Tell el-Burak excavation project (Lebanon)

Helen Sader
Tell el-Burak excavation project
Tell el-Burak excavation project (Lebanon)
The Tell el-Burak excavation project is in cooperation with Dr. Jens Kamlah (University
of Tübingen) and Dr. Margarete van Ess (DAI).
Description
This project aims at studying the formation process of ancient settlements on the
Lebanese coast with special emphasis on the Iron Age. Its main objective is to try and
explain the origin, growth and decay of these ancient cities mainly during the so-called
period of Phoenician expansion (9th-6th century BC).
The first six seasons (2001-2003, 2005, 2008 and 2009) have uncovered a Middle Bronze
Age palace with well preserved wall paintings in its largest room. The paintings show
strong Egyptian influence and striking similarities with 12th and 13th Dynasty Egyptian
tomb paintings. This is a spectacular discovery that is shedding light on the history of the
kingdom of Sidon in the Middle Bronze Age.
Tell el-Burak Middle Bronze
Age palace at the end of the 2009
season.
Wall paintings in room 10
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Helen Sader
Tell el-Burak excavation project
Detail of wall painting showing a tree flanked by a goat and fragments of the
painted floor.
The excavations have also uncovered an Iron Age fortification wall as well as domestic
buildings. Complete Phoenician house plans have been excavated and documented for the
first time in Lebanon.
Iron Age City Wall
Iron Age dwellings
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Helen Sader
Tell el-Burak excavation project
Houses dating to the Late Mamluk-Early Ottoman period have also been excavated on
the Tell summit.
Plan of Early Ottoman house
Late Mamluk pottery
Collaborators
Uwe Finkbeiner and Jens Kamlah, University of Tübingen
Margarete van Ess, German Archaeological Institute
Publications
Sader, H.
1997 Tell el Burak: an unidentified city of Phoenician Sidon. in Ponkratz-Leisten, B.,
Kühne, H. & Xella, P. eds. Ana shadî Labnani lū allik. Beiträge zur altorientalischen
und mittlemeerischen Kulturen. Festschrift für Wolfgang Röllig. Verlag Butzon &
Bercker Kevelaer. Neukirchner Verlag Neukirchen-Vluyn. 363-377.
Finkbeiner, U.- Sader, H.
1998 Beirut BEY 020: Preliminary report on the 1995 excavations. Bulletin
d'Archéologie et d'Architecture Libanaises , volume 2: 114-166.
Kamlah, J.-Sader, H
2003 Im Mutterland der Phönizier. Archäologische Ausgrabungen auf Tell el-Burak,
Südlibanon. Welt und Umwelt der Bibel 2/2003: 64-67
Kamlah, J.-Sader, H
2003 The Tell el-Burak Archaeological Project. Preliminary Report on the 2002 and
2003 Seasons. Bulletin d’Archéologie et d’Architecture Libanaises Volume 7(2003), 145173.
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Helen Sader
Tell el-Burak excavation project
Kamlah, J.- Sader, H
2004 Deutsch-libanesische Ausgrabungen auf Tell el-Burak, südlich von Sidon.
Vorbericht nach Abschluss der dritten Kampagne 2003. Zeitschrift des Deutsch-Palästina
Vereins 120: 123-140, 6 plates.
Sader, H.
2009 Palace Architecture in Tell el-Burak-Lebanon: Some Evidence for EgyptianMesopotamian-Levantine Interconnections, in Proceedings of the International
Symposium on Interconnections in the Eastern Mediterranean held in November 2008 in
Beirut, Bulletin d’Archéologie et d’Architecture Libanaises hors-série VI, 177-186.
Kamlah, J.-Sader, H.
In press The Tell el-Burak Archaeological Project. Preliminary Report on the 2005, 2008
and 2009 Seasons, Bulletin d’Archéologie et d’Architecture Libanaises, vol. 12 (2008).
Sader, H.
In press Tell el-Burak: A New Middle Bronze Age Site from Lebanon, Ancient Near
East Archaeology.
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