Three newly excavated shipwrecks at Dor, a key port on Israel’s Carmel Coast, are offering the first direct evidence of maritime cargoes from the Iron Age ever found in a harbor context in Israel. Dated between the 11th and sixth centuries B.C., these finds reveal how trade ebbed and flowed during periods of regional upheaval and imperial expansion in the eastern Mediterranean.The underlying open-access article (also linked to in the quote above) in the journal Antiquity:[...]
Iron Age ship cargoes from the harbour of Dor (Israel)Cross-file under Maritime (Underwater) Archaeology.Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 May 2025
Assaf Yasur-Landau, Marko Runjajić, Evgeny Shegol, Remi Rosen, Karsyn Johnson, Deborah Cvikel, Shirly Ben-Dor Evian, David E. Friesem, Tzilla Eshel and Gunnar Lehmann, Cassandra Donnely, Artemis Georgiou, Harel Shochat, Meir Edrey, Dafna Langgut and Thomas E. Levy
DOI: https://doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2025.71
Abstract
Connectivity and trade dominate discussions of the Mediterranean Bronze and Iron Ages, where artefacts travelled increasing distances by land and sea. Much of the evidence for the means through which such networks operated is necessarily indirect, but shipwrecks offer direct insights into the movement of goods. Here, the authors explore three Iron Age cargoes recently excavated at Tel Dor on the Carmel Coast, the first from this period found in the context of an Iron Age port city in Israel. Spanning the eleventh–seventh centuries BC, these cargoes illuminate cycles of expansion and contraction in Iron Age Mediterranean connectivity and integration.
Other PaleoJudaica posts on marine archaeology at Tel Dor are here, here, here, and here.
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