The 29th season of the ‘Selz Foundation Hazor Excavations in Memory of Yigael Yadin (License No. G-46/2018) took place during the months of June–July 2018. The excavations are sponsored by the Philip and Muriel Berman Center for Biblical Archaeology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and by the Israel Exploration Society. The 2018 expedition benefited from the financial assistance of the Selz Foundation (New York), the Edith and Reuben Hecht Fund (Israel), Stevan B. Dana Archaeology Fund and individual donors. The excavations were directed by A. Ben-Tor and S. Bechar assisted by S. Greenberg (Area M4 supervisor) and L. Gonen (Area M3 assistant supervisor; as well as N. Terchov (registration), I. Strand (surveying and drafting), M. Cimadevilla (field photography), I. Strand and O. Cohen (restoration), Y. Sfez (wet sieving and picking) and S. Yadid and R. Jenkins (administration). The expedition numbered some 70 participants from Canada, the U.S., France, England, Sweden, Finland, Spain, Italy, Germany, Australia, South Africa, South Korea, and Israel. The excavations are conducted in the Tel Hazor National Park with the full cooperation of the National Parks Authority. The expedition was housed at Kibbutz Gonen.

 

Three areas were excavated: Area M3, which is the extension westwards of the excavations conducted in previous seasons; it’s southern extension was termed Area M4; and Area M68, which is the continued excavation to the west of the Iron Age casemate walls (see Figure 1).