Editing Openai/680fb62a-7c94-8002-8f67-b9a2a8c7c7ef (section)

===== After decades of dormancy, Tell el-Ajjul saw renewed investigation in the late 1990s through joint Palestinian-European rescue projects. In 1999–2000, a collaborative team from the Palestine Department of Antiquities and University of Gothenburg (led by Moain Sadeq and Peter Fischer) conducted new excavationsen.wikipedia.org<ref>{{cite web|title=en.wikipedia.org|url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tell_el-Ajjul#:~:text=Plans%20for%20new%20investigations%20at,22|publisher=en.wikipedia.org|access-date=2025-12-13}}</ref>. Their work, though cut short by the Second Intifada in 2000, confirmed Ajjul’s importance as a cosmopolitan trade entrepôt. For instance, the joint team documented a large assemblage of imported Cypriot pottery (details below) and evidence of metalworking, indicating on-site production of trade goods. Around the same time (1996–2000), the Gaza Research Project by a French-British team surveyed el-Moghraqa, an area of sand dunes just 700 m north of Ajjul. There, they discovered a late Bronze Age installation with Egyptian New Kingdom connections, including terracotta cones stamped with Pharaoh Thutmose III’s cartouche – unique evidence of Egyptian royal presence in Canaan. These rescue excavations, though limited, underscored that much of Gaza’s archaeological record lies just beneath fields and dunes, requiring urgent documentation. =====

(Notably, all modern excavations coordinate with local authorities to ensure finds are recorded in situ. Precise coordinates of sensitive features like tombs and fortifications are omitted here for security.)