A 3,400 year old citadel has been discovered during work constrictions of a residential tower on Balfour Street in the city Nahariya, north Israel.
The Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) reached an agreement with a construction company to have the remains of a Bronze Age citadel incorporated in a building that is being erected near the beach on Balfour Street.
“It seems the citadel was used as an administrative center that served the mariners who sailed along the Mediterranean coast 3,400 years ago. There was probably a dock alongside the citadel,” Nimrod Getzov, Yair Amitzur and Ron Be’eri, the IAA excavation directors, said in a statement.
Numerous artifacts were discovered in the citadel’s rooms, including ceramic figurines with human and animal forms, bronze weapons, and imported pottery vessels.
According to archaeologists, “The fortress was destroyed at least four times by an intense conflagration, and each time it was rebuilt”. In the burnt layers were found an abundance of cereal, legumes and grape seeds, these findings indicative of the provisions the sailors would purchase.
