Tell es-Sakan

Tell es-Sakan, lit. "Hill of Ash", is a tell (archaeological mound) about 5 km south of Gaza City in what is today the Gaza Strip, on the northern bank of Wadi Ghazzeh. It was the site of two separate Early Bronze Age urban settlements: an earlier one representing the fortified administrative center of the Egyptian colonies in southwestern Palestine from the end of the 4th millennium, and a later, local Canaanite fortified city of the third millennium. The location at the mouth of what was probably a palaeochannel of the river, allowed it to develop as an important maritime settlement with a natural harbour. Its geographical location endowed it with a position of importance at the crossroads of land-based trade routes between the Canaan region, the Old Kingdom of Egypt, and Arabia. As of 2000, the early Egyptian settlement was the oldest fortified site known to researchers in both Egypt and Palestine.

The tell covered an estiamted area of 8-9 ha, of which 1400 m2 has undergone archaeological excavation.

Topography
In the Bronze Age Tell es-Sakan apparently possessed a harbour on Wadi Ghazzeh's now silted-up estuary. Today it stands at a remarkable distance north of the stream's current course, which has changed over time. When it was rediscovered, the artificial mound rose more than 10 m above the Coastal Plain and was completely covered by a lithified sand dune; the fossilised dune consisting of kurkar obscures the extent of the settlement which covers an estimated 8-9 ha.

History
The accidental exposure brought to light the only settlement of the Early Bronze Age discovered to date in the Gaza Strip, with exceptionally well-preserved remains of mud-brick constructions and a wealth of other findings dating exclusively to that period. Tell es-Sakan, while still in southwestern Canaan, was located on its border and near a ford on the coastal road leading to Egypt, an ideal place for archaeologists to study the interaction between Egypt and Palestine during the time the tell was occupied, the fourth and third millennia BCE.

The site was inhabited between 3300 and 2400/2350 BCE. It appears to be the predecessor to the Tell al-Ajjul settlement, a major city of the second millennium BCE located just 500 metres further south.

Excavations revealed that the site was occupied during two distinct major phases: the lower levels of excavation area A belong to a city of the Egyptian Protodynastic Period, which corresponds to the Early Bronze Age IB period in the history of the Southern Levant (the end of the 4th millennium BCE); and the middle and upper levels of Areas B and C belong to a Canaanite settlement dating to the third millennium.

The importance of the discoveries was such, that they helped to completely reinterpret the relations between the Egyptians and the Levant during the 4th and 3rd millennia BCE.

Egyptian city (Early Bronze Age IB)
The Bronze Age port dates to the end of the 4th millennium BCE, and was contemporary with En Besor, an Egyptian First Dynasty staging post along the "Ways of Horus" trade route in the Northern Negev. En Besor was much smaller, but it was an important source for fresh water to supply the caravans. There were also some other smaller Egyptian settlements in this area.

The architectural remains, as well as almost all of the findings from Area A, are typical of the Nile Valley around 3200–3000 BCE.

The only other Egyptian settlement in this area that was older than es-Sakan was Taur Ikhbeineh. The occupation there started in 3500 BC and ended in 3200 BC, while es-Sakan was still flourishing. Taur Ikhbeineh is located nearby, and it was active from the period Naqada IIb-c, and until the period Naqada IIIa, according to the Egyptian chronology.

At Tell es-Sakan, truly exceptional was the discovery of the fortifications, represented by two successively built, powerful mud brick walls. This was interpreted as proof for the importance of the settlement, which may have been the administrative centre of the colonial domain established by the Egyptians in southwestern Palestine during the Early Dynastic Period. A remarkable fact is that Tell es-Sakan was at the time of its excavation the oldest fortified site known in both Egypt and Palestine.

Other finds of Egyptian or "Egyptianising" pottery from this early period have also been found at the sites of Tel Erani, Arad, Tell el-Khuweilifeh/Tel Halif, Tel Yarmuth, and Tel Lod. Nevertheless, the quantity of such pottery is rather small compared to the amount of the Levantine Early Bronze Age pottery at these sites.

This phase of the occupation of the site lasted until about 3000 BC (the very end of EBI and the beginning of EBII).

There are indications that this part of the occupation at the site ended at the beginning of the First Dynasty of Egypt, perhaps under the reign of one of the successors of Narmer, such as Hor-Aha or Den.

Canaanite city (Early Bronze Age III)
The Egyptian colonial domain in the region eventually disappeared and the site was abandoned for several centuries.

In the Early Bronze Age III (EBIII, c. 2650–2300) was the site reoccupied, when the local population created a new, fortified city. Five levels of occupation have been found lasting about 300 years. There are indications that the reoccupation of the site took place at the beginning of the Egyptian Fourth Dynasty. The closest parallels at that time in material culture were with the Canaanite settlement of Tel Yarmuth.

A strong mud brick rampart consisting of a wall strengthened by a glacis surrounded an urban settlement described by researchers as having strong local particularities, while also showing close links with Palestinian sites located further inland. The walls at that time were 8 metres thick and built of sun-dried mud bricks.

This Canaanite settlement is dated solely to the Early Bronze period, when the major sites of southwestern Canaan reached their greatest prosperity. Then the settlement was finally abandoned around 2400–2350 BCE.

Settlement economy
The lifestyles and economic activity at the site changed over the centuries. While hunting was widely practised early on, later, agriculture and animal husbandry became predominant.

Remains of sheep, goat and cattle were discovered, as well as fish bones and shells. Wheat, barley, vegetables, olives, and grapes were cultivated.

Later nearby cities (MB–LB)
Along with all other urban sites in Palestine, Tell es-Sakan was abandoned during what is known as the Intermediate Bronze Age, and in this concrete case also during part of the following Middle Bronze Age, with the region returning for several centuries to nomadic pastoralism. This nomadic population only settled down again around 1800 BCE, by then though choosing a site 500 metres to the south, known in Arabic as Tell el-Ajjul. The new city reached a great degree of prosperity in the second millennium. Tell el-Ajjul and another nearby site, al-Mughraqa, saw occupation during the Middle and Late Bronze Age.

Another site further south, at Deir al-Balah, was occupied during the 14th–12th centuries BCE, the time of the Egyptian New Kingdom (Late Bronze Age).

Discovery and investigation


In 1994 the newly formed Palestinian Authority established the Department of Antiquities and Cultural Heritage (which later became part of the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities) to manage cultural heritage in Palestine. This gave Palestinians a greater role in the investigation and interpretation of their heritage. On its inception the department had limited resources and few experienced staff, but with international collaboration in the space of fifteen years it had overseen 500 investigations in Palestine. An increasing number of building projects led to more discoveries of archaeological sites in Palestine which needed to be recorded; Tell es-Sakan is one such site.

Surveys of the region over the course of several decades failed to detect the tell. It was discovered by chance in 1998 during the construction of a new housing complex on the south side of what was later understood to be a tell – a mound created by layers upon layers of human occupation on a site over an extended period. Tell es-Sakan was the first archaeological site discovered in Gaza to that dates from the end of the Early Bronze Age I and Early Bronze Age II to III periods (spanning the 4th and 3rd millennia B.C.) – a poorly represented span in the region's archaeological record. The planned building's foundation trenches exposed archaeological deposits, but caused significant damage to the site in the process. The discovery of large amounts of ash during investigations led to the site being named Tell es-Sakan, meaning 'hill of ash'.

Construction work was temporarily suspended to allow archaeological investigations. Archaeologists Pierre de Miroschedji and Moain Sadeq led a three-week rescue excavation at Tell es-Sakan in September 1999. It was an international collaboration: Sadeq was director of the Department of Antiquities and Cultural Heritage and de Miroschedji was a director at the French National Centre for Scientific Research. Three boreholes were dug on the west side of the site; the extracted core samples demonstrated that the archaeological layers extended to a depth of 9 m and established the chronology of the site. The area was further investigated through trial excavations using the foundation trenches for the proposed buildings. French-Palestinian collaboration continued in 2000 with a large-scale excavation campaign involving three different areas on the west side of the site covering a total area of c. 1,400 m2.

A selection of finds from Tell es-Sakan was included in an exhibition titled "Mediterranean Gaza" at the Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris in 2000. The Second Intifada, a Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation, began in September 2000; the exhibition in France had not concluded by this point and the 221 items from archaeological sites in Gaza remained in Paris until 2006 after the end of the uprising. Leila Shahid, the Ambassador of Palestine to France, arranged for the safe storage of the artefacts. The intifada led to the cessation of many archaeological projects in Palestine, and the excavations at Tell es-Sakan were suspended for security reasons. Investigations by the Gaza Research Project at the nearby Bronze Age site of al-Moghraqa, which had been discovered by Sadeq in 1996, were also abandoned. Artefacts from Tell es-Sakan were part of a 2007 exhibition titled "Gaza at the Crossroad of Civilizations" in Geneva.

Later history and conservation


Comparison of photographs of the site indicates that the site underwent significant changes with focus in two periods: between 2003 and 2004 and between 2005 and 2014. In the wake of the Gaza War (2008–2009), the 2012 Israeli operation in the Gaza Strip, and the 2014 Gaza War, displaced people temporarily lived on the east of the archaeological site. Demographic and economic pressures have presented challenges to preserving Tell es-Sakan with new developments in the area. The construction of new buildings for a nearby university in 2009 and 2012 encroached on the west and north sides of the tell, further damaging the site.

In August 2017 Hamas authorities began levelling the site with bulldozers, intending to use the land to compensate some of its senior employees. This led to protests and disagreements between the Land Authority, which was in favour of the development, and the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities which was opposed to the work. Pressure from the ministry, the Islamic University of Gaza, and archaeologists such led to a two-week pause. The work concentrated on the south side of the tell, and by that stage an area of 1.2 ha had been destroyed.

A UNESCO representative, Junaid Sorosh-Wali, described the destruction as "disastrous for the archaeology and cultural heritage in Palestine". The resumption of bulldozing led to further protests against the destruction of Palestinian cultural heritage, including a social media campaign by a youth group which attracted further media attention. Archaeologist Fadel al-Athal was able to recover fragments of pottery. Demolition halted in October 2017. Satellite imagery from 2018 showed evidence of bulldozing, and by 2021 part of this had been filled in by 2021 and a new road built.

In 2022, the Gaza Maritime Archaeology Project (GAZAMAP) involving researchers based in Gaza and the UK conducted a field survey of Tell es-Sakan. GAZAMAP's objective was to evaluate the status of various endangered maritime archaeological sites. The survey identified surviving features that had been exposed on the site, and material culture including pottery, flints, and stone tools. A large number of shells confirmed that the site was near the coast during its Bronze Age use. The project also identified areas which were a priority for ongoing monitoring to safeguard the site.

Hundreds of cultural heritage sites were destroyed or damaged during the 2023 Israeli invasion of Gaza, including Tell es-Sakan. Analysis of satellite imagery by GAZAMAP found that residential buildings in the vicinity of Tell es-Sakan had been destroyed. The archaeological site was damaged, and as of November 2023 the extent was uncertain.