Kfar Abida - Tell Fadous & Fadous Sud

Description

Kfar Abida or Kfar Aabida is a village located 2 km south of Batroun in the North Governorate. Part of the village in the south west is also known by the older name of Fadous or Fadaous and contains two archaeogical sites - Tell Fadous and Fadous Sud.

Tell Fadous is a tell southwest of the village first recorded by R. Wetzel and J. Haller in 1945. Recent studies by Hermann Genz and Hélène Sader from the American University of Beirut have shown inhabitation until the Early Bronze Age when it was abandoned in the late third millennium BCE. Ralph Pederson from the University of Marburg also conducted a study in the maritime archaeology of the coast around Tell Fadous and suggested that the locale of "Tell Bay" could have been used as harbourage by Bronze Age fishermen. He suggested this was attested to by fish remains of fish and seashells along with a neolithic flint blade in the shallows.

Fadous Sud is located south of the tell approximately 300 metres south of the village. Maurice Tallon discovered the site in 1957 and later research extended the site over 400 metres around the main road and extending to a wadi. Material found by W.E. Wendt, Lorraine Copeland and Henri Fleisch was examined and determined to be the Heavy Neolithic industry of the Qaraoun culture

Fadous Sud was determined to be an massive Heavy Neolithic flint factory site with a wide range of finds in cream chert and grey flint. It included large flakes and cores, racloirs, scrapers, rabots, long blades, end scrapers, and a group of triangular flakes. The assemblage was similar to the type site at Qaraoun II. The finds were stored with the Saint Joseph University and a new study was carried out in 2005 by Dörte Rokitta-Krumow.