Tel Kabri
Tel Kabri, or Tell al-Qahweh, is an archaeological tell containing one of the largest Middle Bronze Age Canaanite palaces in Israel, and the largest such palace excavated as of 2014. Kabri is named for the abundance of its perennial springs the presence of which has led to the site's occupation and use as a water source from the Pottery Neolithic period to the present day. Located in the Western Upper Galilee, the site was at the height of its power in the Middle Bronze, controlling much of the surrounding region. Kabri declined as a local power at the end of the Middle Bronze, but the site continued to be occupied at times, on a much reduced level, up until the 1948 Arab-Israeli War.
Since 1957, Tel Kabri has been excavated by the Israel Antiquities Authority, formerly the Israel Department of Antiquities and Museums, as well as Israeli and American universities. Among the discoveries at the site by the two full-scale archaeological expeditions, two have attracted particular attention from the archaeological community. The first finding to come to international attention was the discovery of Minoan-style frescoes in the palace at Kabri., these are the only Minoan paintings ever discovered in Israel. Second, in 2013, the Tel Kabri Archaeological Project uncovered the oldest and largest known palatial wine cellar in the Ancient Near East in Kabri's palace.
Etymology
The name "Tel Kabri" was given to the site in 1956–58 by its Israeli excavators, who named it after the adjacent kibbutz Kabri, founded in 1949, itself named after the further adjacent historical Palestinian village of Al-Kabri. However, Tel Kabri was not the site of Al-Kabri, but rather two other depopulated Palestinian villages: Al-Tell and al-Nahr., the original Canaanite name of Tel Kabri is unknown. Aharon Kempinski, who led excavations at the site, hypothesised that Kabri might have been the same city as Rehov, referred to in the Execration Texts, an Ancient Egyptian list of enemy polities. Amihai Mazar once believed that Tel Kabri – or the site of Tel Rehov – might be the Rehov from the Execration Texts, or Tel Kabri might be a different Rehov mentioned in topographic lists by Pharaoh Thutmose III. No definitive evidence has been found to support any of these hypotheses. By the Iron Age, 1200–500 BCE, the site is known to have been called Rehov, and this continued into the Phoenician period – a period of Phoenician dominance over the area, which was concurrent with the Iron Age.
Early in the Roman Period, the town of Kabrita had been established to the east of the tell. The site is mentioned in the 3rd century Mosaic of Rehob, as marking one of the northernmost bounds of Jewish resettlement after their return from Babylonian exile. Kabrita became the Arab village of el-Kabira, which by the late 1200s CE was called al-Kabrah by the Arabs and Le Quiebre by the Crusaders who controlled the area at the time. By 1880, both the village and the ruins on the tel had come to be associated and bear the same names. Al-Kabrah eventually became al-Kabri, and this name lasted until the 1948 Arab-Israeli War when the village was depopulated. Both the post-war kibbutz, Kabri, on whose grounds the archaeological site is located, and the tel itself, are named for al-Kabri. The name of Kabrita, and the later names, were derived from the triconsonantal Semitic root, 'כבר', meaning 'great or powerful', in reference to the plentiful water from Kabri's springs.
Geography
Tel Kabri is at the eastern end of the Western Galilee coastal plain, located on the grounds of Kibbutz Kabri. It is less than from the sea, and the Ga'aton River is nearby to the south, with the closest major city being Nahariyya to the west. The tell is home to four springs, Ein Shefa, Ein Giah, Ein Tzuf, and Ein ha-Shayara. It is these springs that have brought people to Kabri since the Neolithic.Natural resources such as trees on the hills to the east and stone quarries near the coast were important for the inhabitants of the site. Kabri's height is partly a result of human activity. Over the centuries, material remains created layers that built up the tell. During Kempinski's excavations, it was found that the original surface in the Neolithic would have been up to lower than the present surface.
History
The tell and its surrounding area have been inhabited since the Pottery Neolithic. Kabri was at the height of its power in the Middle Bronze, when the polity there controlled a significant portion of the Upper Galilee. After the Middle Bronze, Tel Kabri was occupied by later peoples – although on a much reduced scale – up to the founding of the State of Israel, when the kibbutz of Kabri was created.Pottery Neolithic
The area of Kabri was first settled during the PN by members of the Yarmoukian culture.Chalcolithic
In the early Chalcolithic period, Kabri was a major centre of the Wadi Raba culture.Early Bronze Age
In the Early Bronze Age, there was a town on the side of the tell that was destroyed as part of the region-wide systems collapse that characterised the Early Bronze collapse.Middle Bronze Age
In the early and middle Middle Bronze I, Tel Kabri – along with Megiddo, Aphek, and Akko – was one of the earliest cities in the Levant to rebuild its fortifications following the EB collapse. The new city was confined to the northern part of the earlier EB tell.Palatial
Prior to the ongoing excavations at Kabri that began in 2005, archaeologists thought that there was only one palace at the site, and that it was built in the period between the late Middle Bronze I and Middle Bronze IIA. It was also thought that the Middle Bronze I period had been a transition phase. However, the palace found by Kempinski has been dated to the Middle Bronze IIB, and in 2010, a second, earlier, palace – a Middle Bronze IIA palace – was identified beneath the Middle Bronze IIB palace. The remains of the earlier Middle Bronze IIA palace appear to show that it was expanded to create the later Middle Bronze IIB palace. The discovery of the earlier palace pushes the dates for palatial occupation of the site to the Middle Bronze IIA, 150 years earlier than originally believed. The earlier Middle Bronze IIA palace may have been "the most impressive structure in the Upper Galilee" at the time, and was possibly the oldest palace in Canaan.Earlier still, at the transition between the Middle Bronze I and Middle Bronze II, a large-scale restructuring programme was undertaken in a possible effort to transform Kabri into an idealised Syrian-style city – a powerful city-state centred around a magnificent and well-fortified palace. The area was fortified, and an additional were enclosed within a large glacis, a type of earthwork fortification that was wide with a stone core and that encircled the tell as it appears today. The glacis was topped by mudbrick and stone. There was a Middle Bronze I palace and this was expanded into the Middle Bronze II palaces. This restructuring programme resulted in some parts of the tell being flattened out and a large portion of the population having to find new homes in the city, as a result of part of the Middle Bronze IIA palace – along with certain parts of the rampart – being built in an area previously occupied by private houses. Kabri's ancillary sites were also built up, and migration from the hinterland to Kabri – and its secondary sites – increased dramatically as a result of these projects. Kabri became the capital of a major polity, with the newly expanded Middle Bronze II palace at its centre.
At the peak of its power, Kabri may have controlled a domain that stretched from Mount Carmel in the south to the Sulam range in the north, with as many as 31 vassal sites and 30,000 subjects. Kempinski hypothesised that Kabri might be the Bronze Age settlement of Rehov, a polity mentioned in the Execration Texts and the biblical Book of Joshua. During this period, Kabri maintained significant contacts with neighbouring regions in the form of trade and exchange of ideas.
Counting the Middle Bronze I, Middle Bronze IIA, and Middle Bronze IIB stages, the palace was continuously occupied for three centuries. This is longer than any other palace in ancient Israel.
Upon 2020 excavations of the Tel, it was revealed with high certainty that the Canaanite palace at Tel Kabri was destroyed in a major seismic event c.1700 BCE.