The Tel Dor Archaeological Expedition

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Area F: 1992

In the Temple area, we opened three new squares and three half-squares above the northern entrance to the sanctuary and on the remains of the temple floor itself, both left unexplored by Garstang in 1922-23. Ten unpublished photographs of his, recently located at the Palestine Exploration Fund in London, helped us greatly while revealing how much knowledge we've now lost through his slapdash methods and through the subsequent robbing of the site.

Lead sling bullet displaying Seleucid anchor, from the siege of Dor either by Antichos III, 218/7 BC or by Antiochos VI and Simon Macabee,137/7 BC

The entrance-complex (F2) turned out to be the mirror-image of the other one in the south (F1), excavated in 1986-89, though much to our surprise, the earlier orientation of the city in F2 was at a 45( angle to its southern counterpart. Finds included many coins (including one of Macrinus, emperor in 217-218, about the time the tel was abandoned), two almost perfect Hellenistic unguentaria, a lead sling-bullet embossed with an anchor (a Seleucid emblem), and a superb Greek bronze cut-out of a dancing maenad. The temple floor was equally rewarding. The floor yielded lamps and other pottery of the second century C.E.; together with our earlier seasons' work, all this suggests a Hadrianic or later date for the entire complex, barely one century before the tel itself was abandoned and the city moved half a mile or so north. Below the floor, house-remains dating from Iron Age to early Roman show that no previous cult-site underlay the temple's northern end at least.

Yearly reports for Area F:
1986, 1987, 1988, 1989, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1996, 1997