The excavation took place on the northwestern margin of Tel Bahan, situated on a chalk hill east of Kibbutz Bahan. It uncovered building remains, including five units (1–5; length c. 70 m; Fig. 2), some with two construction phases. The pottery from these phases were dated to the end of the Middle Bronze Age II–Late Bronze Age I. Past excavations in the tell and its vicinity revealed the remains of an MB IIB settlement and of a church and installations from the Byzantine period (Ovadiah 1970; Torgë 2010 [Fig. 1: A-5225]; ‘Azab 2011 [Fig. 1: A-5891]; Masarwa 2011 [Fig. 1: A-5728]Masarwa 2014 [Fig. 1: A-6935]) as well as burial caves from the Late Bronze Age (Edelstein 1963; 1964; Gophna 1969; Porath, Dar and Appelbaum 1985:22).
 
Building Remains

Unit 1. Two walls (W329, W362; Figs. 2: Section 1–1; 3) attributed to the earlier phase create the corner of a room whose floor was paved with stone slabs. A socket stone was incorporated into this floor, abutting the interior of W329. The single surviving course of a wall (W319; length 6 m) built of one row of roughly dressed stones was attributed to the later phase. On the northwestern side of the wall, a crushing installation was sunk into the compact-earth floor (L349). Another wall (W359; length c. 1.5 m), east of the installation, was apparently a partition wall that separated a room on the south (not excavated) from a courtyard on the north (L318; 8.0 × 12.5 m). The courtyard was delimited on the north by a wall (W331) and a cistern in it (L325; Fig. 1: Section 2–2; 4), which attests that the courtyard was unroofed.

 

Units 2 and 3. Remains were found of walls (W333, W346, W348, W358, W362) and floors (L346, L350), which do not form a coherent plan. Floor 346, made of a layer of stones, abutted W358 on the west.

 

Unit 4. Two parallel walls (W314, W334; length 2.5 m) were preserved to a height of two courses. A floor of crushed limestone (L335) abutting these walls was cut in the east by a later cistern (Figs. 2: Section 3–3; 5).

 

Unit 5. A wall (W360) built of well-dressed stones and a stone floor (L361; Fig. 6) abutting it were attributed to the early phase. At least three rooms were built in the later phase, and they include two parallel walls (W342, W343), which were 2.5 m apart and separated by a partition wall (W344; Fig. 2: Section 4–4). A nude female figurine (L339; see Fig. 11:1) was found in a trial section excavated west of W342.

 
Pottery

Bowls (Fig. 7:1–18). Bowl No. 1 is rounded, red slipped and burnished, like bowls from the early phases of MB II. Bowls Nos. 2–9 are carinated: the high carination point of bowls Nos. 2 and 3 is located on the upper third of their walls; Nos. 4 and 5 are thin-walled eggshell bowls; bowl No. 6 is closed; bowls Nos. 7 and 8 are open with a mid-body carination point; and bowl No. 9 has a bar handle above a carinated, inverted wall. Bowls Nos. 10–18 are open with a slightly rounded wall. The bowls differ from each other by the design of their rims, which are either inverted (Fig. 7:10, 12), plain (Fig. 7:13), thickened and hammer-shaped (Fig. 7:11, 14) and thickened and squared (Fig. 7:17, 18).

 

Kraters (Fig. 7:19, 20). Krater No. 19 is rounded with an everted shelf rim. Krater No. 20 is large and has an upright thickened rim.

 

Cooking vessels (cooking pots [Fig. 8:1–11] and a platter [Fig. 8:12]). Cooking pot No. 1 is handmade and has a rounded rim, slightly thickened internally and externally. There are several perforations below the rim and the wall is thick, upright in its upper part and rounded in its lower part. Cooking pots Nos. 4 and 5 are carinated with plain everted rims. Cooking pots Nos. 2, 3, 7 and 8 are carinated with triangular rims. Cooking pot No. 6 has a gutter rim. Cooking pot No. 9 has a thickened, rounded everted rim. Cooking pot No. 10 is large and has an everted triangular rim. Cooking pot No. 11 is closed and rounded with an internally thickened rim. The platter (Fig. 8:12) has a squared rim.

 

Pithoi. Some of the pithoi (Figs. 9:1–3, 9) have a low neck or lack one altogether, and their rim is thickened, rounded and everted. The rest of the pithoi have a high neck and a thickened and molded rim (Fig. 9:4, 5, 7) or an everted one (Fig. 9:6, 8).

 

Jars. These all have a high neck and a thickened rim, which is either triangular in section (Fig. 9:11), guttered (Fig. 9:10, 15), molded, thickened internally and externally (Fig. 9:12), rounded and flaring (Fig. 9:13) or triangular and everted (Fig. 9:14).

 

Jugs. These have an either an everted gutter rim (Fig. 9:16) or a plain everted rim (Fig. 9:17, 18). A decorated sherd of a burnished biconical jug (Fig. 9:19) and two sherds of local bichrome jugs (Fig. 9:20, 21) were also found.

 

Imported vessels. Four bowl sherds (Fig. 10:1–4) were found, as well as the neck of a juglet (Fig. 10:5). Bowl No. 1 is a carinated, white-slipped and burnished Chocolate-on-White vessel. Bowls Nos. 2–4 are large and open and feature a ridge under the rim; their clay contains grits and traces of straw. Although they were not examined petrographically, their form and clay suggest that they originated in Egypt. Similar bowls were found in Stratum 14 at Tel Afeq and in Strata 16–11 at Tel Mor, where they were dated to the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Dynasties (Martin and Barako 2007:138–139, Fig. 4.7; Martin, Gadot and Goren 2009:367, Fig. 10.1:9). Juglet No. 5 belongs to the Base Ring I family, imported from Cyprus.

 

Kernos(?) (Fig. 10:6). A fragment of a ring-shaped vessel was found, to which a handle may have been attached.

 
Small Finds

Plaque figurine (Fig. 11:1). Only the middle part of a figurine depicting a nude woman wearing a hip belt survived: its thighs, belly and torso up to right under its breasts. As the fragment does not depict the arms placed alongside the body, nor does it depict one arm or both resting on the breasts, we may presume that the arms were raised. Standing figurines with raised arms and holding objects—plants or snakes—and sometimes with the characteristic Hathor-style curls were common in Canaan, where they first appear in the second half of the second millennium BCE.

 

Scarab (Fig. 11:2). A steatite scarab was discovered, featuring a circumferential geometric decoration with a cross in the center. This pattern was classified by Tufnell as Type 6c1 (Tufnell 1984: Pl. XXVI, 126, and see further parallels therein).

 

Additional finds unearthed are a loom weight (Fig. 11:3), a bronze stake (Fig. 11:4), a bronze object (Fig. 11:5), a carnelian bead (Fig. 11:6) and a basalt pounding stone (Fig. 11:7).

 
The Flint Assemblage
Paulina Spivak
 

Eight high-quality brown-gray flint items were discovered. This flint type occurs in two geological formations in the area—the Late Miocene Ziqlag Formation and the Pliocene–Eocene ‘Adullam Formation (Ilani 1986). All the items bear no patination and coated by only fine patina. The assemblage contained four chunks (not drawn) and four sickle blades (three of which are drawn; Fig. 12). The chunks are not uniform, and it is difficult to determine whether they were intentionally worked or naturally formed. The sickles were made on long, broad trapezoid- or square-sectioned blades (Fig. 12:1, 2, respectively); the trapezoid cross section was formed by two parallel ridges on the back of the item—the result of small truncations made on the distal and proximal ends. Based on the typical gloss along the working edges, all the blades had been used for harvesting vegetal material. They all have a single working edge and their opposite edge is smooth (Fig. 12:1, 2); they are either backed (Fig. 12:3) or have a smooth natural back. The flint gloss can be seen clearly also on the back and ventral surface of the working edge, whether it was worked with high-quality denticulation (Fig. 12:1) or only by irregular retouching (Fig. 12:2, 3). These characteristics conform to the Canaanean blade technique, extensively used in our region during the Early Bronze Age (Rosen 1983; 1997:44–54; Shimelmitz 2012). The production of Canaanean blades in the Levant was apparently limited to a few production centers (Shimelmitz, Barkai and Gopher 2000, and see references therein), that had achieved a high level of technology and unified typology. While the sickle blades resemble Canaanean blades, they differ in their level of precision and execution. They are thicker and broader than Canaanean blades, the back ridges are not parallel, and their cross section is not perfectly trapezoid. Their form, created by two truncations, is typical of post-Canaanean production (Rosen 1986; 1997; Bankirer 2005; Covello-Paran 2011; Shimelmitz 2012). It seems that the final days of the Early Bronze Age saw the end of the Canaanean blades’ ‘golden age’ (Shimelmitz 2012). Although the blades discovered at Bahan display a different method of production and a lower level of precision, they nevertheless exhibit an attempt to preserve the earlier tradition.

The lack of debitage—the product of continuous reduction of the core until a finished tool is made—may indicate that the sickle blades were produced elsewhere and brought to the site. The phenomenon of sites where specialized production of tools took place and from which finished products were carried to other sites was common mainly in the Early Bronze Age, but also occurred in the Middle Bronze Age (Khalaily 2008; Shimelmitz 2012; Milevski 2013). During the Early Bronze Age, the model of a centralized blade industry was accompanied by a broad distribution system (Milevski 2013). Extensive trade based on specialized production of Canaanean blades declined by the Middle Bronze Age, perhaps with the increased prevalence of bronze sickle blades. Nevertheless, it seems that the demand for flint sickle blades did not die out completely, and that there was a need for reorganization and mobilization to resume local and regional production. The site at Bahan is situated near good-quality flint outcrops (Ilani 1986), and the tools were apparently made of local flint and taken as finished products to the settlement at the site and perhaps to other settlements in the vicinity as well.

 
Animal Bones
Nimrod Marom
 

Twenty-eight animal bones were identified by species and skeletal element (Table 1; Driesch 1976; Davis 1992), most of which belong to cattle (Bos taurus; N=14, 50%,) and sheep/goats (Capra hircus/Ovis aries; N=9, 32%). Wild boars (Sus scrofa; N=3; 11%), equids (Equus cf. asinus; N=1, 4%) and canines (Canis familiaris; N=1, 4%) are represented in small numbers in the assemblage. The length of the third molar of an adult wild boar (L=37) is significantly smaller than the average length of the molar of a modern wild boar (Table 2). Thus, it may be posited that some of the pigs at the site were domesticated. There are no signs of burning, mastication, butchering or weathering of bones.

 
Table 1. Bones by sex and skeletal element (F = fused bone; U = unfused bone; MAU= minimal number of animal units; numbers in parentheses represent teeth embedded in the lower jaw)
 
Bone
F/U
Sheep/Goat
Cattle
Boar
Horse/donkey
Dog
Lower jaw
 
1
1
1
 
 
Dp4
 
 
 
1
 
 
P2
 
 
 
(1)
 
 
P3
 
 
 
(1)
 
 
P4
 
 
 
(1)
 
 
M1/2
 
2(2)
1(2)
(1)
 
 
M3
 
(1)
1
1
 
 
Humerus
F
2
 
 
 
 
U
 
 
 
 
 
Radius
F
1
1
 
 
 
U
 
1
 
 
 
Femur
F
 
 
 
 
1
U
 
 
 
 
 
Tibia
F
1
1
 
 
 
U
 
 
 
 
 
Astragal
 
1
3
 
 
 
Calcaneus
 
 
1
 
 
 
Phalanx 1
F
1
2
 
1
 
U
 
 
 
 
 
Phalanx 2
F
 
2
 
 
 
U
 
 
 
 
 
N
9
14
3
1
1
%
32
50
11
4
4
MAU
1
2
2
1
1
 
Table 2. Bone measurements (in millimeters) 
Locus
Sp.
Bone
Age
GL
GLpe
GL1
WA
Bp
Bd
BT
HTC
Dl
Dd
SD
320
Cattle
Astragal
F
 
 
62
 
 
36
 
 
35
 
 
301
Cattle
Astragal
F
 
 
 
 
 
47
 
 
 
 
 
355
Cattle
Astragal
F
 
 
67
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
346
Cattle
Astragal
F
 
 
 
 
 
48
 
 
 
 
 
339
Cattle
M3
Age-4
37
 
 
13
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
321
Cattle
Phalanx 1
F
 
60
 
 
25
24
 
 
 
 
19
307
Cattle
Phalanx 1
F
 
 
 
 
 
24
 
 
 
 
21
335
Cattle
Phalanx 1
F
 
 
 
 
26
 
 
 
 
 
21
335
Cattle
Phalanx 2
F
39
 
 
 
27
21
 
 
 
 
20
322
Cattle
Phalanx 2
F
 
 
 
 
 
23
 
 
 
 
21
321
Horse/
donkey
Phalanx 1
F
57
 
 
 
33
29
 
 
 
 
20
321
Boar
M3
Age-5
37
 
 
12
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
335
Sheep/goat
Humerus
F
 
 
 
 
 
 
27
12
 
 
 
312
Sheep/goat
Humerus
F
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
11
 
 
 
301
Sheep/goat
M3
Age -3
 
 
 
22
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
335
Sheep/goat
Phalanx 1
F
 
 
 
 
 
9
 
 
 
 
7
335
Sheep/goat
Tibia
F
 
 
 
 
 
26
 
 
 
20
 
 

The high frequency of cattle and wild boar bones is typical of an agriculturally inclined economy in a water-rich environment, which is not involved with a complex and specialized economy. Similar assemblages were found, for example, at Kabri (Marom, Yasur-Landau and Cline 2015) and near Tell Qasile (Sadeh 2006), and are typical of both small settlements and palaces.

 

The remains uncovered in the excavation on the northwestern margins of Tel Bahan belong to a settlement from MB IIC–LB I, revealing two construction phases. These were situated west of the previously excavated settlement remains (‘Azab 2011) dating to MB IIB, and it seems therefore that the site extended westward in this period. The uncovered pottery, including imported wares, from the LB I date the settlement of to the first half of this period. Previously excavated tombs may be associated with this settlement. They contained a variety of artifacts, including imported items, attesting to the wealth of the site’s inhabitants at this time.