The Bronze to Iron Age Transition at Tell Tweini (Syria)

The presence of the Sea Peoples was especially hard felt in the northern coastal region of Syria, according to historical documents from the city of Ugarit and on the Temple of Ramesses III in Medinet Habu.2 The appearance of those groups of marauders, migrants or in any case groups of a hard to define composition, has been linked to the destruction of the city of Ugarit around 1200 BC.3 The situation in northern coastal Syria after the destruction of Late Bronze Age Ugarit, however, remains understudied and is badly understood. The disappearance of the community at Ugarit and its political and economic power must have been a watershed in the history of the region but how the remaining communities unfolded their socio-political evolution is largely a question mark. New excavations at a border site of the Ugaritic kingdom, Tell Tweini, may increase our knowledge of the early IronAge period in this region (fig. 1). In this paper, the focus is on the situation of Tell Tweini4 (Syria) and its immediate region at the end of the Late BronzeAge and the earlier phases of the IronAge.