City-gates 1-3 (Phases 14-12) and related features have yielded an excellent sequence of MB IIA ceramics at Tel Ashkelon. The beginning of the Ph. 13 pottery assemblage can be dated with confidence to the beginning of Dyn. 13 in Egypt, because sealed in the same context were 40 Egyptian clay sealings with scarab impressions dated by Lanny Bell to early Dyn. 13. Several of the local Canaanite pottery groups from Ashkelon can be typologically correlated with those found at Tell el-Dab'a, Ph. G, and especially with G4, which, for some time, Manfred Bietak has assigned to early Dyn. 13. Ceramic imports to Ashkelon in Ph. 13-14 allow further correlations with coastal Lebanon, Cyprus, Crete and Egypt as well as with the interior of Canaan.

The "Port Power" model, which I outlined several years ago and applied to the organization of maritime trade and hinterland production in the Levant during the Bronze and Iron Age, fits nicely with these new data from the MBIIA period. In this system the Mediterranean seaports became rich by becoming the command centers of information and decision making. Through economic incentives rather than by coercive force, they were able to channel raw materials, agricultural produce and goods from the interior into their coffers while avoiding the costs of controlling production, and then ship those commodities abroad for sizable profits.