Tel Yokneam

Tel Yokneam
תֵּל יָקְנְעָם
Tel Yokneam seen from Mount Carmel, with modern Yokneam Illit to the right and the town of Yokneam Moshava to the left
Tel Yokneam is located in Israel
Tel Yokneam
Tel Yokneam
Shown in Israel
Tel Yokneam is located in Eastern Mediterranean
Tel Yokneam
Tel Yokneam
Tel Yokneam (Eastern Mediterranean)
LocationIsrael
RegionJezreel Valley, Israel
Coordinates32°39′51″N 35°06′6.3″E / 32.66417°N 35.101750°E / 32.66417; 35.101750
TypeTell
Area10 acres/4 ha/40 dunams (20 acres with slopes)
Height60 meters (200 ft)
History
FoundedRock-cut tombs c. 2000 BCE, fortified city c. 1900 BCE
AbandonedOttoman period
PeriodsChalcolithic, Bronze Age, Iron Age, Persian, Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine, Early Islamic, Crusader, Mamluk, Ottoman
Site notes
Archaeologists

Tel Yokneam, also spelled Yoqne'am or Jokneam (Hebrew: תֵּל יָקְנְעָם), is an archaeological site located in the northern part of the modern city of Yokneam Illit, Israel. It is known in Arabic as Tell Qamun (Arabic: تل قامون), believed to be a corruption of the Hebrew name.[1] The site is an elevated mound, or tell, spanning around 40 dunams (10 acres/4 ha) and rising steeply to a height of 60 meters (200 ft).[2] With a few brief interruptions, Yokneam was occupied for 4,000 years, from the Middle Bronze Age to the Ottoman period.[3]

The ancient settlement at Tel Yokneam is first mentioned in Egyptian sources as a city conquered by Pharaoh Thutmose III.[4] It appears later in the Hebrew Bible as a city defeated by Israelite leader Joshua and settled by the Tribe of Levi.[5] It is mentioned twice in Roman sources.[6] During the Crusades, it was called Caymont, or Cain Mons, recalling a legend that Yokneam was the site of Cain's death.[7] For a period, it was the center of the Lordship of Caymont, the smallest seigneurie of the Crusader kingdom of Jerusalem.[8]

The earliest archaeological features of Yokneam date from the Chalcolithic period, in the fourth millennium BCE. The first structures date from the beginning of the second millennium BCE.[9] During the Middle and Late Bronze Ages (2000–1200 BCE), Yokneam was for the most part a fortified city,[10] which was razed during a period known as the Late Bronze Age collapse.[11] During the Iron Age, the city was razed and rebuilt several times; events which are attributed to the biblical accounts of the conquests by Joshua, King David, Hazael of Aram-Damascus, and the Neo-Assyrian Empire.[5][12][13][14] The period between the 10th and 8th centuries BCE is considered Yokneam's golden age, during which it extended beyond the mound's limits.[15] The city was protected at that time by a massive fortification system.[14] During Persian rule (539–330 BC) Yokneam was a dense, unfortified, and cosmopolitan city, housing Jews, Phoenicians, and Persians.[16][17] Very little has been found in Yokneam from the Hellenistic, Roman, and Byzantine periods (333 BCE–634 CE), because the settlement was probably located on a different hill, south of Tel Yokneam.[18] The remains of a Byzantine church were found in the southern part of the mound.[19] After the Islamic conquest of 634 AD, a well-planned city was established on the mound by the Abbasid Caliphate. It was gradually abandoned and was struck by an earthquake in 1033 CE.[20] In the 12th century CE, the Crusaders built a fortified city on the site, the largest since the Iron Age.[21] The city eventually fell to the Muslims, and was rebuilt by the Mamluks during the 14th century CE.[22] After the Ottoman conquest of 1517 CE, a fortress was built in the 18th century, and later abandoned in the 19th century.[23]

The site, which had remained abandoned, was surveyed by the Palestine Exploration Fund in 1878,[24] and by Avner Raban in the 1970s.[15] It was first excavated as part of a "Yoqne'am Regional Project" run by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Israel Exploration Society. The excavations, between 1977 and 1988, were directed by the archaeologist Amnon Ben-Tor.[2] Some of the digs were also headed by Renate Rosenthal and Yuval Portugali.[25] Two other sites were studied in that project: Tel Qashish and Tel Qiri.[2] Further excavations were conducted on the acropolis by Miriam Avissar in 1993.[23]

Today. there is an archaeological park and a visitor center on the mound. The park is operated by the Israel Antiquities Authority and the municipality of Yokneam Illit. It was created as part of a conservation project, with the participation of school students from Yokneam Illit.[26]

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference Robinson was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ a b c Yoqne'am I, pp. 1–2
  3. ^ Ben-Tor, 1987, p. 2
  4. ^ Yuval Goren, Israel Finkelstein, and Nadav Na'aman. "Petrographic Investigation of the Amarna Tablets." Near Eastern Archaeology 65, no. 3 (2002): 202–203.
  5. ^ a b Elizabeth Bloch-Smith and Beth Alpert Nakhai, "A Landscape Comes to Life: The Iron Age I", Near Eastern Archaeology, Vol. 62, No. 2, The University of Chicago Press on behalf of The American Schools of Oriental Research, p. 83–85
  6. ^ Amnon Ben-Tor and Renate Rosenthal, Ben-Tor, Amnon; Rosenthal, Renate (1978). "The First Season of Excavations at Tel Yoqne'am, 1977: Preliminary Report". Israel Exploration Journal. 28 (1\2). Israel Exploration Society: 62 and 65. JSTOR 27925647.
  7. ^ Cite error: The named reference Tent was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  8. ^ Cite error: The named reference kedar4 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  9. ^ Sharon Zuckerman, "Chapter Eighth – The Early Bronze Age Remains" in Yoqne'am III pp. 351–360
  10. ^ Cite error: The named reference qedem1 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  11. ^ Yoqne'am Regional Project – 1984–1987, p.19
  12. ^ Cite error: The named reference 87BT7 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  13. ^ Ghantous, Hadi (2014). The Elisha-Hazael Paradigm and the Kingdom of Israel: The Politics of God in Ancient Syria-Palestine. Routledge. p. 32. ISBN 978-1-84465-739-1.
  14. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference 87BT8 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  15. ^ a b Feig, Nurit (6 December 2016). "Yoqneʽam". Hadashot Arkheologiyot. 128. Israel Antiquities Authority. Archived from the original on 19 January 2019. Retrieved 26 September 2019.
  16. ^ Cimadevilla (2005), pp. 409–410
  17. ^ Prof. Rappoport, Uriel; Dr. Yaron, Shlomit (2004). From Cyrus to Alexander: The Jews Under Persian Rule (in Hebrew). Open University of Israel. p. 188. ISBN 978-965-06-0764-7.
  18. ^ Cite error: The named reference 96p13 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  19. ^ Cite error: The named reference Boas was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  20. ^ Yoqne'am I, pp. 17–20, 217
  21. ^ Portugali, Yoqne'am I, 1996
  22. ^ Yoqne'am I, p. 172
  23. ^ a b Miriam Avissar, אבישר, מרים (1995). "Tel Yoqne'am, The Crusader Acropolis". Hadashot Arkheologiyot (in Hebrew). קג. Israel Antiquities Authority: 36–37. JSTOR 23473763. − via JSTOR
  24. ^ "Conder and Kitchener, 1882, SWPII, pp. 69–70". Archived from the original on 2016-10-28. Retrieved 2019-02-09.
  25. ^ Amnon Ben-Tor and Anabel Zarzecki-Peleg, "Yoqne'am Regional Project – 1984–1987", Hadashot Arkheologiyot. Israel Antiquities Authority (1987) (in Hebrew). pp. 18–24
  26. ^ Vaknin, Yossi (29 April 2019). "New Archaeological Visitor Center Opened in Yokneam". Ynet (in Hebrew). No. Mynet. Jezreel Valley.