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

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One challenge in studying ancient Gaza is that the coastline has shifted significantly since the Bronze Age. Geological and paleo-environmental research indicates that around 2000 BCE, the Mediterranean sea level was slightly lower than today, and Wadi Gaza formed a sheltered estuary where ships could anchor. Tell el-Ajjul likely sat near a lagoon or river mouth harbor. Over the Late Bronze Age and into the Iron Age, sedimentation and sea-level rise altered the shoreline. By ca. 1200 BCE, the original harbor at Ajjul’s doorstep had silted up (“choked” by the estuary), prompting the inhabitants of later Gaza to establish a new port closer to the mouth of Wadi Gaza. (Archaeologists have identified Tell al-Sannam, downriver near today’s coast, as the probable Iron Age harbor town that succeeded Bronze Age Ajjul.)

Using Holocene sea-level data, researchers model that the shoreline in the Bronze Age was inland of the modern coast, perhaps hugging the eastern edge of Wadi Gaza’s floodplain. A preliminary satellite-based analysis (integrating SRTM elevation data and Sentinel-1 SAR imagery) suggests that areas now 0.5–1 km inland from the surf were tidal flats or shallow bays 4,000 years ago. The Bronze-Age breakwater or natural sandbar that protected Ajjul’s anchorage has been detected via ground-penetrating radar, now lying about 800 m from the present coastline under agricultural fields (hence the saying that Gaza’s ancient harbor is now “in the middle of a farm”). Indeed, as one study notes, “the Bronze Age harbour of Gaza… is currently landlocked” due to coastal progradation. In essence, what was an active port in 1500 BCE is today high and dry, buried under silt and soil deposited over millennia.

To visualize these changes, we have prepared an interactive Mapbox map (available in the digital package) showing coastline regression from 2000 BCE to the present. A Holocene sea-level curve and sediment cores from Wadi Gaza inform the model. As users slide a timeline (1900 BCE → 1200 BCE → today), the map highlights how Ajjul’s harbor basin gradually filled in, and the focus of maritime activity shifted westward. This visualization underscores a crucial point: many archaeological features of the harbor (quays, jetties, anchor stones) likely lie beneath what is now dry land, not underwater. Future geophysical surveys may locate these features; already, magnetic anomalies and stray finds (stone anchors, ballast piles) 700–800 m inland hint at where Bronze Age ships once moored.

===== Remote sensing has aided the hunt for Ajjul’s submerged (now subterranean) harbor. Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) from satellites can penetrate dry sand to some degree, helping detect buried landscape features. Using open-access Sentinel-1 SAR data, researchers mapped soil moisture and roughness patterns around Wadi Gaza. These reveal a paleo-channel meander near Tell el-Ajjul consistent with an ancient river mouth lagoon. By filtering multi-temporal SAR images, a faint curvilinear feature emerges – interpreted as the ghost shoreline of the second millennium BCE. This curved line, hugging the tell’s western side, may represent the ancient coastline or a man-made mole. While tentative, such identification matches local folklore of a “sunken wall” in the fields. Further, high-resolution DEMs show a shallow depression landward of the tell, which could be the silted harbor basin. Our Mapbox layer incorporates these SAR findings, overlaying them on modern satellite imagery to guide the eye to where the Bronze Age harbor likely lay. =====

In sum, geo-archaeology confirms that environment and human adaptation went hand in hand: as the Holocene tides reshaped Gaza’s coast, its enterprising inhabitants relocated their ports accordingly. Tell el-Ajjul’s lifespan as a harbor city eventually ended when the port silted up – but by then, new anchorages downriver took up the mantle, ensuring Gaza’s maritime legacy continued into the Iron Age and beyond.