Abstract
Secondary pit deposits in historical occupations of Near Eastern mounds are usually regarded as uninteresting and are seldom analyzed. We used an integrated approach to study all the artifacts as well as the sediments in a pit at Tel Dor, on Israel's Carmel coast, dating to the 7th c. BCE - a period when the site served as an Assyrian administrative center. This pit was unusually large, had a peculiar ceramic assemblage, and many macroscopic metallurgical wastes. A detailed excavation and analysis revealed that the pit served intermittently as a waste disposal site for an iron smithy and for pottery that was presumably involved in maritime trading. On two occasions the area was also used for animal penning. Despite the obvious importance of the iron industry to the Neo-Assyrian Empire, actual workshops are rare in its archaeological record. Hence the new information regarding an Iron Age iron smithy in the southern Levant contributes to the study of this industry, and also to the history of Dor in this period.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 2895-2908 |
| Number of pages | 14 |
| Journal | Journal of Archaeological Science |
| Volume | 35 |
| Issue number | 11 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Nov 2008 |
| Externally published | Yes |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:Until 2000 the Tel Dor excavations were directed by Ephraim Stern of the Hebrew University. It is now conducted by Sharon and Gilboa, on behalf of the Hebrew University, the University of Haifa, and the Israel Exploration Society. It is supported by the Berman Foundation for Biblical Archaeology, the Goldhirsh Foundation and anonymous donors. The field supervisors under whom the pit was excavated were Nancy Heiderbrecht (1988–1989), Mindi Goldin and Robyn Talman (1993), JoBeth Powell (1994), Julia Shtutina (1995), Benni Har-Even (1995–1996), Heidi Koenig (1999), Yiftah Shalev (2000), Aaron Brody and Willem Boshoff (2004), and Adi Eliyahu Behar (2005–2006). We thank Norma Franklin for discussions of Schumacher's' stratigraphy at Megiddo and Bronwen Manning for researching the stratigraphy of the pit. The line-drawings of the potsherds in Fig. 5 a were generated by Avshalom Karasik with software developed by him, from 3D images of the pottery. Talia Goldman and Yiftah Shalev helped with computer graphics. We thank the Kimmel Center for Archaeological Science members and students for their help in the excavation of the 2005 season and for financial support. We thank two anonymous reviewers and the editor for their valuable input.
Funding
Until 2000 the Tel Dor excavations were directed by Ephraim Stern of the Hebrew University. It is now conducted by Sharon and Gilboa, on behalf of the Hebrew University, the University of Haifa, and the Israel Exploration Society. It is supported by the Berman Foundation for Biblical Archaeology, the Goldhirsh Foundation and anonymous donors. The field supervisors under whom the pit was excavated were Nancy Heiderbrecht (1988–1989), Mindi Goldin and Robyn Talman (1993), JoBeth Powell (1994), Julia Shtutina (1995), Benni Har-Even (1995–1996), Heidi Koenig (1999), Yiftah Shalev (2000), Aaron Brody and Willem Boshoff (2004), and Adi Eliyahu Behar (2005–2006). We thank Norma Franklin for discussions of Schumacher's' stratigraphy at Megiddo and Bronwen Manning for researching the stratigraphy of the pit. The line-drawings of the potsherds in Fig. 5 a were generated by Avshalom Karasik with software developed by him, from 3D images of the pottery. Talia Goldman and Yiftah Shalev helped with computer graphics. We thank the Kimmel Center for Archaeological Science members and students for their help in the excavation of the 2005 season and for financial support. We thank two anonymous reviewers and the editor for their valuable input.
| Funders | Funder number |
|---|---|
| Berman Foundation for Biblical Archaeology | |
| Kimmel Center for Archaeological Science | |
| Goldhirsh Foundation |
Keywords
- FTIR
- ICP
- Iron Age
- Iron smithy
- Neo-Assyrian occupation
- Petrography
- Phoenician commercial jars
- Pit
- SEM-EDS
- Site formation processes
- Tel Dor
- XRF