Site Overview and Location
Tel Dor (also Khirbet el-Burj) is located some 30 kilometers to the south of the modern-day city of Haifa, on the Carmel coast (Vacek 2015). The mound itself is situated on a promontory that juts out into the Mediterranean, in the process creating a pair of natural harbors to the south and north of the site that would define its existence for much of its history (Vacek 2015; Gilboa and Sharon 2008: 147, 149). The site was originally excavated by Garstang in 1925, who uncovered a temple in the northern portion of the tell, as well as digging a pair of trenches in the south (Gilboa and Sharon 2008: 147). However, the site would not be thoroughly excavated again until 1980, when the Hebrew University expedition under Ephraim Stern, until 2000. The most recent excavation was undertaken by Ayelet Gilboa and Ilan Sharon, from the University of Haifa and Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Dor’s original settlement is somewhat uncertain, although it is clear that the site was settled at least by the Middle Bronze IIA, and would remain an important regional trade center through the Roman period, and the Iron Age is especially well-attested at the site (Vacek 2015; Nitschke, Martin, and Shalev 2011: 132–133; Gilboa and Sharon 2008: 148). In total, the site has nine areas of excavation, primarily at the periphery of the tell: Areas A–C are located to the east of the tell, and are the furthest inland; Areas E, F and H are located near the western coast of the tell, Area D, subdivided into Areas D1–D5, is located at the edge of the southern coast, where the largest natural harbor lies, and Area G is situated directly in the middle of the tell, and is the focus of this paper (Gilboa, Sharon, and Zorn 2018a: 4, Fig. 1.1).
Area G: Layout, Stratigraphy, and Function
Area G is the sole LB area uncovered during the course of the excavations at Dor, although there were efforts to probe LB strata in Areas B1 and D2, to no avail (Gilboa and Sharon 2008: 149–150 ). Area G was initially opened in 1986 to gain further insight into Hellenistic and Roman period habitation of the tell, and to open up an excavation near the tell’s interior, which had up to that point remained mostly untouched (Gilboa, Sharon, and Zorn 2018a: 5–7). There was also the goal of finding the settlement’s center, as the excavators assumed that roads they had uncovered running east to west and north to south originating from other parts of the tell would intersect somewhere around Area G (Ibid.).
The LB strata was excavated from 1997 to 2000, and appears to be a single structure — a house with a courtyard — that remained in place in the area for some two centuries, through the LB and Iron Ages, despite one or more destructions, and several changes to the structure’s layout (Gilboa, Sharon, and Zorn 2018b: 27–28, Fig. 2.1). The Late Bronze strata are represented by two phases, 12 and 11, with 11 being subdivided into 11a and 11b. These phases were also further divided into four horizons, H1–H4 (Gilboa, Sharon, and Zorn 2018b, 30–31, Fig. 2.2). Phase 12 represents approximately 20–30 years near the end of the 13th century BCE, while Phase 11 represents the remainder of the 13th century BCE, and possibly the early 12th as well, lasting 40–50 years in total (Gilboa, Sharon, and Zorn 2018b: 33, 35). The chronology of the individual rooms of the house is somewhat less clear, and this is owed in part to the challenges of excavating the area around the Iron Age remains atop it, some level of intrusion from the Iron Age strata, and the fact that the LB was simply not the focus of this particular excavation (Gilboa, Sharon, and Zorn 2018b, 29–30; Sharon 2018: 81–86).
The actual function of the area is unclear, beyond being a residential structure. However, there is some evidence that the area was a metallurgical workshop in Phase 11, such as several pieces of copper slag, a handful of metal implements, fragments of crucibles and what may have been furnace walls, and evidence high temperature firing occurring to the north of the area (Gilboa, Sharon, and Zorn 2018b: 34). It is also worth noting that the area was almost certainly a metallurgic workshop in the subsequent periods of habitation (Gilboa, Sharon, and Zorn 2018b: 41–42).
Contributor: Nicolas Bonetta-Misteli , September 2021
Geography:
Tel Dor is a large mound site located on the coastal plain between Mt. Carmel and the Mediterranean Sea. The site is around 30 km south of modern-day Haifa and possesses several nearby bays which served as ports throughout antiquity and into the present day. Tel Dor has been constructed on a kurkar ridge (calcified sand dunes) and a sand spit that accumulated between the ridge and the coastline. Red loamy soils locally termed “Hamra” intercalate the kurkar. The ridges run parallel to the coastline, and clays and alluvial sediments fill the troughs in between. There are few natural clay deposits in the vicinity, with some deposits buried under the sand cover in the bays. This region is part of the Nile siliciclastic littoral cell, which receives quartz-rich sediments that flow northwards from the Nile river.
Contributor: Nathan Freeman, August 2021
