Tall al-Ajjul or Tell el-'Ajul is an archaeological mound or ''
tell'' in the
Gaza Strip
The Gaza Strip (;The New Oxford Dictionary of English (1998) – p.761 "Gaza Strip /'gɑːzə/ a strip of territory under the control of the Palestinian National Authority and Hamas, on the SE Mediterranean coast including the town of Gaza.. ...
. The fortified city excavated at the site dates as far back as ca. 2000-1800
BCE
Common Era (CE) and Before the Common Era (BCE) are year notations for the Gregorian calendar (and its predecessor, the Julian calendar), the world's most widely used calendar era. Common Era and Before the Common Era are alternatives to the or ...
and was inhabited during the
Bronze Age
The Bronze Age is a historic period, lasting approximately from 3300 BC to 1200 BC, characterized by the use of bronze, the presence of writing in some areas, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the second pri ...
. It is located at the mouth of
Wadi Ghazzah just south of the town of
Gaza.
History
Bronze Age
Archaeologists have excavated remains dated mainly to the Middle and Late
Bronze Age
The Bronze Age is a historic period, lasting approximately from 3300 BC to 1200 BC, characterized by the use of bronze, the presence of writing in some areas, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the second pri ...
.
Middle Bronze
In the MBII, Tell el-Ajjul was an important city in the Southern Levant.
In the MBIIB, Tell el-Ajjul had the largest number of Egyptian Second Intermediate Period imports.
Late Bronze
Large quantities of pumice were deposited during the Late Bronze Age, which may have been caused by the
Thera (Santorini) volcanic eruption. If proven correct, this would offer a good correlation and dating tool.
[
]
Treaty of Tell Ajul (1229)
The Sixth Crusade
The Sixth Crusade (1228–1229), also known as the Crusade of Frederick II, was a military expedition to recapture Jerusalem and the rest of the Holy Land. It began seven years after the failure of the Fifth Crusade and involved very little actua ...
came to an end with the so-called Treaty of Jaffa and Tell Ajul
The Treaty of Jaffa, sometimes the Treaty of Jaffa and Tall al-ʿAjūl, was an agreement signed on 18 February 1229 between Frederick II, Holy Roman emperor and king of Sicily, and al-Kāmil, Ayyubid sultan of Egypt. It brought an end to the Sixt ...
. These were in fact two different treaties, the first being the one signed at Tell Ajul by the competing Ayyubid
The Ayyubid dynasty ( ar, الأيوبيون '; ) was the founding dynasty of the medieval Sultan of Egypt, Sultanate of Egypt established by Saladin in 1171, following his abolition of the Fatimid Caliphate, Fatimid Caliphate of Egypt. A Sunni ...
rulers of Egypt
Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediter ...
, Syria
Syria ( ar, سُورِيَا or سُورِيَة, translit=Sūriyā), officially the Syrian Arab Republic ( ar, الجمهورية العربية السورية, al-Jumhūrīyah al-ʻArabīyah as-Sūrīyah), is a Western Asian country loc ...
and various smaller principalities. This treaty settled their territorial disputes and left Sultan Al-Kamil
Al-Kamil ( ar, الكامل) (full name: al-Malik al-Kamil Naser ad-Din Abu al-Ma'ali Muhammad) (c. 1177 – 6 March 1238) was a Muslim ruler and the fourth Ayyubid sultan of Egypt. During his tenure as sultan, the Ayyubids defeated the Fifth Cru ...
of Egypt in a very powerful position. The follow-up treaty was signed at Jaffa by Al-Kamil and the leader of the Sixth Crusade, Emperor Frederick II, thus removing the threat posed to Al-Kamil by the European armies.
Identification
Ajjul has been and remains one of the proposed sites for Sharuhen
Sharuhen ( he, שָׁרוּחֶן) was an ancient town in the Negev Desert or perhaps in Gaza. Following the expulsion of the Hyksos from Egypt in the second half of the 16th century BCE, they fled to Sharuhen and fortified it. The armies of Pha ...
and for Beth Eglaim mentioned in Eusebius's ''Onomasticon'', in contrast with Petrie's initial identification with ancient Gaza.[ Eusebius placed Beth Eglaim at eight Roman miles from Gaza.][ The name is absent from the Bible, and is given by Eusebius in Greek as Bethaglaim.
In the 1970s, the archaeologist ]Aharon Kempinski
Aharon אַהֲרֹן is masculine given name alternate spelling, commonly in Israel, of ''Aaron'', prominent biblical figure in the Old Testament, "Of the Mountains", or "Mountaineer". There are other variants including "Ahron" and "Aron". Aharon ...
proposed identifying Tall al-Ajjul with Sharuhen, the last stronghold of the Hyksos
Hyksos (; Egyptian '' ḥqꜣ(w)- ḫꜣswt'', Egyptological pronunciation: ''hekau khasut'', "ruler(s) of foreign lands") is a term which, in modern Egyptology, designates the kings of the Fifteenth Dynasty of Egypt (fl. c. 1650–1550 BC).
T ...
c. 1550 BCE.
Excavations
In 1930-1934 Tell el-Ajjul was excavated by British archaeologists under the direction of Sir Flinders Petrie
Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie ( – ), commonly known as simply Flinders Petrie, was a British Egyptologist and a pioneer of systematic methodology in archaeology and the preservation of artefacts. He held the first chair of Egypt ...
, who thought the site was ancient Gaza. He was accompanied by Olga Tufnell
Olga Tufnell (26 January 1905 – 11 April 1985) was a British archaeologist who assisted on the excavation of the ancient city of Lachish in the 1930s. She had no formal training in archaeology, but had worked as a secretary for Flinders Petri ...
. One of Flinders Petrie's discoveries were three hoards of Bronze Age gold jewellery, considered to be among the greatest Bronze Age finds in the Levant
The Levant () is an approximate historical geographical term referring to a large area in the Eastern Mediterranean region of Western Asia. In its narrowest sense, which is in use today in archaeology and other cultural contexts, it is eq ...
.[British Museum Collection](_blank)
/ref> Most of the collection is preserved at the British Museum
The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...
in London and the Rockefeller Museum
The Rockefeller Archeological Museum, formerly the Palestine Archaeological Museum ("PAM"; 1938–1967), and which before then housed The Imperial Museum of Antiquities (''Müze-i Hümayun''; 1901–1917), is an archaeology museum
A museum ...
in Jerusalem.
In 1999 and 2000 the excavations were renewed by Peter M. Fischer and M. Sadeq because of a common interest in the protection and exploration of the site, but work was interrupted due to the outbreak of the Second Intifada
The Second Intifada ( ar, الانتفاضة الثانية, ; he, האינתיפאדה השנייה, ), also known as the Al-Aqsa Intifada ( ar, انتفاضة الأقصى, label=none, '), was a major Palestinian uprising against Israel. ...
.[
A large amount of imported pottery from Cyprus has been discovered. These imports begin with Base-ring I, and White Slip I types of pottery. In particular, over 200 sherds of White Slip I have been found, which pottery is rarely found outside of Cyprus. The majority of the sherds, nevertheless, are of the later White Slip II and Base-ring II wares. There are also sherds of other kinds of Cypriot pottery, including Bichrome Wheel-made, Monochrome, Red Lustrous Wheel-made, and White Painted V/VI. Mycenean pottery and such from Upper Egypt were also found.][Celia J. Bergoffen]
''Early Late Cypriot Ceramic Exports to Canaan: White Slip I.''
In : Leaving No Stones Unturned / Hansen Donald P. - Winona Lake : Eisenbrauns, 2002. - p.23-41
See also
*Tell es-Sakan
Tell es-Sakan, lit. "Hill of Ash", is a now almost entirely destroyed[Ein HaBesor
Ein HaBesor ( he, עֵין הַבְּשׂוֹר, , Spring of the Besor) is a moshav in southern Israel. Located in the Hevel Eshkol area of the north-western Negev desert near the border with the Gaza Strip and around a kilometre from Magen, it ...]
Notes
Bibliography
Early Descriptions
* (visit in 1863: p
212
)
Excavation Reports
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Subsequent Archaeological Studies
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* (reprinted in )
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Encyclopedia Articles
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Museum Collections
* (Search for "place=Ajjul").
External links
Palestinian-Swedish Project at Tell el-Ajjul
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ajjul
History of Palestine (region)
Archaeology of the Near East
Archaeological sites in the Gaza Strip
Tells (archaeology)