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

===== 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.