Tel Kabri ( תל כברי ) is an archaeological site on the grounds of Kibbutz Kabri, near the city of Nahariya, Israel.
Tel Kabri is notable for its Minoan-style frescoes, the only such frescoes ever discovered in Israel.[1]
The area of Kabri was first settled 16,000 years ago, during the Neolithic period. Permanent structures appeared around the year 10000 BCE.[2]
The tel contains the remains of a Canaanite city from the Middle Bronze Age (2000-1550 B.C.). It was the most important of the cities in the Western Galilee during that period and had a palace at its center. Tel Kabri is the only Canaanite city that can be excavated in its entirety because no other city was built over its remains.[1]
The palace, which occupies 1 to 1.5 acres (6,100 m2), is also the only Canaanite palace of this period that can be excavated fully. The city's preservation offers a complete picture of political and social life in the Canaanite period, answered questions about whether or not it had a central government, whether taxes were levied and the type of agriculture there.[1]
Excavations began at Tel Kabri in 1986 under the direction of Aharon Kempinski, but were halted in 1993. Renewed excavations have taken place since 2005 by an international team co-directed by Assaf Yasur-Landau of the Leon Recanati Institute for Maritime Studies at the University of Haifa and Prof. Eric H. Cline of The George Washington University.[1][3]During the summer of 2009, additional Aegean style frescoes were found at the site.