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New Radiocarbon Dates from Tel Kabri Support a High Middle Bronze Age Chronology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 April 2016

Felix Höflmayer Open the ORCID record for Felix Höflmayer [Opens in a new window] ,
Assaf Yasur-Landau ,
Eric H Cline Open the ORCID record for Eric H Cline [Opens in a new window] ,
Michael W Dee ,
Brita Lorentzen  and
Simone Riehl
Felix Höflmayer*
Affiliation:
Austrian Academy of Sciences, Institute for Oriental and European Archaeology, Postgasse 7/1/10, Vienna 1010, Austria.
Assaf Yasur-Landau
Affiliation:
University of Haifa - The Leon Recanati Institute for Maritime Studies, Haifa, Israel.
Eric H Cline
Affiliation:
George Washington University, Classical and Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, Washington, DC, USA.
Michael W Dee
Affiliation:
University of Oxford, Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art, Oxford, UK.
Brita Lorentzen
Affiliation:
Cornell University, Cornell Tree-Ring Laboratory, Ithaca, NY, USA.
Simone Riehl
Affiliation:
Eberhard Karls, Institut für Naturwissenschaftliche Archäologie, Tübingen, Germany.
*
*Corresponding author. Email: felix.hoeflmayer@oeaw.ac.at.
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Abstract

This article presents new radiocarbon evidence from the Middle Bronze Age palatial site of Tel Kabri (Israel). The final phase of the palace (Phase III) can be dated to Middle Bronze Age II, with an end date around the transition from Middle Bronze II to III or very early in Middle Bronze III. According to our 14C data, the end of Tel Kabri Phase III (and thus the transition from Middle Bronze II to III) can be dated to ~1700 BC. This date is about 50–100 yr earlier than traditional chronological models for the Middle Bronze Age propose (~1650 BC according to the traditional chronology or ~1600 BC according to the low chronology). 14C data from Tel Kabri thus add additional evidence for a higher Middle Bronze Age chronology for the Levant, consistent with recent 14C evidence from Tell el-Dabca (Egypt), Tel Ifshar (Israel), and Tell el-Burak (Lebanon).

Keywords

Tel Kabrisouthern LevantEgyptMiddle Bronze Agechronology
Type
Research Article
Information
Radiocarbon , Volume 58 , Issue 3 , September 2016 , pp. 599 - 613
Copyright
© 2016 by the Arizona Board of Regents on behalf of the University of Arizona 

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