Excavations at Tell Fadous-Kfarabida:Preliminary report on the 2106 season of excavations

This report presents the main results of the final season of excavations in 2016at Tell Fadous-Kfarabida, located on the north Lebanese coast 2 km south of Batroun.Excavations focused on four areas. In Area II we worked only in Squares 310/295and parts of 305/295, where the excavations in 2015 did not reach a satisfactory end. We continued to excavate in and under the northern rooms of Building 4 (Phase III, Early Bronze Age III) and reached the earlier Phases II (Early Bronze Age II) and Phase I (Chalcolithic) in very limited areas. In Areas III and IV, we continued the work begun in 2014 and 2015. Area III is located on the southern slope of the tell. In 2016, work mainly focused on exposing domesticarchitecture from Phase III (Early Bronze Age III). Area IV is situated at the eastern edge of the site, where we continued the investigation of the Early Bronze Age fortification system with a monumental gate (Phase III, Early Bronze Age III). Area V, situated in the northcentral part of the tell, was newly opened in 2016. Here remains of substantial buildings, attributable to Phase III (Early Bronze Age III) were uncovered. In addition to the general overviews of the main features exposed in the different areas during the 2016 season, this report contains specialist reports on ceramic material and small finds from various phases as well as progress reports of ongoing archaeozoological and isotopic investigations

Metallurgy and Society in Middle Bronze Age Levant

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La métallurgie du Levant au Bronze Moyen à travers les armes

This work aims to study the copper base alloy metallurgy in the Middle Bronze Age Levant. The corpus is constituted of weapons from the Lebanese sites of Byblos, Arqa, Khariji and Yanouh. The main objective of this work is the investigation of the knowhow of the MB craftsmen, thus contributing to the understanding of the technological history of this region. Several methods are used for this matter. The alloy recipes were identified with elemental analysis. Manufacture techniques were determined using metallographic observations. The collected data allowed the reconstruction of several phases of the weapon production process. Experimental recreations were undertaken to test the validity of the fabrication process models proposed in this study. All these results were then compared and confronted to the archaeological data (contextual evidence, written sources, and typology). This approach allowed the identification of the craftsmen's choices and practices. Furthermore if contributed to the understanding of the role of the weapons as a cultural vector.Cette étude porte sur la métallurgie des alliages cuivreux du Bronze Moyen dans la région du Levant. Le corpus étudié est constitué d'armes provenant des sites libanais de Byblos, d'Arqa, de Khariji et de Yanouh. L'objectif de ce travail a été d'enrichir la connaissance sur le savoir-faire technique des artisans de l'époque afin d'intégrer ces nouveaux résultats dans le champ disciplinaire de l'histoire des techniques métallurgiques. La méthodologie mise en œuvre dans ce travail comprend plusieurs volets. Des analyses élémentaires ont été menées afin de retrouver les recettes des alliages employées. Des indices sur les techniques de mise en forme ont pu être révélés par des examens métallographiques. L'ensemble des ces résultats ont permis d'élaborer des hypothèses sur les chaines opératoires mises en œuvre dans la production de ces armes. Des travaux d'archéologie expérimentale visant a retracer les étapes de fabrication de ces objets ont permis de tester la validité d'un certain nombre d'hypothèse. Enfin, notre approche, résolument tournée vers l'Archéométrie, a consisté dans un deuxième temps à confronter ces données d'ordre technologique à des informations plus classiquement archéologiques (typologies, sources textuelles, contextes). Nous avons ainsi pu mettre en évidence, à travers l'interprétation des pratiques et des choix des artisans, divers aspects du rôle des armes en tant que vecteur culturel dans la société de l'époque

A Roman copper-alloy workshop in Beirut (Lebanon), Historical metallurgy in towns and cities

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Middle Bronze Age metallurgy in the Levant: evidence from the weapons of Byblos

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Fabrication techniques of the socketed spearheads from Middle Bronze age Byblos

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