Tel Qiri

Tel Qiri
תל קירי (Hebrew)
Tel Qiri is located in Israel
Tel Qiri
Shown within Israel
LocationHaZore'a, Israel
RegionBorder between the Menashe Heights and Jezreel Valley
Coordinates32°38′38″N 35°06′53″E / 32.64389°N 35.11472°E / 32.64389; 35.11472
TypeAncient village, cemetery
Area10 dunams (1 hectare; 2.5 acres)
History
PeriodsNeolithic, Chalcolithic, Bronze Age, Iron Age, Persian, Hellenistic, Roman, Early Arab, Ottoman
Satellite ofTel Yokneam
Site notes
ArchaeologistsAmnon Ben-Tor, Miriam Avissar
Completely covered by HaZore'a's houses today.

Tel Qiri (Hebrew: תל קירי) is a tel and an ancient village site located inside the modern kibbutz of HaZore'a in northern Israel. It lies on the eastern slopes of the Menashe Heights and the western edge of the Jezreel Valley. As of the beginning of the excavations in 1975, almost half of the site was still visible, but today the entire site is covered by the houses of HaZore'a. The site spans an area of one hectare and is believed to have been a dependency of the nearby Tel Yokneam. The site hosted some human activity during the Neolithic and Chalcolithic periods, as well as parts of the Bronze Age. An uninterrupted sequence of settlement lasted from the Iron Age to the Roman-Byzantine period. Unlike all urban centers in northern Israel, the village in Tel Qiri, which flourished during the Iron Age, escaped all military events and no traces of destruction can be found there. This minor, damaged and seemingly insignificant site yielded an amazingly rich and diverse quantity of remains of different periods.[1][2][3]

The excavation of Tel Qiri is part of the Yoqneam Regional Project, which conducted excavations at nearby Tel Yokneam and Tel Qashish.[3]

  1. ^ A. Ben-Tor, M. Avisar, Ruhama Bonfíl, I. Zerzetsky and Y. Portugali, A Regional Study of Tel Yoqneʿam and Its Vicinity, Qadmoniot 77–79, 1987 p. 3 (Hebrew)
  2. ^ Ben-Tor and Portugali, 1987, p.1–4
  3. ^ a b Ben-Tor, 1979, p.105