The Tell Qana Archaeological Project is about more than archaeology and excavations, Excavation Directors Dr. Amit Dagan and Dr. Ayelet Dayan told The Jerusalem Post, sitting in the sparse shade available at the site.
Dagan oversees the excavations on behalf of the Martin (Szusz) Department of Land of Israel Studies and Archaeology at Bar-Ilan University, while Dayan does the same on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA).
“When I started this project, it was very important to me to create a different kind of archaeological project,” he said. “I wanted to build a project that would combine advanced archaeological and environmental research with education and community engagement.”
A five-minute walk from the Hod Hasharon Ecological Park, the first thing one notices about Tell Qana is the noise. Above the rhythmic thudding of pickaxes and the scraping of tools over stone are light-hearted conversations in Hebrew and English, ribbing and joking that is unexpected in near 40℃ heat.
The Post joined the Tell Qana team for a day of digging as the site’s third excavation season nears its end, arriving in time to sit down for breakfast and introductions.
“You know, you work for an hour or two; it's very hard soil, very hot. You really need to be into it, to love it,” Dagan said. “Either you love it, or you don’t. There’s no middle.”
Crowded around three long tables was the excavation’s team, sitting alongside university students and other volunteers from the Israeli public, including several children, who decided to don a hat and gloves and spend a day under the August sun digging through the soil of the region’s history.
Isabel Andrade, an Egyptologist and historian from Spain who volunteers at Luxor during the winter, told the Post that there is no comparison between digging in the sands of Egypt and the hard mud of Tell Qana.
“This is a great team. It’s like a family. Since I [started in Tell Qana] last year, I want to come every year,” Andrade said, explaining that the site piqued her interest due to the ancient historical connection to Egypt. “I’m glad to be here. It’s a privilege.”
Choosing Tell Qana as his first project as an excavation director was deliberate, Dagan said. Unlike other archaeological sites sitting along the Yarkon River in the Sharon region, it had not yet been excavated.
“I first came to Tell Qana on my own,” he said. “It was completely overgrown with reeds, but as I walked across the tell, I kept finding pottery sherds on the surface. At some point, I just sat down, looked around, and thought: this is the place.”
After conducting a field survey of the area in 2022 to get a glimpse of the different eras buried at the site, Dagan began planning the excavation.
But now, three seasons in, “the results are fascinating,” said Dagan. He added that the findings are even more intriguing since everything done at the site marks the first research conducted at the site since it was last inhabited in antiquity.
Over 200 years of Philistine presence revealed
While the initial field survey and the first two seasons at the site unearthed artifacts dating from the Early Bronze Age to the Persian period, this third season revealed evidence of over 200 years of ongoing Philistine presence.
Egyptian and Assyrian artifacts have also been unearthed at the site, Dagan told the Post, the most recent of which was an ancient Egyptian scarab found last Friday.
“At the same site you can find Hellenistic sling stones, Scythian arrowheads from the Persian period,” he said. “You can also find a Scottish pocket knife from World War I, everything in the same site in the center of Israel, and nobody knew about the site’s archaeological potential. It's like it waited for us.”
But antiquity is not the only history Tell Qana offers its visitors.
Using historical and ancient maps alongside modern technology, the Tell Qana team located WWI trenches dug by the Ottomans, determined to hold the line against the British. Bullets, cartridges, and buttons belonging to British soldiers were dug from the earth, cataloged, and recorded.
“We found a pocket knife from Edinburgh [that probably belonged to] a Scottish soldier, and later we learned that the Scottish 52nd Lowland Infantry Division had fought here,” Dagan told the Post. “You can really see it. That Scottish soldier, you know, maybe he left, maybe something happened to him, maybe not, but you find [their knife] here at the site. It's really emotional.”
Halfway through the day, excavations were called to pause. Trowels, hoes, and wheelbarrows were set down as the group stepped back into the shade for a moment to breathe and share chilled watermelon, carefully cut by one of the volunteers.
“Food,” Dagan explained with a smile. “It's part of the deal here.”
The camaraderie among the Tell Qana team was a joy to watch: a community of people from all walks of life piecing itself together as they work to piece together a much older, ancient community.
Biblical scholar and archaeologist Dr. Ahuva Ho, who has been digging alongside Dagan for over two decades, echoed the sentiment to the Post.
“Wherever he [Dagan] goes, I go,” she said, explaining that her ties to Tell Qana go past her profession as an archaeologist. “You can’t [abstractly] talk about the history of someone, the Persian history, the Philistine history. They are part of my history, and that’s why I’m here. I’m part of that.”
Healing through restoration
Beyond the excavation itself, the Tell Qana Archaeological Project includes two additional components: a Citizen Science project and the Lab for Mending Fragments initiative.
The Citizen Science project, which integrates members of the public who have the interest and desire to contribute meaningfully to archaeological research, includes an initiative bringing individuals who are on the autism spectrum to work in the archaeology lab.
The Lab for Mending Fragments, carried out in collaboration with Dr. Ayelet Oreg from Bar-Ilan University’s Louis & Gabi Weisfeld School of Social Work, has worked with soldiers with PTSD, the AMCHA- Holocaust Survivor Program, as well as midwives who specialize in stillbirth care, using archaeology as a tool for healing and restoration.
“The act of healing and restoring the remains or belongings of someone else has the ability to open people up and help them start the path to healing, and that's basically what this place is about, healing,” Dagan told the Post.
“At the end of the day, I always tell my students, people die twice: when they die and when people forget about them,” he shared. “Our job is to tell the story of these people, because we are here and we can learn a lot from them.”
“That's what we do, we tell their story, and I hope that one day someone will tell our story.”
More information on the Tell Qana Archaeological Project and its additional initiatives is available here.
The excavations at Tell Qana are conducted by The Martin (Szusz) Department of Land of Israel Studies and Archaeology at Bar-Ilan University in collaboration with the Israel Antiquities Authority.