Tell es-Samak
Tell es-Samak, meaning 'mound of the fish', is an ancient Phoenician tell situated near the sea coast in the modern city of Haifa, Israel, just south of the Israeli [National Institute of Oceanography]. It has been called a "forgotten Phoenician site".
Initially identified as Calamon, it was later identified by Israeli archeologists as the Jewish town of Shikmona, also spelt Sycamine. Subsequent research found no evidence of Jewish artefacts, only Phoenician and Christian; nowadays researchers identify Tell es-Samak with Porphyreon (south). The Zinman Institute of Archaeology at the University of Haifa writes that "It was wrongly identified with the Jewish Shikmona, but the latest research suggests that it should be identified as the Christian town of Porphyreon."
Archaeology
19th century
wrote in his 1874 Description géographique, historique et archéologique de la Palestine that he believed Tell es-Samak was Calamon / Kalamoun of the Itinerarium Burdigalense and Isaac Chelo.It was described by the Palestine Exploration Fund in 1881 as follows:
Tell es Semak: A low hillock by the sea. It is covered, as well as the shore near it, with ruins of dressed masonry, and there appears to have been a place of some importance at this site. Pottery, glass, and marble were found, and there are tombs east of it, in the sides of Carmel. Quantities of the ashlar blocks have been taken away, the holes remaining whence they were dug out. A fragment of a capital and coins were here found by the Germans. Shafts and capitals of Byzantine appearance were also dug up. Fine building stones were transported to Haifa to build houses with. Large quantities of copper coins of Constantine were found, and a Crusading coin, with the date 127. The tombs are rude caves, with loculi.
Elgavish excavations
The main archaeological excavations conducted at the site and in the Byzantine city south of it were carried out by the archaeologist J. Elgavish in the 1960s–70s on behalf of the Department of Museums, Municipality of Haifa.Salvage excavations were conducted in the 1990s by the Israel Antiquities Authority and concentrated in the eastern part of the Byzantine city, west of the Carmel Mountain slopes, where the city's necropolis is. In 2010–2011, a new series of excavation seasons was conducted by a team from the at the University of Haifa, headed by Dr. Michael Eisenberg with Dr. Shay Bar directing the excavations on the tell itself. The goals of the project were to re-expose excavated archaeological complexes south and east of the tell previously excavated by Elgavish, expand those areas and undertake extensive conservation work in order to preserve the antiquities and present them to the public as part of Shikmona Public Park. The work also aimed to study the stratification of the tell and create a precise chronological framework.
Findings
The remains on the tell date from the Late Bronze Age to the Late Byzantine period. The lower city, east and mainly south of the tell, is dated to the Late Roman period-Byzantine period. No remains have been found dating to the Early Arab period, leading the archaeologists to conclude that Tell es-Samak was abandoned before the 7th century CE.Tell es-Samak has yielded various types of sherds, the most common of which belonging to the red-slipped plates and bowls made on the Phoenician coast during the 1st century CE. In addition, archaeologists discovered evidence for dyeing industry based on the Murex sea snail, also known as Tyrian purple, dating back to the Iron Age. The purple dye extracted from the mollusk was used by the potters of Tell es-Samak to paint pottery. After the discovery, the entire collection of painted pottery underwent a chemical analysis to determine the make-up of the paint, during which time it was confirmed that the color was an authentic purple dye extracted from the Murex sea snail.
Identification
It is agreed among scholars that the site, Tell es-Samak, has no identification so far during the Biblical periods. Latest historical and archaeological research points towards the identification of the site during Hellenistic-Byzantine periods as Porphyreon. This new identification fits with the clear Christian remains at the site and the absence of Jewish ones as should be expected from Tell es-Samak.