TEL DOR

Today, Dor is one of the country's largest archaeological sites, and an important key to understanding the period of Israel's occupation, from biblical times to the first centuries AD. Indeed, from the time of Solomon to the reign of the Roman emperor Severus Alexander, the port of Dor attracted many traders and conquerors to the Carmel coast.

Dor was originally a Canaanite town. After being ruled by a group of Sea Peoples, the Phoenicians settled here around 1100 BC. Around 950 BC, Dor became one of the capitals of Solomon's kingdom and its main port on the Mediterranean. In 732 BC, Dor became the capital of the Assyrian province of Duru. The city also flourished under the Achaemenid Persians, at a time when Greeks and Phoenicians had settled in the vicinity of the walled city.

Dor briefly joined the Athenian Confederation around 460 and was liberated from Persian rule by Alexander the Great in 332. In Hellenistic times, Dora, as it was then known, became an important fortress, which later (under Roman rule) was still large enough to mint its own coinage.

A Jewish community existed in Dor in the middle of the first century A.D. Despite the town's undeniable decline in Byzantine times, Dor was still the seat of a bishopric from the^5th to the ^13th century. Finally, in the ^13th century, the Crusaders built a fortress on the site. The site is still being excavated.