Tell Tweini

The site

Tell Tweini is an archaeological site located 2 kilometers east of the modern city of Jableh, Syria. It is situated within the coastal plain of Jebleh within short distance of two other main archaeological sites: Tell Sukas (5km) and Tell Siyannu (6km). Tell Tweini is being investigated since 1999 by a Syro-Belgian interdisciplinary team led by Michel al-Maqdissi and Karel Van Lerberghe. As a tell, the site is the result of centuries of habitation on the same place, which resulted in a rising surface. As every new generation, who inhabited the city, built their houses on top of the remains of older structures ( and their rubbish ), an artificial hill or 'tell' was created.

Tell Tweini was inhabited from at least the end of the third millennium B.C.E. until the Persian period. The town may have been ancient Gibala, a city mentioned in a treaty found at Ugarit (Ras Shamra) from the 13th century B.C.E. At the end of the Late Bronze Age Gibala formed the southern border of the Ugaritic kingdom. The transition between the Late Bronze Age and Iron Age remains as at most northern Levantine site's problematic, but preliminary results from the end of the 2007 campaign show the city was inhabited during the 11th-10th century B.C.E. During the Iron Age itself, the city was completely urbanised. A geophysical prospection conducted on the complete surface of the tell proofs this and made it possible to detect the ancient street system of the Iron Age city. By the Perisian era the city lost its importance and the habitation was relocated near the modern harbour of Jebleh at the Mediterranean sea coast. Later, during the Byzantine domination of the region some isolated structures were installed on the surface of the tell.

Since excavations started in 1999 major descoveries include a Phoenician sanctuary, a large communal tomb from the end of the Middle Bronze Age containing 58 human remains, a large city wall, several domestic structures from the Iron Age II and multiple small finds. The coming years research on the tell will be continued.

External links

More information can be found at the website of the Syro-Belgian project at [http://www.telltweini.com www.telltweini.com] .

Results of the geophysical prospection conducted during the 2004 campaign:
* [http://www.ggh-online.de/tweini.html?&L=2 www.ggh-online.de/tweini.html?&L=2] .