Tell Kāmid el-Lōz

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The Kamid Al Lawz is the settlement mound ( Tell ) of the Oriental City Kumidi north of the modern town Kamid el-Loz (also: Kamed El-Laouz, Kamed El-Loz) in Lebanon .

Tell is located about 50 km southeast of Beirut on the southern eastern edge of the Biqa , the plateau between the Lebanon Mountains and Anti-Lebanon , 4 km east of Joub Jannine , the center of the West Bekaa district.

topography

The settlement hill is oval in shape and extends from approx. 240 m to 300 m (north-south axis). It reaches a height of about 26 m above the terrain of the plain of 865–867 m above sea level, the top of the hill is at 874 m. The Tell is one of the largest settlement hills in the Biqa. The city developed at the intersection of two ancient roads: the road from the coastal city of Sidon through Lebanon to southern Biqa and on through Anti-Lebanon to Damascus and from Egypt through Palestine , through the Upper Jordan Rift and Biqa to Syria in the valley of the Orontes , Anatolia and Mesopotamia .

Discovery and Exploration

In 1954 the settlement mound was discovered by Arnulf Kuschke , Professor of Biblical Archeology at the University of Mainz . The first excavation work was started by him and Rolf Hachmann , Professor of Prehistory and Early History at Saarland University in Saarbrücken , in 1963. In 1964, Arnulf Kuschke resigned and was replaced by Martin Metzger , an Old Testament student at the Theological Seminary and at the University of Hamburg , from 1974 in Kiel . Since 1966 the exploration of the ruin hill has been carried out under the direction of Rolf Hachmann. In 1981 the excavation work had to be stopped due to the Lebanese civil war . Up to this point in time, the north-western part of the settlement mound in particular had been exposed, with an area of ​​approx. 5700 m 2 and a maximum depth of approx. 7.45 m.

Excavation site in Kāmid el-Lōz (March 2013)
Excavation site in Kāmid el-Lōz (March 2013)

In 1997, the excavations were resumed under the direction of Marlies Heinz , Professor of Near Eastern Archeology at the University of Freiburg . Due to the civil war in Syria , no excavations have been carried out since 2012.

Already in 1897 the theologian Hermann Guthe suspected that the ancient oriental name of the city of Kumidi was hidden behind the modern Arabic place name Kāmid el-Lōz. This city is mentioned five times in the letters from the State Archives of Amarna ( Tell el-Armana ) of the Egyptian Pharaoh Amenophis IV. Akhenaten (1352-1336 BC). In tablet EA 129, Kumidi is mentioned as the seat of an Egyptian governor and in document EA 132 the name Puhuru is mentioned as governor. During the excavation work, a total of seven cuneiform texts , six of which were letters from the Armana period, were discovered in the vicinity of the palace excavation . The letters found are written in Mesopotamian cuneiform script. It is unclear whether the in the campaign lists of Thutmose III. (1479–1426 BC) named Syrian city is identical to Kumidi.

Results of the excavations 1963–1981

Shards from the late Neolithic (5th millennium BC), early Bronze Age settlement layers (approx. 3000–2000 BC), Middle Bronze Age settlements (approx. 2100/2000–1550 BC) were found. The excavation focused on the earlier Iron Age (approx. 1200 / 1100–800 BC) and in particular on the Late Bronze Age . A Middle Bronze Age palace was discovered under the late Bronze Age palace complex and, analogously, a Middle Bronze Age temple was found under the Late Bronze Age temples (approx. 1550–1200 / 1100 BC). The foundation walls of the late Bronze Age temple T2 (oldest construction stage) were well preserved.

Temple complexes

Two unconnected temple areas were found. The rooms in both areas are grouped around a larger, rectangular courtyard. Three rooms were accessible from the courtyard in the west and a long room from the east courtyard. A roofed cult room was located south of both courtyards. The rooms and courtyards contained numerous installations for cultic purposes.

Palace complexes

From the oldest construction phase (P5) of the late Bronze Age palace, the foundation walls of the former three-story residential building of the ruling family were exposed. The excavated rectangular royal pavilion consisted of two rooms, a corridor and a stairwell. The building had a basement. It was destroyed by an earthquake. The brick structure collapsed and buried people, household items, furniture, vessels, tools and weapons under it. Three people were killed, the skeletons of which were found in the palace basement between fallen ceiling parts and household appliances.

The inventory of the city rulers found consisted of gold, silver and bronze utensils as well as glass, stone and clay vessels and ivory carvings. It dates to the 15th or 14th century BC. Also found were Egyptian stone vessels, Cypriot clay vessels, a model of a chariot , make-up boxes and the like. Ivory needles and weapons, including part of a scale armor, sickle sword and arrowheads. Bronze devices and vessels, two game boards with pieces and the clothes and jewelry found by the slain give an impression of the furnishings of the ruling family.

The found younger palace layers of the Late Bronze Age (P4-P1) open up a residential building of the royal family from free-standing pavilions, which are adjoined by a metal workshop. According to the chronological overview of the Late Bronze Age created by Johannes Boese, the excavated palace layers of Tell Kāmid el-Lōz - Kumidi are arranged as follows:

  • P1 between 1200 and 1100 BC Chr.
  • P2 and P3 between 1300 and 1200 BC (Rulers in Palestine and southern Syria: Ahiram v. Byblos)
  • P4 between 1400 and 1300 BC (Ruler Kumidi: Biria-Waza , before that Puhuru; ruler in Palestine and southern Syria: Elirabi / Esirabi before that Biridija v. Megiddo ); excavated palace treasure between 1400 and 1300 BC (Ruler Kumidi: Arašša; ruler in Palestine and southern Syria: Zalaja v. Damascus)
  • P5 1400 BC Chr.

Tablets

Two of the clay tablets found in Kāmid el-Lōz are written in Mesopotamian cuneiform. These are manuscripts from the Egyptian State Chancellery to the city princes Zalaja of Damascus and to the ruler of the unknown city of Saza'ena. The ostraka with ancient Phoenician characters from Kāmid el-Lōz were found in the palace and temple area within the late Bronze Age layer sequence. Two inscriptions were also found, a jug inscription and the one on a pithos (storage vessel) from the farm yard of the palace P2 in Ugaritic cuneiform . Two stone bowls, which were found in the door of a cellar room of the late Bronze Age palace, had Egyptian inscriptions on the shoulders of the vessels.

Selected finds

The finds document the far-reaching relationships of Kumidi: The Mycenaean culture includes an animal rhyton in the form of a turtle and a fish ryhton, both from the west courtyard of the temple, two pointed rhyta with plant decorations from courtyard K of the temple complex and an idol from temple T1. A faience bowl with lotus blossom and fish decorations from Temple T1 and a fragment of a statuette from the temple area refer to Egypt .

Fragments of a relief depiction of an interceding goddess and a goddess in a falconry robe come from the palace's treasure trove (approx. 1700 BC), both made of gold foil on silver sheet.

Outstanding finds are also the ivory figure of a lyre player from the royal pavilion, a game board in the form of a liver model made of clay, early Phoenician ivory (stratigraphically assigned to the 14th century BC), parts of a bronze scale armor and game boards made of ivory.

literature

The excavation results of Kāmid el-Lōz from the years 1963-81 are published in more than 20 volumes in the series Saarbrücker Contributions to Classical Studies , ISSN  0080-5181 .

  • Rudolf Echt : Kāmid el-Lōz 5. The Stratigraphy (= Saarbrücker Contributions to Antiquity. 34 ). Habelt, Bonn 1984.
  • Rudolf Echt: Les ivoires figurés de Kāmid el-Lōz et l'art phénicien du IIe millénaire. In: Studia Phenicia Vol. 3, 1985, 69-83.
  • Dietz O. Edzard , Rolf Hachmann , Paul Maiberger, Günter Mansfeld: Kāmid el-Lōz - Kumidi. Written documents from (= Saarbrücker contributions to antiquity. 7). Habelt, Bonn 1970.
  • Uwe Finkbeiner , Rolf Hachmann: Vademecum of the Kamid-el-Loz excavation (= Saarbrücken contributions to antiquity. 5). Habelt, Bonn 1969.
  • Rolf Hachmann : Kāmid el-Lōz and the Amarna period or on the sense and nonsense of cultural history and its exploration. Knowledge Ges. Des Saarlandes, Saarbrücken 1972.
  • Rolf Hachmann: The palace of a small Syrian king of the late Bronze Age in Kāmid el-Lōz. In: Dietrich Papenfuss, Volker Michael Strocka (Ed.): Palace and Hut. Contributions to building and living in antiquity by archaeologists, prehistory and early historians. von Zabern, Mainz 1982, ISBN 3-8053-0492-7 , pp. 21-41.
  • Rolf Hachmann (Ed.): Early Phoenicians in Lebanon. 20 years of excavation in Kāmid el-Lōz. von Zabern, Mainz 1983, ISBN 3-8053-0771-3 .
  • Martin Metzger : Ten years of excavations on Tell Kāmid el-Lōz, Lebanon (1964–1974). In: Christiana Albertina. Research report and half-yearly publication of the University of Kiel. NF issue 6, 1977, ISSN  0578-0160 , pp. 5-40.
  • Gernot Wilhelm : A letter from the Armana period from Kāmid el-Lōz (Kl 72: 600). In: Journal for Assyriology and Near Eastern Archeology . Vol. 63, No. 1, 1973, 69-75, doi : 10.1515 / zava.1973.63.1.69 .

The excavation results of Kāmid el-Lōz from 2001-2011 are published in the Bulletin d'archéologie et d'architecture libanaises (BAAL):

  • Marlies Heinz et al: Kamid el-Loz in the Bequa'a plain / Lebanon. Continuity and Change in the Settlement of a Region . In: Bulletin d'archéologie et d'architecture libanaises . Vol. 5, 2001, 5-91. DOI: 10.6094 / UNIFR / 8839
  • Marlies Heinz et al: Kamid el-Loz in the Bequa'a plain / Lebanon. Excavations in 2001, 2002 and 2004. In: Bulletin d'archéologie et d'architecture libanaises. Vol. 8, 2004, 83-117. DOI: 10.6094 / UNIFR / 8840
  • Marlies Heinz et al: Notes on the 2005 Season at Kamid el-Loz. From the Romans to the Late Bronze Age. In: Bulletin d'archéologie et d'architecture libanaises. Vol. 10, 2006, 85-96. DOI: 10.6094 / UNIFR / 8832
  • Marlies Heinz among others: Kamid el-Loz. Intermediary Between Cultures. More than 10 Years of Archaeological Research in Kamid el-Loz (1997 to 2007) (= Bulletin d'archéologie et d'architecture libanaises. Hors-série. 7). Minister of Culture. Direction Générale des Antiquités, Beyrouth 2010. DOI: 10.6094 / UNIFR / 8831
  • Marlies Heinz among others: Kamid el-Loz. Report on the Excavations in 2008 and 2009. In: Bulletin d'archéologie et d'architecture libanaises . Vol. 14, 2010, 9-134. DOI: 10.6094 / UNIFR / 11291
  • Marlies Heinz among others: Kamid el-Loz. Report on the excavations 2010 and 2011. In: Bulletin d'archéologie et d'architecture libanaises . Vol. 15, 2011, 29-108. DOI: 10.6094 / UNIFR / 12962
  • Marlies Heinz : Kamid el-Loz. 4000 Years and More of Rural and Urban Life in the Lebanese Beqaʿa Plain (= Archeology & History in the Lebanon. Special 2016 Issue ). The Lebanese British Friends of the National Museum, Beirut 2016, ISSN 1361-3626.

Web links

Coordinates: 33 ° 37 '  N , 35 ° 49'  E