  Shown within Gaza Strip  Tell es-Sanam (State of Palestine) | |
| Alternative name | Tell es-Sannam, Tell al-Sannam, Tall as Sanām |
|---|---|
| Location | Palestine |
| Coordinates | 31°27′48.6″N34°23′3.1″E / 31.463500°N 34.384194°E |
| History | |
| Periods | Late Bronze Age and Iron Age |
| Management | Private ownership [1] |
Tell es-Sanam is a tell (a mound created by accumulation of debris) near the Mediterranean coast of the Gaza Strip in Palestine. It is located on the bank of the Wadi Ghazzeh, near the point where the watercourse meets the Mediterranean Sea. [2] Archaeologists Joanna Clarke and Louise Steel hypothesise that Tell es-Sanam may have been established in the 2nd millennium BCE as a successor to the Bronze Age settlement at Tell el-Ajjul a short distance away as the Wadi Gazzeh silted up; its position near the sea would have enabled to it function as a port. [3]
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The Gaza Research Project found Iron Age pottery during preliminary investigations, [4] and Eliezer Oren reported finding Late Bronze Age pottery at Tell es-Sanam in the 1970s. [5] Clarke and Steel also suggest that during the Iron Age the settlements at Tell es-Sanam and Tell Ruqeish may have been more important in the region than the settlement at Gaza. [6] Between 2005 and 2014, the area around the archaeological site changed significantly with the construction of industrial buildings and craters nearby from the 2014 Gaza War. [7]
Archaeologist Michael Press writes that a 10 feet (3.0 m) marble statue of Zeus was found at this site in 1879, and not at Tell el-Ajjul as hadi initially been reported by Claude Reignier Conder, and it is from this discovery that the site gets its current name, which in Arabic means "the mound of the idol". [8] Locals told Gottlieb Schumacher in 1886 that the Zeus statue was found in the site of Tell en Keiz, which appeared on 19th century maps of the Palestine Exploration Fund as Tell Nujeid, and which Alois Musil who visited it had called Tell en-Nuqeid. By the 1920s British survey of Palestine, locals were recorded as using its current name, Tell es-Saman. [9]