Assaf Yasur-Landau
Biographic Data
| ID | 187756 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Assaf Yasur-Landau |
| GIVEN NAMES | Assaf |
| FAMILY NAME | Yasur-Landau |
| SIGNATURE | YASUR-LANDAU A |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Haifa |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-5692-5622 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 70 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 96 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 68 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 2 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1992 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
The Middle Bronze I Foundation of Hazor
This article reexamines the chronology and urban development of Hazor during the Middle Bronze Age (MBA), on the basis of earlier excavations and publications. Traditionally, following Yadin’s and Ben-Tor’s interpretations, Hazor’s fortifications and urban expansion were attributed solely to MBII, and the preceding MBI phase was regarded as ephemeral or ‘embryonic’. However, a reassessment of the published ceramic assemblages from the Standing St…
Site Formation Processes in Marine Archaeological Sites
The cultural and natural processes shaping archaeological sites on land have been studied extensively in a variety of terrestrial environments and landscapes. This resulted in a basic model of cultural and natural accretion and depletion processes. In marine archaeology, shipwreck cultural and natural formation processes are quite well-researched and presented as basic models. This is not the case, however, for coastal and submerged settlements, …
Diachronic Maritime Activity at Sant’Antioco Island, Sardinia
A 2023–2024 underwater survey in the island of of Sant’Antioco, Southwest of Sardinia, aimed to reconstruct maritime activities during the Bronze Age—prior to the founding of Sulky/Sulcis—and to address diachronic patterns of maritime activities in Sant’Antioco beyond the confines of the later urban center. The results of the underwater survey of two sites, Maladroxia and Cala Sapone, as well as two control sites, demonstrate the value of this me…
Crusader Military Order Fortifications along the Carmel Coast
The Carmel Coast has historically functioned as a vital highway, and it did so during the Frankish period. This study focuses on the 12th‒13th century castles along this coastal route, owned by the Military Orders, which played a pivotal role in the micro-region. We compare three of these strongholds using data from prior excavations and newly conducted surveys, including innovative aerial surveys that have generated unprecedented orthophotos and…
A Roman Fish-Processing Facility at Tel Dor, Israel
Early Appearance of Red-on-Black / Red Ware at Kabri and Achziv
This article explores the distribution of Cypriot Red-on-Black and Red-on-Red (RoB/RoR) ware in the southern Levant during the Middle Bronze I to Late Bronze I. While traditionally associated with Middle Bronze II through Late Bronze I, the study presents evidence suggesting an even earlier appearance of RoB/RoR in the southern Levant, specifically in Tel Kabri Phase DW V, corresponding to the transitional Middle Bronze I–II. The findings challen…
A monumental burial complex from an Amarna-age port at Yavneh-Yam, Israel
Despite its geographic correspondence with a key fourteenth-century BC port, the tell of Yavneh-Yam has yielded only meagre evidence for Late Bronze Age occupation. The recent discovery of a sealed monumental rock-cut burial cave with hundreds of grave goods provides the first clear evidence for a significant polity
Megiddo in the Middle Bronze Age
This article deals with Middle Bronze Megiddo, emphasizing its importance for understanding this period at the site, and in the entire southern Levant in general. We focus on new evidence for exceptional accumulation of layers for the earliest Middle Bronze layer, radiocarbon dated to the early twentieth century BCE, and for the first fortification system also dated to the twentieth century BCE. We also deal with the complex history of the fortif…
Iron Age ship cargoes from the harbour of Dor (Israel)
Connectivity and trade dominate discussions of the Mediterranean Bronze and Iron Ages, where artefacts travelled increasing distances by land and sea. Much of the evidence for the means through which such networks operated is necessarily indirect, but shipwrecks offer direct insights into the movement of goods. Here, the authors explore three Iron Age cargoes recently excavated at Tel Dor on the Carmel Coast, the first from this period found in t…
A micro-geoarchaeological look at adaptive and glocal socio-economic aspects
Adaptative mechanisms used by coastal urban Middle Bronze Age (MBA) settlements in the southern Levant are regularly studied from the point of view of maritime connectivity. Here we look into the adaptive mechanisms of MBA Tel Dor by investigating the utilization of geogenic (rock, soil, sediment) resources for construction — materials used for wall foundations, mudbrick superstructure and wall plaster — and for pottery making. The composition an…
Cypriot Fabrics? White Slip Pottery and Élite Linen Clothes of the Late Bronze Age
In this article we will point to the similarity between the decoration on Cypriot White Slip (WS) I and II pottery and contemporary 15th–14th-century BCE “Syrian” elite garments shown in 18th Dynasty Egyptian tombs. Depiction of men and women in the tombs of Rekhmire (TT100), Sobekhotep (TT63), Menkheperraseneb (TT86), and Anen (TT120) show white clothes decorated with both vertical and horizontal elements, with dotted and wavy additions. Such el…
Economic Strategies of Two Early Bronze Age Villages in the Southern Levant
The southern Levantine coast was settled continuously for three millennia, from the Neolithic period until its abandonment in Early Bronze Age II, in sharp contrast to inland sites that developed into urbanized cities. This study examines this phenomenon by investigating the pottery production component of the economic systems of two contemporary EB I villages: a shoreline coastal site that was abandoned (Dor South) and an inland site that evolve…
Tel Dor in the Middle Bronze Age and Maritime Adaptation along the Carmel Coast
A newly excavated, well-built, Middle Bronze (MB) II–III coastal structure at Tel Dor provides a fresh glimpse into the turbulent settlement history of the Carmel Coast in the first half of the 2nd millennium b.c.e. The structure, incorporating a massive ashlar orthostat, was built in the MB I–II transition or MB II and existed for more than a century before its collapse during the MB III. A tight cluster of radiocarbon data indicates its destruc…
Sea Level Changes and the Locations of the ‘Missing’ Hellenistic and Roman Harbours at Tel Dor, Israel
Where are the harbour structures of the thriving Hellenistic and Roman city of Dor? Recent underwater and coastal surveys and excavations, together with geoarchaeological and geophysical studies, provide strong evidence of the devastating impact of a sea level rise in Hellenistic Dor, as well as of recovery and renewed resilience in the Roman Period. This evidence includes two previously unknown new harbour installations: a very large maritime st…
Continuity and climate change
Sedentary occupation of the southern Levantine coast spans from the Pre-Pottery Neolithic C to the Early Bronze Age Ib phase (c. 7000-3100 BC). Sites dating to the Early Pottery Neolithic (c. 6400-5500 BC) are scarce, however, potentially reflecting the effects of the 8.2ka climatic event. Here, the authors present the investigations at the submerged site of Habonim North off the Carmel Coast. Typological and radiocarbon dating indicate an Early …
Fire at the gate of Hazor
Geoarchaeology at the marine waterfront of a coastal urban center
Provenance of Bronze Age stone anchors, a case study from the Carmel coast, Israel
From Early Bronze Age domestic plant production to Middle Bronze Age regional exchange economy
Recent excavations at the site of Tel Kabri have brought some extraordinary findings, including the earliest wine cellar in the ancient Near East discovered in 2013. During these excavations, archaeobotanical samples were collected continuously and then processed in 2019. The archaeobotanical studies focus on the Middle Bronze Age palace in Area DW and the Early Bronze Age domestic deposits in Area L. The results confirm the different nature of t…
Changing environments and human interaction during the Pleistocene–Early Holocene from the shallow coastal area of Dor, Israel
The protected Tel-Dor coastal embayment in the eastern Mediterranean preserves an unusually complete stratigraphic record that reveals human–environmental interactions throughout the Holocene. Interpretation of new seismic profiles collected from shallow marine geophysical transects across the bay show five seismic units were correlated with stratigraphy and age dates obtained from coastal and shallow-marine sediment cores. This stratigraphic fra…
Storage Vessels as Indicators of Crisis Management
This article assesses the distribution of storage vessels, pithoi and jars in an effort to evaluate surplus management strategies connected to political and environmental conditions in the southern Levant in the second millennium BCE. We examined 27 ceramic assemblages from four Middle Bronze–Late Bronze sites in northern Israel: two rural sites (Tel Qashish and Tel Yoqneʾam) and two urban centres (Tel Hazor and Tel Beth-Shean). We then examined …
The Frankish Castle of Dor
The Castle of Dor occupied a strategically important location on the Carmel Coast in Israel. This little-known castle has been identified by modern scholarship with Crusader Merle. A new excavation, conducted in 2018, produced finds which shed light on the architecture and time of use of the castle. The excavation revealed an elaborate building, constructed in two building phases at the very least. The new finds, together with the historical acco…
Incised Late Bronze Age lead ingots from the southern anchorage of Caesarea
Nomads of the Mediterranean: Trade and Contact in the Bronze and Iron Ages
An Anatolian-Style Lead Figurine from the Assyrian Colony Period Found in the Middle Bronze Age Palace of Tel Kabri
Excavations during the summer of 2017 in the earlier phases of the courtyard of the palace at Tel Kabri turned up pieces of figurines as well as horn cores within a context of Phase 4 or 5 (late 19th to early 18th centuries b.c.e.). One figurine, portraying two deities, belongs to a type of Anatolian lead figurine known from the Assyrian Colony period. Initial results from Lead Isotope Analysis (LIA) suggest that an Anatolian provenance is indeed…
New Radiocarbon Dates from Tel Kabri Support a High Middle Bronze Age Chronology
This article presents new radiocarbon evidence from the Middle Bronze Age palatial site of Tel Kabri (Israel). The final phase of the palace (Phase III) can be dated to Middle Bronze Age II, with an end date around the transition from Middle Bronze II to III or very early in Middle Bronze III. According to our 14 C data, the end of Tel Kabri Phase III (and thus the transition from Middle Bronze II to III) can be dated to ~1700 BC. This date is ab…
Rethinking Canaanite Palaces? The Palatial Economy of Tel Kabri during the Middle Bronze Age
Here we explore aspects of Canaanite palatial economy through an analysis of finds from the Middle Bronze Age palace at Tel Kabri, a 34 ha site located in the western Galilee of modern day Israel. The palace was founded in the middle part of the MBA I period, and continued without interruption until an advanced part of the MBA II period. Despite the fact that the Kabri palace was vast (perhaps up to 6000 sq m), functioned as the center of a polit…
Hazor rulership and ritual manipulation
Hazor was unquestionably the largest Bronze Age Canaanite site, standing as an anomaly in the southern Levant in terms of its size, elaborate public architecture, special geopolitical stature and far-reaching international networks. While the site has been well established as an urban center with many temples, the use of each of Hazor’s temples and how they relate to one another remains unclear. In this study, we analyze the rituals and other act…
Middle Bronze Age Settlement Patterns in the Western Galilee, Israel
During the Middle Bronze Age (MB) II period (ca. 1750–1600 B.C.), Tel Kabri, located in the western Galilee, Israel, was the center of a thriving polity with economic and cultural connections to Egypt, Cyprus, and the Aegean. While Kabri and some neighboring sites have been partially excavated, the rise and fall of the polity has not been clearly understood. We present evidence from the Kabri Archaeological Project (KAP) to reconstruct shifting s…
Old Wine in New Vessels
This article explores two case studies of innovation that occurred within the context of interregional interaction: the use of Mycenaean drinking ware in the southern Levant during the 14th–13th centuries BCE and the use of Aegean cooking vessels and cooking facilities in Philistia during the 12th century. These cases demonstrate how intercultural differences function as a potent obstacle to the processes of the cultural transmission of innovatio…
The silent coast
The Wine Storage Complexes at the Middle Bronze II Palace of Tel Kabri
The ‘Dor 2006’ Shipwreck
The ‘Dor 2006’ shipwreck was discovered in 2006 south of the Dor/Tantura lagoon, Israel. The hull remains are of a large ship that was unable to enter the shallow anchorage. Among the finds were 20 ceramic items, including bowls, cooking–pots, jugs, a juglet, lids and amphoras. The cargo has not yet been found. Pottery typology, coins and 14C tests of organic material date the shipwreck to between the second half of the 6th and the first quarter …
Palatial architecture under the microscope
Patterns of Pottery Usage in Middle Bronze Age Canaanite Palaces
The article explores patterns of pottery usage in Middle Bronze Age palaces in Israel, examining mainly aspects of feasting and storage. Middle Bronze palatial assemblages are typologically similar to assemblages from contemporaneous domestic contexts. Prestige vessels are rare and can usually be associated with banqueting. Vessel-type ratios in assemblages from MB I palaces exhibit a balance between storage and food preparation and consumption. …
Shipwreck or Sunken Votives? The Shavei Zion Assemblage Revisited
The site of Shavei Zion is an enigmatic deposit of hundreds of figurines and ceramic vessels found on the sunken kurkar ridge off the coast of the western Galilee. Despite its importance to the understanding of both maritime activities and cultic practices, the site has never been fully published. Only a part of the figurine assemblage has been analysed in the past, and the associated ceramic evidence has only been presented in limited preliminar…
The Iron Age Maritime Interface at the South Bay of Tel Dor
The aim of the Tel Dor joint Sea and Land Project is to reassess and expand understanding of the maritime interface of Iron Age Dor. During 2016 and 2017 five features excavated under water provided new data about the development and chronology of this interface. The results support a revised dating and interpretation of previously excavated structures and the identification of several new stone‐built coastal fortification and maritime features, …
The Plurality of Harbors at Caesarea
Sea Level Changes and the Locations of the ‘Missing’ Hellenistic and Roman Harbours at Tel Dor, Israel
Where are the harbour structures of the thriving Hellenistic and Roman city of Dor? Recent underwater and coastal surveys and excavations, together with geoarchaeological and geophysical studies, provide strong evidence of the devastating impact of a sea level rise in Hellenistic Dor, as well as of recovery and renewed resilience in the Roman Period. This evidence includes two previously unknown new harbour installations: a very large maritime st…
Disheveled Tenacity
Anthropogenic overprints on natural coastal aeolian sediments
Rethinking Tel Achziv
By assessing the archaeological corpus of Moshe Prausnitz's 1963 and 1964 excavations at Tel Achziv, the article reevaluates aspects of the chronology and nature of the Phoenician expansion to the area south of the Ladder of Tyre (Rosh Haniqra). The authors present the Iron IIC stratigraphical sequence of Area D, the main excavation, as well as an outline of a typological and quantitative study of its pottery. It is dominated by a building with l…
Socio-Political and Demographic Aspects of the Middle Bronze Age Cemetery at Jericho
Megiddo in the Middle Bronze Age
This article deals with Middle Bronze Megiddo, emphasizing its importance for understanding this period at the site, and in the entire southern Levant in general. We focus on new evidence for exceptional accumulation of layers for the earliest Middle Bronze layer, radiocarbon dated to the early twentieth century BCE, and for the first fortification system also dated to the twentieth century BCE. We also deal with the complex history of the fortif…
Fire at the gate of Hazor
Geoarchaeology at the marine waterfront of a coastal urban center
Provenance of Bronze Age stone anchors, a case study from the Carmel coast, Israel
From Early Bronze Age domestic plant production to Middle Bronze Age regional exchange economy
Recent excavations at the site of Tel Kabri have brought some extraordinary findings, including the earliest wine cellar in the ancient Near East discovered in 2013. During these excavations, archaeobotanical samples were collected continuously and then processed in 2019. The archaeobotanical studies focus on the Middle Bronze Age palace in Area DW and the Early Bronze Age domestic deposits in Area L. The results confirm the different nature of t…
The door to Dor
An on‐land frequency domain electromagnetic geophysical survey was conducted across a tombolo delimiting the southern bay of Tel Dor (northern Israel) to the south. It was accompanied by a marine archaeological survey adjacent to its northern edge. Results indicate a deep channel connecting the bay and the Tantura Lagoon to the south. At its northern exit, an NW–SE trending square anomaly is visible in the geophysical data, buried underneath cent…
New Fragments of Aegean-Style Painted Plaster from Tel Kabri, Israel
During the 2008 and 2009 excavations at Tel Kabri, more than 100 new fragments of wall and floor plaster were uncovered. Approximately 60 are painted, probably belonging to a second Aegean-style wall fresco with figural representations and a second Aegean-style painted floor. A date within the Middle Bronze II period, probably in the 17th century B.C.E., may be suggested for the Kabri frescoes, which makes them significantly earlier than the Tell…
Socio-Political and Demographic Aspects of the Middle Bronze Age Cemetery at Jericho
Socio-Political and Demographic Aspects of the Middle Bronze Age Cemetery at Jericho
Old Wine in New Vessels
This article explores two case studies of innovation that occurred within the context of interregional interaction: the use of Mycenaean drinking ware in the southern Levant during the 14th–13th centuries BCE and the use of Aegean cooking vessels and cooking facilities in Philistia during the 12th century. These cases demonstrate how intercultural differences function as a potent obstacle to the processes of the cultural transmission of innovatio…
Old Wine in New Vessels
This article explores two case studies of innovation that occurred within the context of interregional interaction: the use of Mycenaean drinking ware in the southern Levant during the 14th–13th centuries BCE and the use of Aegean cooking vessels and cooking facilities in Philistia during the 12th century. These cases demonstrate how intercultural differences function as a potent obstacle to the processes of the cultural transmission of innovatio…
Musings from a Distant Shore
In the following article, using both the Amarna letters and the slightly later Egyptian story of Wenamun as comparanda, we suggest that the Uluburun ship's cargo may have been comprised of goods ordered, bought and paid for by an Aegean polity. The Uluburun and its cargo, accompanied by two Aegeans, perhaps Mycenaeans, who may have served as the purchasing agents, were probably en route to their Aegean destination when the ship sank; this destina…
Musings from a Distant Shore
In the following article, using both the Amarna letters and the slightly later Egyptian story of Wenamun as comparanda, we suggest that the Uluburun ship's cargo may have been comprised of goods ordered, bought and paid for by an Aegean polity. The Uluburun and its cargo, accompanied by two Aegeans, perhaps Mycenaeans, who may have served as the purchasing agents, were probably en route to their Aegean destination when the ship sank; this destina…
Bene Israel
This collection of twelve papers, dedicated to Professor Israel Finkelstein, deals with various aspects concerning the archaeology of Israel and the Levant during the Bronze and Iron Ages. Although the area under discussion runs from southeastern Turkey (Alalakh) down to the arid zones of the Negev Desert, the main emphasis is on the Land of Israel. This collection provides the most recent evaluation of a number of thorny issues in Israeli archae…
The Evolution of Long Distance Trading Relationships across the LBA/Iron Age Transition on the Northern Levantine Coast
Middle Bronze Age Settlement Patterns in the Western Galilee, Israel
During the Middle Bronze Age (MB) II period (ca. 1750–1600 B.C.), Tel Kabri, located in the western Galilee, Israel, was the center of a thriving polity with economic and cultural connections to Egypt, Cyprus, and the Aegean. While Kabri and some neighboring sites have been partially excavated, the rise and fall of the polity has not been clearly understood. We present evidence from the Kabri Archaeological Project (KAP) to reconstruct shifting s…
Domination and (In)visibility
The Philistines and Aegean Migration at the End of the Late Bronze Age
In this study, Assaf Yasur-Landau examines the early history of the biblical Philistines who were among the 'Sea Peoples' who migrated from the Aegean area to the Levant during the early twelfth century BC. Creating an archaeological narrative of the migration of the Philistines, he combines an innovative theoretical framework on the archaeology of migration with new data from excavations in Greece, Turkey, Cyprus, Syria, Lebanon, and Israel and …
Decorated Philistine Pottery
Household Archaeology in Ancient Israel and Beyond
Despite the large number of well-preserved domestic contexts in Bronze and Iron Age sites, household archaeology has not been a common approach to studying the material culture of Ancient Israel. Until recently, the dictates of “Biblical Archaeology” led to a narrow set of questions that ignored issues such as gender, status and production within the household. The present volume, which grew out of a session at the 2008 Annual Meeting of the Amer…
Argolid
Tiryns
Sea Peoples
Corinth
Household Archaeology in Ancient Israel and Beyond
Household archaeology in Ancient Israel and beyond
Forces of transformation
New Fragments of Aegean-Style Painted Plaster from Tel Kabri, Israel
During the 2008 and 2009 excavations at Tel Kabri, more than 100 new fragments of wall and floor plaster were uncovered. Approximately 60 are painted, probably belonging to a second Aegean-style wall fresco with figural representations and a second Aegean-style painted floor. A date within the Middle Bronze II period, probably in the 17th century B.C.E., may be suggested for the Kabri frescoes, which makes them significantly earlier than the Tell…
An MB II Orthostat Building at Tel Kabri, Israel
During the summer of 2011, a two-room monumental structure was found at the site of Tel Kabri in Israel. Designated as the “Orthostat Building” because of its extensive use of orthostats and paving slabs found still in situ, the location, plan, and architectural features of this building raise questions about its function and relation to the palace of Kabri and its chronological phasing within the palace’s history. The use of orthostats and ashla…
The ‘Dor 2006’ Shipwreck
The ‘Dor 2006’ shipwreck was discovered in 2006 south of the Dor/Tantura lagoon, Israel. The hull remains are of a large ship that was unable to enter the shallow anchorage. Among the finds were 20 ceramic items, including bowls, cooking–pots, jugs, a juglet, lids and amphoras. The cargo has not yet been found. Pottery typology, coins and 14C tests of organic material date the shipwreck to between the second half of the 6th and the first quarter …
Shepherd Kings? A Zooarchaeological Investigation of Elite Precincts in Middle Bronze Age Tel Hazor and Tel Kabri
A zooarchaeological investigation of elite precincts from two major Middle Bronze Age sites in the Galilee region of northern Israel, Tel Hazor and Tel Kabri, was conducted with the aim of revealing differences in the animal economy between them. The results indicate that the elites of the polity of Hazor were strict consumers who exerted economic demands on the surrounding hinterlands and relied on specialized sheep herding. In Tel Kabri, by con…
From Byblos to Vapheio
The find of an early Mycenaean tholos tomb at Vapheio (Tsountas 1889) brought to light two unusual objects: a seal showing a person in long robes holding a fenestrated ax, and the Vapheio ax, the latter a unique and heavy fenestrated ax with no parallels in the Aegean to date. Scholars from Evans to Maran have argued for a non-Aegean, Levantine origin of this type of ax. This article, therefore, attempts to find the origin of this ax type and to …
Archaeology (52 works) · Archaeology and Historical Studies (46 works) · History (44 works) · Geography (42 works) · Ancient history (36 works) · Bronze Age (31 works) · Archaeology and ancient environmental studies (28 works) · History (28 works) · Maritime and Coastal Archaeology (27 works) · Art (19 works)