The 1970s excavations at Tell es-Sweyhat concentrated on the innertown and uncovered extensive remains of the late third millennium urban settlement. The excavations revealed:
(1) portions of the innerfortification wall, a 2.5 m thick mudbrick construction set on stonefootings with buttresses or a series of defensive towers (Holland 1976: 49and 1977: 37);
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(2) evidence for centralized grain storage (Holland 1976:55 and 59; van Zeist and Bakker-Heeres 1985: 309) and metal working(Holland 1976: 51 and 66-67), as well as administrative artifacts,including an inscribed weight (Holland 1975), in a number of interconnectedrooms built against the wall on the western side of the citadel or Area IV(Holland 1976: 49-62 and 1977: 37-43); and,
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(3) domestic buildings on the northeast edge of the citadel in Area III (Holland 1976: 48-49). In addition to evidence of the late third millennium settlement, late remains were uncovered in a series of squares on the southern side of the mound, Area I (Holland 1976: 38), and stratigraphic sequences were defined in an as yet unpublished step trench on the northern slope of the mound, Area V (Holland 1976: 62) and in two 5 by 5 m squares just west of the mound's summit, Area II (Holland 1976: 38-48).
As originally laid out in 1989, Penn's research had two interrelated major goals, one site specific and one regional. The former involved the study of form and structure in a late third millennium urban center. The regional program aimed at examining
(1) the relatively rapidgrowth of the site from a small village to a major urban center in the late third millennium and its equally rapid contraction, in the early second millennium and,
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(2) the degree of integration between the late third millennium urban center and its hinterland.
In approaching our research questions, we opted to focus our efforts at Tell es-Sweyhat itself largely on the unexcavated lower town. Yet in order to recover a range of comparably excavated inner town contexts, we originally planned in effect to cross-section the central mound by excavating a series of 10 by 10 m units that ran west-east and south-northacross it, the two series 
of squares intersecting near the mound's highest point. On the main mound (cross-ref. to topographic map and stratigraphic summary) we have to date begun the east-west series of trenches with Operations 1, 12, 20 and 21 on the west side of the mound and a small square (Operation 13) on the east side of mound, and we have undertaken smaller excavations elsewhere. We also began the series of north-south trenches with Operation 5 on the south end of the mound and Chicago has continued that excavation (Holland 1993/94). In the lower town (see topographic map and photographic summary) we have made controlled surface collections; begun a remote sensing mapping project; and, undertaken excavations in seven areas (Operations 3-4, 9, 15-18, 23, 25 and 27), as well as salvage work on shaft-and-chamber tombs accidentally discovered in1993. In addition, we have also undertaken limited excavations (Operations19 and 28-29) in the lower town south.
As for regional work, Wilkinson began an intensive geomorphological andarchaeological survey aimed at reconstructing long term land use patterns in the Sweyhat embayment in the 1970s and completed his work in 1991 and1992. He is currently preparing a final report. In 1993 we initiated a follow-up regional research program which involves expanding Wilkinson's areal coverage and making topographic maps, systematic surface collections and soundings (or horizontal exposures) at relevant third and early second millennium sites (see Regional Surveys and Excavations).
