[FarCenter]

The provenance of the pottery vessels—Cyprus, Lebanon, northern Syria, Gaza and Jaffa—is testimony to the "lively trading activity that took place along the coast", Yannai said in an IAA statement.

[SunkenCiv]

https://freerepublic.com/focus/news/4094473/posts

[butlerweave]

The Middle East is just one huge graveyard

[Chainmail]

While I was assigned to the UN Truce Supervisors in the Middle East, I spent a couple of days in Gaza. This was in the middle of the second Intifada, so there was lot of tire burning/rock throwing and some scattered gunfire nearby but the UN Villa on the beach was this little haven of tranquility and beach.

While I was walking nearby, I spotted a line in the sand cliffs and moved a small amount of sand to see what was there - It was an ancient piece of marble floor which obviously went further back into the hill and there were a couple of bronze arrowheads and small bits of pottery and glass.

There is history everywhere you look in that neck of the woods.

[Jumper]

We lived in Israel two years. Many of the poeple I worked with at the embassy knew about a place near Tel Aviv where you could find buried oils lamps, the kind you find in tourist and gift shops, made of red clay.

Everywhere you drive in Israel you see the “sands of time” as buildings, caves, fortresses, roman columns, etc., half to two-thirds buried rising above the ground. They used to build up the walls over the top of remaining buildings and re-occupy them.

In Herrod’s Palace near the Sea, there is a garbage dump of ancient times from which visitors are encourged to take “one” piece of broken pottery or item.

Cheers and Beers.