A Re-appraisal of the Archaeological Findings at Tel Hashash: On the Archaeology of the Yarqon Estuary from Classical Times to Late Antiquity Oren Tal and Itamar Taxel Tel Aviv University Tel Hashash is located within the boundaries of modern Tel Aviv. Surveys and excavations carried out in the site by the late J. Kaplan and H. Ritter-Kaplan during the 1960s and 1980s revealed remains and finds dated mainly to the Hellenistic, Roman and Byzantine periods. The present paper includes the presentation and analysis of these yet unpublished remains, and a revision of the excavators’ conclusions about the function and history of the site in classical times and Late Antiquity, in light of the archaeology and history of the lower Yarqon river and the central coastal plain. Introduction The subject of this article, Tel Hashash (Givat Amal Beth; Tall al-Hash-shāsh [Arabic]), is located in the central coastal plain of Israel, some 0.4 km south of the Yarqon river (Nahr al-Auja) and 2.5 km east of the Mediterranean. The mound is located within the Bably neighbourhood in the northern part of Tel Aviv’s city centre, limited by HaZohar Street on the west, Herzog Street on the north, Paamoni Street on the east and HaNeśeeyim Street on the south (Israel Grid Reference 1301/1662; Fig. 1). The site actually mounded over a kurkar (fossilized sand stone) hill (some 60,000 m 2 in size) (Fig. 2). The kurkar hill forms part of the second (or median) kurkar ridge that extends along the Israeli coast, between the coastal ridge (i.e. first kurkar ridge), a few kilometres to its west, and the third kurkar ridge (few km to its east). The hill belongs to the uppermost and youngest kurkar units (Tel Aviv Kurkar Bed/Beth Yannai Kurkar), that was covered by a unit of dark grey soil (Taarukha Hamra Bed/Nof Yam Deposit). The mound surface was covered by a few metres of migrating sand dunes and alluvial soil that were piled up over a long period of time. Thus, the mound itself appears from a distance as a hilly terrain whose summit is some 22 m above sea level. That is apparently the reason that it was not identified as an archaeological site until the beginning of the 1920s, as can be seen in British Mandatory maps of Tel Aviv where the site name appears “Tall al-Hash-shāsh”. The Yarqon river was the major natural stream in the site’s vicinity since earlier times, a permanent water source surrounded by fertile, alluvial plains. The site is also located on the road that traversed the length of the coastal plain, linking Syria and Phoenicia with Egypt. Although historical documents prove that during various periods the main international north-south highway crossed the Aphek Pass at the sources of the Yarqon river located to the northeast, the proximity of Tel Hashash to Tell Qudadi, which controlled the ford of the Yarqon estuary, may suggested that a north-south route passed to the west of the mound and connected Jaffa in the south with the settlements to the north of the Yarqon. The river itself was most probably also used as a transportation route. Being the widest of the country’s Mediterranean coastal waterways it allows sailing on the one hand and offered a crossing at the ford of the Yarqon estuary. Documentation of the archaeological surveys and excavations conducted at Tel Hashash (below) revealed that the site was first occupied during the Chalcolithic period or the Early Bronze Age. This was assumed, based on isolated pottery finds and flint tools. 1 During later inspections and excavations, pottery of the Middle- and Late Bronze Ages was reportedly found. 2 Our sorting of finds from Tel Hashash revealed Iron Age II (9th-8th centuries BCE) and Persian-Achaemenid period (5th-4th centuries BCE) occupations. 3 A more substantial phase in the site’s history was during the Hellenistic period (3rd-1st centuries BCE). The site continued to be occupied during the 1