Overview

Bibliography

Tell Qasile is located on the Yarkon River within the modern city of Tel Aviv. Its location on the river is near Mediterranean Sea and seems to have functioned as a port city. Although there was perhaps a small Middle Bronze settlement on the tell (a few sherds have been found), the town was founded by the Philistines in the Iron I period, existed through two strata, was destroyed, and then rebuilt, presumably by the Israelites, in Stratum X. On and off the tell, inhabitation continued sporadically through the Crusader period.

The site was excavated by two expeditions. The first, between 1948 and 1950, was directed by Benjamin Mazar for the Israel Exploration Society. His excavations uncovered the neighborhood of houses in Area A at the southern side of the site. A second expedition was directly by Amihai Mazar between 1971 and 1974 and several short seasons between 1982 and 1989 for the Eretz Israel Museum and the Institute of Archaeology of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He excavations focused on the eastern part of the tell, and he uncovered three strata of a Philistine temple.

Off the tell, to the east, a large late Roman wine press has been preserved and is included in the Virtual World Project. Little else of the late Roman town is known.

The archaeological strata uncovered at the site, as illustrated in the site plan, date to the following periods:

	Early Islamic Period
	Roman Period
	Stratum IX
	Stratum X
	Stratum XI
	Stratum XII