Tel Shikmona (), or Tell es-Samak (), also spelt Sycamine, is an ancient Phoenician tell (mound) situated near the sea coast in the modern city of Haifa, Israel, just south of the Israeli National Institute of Oceanography. It has been called a "forgotten Phoenician site". Nowadays researchers identify Tell es-Smak with Porphyreon (south). History In the Periplus of Pseudo-Scylax it is mentioned the Sykaminon (Συκάμινον) as a city of the Tyrians, and also that there was a river of the same name. Stephanus of Byzantium called it Sykaminon (Συκαμίνων) and called it a city of the Phoenicians. Josephus in his Antiquities mentions Shikmona (Sycamine) as being a place where ships could be brought to harbor, and where Ptolemy Lathyrus, during an incursion in the country, had brought his army ashore. Strabo mentions the site (Sycaminopolis, Συκαμίνων πόλις) as being no more than a ruin in his own day. The Mishnah (Demai 1:1), compiled in 189 CE, mentions the region of Shikmona as being renowned for its cultivated variety of jujubes (Hebrew: rīmīn). The Bordeaux pilgrim in 333 CE passed through Sycaminon while traveling through the Holy Land. Archaeology Excavation history The main archaeological excavations conducted at the tell and in the Byzantine city south of it, were carried out by the archaeologist J. Elgavish in the 1960s–70s on behalf of the Department of Museums, Municipality of Haifa. Salvage excavations were conducted in the 1990s by the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) and concentrated in the eastern part of the Byzantine city, west of the Carmel Mountain slopes, where the city's necropolis is. In 2010–2011 a new series of excavation seasons was conducted by a team from the Zinman Institute of Archaeology at the University of Haifa, headed by Dr. Michael Eisenberg with Dr. Shay Bar directing the excavations on the tell itself. The goals of the project were to re-expose excavated archaeological complexes south and east of the tell previously excavated by Elgavish, expand those areas and undertake extensive conservation work in order to preserve the antiquities and present them to the public as part of Shikmona Public Park. The work also aimed to study the stratification of the tell and create a precise chronological framework. Findings The remains on the tell date from the Late Bronze Age to the Late Byzantine period. The lower city, east and mainly south of the tell, is dated to the Late Roman period-Byzantine period.