Underwater archaeologists working in the winter 2023–2024 season reported finding three superimposed Iron Age shipwrecks in the shallow Tantura Lagoon, the ancient harbor of Dor on Israel’s Carmel coast. The excavation, co-directed by Professor Thomas E. Levy of the University of California and Professor Assaf Yasur-Landau of the University of Haifa, used high-resolution sonar, GPS-aligned 3-D mapping, and hand excavation and its results were reported in Antiquity. Only a small portion of the exposed material was lifted; the team plans to resume work in May.
Reports noted that these are the first Iron Age shipwrecks identified in Israel’s territorial waters. They lay just meters apart under sand and silt, each originating in a different century between roughly 1200 and 550 BCE. The cargoes show that maritime commerce continued, although on a more regional scale than in the Late Bronze Age.
Earlier surveys recorded remains of at least twenty-six vessels from other periods in the lagoon, yet the new finds - catalogued as Dor M, Dor L1, and Dor L2 - constitute the country’s entire underwater record for the Iron Age. “We discovered three Iron Age shipwrecks lying on top of each other - like the archaeological strata usually seen on an ancient mound, but underwater,” said Levy, according to Vietnam Plus.
Dor M dated to the 11th century BCE, when Mediterranean trade was recovering from the upheavals around 1200 BCE. “Dor M embodies the renaissance of long-distance trade. It reveals how, a century after the collapse of the previous era, people returned to the sea, recreating their networks throughout the Mediterranean,” said Yasur-Landau. Dor L1 belonged to the 9th–8th centuries BCE, when the port was likely within the Israelite kingdom, Levy explained. Dor L2, from the late 7th or early 6th century BCE, sailed during Assyrian and then Babylonian rule.
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Each wreck carried a different cargo. Dor M held basket-handle amphoras, rare Iron Age I storage jars known from Egypt, Cyprus, and Lebanon, ballast made of volcanic and quartz stones, and two jars marked with Cypro-Minoan script; a stone anchor bore similar signs that are still under study. Dor L1 carried Phoenician-style jars, simple galley bowls, and utensils that crew members had repaired with perforations for continued use. “Because these ships went down in such shallow water, it was very easy for people to dive in and scavenge the good stuff. Wood was very valuable. It was used again for other crafts,” said Levy, explaining why few timbers survive. Dor L2 transported semi-processed iron blooms, which Yasur-Landau described as “one of the earliest known sea transports of iron.”
Seeds and resin preserved inside sealed amphoras are undergoing sediment and isotope analysis, while radiocarbon dating combined with pottery typology tightened the chronology. “Each period has a very typical assemblage of pottery, and then we also did radiocarbon dating. Combining them together, we have a pretty rigorous understanding of the dating,” said Levy.
Yasur-Landau argued that the Dor cargoes demonstrate that seaborne trade never truly ceased after the Late Bronze Age and continued despite shifting political control by Sea Peoples, Israelite monarchs, Assyrians, and Babylonians. Levy added that the material offers “kind of a snapshot of the process,” illustrating how Iron Age polities responded economically to earlier collapse.
Only about a dozen Iron Age wrecks are known across the Mediterranean. Underwater excavation is costly, so maritime archaeologists often focus on later eras, Levy explained. The anaerobic sand of the Dor lagoon preserved the new evidence; mapping showed ballast stones outlining the keels, parts of the hulls still buried, and portions of an ancient breakwater intact.
The researchers expect the finds to generate at least nine scientific papers. “I can’t help but think that we will find more,” said Levy. “This is just the beginning of an unbelievable Iron Age project.”