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Tel Tsaf () is an archaeological site located in the central Jordan Valley, south-east of Beit She'an. Tel Tsaf is dated to the Middle Chalcolithic (ca. 5300/5200–4700/4500 BC) a little-known period in the archaeology of the Levant, post-dating the Pottery Neolithic B phase of the Wadi Rabah Culture and pre-dating the Ghassulian of the Late Chalcolithic.
Common finds included numerous , pottery and animal bones. The terms "Tel Tsaf Decoration" or "Tsafian" were derived from an assemblage of painted pottery, consisting mainly of relatively elaborate vessels bearing geometric decoration using red and black paint on a white slip background. The decoration was executed in two steps: first, white wash was applied to the upper part of the vessel, while the lower part was covered with red wash. Second, the patterns were painted in continuous horizontal bands on the upper part of the vessel. The painting was executed with a fine brush, in some cases 0.5 mm.
Other finds included about 150 clay sealings (bullae) and a rich assemblage of imported exotic items including artifacts of basalt and obsidian, beads, sea shells, Nilotic shell, and a few pottery sherds of the Ubaid culture of north Syria. This is the first reported occurrence of Ubaid sherds in an excavation in the southern Levant.
Archaeologists unearthed a 7,200-year-old pottery model of what looks like a silo, possibly the oldest example of a ritual propitiating the gods to preserve the crops or harvest. Oldest Evidence of Food Storage Ritual: 7,200-year-old Model of Silo Found in Israel, Haaretz
1. Rounded sides, giving the structure a cylindrical shape. This form better withstands the pressure exerted by the contents, which is distributed evenly onto the sides of the silo and does not create excessive stress at the base or the corners as is the case with a rectilinear shape.
2. Building of a number of silos near one another allows for greater ease of handling than one big installation. This facilitates separation of grain from different years or different crops. In the event of fire, humidity, rodent or insect infestation, some of the stored grain may be spared.
3. Organization of silos in adjacent rows facilitates their arrangement within a confined space. The stability of silo shape over considerable periods of time and large geographical regions provide an outstanding case in human architecture.
The excavations in Tel Tsaf were renewed in 2013 as a joint multidisciplinary project conducted by the Zinman Institute of Archaeology at the University of Haifa and the Eurasian Department of the German Archaeological Institute in Berlin, under the direction of Prof. Danny Rosenberg and Dr. Florian Klimscha. The main goals of this project is to explore various aspects of the Neolithic-Chalcolithic transition in the Jordan Valley by analysing the temporal and spatial attributes of social and economic variations among households in different and new parts of the tell and to provide better data concerning the environmental conditions and the Jordan River during the late 6th and early 5th millennia CalBCE.
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