BETWEEN CARMEL AND THE SEA Tel Dor: The Late Periods

The 2010 excavation season at Tel Dor (located on Israel's Carmel coast) marked the thirtieth year of continuous study and excavation of this Mediterranean port town (figs. 1-2). 1 The longevity of modern investigation at Dor has meant that we have amassed a body of evidence substantial enough to contribute productively to questions of both local and broader significance, among them the beginning and development of Phoenician culture, patterns of trade in the eastern Mediterranean, and the impact of imperialism and changing foreign domination on the cities and cultures of the Levant. A previous contribution to this journal discussed the state of research on Dor's Iron Age (Gilboa and Sharon 2008). The current contribution picks up where that one left off, focusing on material and research connected to Dor's later history, when the town found itself at the center of an ever-expanding system of complex political and economic international relationships, as first the Babylonians, followed by the Persians, the Greeks and Macedonians, and finally the Romans all made their mark on the region.