5,000-year-old NYC-style metropolis uncovered in northern Israel - The Jerusalem Post

Aerial photograph of the excavation site, Ein Assur, northern Israel. (photo credit: ASSAF PEREZ/ISRAEL ANTIQUITIES AUTHORITY)

The ruins of a 5,000-year-old megalopolis were uncovered in northern Israel, the Antiquities Authority announced on Sunday.

The ruins were exposed in a major excavation project in the Ein Assur site near Harish. According to the IAA, the city was the largest and the central one in the area during the Bronze Age. According to the archeologists, about 6,000 people inhabited it, a huge number at the time.

 

 “About the same time that the first pharaoh established his rule over Egypt, this city was founded,” he explained in an IAA video, calling it “the New York of that era,” IAA official Yitzhak Paz, explained in a video.

Paz explains that the location offered exceptionally good conditions to settle, such as sources of water and strategic proximity to the ancient commercial routes.

The city was fortified and its urban design is clearly visible, he added.

The ruins clearly show a web of roads and alleys, as well as the design of the buildings. Among the most unique structures uncovered was a temple where religious rituals were performed. A seal imprint featuring the figure of a stylized man raising his hands in prayer and a head figurine were found at the site.

Moreover, the excavations have revealed that 2,000 years earlier, a different village stood on the same site, as stated in the IAA video by archeologist Dina Shalem.

According to the authority, the importance of the finding is such that it is going to change everything scholars know about the urbanization process in the Land of Israel.

Thousands of Israeli youth have been worked at the site along with the archeologists, thanks to an IAA program that sends school students to work on archeological sites for a week.

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https://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/5000-year-old-NYC-style-metropolis-uncovered-in-northern-Israel-603854

2019-10-06 12:55:00Z
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