Tel Mor

From ArchaeoWiki

Tel Mor is a small archaeological site on the coast of present-day Israel, located immediately north of the city of Ashdod.

Contents 1 Excavation 2 Results 3 Publication 4 Bibliography 5 External links

Excavation

Moshe Dothan directed two seasons of excavations at Tel Mor from 1959-1960, uncovering 12 settlement strata, many of which were separated by thick destruction layers. These strata dated from the Middle Bronze Age to the Hellenistic Period.

Results

A series of fortresses dominated the site during the Late Bronze Age and early Iron Ages (Strata IX-V). Based on architectural features of the earlier fortresses and the associated finds—particularly Egyptian pottery and scarabs—from throughout the strata, the excavators concluded that Tel Mor functioned as an Egyptian outpost along the Via Maris during the New Kingdom period.

Publication

Aside from short preliminary reports and encyclopedia entries the Tel Mor excavations have not been published.

Dothan's results from Tel Mor are currently the subject of a renewed investigation and publication initiative by Tristan J. Barako. Barako has expressed the following goals:

• the opportunity to examine an almost fully exposed, clearly stratified, small settlement in a region (i.e., the southern Coastal Plain) dominated by the excavation of large tels
• to bring into sharper focus the nature and extent of Egypt's presence in Canaan in the latter half of the second millennium BCE. Clarification of the socio-political status of Tel Mor - whether Egyptian, Canaanite, or Philistine - during the period of the Philistine settlement (twelfth century BCE) will prove especially valuable in that the site figures prominently in discussions of the political geography of Canaan during the early Iron Age
• the publication of pottery from a sealed Hellenistic period cistern (an assemblage already extensively studied by Howard Kee), which can be confidently dated to 160 B.C. +/- 10 years, will provide an important chronological datum for the region

Bibliography

• Barako, Tristan J. [2007], Tel Mor — The Moshe Dothan Excavations, 1959–1960, [IAA Reports 32], Jerusalem: IAA, 2007.

• Dothan, Moshe [1973], "The Foundations of Tel Mor and Tel Ashdod", IEJ 23 (1973), pp.1-17.

External links

• Tel Mor: A Late Bronze Age Egyptian Outpost in Southern Coastal Canaan - pre-publication page, Shelby White-Leon Levy Program for Archaeological Publications