectural Conservation and Repair
     Architectural conservation is carried out at the Cappadocia Gate in order to preserve and enhance the monument and to improve visitor safety (Figs 73 and 74).
     There was an imperative need to reduce danger to visitors, as well as a desire to clear the Gate Court of stone that had fallen from the inner face of the Middle Tower in the autumn of 2010. Emergency conservation to stablise the wall core, together with original facing stones on the southwest side of the tower that were in imminent danger of collapsing, was undertaken. Although the new facing did not stand up to the first heavy rain, the situation is currently stable and the court safe for visitors. Additionally, it proved possible to complete the stone-for-stone documentation of the walls and stone pavement that will be required for a comprehensive proposal for restoration as well as for archaeological publication.
     Restoration Architects Dr Nilufer Yöney and Erkan Kambek, both from the Istanbul Technical University, with the team of professional stonemasons from Uşak, introduced new horizontal timber beams to replace those that had burnt out some 2,500 years ago (Figs 75 to 77). Wall facing in the North and West Towers was then replaced (Figs 79 and 80). This experimental and reversible approach appears to have been highly successful.

     Finds Conservation and Recording
     Conservator Noël Siver spent the greater part of the season working on the conservation of the sculpted sandstone plinth and the thousands of fragments from the smashed statue that stood on the plinth. Archaeological Illustrator Ben Claasz Coockson drew the sculpted plinth and the largest of the reassembled statue fragments. All other finds from the 2011 season were drawn and photographed, including the gold ornament (Figs 81 and 82) from the Cappadocia Gate. Additional photography, drawing, cataloguing and curation was done by members of the team.
 The Sandstone Plinth
     The large portion of the sandstone plinth (Fig. 83) which was discovered in situ was carefully recorded during excavation. Pieces which had been broken off the front were recovered from the destruction debris in which the plinth was buried. The upper part of the front face of the plinth stood proud of the destruction debris. This part was exposed to the elements for a considerable period of time, as evidenced by erosion and colour change of the broken surfaces. By the time that further tumble from the North Tower had come to bury the block entirely, most of the heads and wings of both sphinxes had been lost. A small number of fragments that had broken off the front of the plinth during the fire and collapse were recovered from the debris, but attempts to rejoin them in their original positions have yet to meet with success.
      When the wall face of the North Tower fell in the course of the fire the front of the plinth was badly damaged. All the carving was broken away, with soil and plant roots filling the cracks. The front of the plinth was photographed in situ. As each carved fragment was removed it was numbered and the number marked on printouts of the photographs. This procedure was of great help in reassembling the fragments in the Stone Workshop.
     In September Noël Siver worked on the restoration of the plinth while drawings were done by Ben Claasz Coockson (Figs 84 to 87). The fragments have been carefully washed, but no attempt has been made to remove salts deposited on broken surfaces. This would be extremely difficult to do mechanically and, following the best practices of conservation, the pieces were not acid-cleaned.      At the end of the 2011 season this plinth, along with the aniconic granite stele from the Cappadocia Gate and other stones, were taken to the Yozgat museum (Figs 88 to 90). It had been hoped that the plinth could have been kept in the Kerkenes Stone Conservation Workshop until full restoration had been completed. However, because the workshop was designed for the restoration of large stone items that would normally be left in the open, it is not possible to make the building secure. A decision was therefore taken to transport the plinth to the Museum before restoration had been completed.
     The Limestone Statue
By the end of the season the only unfinished conservation and illustration task is the limestone statue (Fig. 91). At the moment it is difficult to assess how much more it will be possible to join together, or indeed to estimate how big the sculpture was and, therefore, what proportion of the original piece has survived. Considerable research in libraries in the autumn of 2011 has failed to find any convincing parallel, with the result that even the subject matter is unknown. A new assessment will be made in May 2012, when all the fragments can be laid out in the Stone Conservation Workshop. A decision will then be taken as to how much more join-finding can realistically be achieved before completing the photographic record and drawing of fragments that cannot be joined to the main body of the statue. There is no good reason to think that further significant advances can be made with this incomplete, fragmentary and poorly preserved material.
     Other Architectural Stone
Other architectural or carved stone, all from previous excavation seasons at the Palatial Complex, was reassessed. It has been decided that no more effort will be spent on join-finding and restoration. All effort in the proposed 2012 study season will be placed on final drawing and photography for publication. This assemblage includes numerous bolsters and the many fragments from an unknown number of semi-iconic idols, cuttings for wooden dove-tailed clamps, and several architectural fragments bearing enigmatic embellishment.

     Archaeozoology
     Animal bones from the Cappadocia Gate, where a sealed deposit beneath a floor yielded material that was exceptionally well preserved for Kerkenes, were examined by Dr Evangelina Pişkin and then taken to METU for full analysis.

     Physical Anthropology
     The human skeletal remains excavated at the Cappadocia Gate by Yılmaz Selim Erdal were taken to the physical anthropology laboratory at Hacettepe University for study.