Tell Keisan, تل كيسان (Arabic name meaning "the mound of treachery" ) or Tel Kisson, תל כיסון (Hebrew name), is an archaeological site located from the Mediterranean coast in the Galilee region of Israel between Haifa and Akko. The tell is approximately 15 acres in size and is composed of the accumulated ruins of many large cities dating back to the Chalcolithic period.
History
The Galilee region is known for agricultural production, particularly olive oil. Tell Keisan is thought to have been a major granary for Akko. Tell Keisan is located off the ancient road of Via Maris which connected Egypt and Syria. Some scholars hypothesize that at one point in its history it was the city of Achshaph or Biblical Cabul.
Tell Keisan was very large and prosperous in the early and middle Bronze Age. At this time it was fortified with a glacis and stone wall. In the late Bronze Age, the settlement was significantly smaller and a destruction level is distinguishable around the early 12th century BCE. It was rebuilt and reoccupied at the beginning of the Iron Age in the second half of the 11th century and appeared successful and "stratigraphically undisturbed." It is hypothesized that during the Iron Age it was a Tyrian enclave of Phoenicia. In the 8th century it was again destroyed and abandoned. Reinhabited in the 7th c. where there is archaeological evidence of Neo-Assyrian civilization. It was destroyed again by the end of that century. A Neo-Assyrian cuneiform tablet was found at the site. It was reoccupied throughout Persian and Hellenistic periods and again abandoned in the 2nd century BCE.
Strabo refers to the city of Acre as once a rendezvous for the Persians in their expeditions against Egypt. According to historians such as Diodorus Siculus and Strabo, King Cambyses II attacked Egypt after massing a huge army on the plains near the city of Acre. In December 2018 archaeologists digging at the site of Tell Keisan in Acre unearthed the remains of a Persian military outpost that might have played a role in the successful 525 B.C. Achaemenid invasion of Egypt. The Persian-period fortifications at Tell Keisan were later heavily damaged during Alexander the Great's fourth-century B.C. campaign to drive the Achaemenids out of the Levant.
There is archaeological evidence of Roman artifacts and a major road passing on the west side of the tell was paved during the Roman period. A church was built during the Byzantine period and lasted until the 7th century CE. The land of Akko changed hands between the crusaders and Arab army of Saladin a number of times in the 12th and 13th centuries, and Tell Keisan was used by Saladin as a base.
Ottoman, and modern era
Incorporated into the Ottoman Empire in 1517, it appeared under the name Tall Kisan in the census of 1596, located in the Nahiya of Acca of the Liwa of Safad. The village had 6 Muslim households, who paid a tax-rate of 16,6% on various products, including wheat (1950 akçe); barley (770 akçe); cotton (1200 akçe); occasional revenues (50 akçe); and goats and beehives (125 akçe); a total of 4,095 akçe.
In 1881, the PEF's Survey of Western Palestine (SWP) noted: "Guerin gives the measurement of the mound at 350 paces in length from west to east, by 125 in its greatest breadth; it is about 130 feet high. It is ascended at the north and south by a kind of slope produced by artificial depression of the ground. The plateau on the top is covered with fragments of pottery, and among them cubes of mosaic; heaps of stones from buildings now destroyed are also scattered about. On this Tell Saladin had his head quarters during the siege of St. Jean d'Acre by Guy de Lusignan, Richard Coeur de Lion, and Philip Augustus."
Today the tell is located on a privately owned farm. A portion of the tell is currently a cultivated olive grove.
Excavations
1935-1936
Conducted by J. Garstang and A. Rowe. Neilson expedition.
1971-1979
Led by R. de Vaux, J. Pringnaud, J. Briend, and J.-B. Humbert. École Biblique et Archéologique Française in Jerusalem. Unearthed a church and a stone carving of a cross dated to the 6th c. CE. According to Pritchard (1981), this excavation is of major importance to the archaeological understanding of the Iron age in this region.
2002
Directed by Y. Tepper, with the assistance of Y. Ya‘aqoby and Y. Dangor. Conducted on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority and funded by the Municipality of Tamra. Dig conducted north east of the tell. Discovered ruins spanning multiple periods which show that the city extended the boundary of the tell at times.