Talk:Tel Tanninim

When was the Hebrew name given?

14-21-Caesarea-1958

@Arminden: do you have a sense re when the Modern Hebrew name was first invented for this place? This 1958 map still shows only the Arabic name. In STERN, E. (1978). EXCAVATIONS AT TEL MEVORAKH (1973-1976). Qedem, 9, III-105 the names Tel Tanninim and Tel Malat were used in parallel.

The new river name seems to have been given first, presumably by the 1951 committee which focused on geographical features.

I presume the Tel was given its new name at the time of the first modern excavations, which the article says (without a source) were in 1975? Onceinawhile (talk) 13:11, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

@Onceinawhile: I have no idea. Your guess sounds logical, but I don't have a clue. I Google-translated the Hebrew WP article and tried to open their sources, too. The 1975 date is from there, but the probable source is a dead link. The 2004 excavation they mention is taken from a Hadashot post titled "Tel Tanninim: Final Report", which is about a segment of the Lower-level Aqueduct to Caesarea, somewhere west of Jisr, but it's not at all clear if it even has anything to do with the tell; I'd say not, because the aqueduct segment has been dug into bedrock, and a tell... is a tell, rising above bedrock. Now I've compared their map showing the excavation location, with the Google Maps location of the tell, and it looks c. 200m further inland from the tell. So the 2004 date is probably unrelated to the tell, making me skeptical about 1975, as well. Btw, if you want to put back in "Hebraization", I'm taking back my reservations. It's on the tendentious side, I'm familiar with a similar phenomenon from Transylvania, where every ethnolingual group made up their own names, first and foremost because you want to be able to pronounce and relate to the places around you. But whatever. There are clear cases of obvious top-down, government-prescribed appropriation through language; this one looks more logical and organic, but boundaries are fluid. Cheers, Arminden (talk) 00:26, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

Hi Arminden thanks for this. I agree that doesn’t seem to be the same excavation. I don’t propose to put back the Hebraization wording (or an improved form of the same, as your point re Greek was right) as I don’t have a source.

The core point that I think this article should make clear, assuming sources confirm it, is that the Greek came first, the connection to the “salt tower” is based on [?], and the current name is new. It’s quite unusual that a single place has three/four entirely different groups of names. Onceinawhile (talk) 00:59, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

Hi Onceinawhile, yes, a bit more names than usual, but quite logical. Crocodiles are quite a conspicuous thing. The Crusader tower too. And salting fish or other meats using sea salt on the coast was common since at least the Neolithic(see Ashkelon#Neolithic period). The weird part is the mortar, that I can't figure out. Did anyone confirm the translation after the SWP? Arminden (talk) 01:17, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

Yes, look at ar: ملاط; the SWP actually says “plaster”, but we are using the modern translation. Onceinawhile (talk) 07:37, 19 February 2021 (UTC)