Hadera (Israel) (AFP)
The Israeli Antiquities Authority (AIA) presented Sunday in central Israel the remains of a city built 5,000 years ago, one of the oldest and largest in the Middle East at the time.
"We have here a huge, planned urban construction, with streets that separate residential areas and public spaces," Yitzhak Paz, one of the archaeologists responsible for the excavations, told AFP.
By its magnitude, it is a major discovery in the Middle East for the Bronze Age, he said.
"In Esur (near the city of Hadera) is the largest and most important site (of the Bronze Age), its size is 650 dunams (0.65 km2) that is to say the double of what we know, "said Itai Elad, another archaeologist.
Between 5,000 and 6,000 inhabitants "lived here of agriculture and commerce", according to estimates, according to Yitzhak Paz, who specified that the site had been abandoned in the third millenium before our era, for reasons unknown.
Excavations, conducted for more than two and a half years, have also revealed another locality, smaller and 7000 years old, a cemetery, a temple dedicated to religious rituals, but also fortifications of twenty or so years. meters and two meters high, explains Dina Shalem, another excavation archaeologist.
These are the "first steps in the process of urbanization" in this region, which was then the country of Canaan, according to Yitzhak Paz.
About four million fragments were found on the site, said Itaï Elad, from pottery, flint tools and stone and basalt vases, part of which came from Egypt.
Standing in front of a table on which were exposed some of these treasures, he showed a round and ocher club head that could have served as a weapon.
Other remains have been discovered as rare figures with human or animal faces.
"We found bones of animals burned in a stone basin inside and around the temple, proof of sacrificial offerings," Itaï Elad told AFP.
Excavations on the site with the help of 5,000 youths preceded an interchange construction project led by Netivei Israel, the national transport company.
Because of the finds, it decided to modify its plans to preserve the site.
© 2019 AFP