About Tel Shimron

Introduction
Tel Shimron is an ancient city. It is the largest tel in the Jezreel Valley, and at its height, during the Middle Bronze Age, would have spanned about 19.5 hectares (about 48 acres). Although it is a large site, it has never been excavated, except by Uval Portugali, who surveyed the site and dug a few test pits in the 1980s.
Portugali concluded, and our survey last summer confirmed, that the tel was occupied at least from the Early Bronze Age to the Islamic period - but it also was used during the crusader period, and even in modern times became one of the first settlements of Israeli settlers.



The Topography

Like all tels, Shimron is a man made mound, a result of many cities being built, destroyed, rebuilt and occupied for thousands of years. Generally speaking, the deeper you go, the older the artifacts and architecture you find. However, Shimron's topography is comprised of an acropolis, and several shelfs of land defending from it. Because of this, there are several time periods at surface level on the tel. This is convenient for the Shimron Team (largely the same as the Ashkelon team) because we have so many specialists for a variety of time periods. Shimron's topography allows for us to dig several time periods at once, overseen by the appropriate specialist.

The Geography
The Jezreel Valley was a key gateway connecting the Mediterranean to the Eastern Spice trade, as well as connecting the Northern region of Mesopotamia to the rest of the Levant, and to Egypt. Because of this, it was an important area for trading, and for military control. Shimron lies right along one of the main roads leading through the valley, just on the boarder of the valley plains and the Galilean mountains.

Ancient References 
Shimron is listed in Joshua 19:15 as one of the cities that was conquered by Joshua. It is also earlier mentioned several times in the Amarna letters. The following is an excerpt from my senior paper.

"Shimron was ruled in the Amarna Period by Balume and his son Shamu-Adda. In EA 224, Šhum-Adda writes to the Pharaoh to inform him that the grain he required from Shimron was destroyed. This shows us Shimron probably had a similar task as Megiddo of cultivating fields in the Jezreel for Pharaoh. As we saw in EA 8, in relation to Acco, Shamu-Adda partnered with Sutatna to ambush a caravan at nearby Hanathon."

2017 Season of Excavation 
I don't have many details on this season yet...but I know we will be opening three grids to excavate. I will be driving a week early for Staff week, when we will begin excavating to prepare the grids and acquaint ourselves with the Jezreel Valley dirt (laugh if you want...but it's a real thing! Archaeologists need to 'read' dirt to understand what happened at the site, and dirt is different depending on your location. In Ahkelon, right on the beach, sandy soil is everywhere. Here, sandy soil is not the normal dirt). We'll also be learning to use OCHRE, our database, and going over our methods.
During Staff Week we'll also have an "Education Day" for the local school kids, to teach them about the site and show them how to do some excavating, pottery washing etc, basically to give them a taste of what we are doing.
The second week, our volunteers will be arriving. I believe there are 66 volunteers from various schools and places.

Final Notes
I guess that's all for now, this is not at all comprehensive, I've just been jotting down what comes to mind! I'll keep updating as we get started excavating!