Tell Semhani, the rural landscape of the Land of Ugarit

Director: L. D’Alfonso – Mohammed Radwan

Area: Tell Semhani (Latakia, Syria)

Timespan: MBA – Byzantine period

In April 2024, a Syiran-Italian team led by M. Radwan (DGM, Museum of Latakia), and L. d'Alfonso (UNIPV) started a new archaeological excavation proejct at Tell Semhani, Syria.

At the site, known from the 1970s through several surveys, M .Radwan had led emergency soundings from 2015 to 2018, revealing three main occupation phases: poorly preserved MBA remains, including burials; LBA residential architecture; and a much later press for oil or wine of the Byzantine period. 

The 2024 campaign could create a topographic and intensive survey to define the site’s dimensions and formation process in the northern portion of the mound and the fields below it (Operation B).

Extensive excavations started on the top of the mound (Operation A), moving from the 2015-18 soundings. Both operations confirmed that the site hosted a rural settlement occupied exclusively from the end of the MBA to the end of the LBA (ca 1550-1200 BCE). A remarkable feature of this site is the evidence of a very poor materials in contrast with the wealthy and prosperous capital of the region, the site of Ras Shamra Ugarit.

In general, the excavations offer the first archaeological evidence of socio-economic conditions of rural communities in the Land of Ugarit, signalling a strong contrast with the life conditions at the capital.

The next campaigns aim to complete the topographic and intensive survey of the southern portion of the site, but also to fully excavate this unique II millennium village.

There are plans of realizing a campaigns in the Fall 2025, but their realization must remain open due to the current instability in the region.