‘En Ẓippori, Tel - The BAS Library

Home > Books > The New Encyclopedia of Archaeological Excavations in the Holy Land

INTRODUCTION

Tel ‘En Ẓippori is located along Naḥal Ẓippori in the Lower Galilee, 5 km from the modern city of Nazareth. Initially surveyed by Z. Gal of the Israel Antiquities Authority, it was excavated for five seasons, from 1993 through 2000, by the Sepphoris Regional Project under the direction of C. Meyers and E. Meyers (Duke University) and J. P. Dessel (University of Tennessee).

Tel ‘En Ẓippori is approximately 3.7 a. in size. Adjacent to one of the only spring-fed streams in the Galilee, it is surrounded by excellent agricultural land. The northern and western sides of the site have been artificially cut, probably during the last 200 years, in order to increase the area of the valley under cultivation. The tell has over 4 m of deposition and is comprised of two terraces with a 2 m vertical face separating the upper terrace (field I) from the lower terrace (field II). Field III is located along the western edge of the tell.

EXCAVATION RESULTS

Eight occupational strata have been identified, with occupation beginning in the Early Bronze Age IV and continuing from the Middle Bronze Age II/III through the Iron Age I (late eleventh century BCE). A gap in the stratigraphic sequence is followed by a brief reoccupation in the Iron Age II (ninth century BCE).

THE EARLY BRONZE AGE IV (STRATUM VIII) AND MIDDLE BRONZE AGE II/III (STRATUM VII). Although some Early Bronze Age IB sherds were found, the earliest stratified material dates to the Early Bronze Age IV. Sherds of that period (stratum VIII) were found in a deep probe in field II that reached 1.5 m below the current level of the valley floor. Stratum VII dates to the Middle Bronze Age II/III and includes a poorly preserved jar burial, scanty architectural remains, and pottery.

THE LATE BRONZE AGE I (STRATUM VI). Stratum VI is well represented in field II by a rectangular stone structure with at least six internal rooms and a sequence of four living surfaces. It features a long north–south wall constructed on a foundation footing of cyclopean stones. A storage jar and several well-made basalt pestles were found in a niche built into the eastern face of its southern end. Several restorable vessels were discovered in its middle room, along with an impressive array of imported pottery including Late Bronze Age I bichrome ware, chocolate-on-white ware, Cypriot white slip I, and Cypriot gray-burnished bottles. A beautiful bichrome krater, uncovered on the final Late Bronze Age I surface, is decorated with two large fish that appear to be barracudas, which are native to both the Mediterranean and Red Seas. Stratum VI ended in destruction.

THE LATE BRONZE AGE II (STRATUM V). An enigmatic installation found to the east of the Late Bronze Age I building in field II is the only architectural element built in stratum VI that was reused in stratum V. A semicircular stone wall built around a large, flat stone slab, it is demarcated to the north and west by stone walls (aligned to the cardinal directions). There is also a short stepped platform to the north. A large Late Bronze Age I krater was buried to the east within a semicircular line of large cobbles. The krater was empty except for fragmentary remains of an immature sheep/goat skull along with a few toe bones from an adult sheep/goat. A beautiful hematite weight (10 grams, a Ugaritic shekel) was found next to the krater. Surfaces of both the Late Bronze Age I and II are associated with the eastern and western sides of this installation. The stone slab base was modified and used in conjunction with an aperture, which may have originally served as a drainage conduit, in the back of the semicircular wall. Two complete basalt bowls, with associated Late Bronze Age II pottery, were found on a surface that covers the sunken krater. A complete Late Bronze Age II lamp was also retrieved on a beaten-earth surface that covered the stone slab in stratum V. The function of this installation is not certain; it may have been used for rituals, for food-processing purposes, or both.

To the west of this installation another stratum V building was constructed over the remains of the Late Bronze Age I structure. It is a very large building, some 15 m in length, and was built along a different orientation than the stratum VI structure. A range of Late Bronze Age Cypriot pottery, as well as a few Mycenean IIIB imports, was found in this building. Late Bronze Age II sherds but no buildings were also recovered in field I.

One of two lead votive figurines recovered from the site was found in stratum V in a mixed debris layer. This figurine does not have any direct parallels, but it is similar to Negbi’s “Byblos” group.

THE IRON AGE I (STRATA IV–III). The large stratum V building in field II continued in use into the Iron Age I (early twelfth century BCE) with some modifications, such as a new doorway and an addition extending to the east. A new courtyard added to the building’s south contained several installations consisting of the inverted tops of collar-rim storage jars, one of which was used as a tabun. Well-preserved remains of stratum IV were also found in field I, indicating an early Iron Age I occupation at the site, in continuity with the Late Bronze Age II settlement. Remains in field I include at least two long rooms and many broken storage jars, apparently smashed in the destruction that brought at end to stratum IV.

The site was thoroughly redesigned in stratum III (eleventh century BCE). Stratum III domestic structures—part of a four-room house and a small alley with adjoining rooms—were recovered in field II. Three parallel walls, delineating at least three terraces on the northern slope of the site, were found to the west of the four-room house. The southernmost terrace wall is over 11 m long and over 1 m wide. There are at least three distinct occupational phases in stratum III of field II.

The largest structure at the site, probably a public building, is a large multi-roomed structure located in field I. Called building A, it measures 18 by 13.5 m and was constructed in part on a deep earthen foundation, which raised the level of field I buildings almost 2 m above those of field II. It was a prominent feature at the site and along Naḥal Ẓippori. The focal point of building A is its large (at least 11.5 by 5.8 m) open northern courtyard with a well-made stone bench along its back wall and a 3.5-sq m mud-brick platform in its northwestern corner. Against the western end of its northern wall is a short (2.7 m-long) bench, on which was found a smashed krater with unusual incised circular marks. Passage from the courtyard through a doorway, with a well-made threshold and ashlar-like door jambs, leads to the western wing and southern part of the building. The west wing includes several rooms, one with a circular stone bin (1.3 m in diameter) and a cobbled floor, and another with a beaten-earth floor and fragments of charred beams. The ceramic assemblage in the west wing is much more diverse than that in the rest of building A. The southern area consists of three rooms and a corridor. Within the latter are the remains of what appears to be a stairway that would have been accessible from the courtyard, which, given the lack of any pillar bases, must have been unroofed.

One of the most significant architectural elements of the site is a stone silo, 4.5 m in diameter and preserved to a height of 2.54 m. Constructed of cobbles and fieldstones, it has a well-made cobbled floor and neatly abuts building A’s western wall, although it is founded some 1.5 m lower than the southwestern corner of the building. Its volume is approximately 40 cu m. A silo of this size associated with a multi-roomed building (building A) with a large courtyard indicates that the site and especially the building probably had an administrative/redistributive function. Thumb-impressed storage jar handles, the only significant small finds from the building, support the interpretation of the site as a local administrative center in this period.

Building A did not stand alone. The corners of two other rectangular buildings have been identified to its south and southeast. In what must have been an outdoor courtyard, also to the south, was found another lead figurine, a small female votive with a Hathor headdress, similar to Negbi’s “Byblo-Palestinian” group. Both figurines can be dated typologically to the beginning of the Late Bronze Age. Because Tel ‘En Ẓippori appears to have been very vibrant in the Late Bronze Age I, these figurines may well have been produced in the sixteenth century, with one maintained as an heirloom into the Iron Age.

Other than a few restorable eleventh-century storage jars, little else was left in any of the interior rooms of building A (other than in the west wing), and it appears to have been deliberately emptied prior to its complete destruction. Thick deposits of burned mud-brick debris were found within the building, suggesting it was destroyed by fire sometime in the late eleventh or early tenth century BCE.

THE IRON AGE I–II TRANSITION (STRATUM II) AND IRON AGE II (STRATUM I). After the destruction of stratum III, the site seems to have been partially abandoned. This is particularly evident in field II. In field I, however, there is evidence of a brief phase of occupation built on the wall stubs of building A. This very ephemeral squatter phase, stratum II, can be dated to the end of the eleventh or beginning of the tenth century BCE. Parts of three structures, all constructed in a very flimsy fashion and poorly preserved, have been recovered. The pottery is identical to the stratum III material.

Stratum I dates to the ninth century BCE and is found only in field III, along the western slope of the tell, where part of a pillared building was discovered. Excavation on this slope also clearly demonstrated that the site was not fortified in the Iron Age II.

SUMMARY

The multi-period settlement of Tel ‘En Ẓippori differs from most village sites in that the remains recovered in its major strata exhibit a degree of social stratification. The imported pottery, the large administrative building, and the lead figurines are features associated with rural elites. Two other intriguing aspects of the site are the unusual continuity between the Late Bronze Age II and the Iron Age I and the destruction at the end of the tenth century. The former places the site outside the pattern expected from excavations in the hill country, where villages tended to have been built de novo, and suggests an uninterrupted Canaanite settlement into the Iron Age. The latter may be the result of tenth-century Israelite administrative policies that sought to terminate the control of rural Canaanite elites.

J.P. DESSEL, CAROL MEYERS, ERIC MEYERS

O. Negbi, Canaanite Gods in Metal: An Archaeological Study of Ancient Syro-Palestinian Figurines (Tel Aviv University, Publications of the Institute of Archaeology 5), Tel Aviv 1976; Z. Gal, Lower Galilee during the Iron Age (ASOR Dissertation Series 8), Winona Lake, IN 1992; J. P. Dessel AJA 98 (1994), 498; 102 (1998), 771–773, 774–775 (et al.); id. (& J. Jurgensen), ASOR Newsletter 45/2 (1995), 24; 47/2 (1997), 27; id. (et al.), IEJ 45 (1995), 288–292; 47 (1997), 268–270; 48 (1998), 281–285; 51 (2001), 99–105; id., OEANE, 2 (ed. E. M. Meyers), Oxford 1997, 227–228; id., Galilee through the Centuries, Winona Lake, IN 1999, 1–32; C. M. Meyers, BA 58 (1995), 117–118; id., Sepphoris in Galilee: Crosscurrents of Culture (eds. S. R. Martin Nagy et al.), Winona Lake, IN 1996, 14–19, 154–155; id., Boundaries of the Ancient Near Eastern World (C. H. Gordon Fest.; JSOT Suppl. Series 273; eds. M. Lubetski et al.), Sheffield 1998, 30–39; id., Hesed ve-Emet (E. S. Frerichs Fest.; Brown Judaic Studies 320), Atlanta, GA 1998, 331–342; id. (& J. P. Dessel), NEA 62 (1999), 53–54; E. M. Meyers et al., AJA 100 (1996), 738, 742–744; B. Alpert Nakhai, AASOR 58 (2003), 138–139.