golan shalvi

The history of Tel Shiqmona, on Israel's Carmel coast, in the Iron Age has remained almost totally obscure since its excavation some 50 years ago. Recent analysis has revealed the site's singularity-the only one around the Mediterranean that can be demonstrated to have produced the luxurious purple dye for half a millennium. This article is the first discussion of a central episode (three strata) in the site's history. We argue that during the Late Iron IIA, the Kingdom of Israel, probably under the Omrides, replaced a small Phoenician village with a fortified casemate enclosure in order to control and institutionalise the production of the dye and other industries. These peaked under Jeroboam II, and subsequently the fort was ravaged during the period of unrest in Israel after this monarch's reign. We discuss the historical and cultural picture emerging from a meticulous analysis of the stratigraphy and finds and address trade contacts and regional, historical and geopolitical contexts.

The 7th century in the southern Levant is characterized by Assyrian rule and subsequent Egyptian domination. Despite the relatively violent nature of this century, and abundant historical documentation, occupations both in the southern Levant and Lebanon are dated with low resolution. This deficiency was mainly created by a lack of destruction layers within this century, resulting in a dearth of chronological anchors for ceramic developments. At Tel Shiqmona, a unique purple-production centre that had been frequently destroyed, an unparalleled sequence of five layers of late Iron Age destructions/abandonments has been preserved, spanning a little over 100 years. These enable the definition of detailed typological developments of Phoenician transport jars. Being a widely distributed commercial vessel, exhibiting frequent typological changes and originating from a limited number of workshops, these jars constitute the best chronological index yet for the late Iron Age Levant. This paper presents the Tel Shiqmona sequence, outlines the typological development of the jars and explains their chronological designations. The benefits of defining archaeological sub-divisions within the 7th century BCE are highlighted by two examples: the chronology of Tyre; and settlement/geopolitical dynamics in the Assyrian province of Megiddo. It is argued that this chronological tool can be applied broadly around the Mediterranean.

Tel Shiqmona is a small site situated on Israel’s Carmel coast, presently on the southern outskirts of the city of Haifa. This paper results from an ongoing stratigraphic, contextual and artifactual analysis of the Bronze and Iron Age occupation at the site, excavated by Joseph Elgavish in the 1960s and 1970s. We present here one of the late Iron Age strata at the site―Stratum 10 (Elgavish’s Stratum 11)―which we claim comprised one building only, Shiqmona’s well known “Four-Room House”, one of the best preserved structures of this type ever uncovered. We suggest that the building was constructed in ca. the mid-eighth century BCE (not in the ninth century as commonly asserted) and that it functioned as an oil production facility as part of a general intensification of this industry in the Kingdom of Israel. However, as opposed to most known economic apparatuses, it continued to operate for a few decades after the Assyrian conquest, exporting its produce mainly via maritime routes and comprising the latest known four-room house in Israel. These conclusions are contextualized historically.

Tell es-Samak (Shikmona/Porphyreon; also spelled Shiqmona; henceforth Shikmona) was excavated between 1963 and 1977, exposing settlement strata representing an almost complete sequence from the Late Bronze Age to the end of the Iron Age. This article presents the initial stratigraphic insights from the current research project, while presenting the phenomena that the most significant findings represent. Since Shikmona was a small site on the border of ancient Israel and the “Phoenician” cities, without a proper anchorage or a main road nearby, it raises many questions about its location and its residents’ identities. In this paper I will review three phenomena unique to Shikmona that can shed new light on these questions: (1) Beyond the material culture that corresponds with that of the Israelite territory, there are many pottery vessels reflecting rich Phoenician material culture; (2) There is ample evidence of trade in the form of Cypriot imported pottery; (3) There is extensive evidence for a purple dye industry. The first phenomenon may indicate that despite the prevailing perception that Shikmona was an “Israelite site”, it is possible that at least in some periods, the site belonged to the Phoenician cultural sphere and, as a border site, may have been a cultural meeting point. The second phenomenon indicates that despite the site’s disadvantages as a port, it was connected to intensive trading networks. Lastly, the purple dye vat assemblage discovered at Shikmona leaves no room for doubt as to the importance of this prestigious industry as the main reason for the site’s economic and commercial centrality.

During the Iron Age, the northern coast of Israel passed through several geopolitical upheavals. During the Second Iron Age II, the Carmel coast is considered a border zone between the Phoenician city-states and the Kingdom of Israel. Between 1963–1977, Tel Shiqmona, located on the coast of the Carmel, was extensively excavated and revealed a nearly continuous occupation from the Late Bronze Age to the end of the Iron Age and further into the classical periods. Still, 40 years later, the results and finds of the early periods have not been researched or published. The Tel Shiqmona Project was launched in 2016 in order to save the cultural and intellectual assets hidden in the site’s forgotten finds. At this very preliminary point it has become clear that there are indications of material culture associated with that of Phoenicia and evidence of an extensive commercial relationship with Cyprus throughout the Iron Age. In addition, the excavation at Shiqmona yielded the largest number of potsherds on which a real purple dye is preserved. These findings raise many questions concerning political, cultural, economic and ethnic aspects of the site. The study is still in progress and the purpose of this short paper is to introduce Tel Shiqmona, its research and to formulate the questions, rather than to give the answers.