Shiqmona / Tell a-Samakh: A Late Bronze Age Temple Site and Iron Age Purple Dye Production Facility in Southern Phoenicia. Excavations by Joseph Elgavish 1963-1977.

Tel Shiqmona is a modest mound of ca. 2 acres, situated on a small rocky headland between the Carmel Mountains and the Mediterranean Sea, today on the southern outskirts of Haifa. It was excavated extensively by Joseph Elgavish between 1963–1977, on behalf of the Museum of Haifa. It revealed a nearly continuous occupation from the Late Bronze Age II to the end of the Iron Age (and further into the classical periods). During LB II the site may have functioned as a coastal/maritime temple, as can be seen by the unique finds displayed in museums. For the Iron Age, searching for the finds in the store-rooms immediately also revealed: (1) first and foremost, an unparalleled number of clay vats and other vessels stained with purple dye, by far the largest such assemblage ever found around the Mediterranean (2) a unique combination of ‘Israelite’ and ‘Phoenician’ (and some Syrian) material culture traits, mainly, but not only evident in ceramics; (3) evidence of extensive commercial relationship with Cyprus (especially Amathus and Paphos) exemplified by unusual quantities of Cypriot ceramics from these centers (and also others). Since the purple vats and imports were exposed in nearly all the Iron Age strata, they may indicate that during the Iron Age, especially in Iron Age II, Tel Shiqmona sustained one of the largest and most important (and protected) purple dye industries in the Levant and functioned as a major commercial node. In light of this, it seems that it can make a crucial contribution to understanding the purple-dye industry in early antiquity, and economic/commercial, cultural, and even political and ‘ethnic’ aspects of southern Phoenicia, possibly of Phoenicia as a whole during the Late Bronze and Iron Ages.

The publication project is directed by Ayelet Gilboa and Golan Shalvi.