Today comprising a largely unexcavated tel, Hannaton was an important town at the entrance to the Netufa Valley, on the junction of ancient roads (coming from Acre, Sepphoris, Kinneret and Megiddo/Yokneam).
View of Kfar Manda from Tel Hannaton
Hannaton started to be populated in the Early Bronze (3150-2200 BCE), and especially in the middle Bronze (Caananite) period (2200-1550 BCE). In the late Bronze period (1550-1200 BCE) the city expanded, being mentioned as “Hanatun” in the Amarna letters, a 14th century BCE archive of clay tablets, in which Burnaburiash, king of Babylon, writes to Amenhotep IV (Akhenatenan) of Egypt, about wanting his money back because his merchants were robbed near Hannaton.
In Joshua 19:10 and 19:14, Hannaton is referred to as one of the cities of the tribe of Zevulun. The lower Galilee had some 5-6 large fortified cities and dozens of villages at its peak in the 8th century BCE. Then, it all disappeared for two centuries with the invasion of the Assyrian King, Tiglath-Pileser III, who caused major damage to the region between 734 and 732 BCE.
The tel is littered with pottery sherds. We discovered many small pieces with beautifully vivid glazes.
We were especially pleased to find the piece below, which is one of the handles of green-glazed, two-handled urn.
We were also pleased to find the base of a bowl.
Hannaton was left abandoned until the Crusaders built a fortified farm at Hannaton in the 13th century, during their 2nd Kingdom of Jerusalem. It is the undercroft of this Crusader building that is still visible under the centre of the tel.
The Mamelukes turned the Crusader structures atop the tel into a caravanserai, and it continued in use in Ottoman times. However it was in ruins by the time of the PEF survey (1866-1877) by Wilson, Conder and Kitchener, where is appears as “Tell Bedeiwiyeh” – the Arabic name, from the word for Bedouin. Tel Hannaton was partially excavated in the 1980s but has remained untouched for many years.
Below is the exposed entrance to the undercroft, showing the vertical slot through which a portcullis would have been dropped. It is likely that this was accessed from a ramp cut through the tel, now collapsed, giving access to both humans and animals.
Below, Yonatan is standing at the top of a flight of stairs - one of several which lead up from the undercroft to the caravanserai structures above ground which have now gone. We ventured down one of these staircases...
...turning the corner at the bottom only to find the entrance to the undercroft blocked with debris.
So we entered the undercroft by one of two windows at either end of the vault, originally placed high up the end walls, but now providing access due to the level of debris within.
Here you see the huge size of the undercroft, which is a huge tunnel vault. The opening to the right is the access from the protcullised entrance shown above; the doorway on nthe left, the top of which is reached by the debris infill, accesses the stairway shown above.
Below is the view of the portcullised entrance to the undercroft, from the inside, showing the elegant and accurate Crusader masonry. The debris has been cleared here, showing the full depth of the undercroft.
The three intrepid explorers!
In 1984 a Kibbutz by the name of Hannaton was established to the south-west of Tel Hannaton. It is seen below from the tel.
