Tel El Sakan was an important ancient Canaanite/Egyptian maritime settlement during the early Bronze Age, situated at the mouth of Wadi Ghazzeh, in Gaza strip. Its geographical situation endowed it with a position of importance at the crossroads on the land based trade routes to Arabia, the Egyptian empire to the south and the Canaan region to the north.
Occupation history
The site covered over 5 hectares. It appears to be the predecessor to the Tell al-Ajjul settlement, where geomorphological dynamics of the estuary caused settlement trans-location or abandonment. The site dates from a period prior to the Egyptian military domination of the Levant. There were three consecutive building-phases, correlating with three strata of occupation.
The earliest Egyptian walled town
The Bronze Age port dates to the end of the 4th millennium BC, and was contemporary with En Besor, an Egyptian First DynastyStaging Post along the "ways of Horus" trade route in the Northern Negev. By comparison, Tel es-Sakan was larger and surrounded by a city-wall, the earliest Egyptian town wall datable with any certainty. Other finds of Egyptian or "Egyptianizing" pottery from this early period have also been found at the sites of Tel Erani, Arad, Tell el-Khuweilifeh/Tel Halif, Yarmuth, and Tel Lod. Nevertheless, the quantity of such pottery is rather small compared to the amount of the Levantine Early Bronze Age pottery at these sites. El Sakan may have been the centre of Egyptian settlement and colonisation for this whole coastal area during the Early Dynastic Period.
Canaanite city
The site was reoccupied in the Early Bronze III period, when a Canaanite walled city was built here. This comprises seven strata of occupation at the site. The walls at that time were 8m thick and built with sun-dried mud bricks. The final phase of occupation was EBII. Remains of sheep, goat and cattle were discovered, as well as fish bones and shells. Wheat, barley, vegetables, olives, and grapes were cultivated. This Canaanite settlement is dated solely to the Early Bronze period, when the major sites of southwestern Canaan reached their greatest prosperity. Then the settlement was finally abandoned around 2400-2350 BC. Nevertheless, the occupation continued during the Middle and Late Bronze Age at two sites nearby, Tel-al-Ajjul and al-Mughraqa. Another site further south at Deir al-Balah was occupied during the 14th–12th centuries BC, the time of New Kingdom.
Location
The site is located about 500 metres to the north of Tell el-Ajjul. It was previously covered by a sand dune, and was discovered by chance in 1998 during construction of a new housing complex, and construction work was temporarily suspended to allow an archaeological investigation to be conducted. In 2017 Hamas authorities leveled the site with bulldozers to make way for military bases and construction projects, despite local protests by Gazans protesting destruction of ancient Palestinian archaeological heritage.
