The Joint Archaeological Expedition to Tell El-Hesi: The Tell el-Hesi field manual
- ISBN-10
- 0897572033
- ISBN-13
- 9780897572033
- Pages
- 134
- Language
- English
- Published
- 1980
- Publisher
- Sheffield Academic Press
- Authors
- Jeffrey A. Blakely, Lawrence E. Toombs
Description
The Tell el-Hesi site comprises a 25-acre walled city from the Early Bronze III period. It is located on the southeastern edge of the Mediterranean coastal plain, 26 km northeast of Gaza in Israel. Tell el-Hesi was the first Palestinian site at which the principles of ceramic chronology and of stratigraphic excavation were applied and at which the relationship between pottery and stratigraphy was shown to be significant. In 1890 W.M. Flinders Petrie excavated at Hesi and produced a general picture of its occupational history. In 1891-92, F.J. Bliss excavated stratigraphically through each successive level of the mound and identified eleven occupational levels which he grouped into eight strata or "cities". In 1970, The Joint Archaeological Expedition to Tell el-Hesi, sponsored by the American Schools of Oriental Research and a consortium of educational institutions, entered the site with the objectives of investigating in greater detail and with more refined methods the stratigraphic divisions identified by Petrie and Bliss. This book appears as the first volume in the Joint Expedition's series of final publications regarding their field experience and findings. The field manual is not simply a "how-to" book, but was carefully developed to combine the best of modern archaeological methods with a deliberately interdisciplinary approach to excavation and analysis. Subsequent volumes in this series will reflect the standards outlined in this manual and develop their implications more fully. -- from Preface.
