About Tel Shaddud

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The History

Tel Shaddud was first settled in the Early Bronze IB (EB IB) (ca. 3350–3000 BCE), when a relatively large and complex village was founded on and can be seen now at the foot of the Tel. Sometime during the Middle Bronze Age (ca. 1950–1600 BCE) the settlement shrunk in size to the confines of the Tel and was probably fortified. The areas to the foot of the Tel began to be used as a burial ground for a long period a lengthy period beginning in the Middle Bronze I (MB I) and then again in the Late Bronze (LB)B II–Iron IIA.

Tel Shaddud is the only site in the Jezreel Valley that demonstrates continuity in burial habits from the LB II to the Iron IIA, while the cemeteries of many sites in the valley went out of use after the Iron I. Tel Shaddud not only maintained its burial traditions, but the cemetery grew during the in Iron IIA period. This may attest to social continuity and population growth at this site during Iron I/IIA, the like of which is known so far only from Tel Reḥov in the Beth-Shean Valley.

One of the remarkable finds from the site is a single burial in clay anthropoid coffin, whose provenance was in the Beth-Shean Valley, and it was dated to the LB III (Van den Brink et al. 2017). This burial explicitly mirrors distinct Egyptian burial traditions, yet it was conspicuously placed in a cemetery with local burial traditions, and on top of that – the individual was a local (according to DNA evidence).

The apparent continuity in Tel Shaddud from the times of Egyptian domination (LB II-III) to the time of the Israelite rule in the Jezreel Valley, joins other patterns of continuity in land use and economic strategies in the rural hinterlands of the Jezreel Valley between Egypt and Israel. The apparent continuous occupation throughout the discussed period (LB II–Iron IIA) together with the presence of the clay anthropoid coffin, makes Tel Shaddud particularly suitable to provide new insights into the origins of early monarchic Israel, and the significance of rural communities in times of changing political rules.

The Project

Our project began in July 2022 with a surface survey of the site, confirming the occupational history of the site previously gleaned from the salvage excavations. More surprising was the presence of glazed potsherds dating to the 12^th–14^th centuries collected on the summit of the site; an occupational phase not detected in the salvage excavations at the foot of the Tel. Furthermore, no distinct potsherds dated exclusively to the Iron IIB were collected during the survey on the Tel’s summit.

The first excavation season was conducted in July 2023, and was followed by a short excavation season in July of 2024. The excavations focused on two Areas, at the northern and the south-eastern sections of the Tel, and have revealed so far at least seven occupational layers: beginning in the Iron IIA – the time of early monarchic Israel in the 9^th century BCE, through the late Iron Age and the Persian Period, during which the valley was ruled by the Assyrian and Persian empires, to the Roman Period in the first century CE, and up until the time of the rule of the British Empire in the region during the 1930’s and 40’s.