[citation needed] The city was successively ruled by Canaanites, Sea Peoples, Phoenicians, Assyrians, Persians, Greeks, Jews, Romans and Byzantines.

When the Greeks came to the city and learned its name to be Dor, they called it Dora, possibly after a Dorus said to be a son of Poseidon.

[6][clarification needed] According to IAA archaeologists, the importance of Dor is that it is the only natural harbour on the Levant coast south of the Ladder of Tyre, and thus was occupied continuously from Phoenician times until the late 18th century.

[9] Dor is mentioned in the 3rd-century Mosaic of Rehob as being a place exempt from tithes, seeing that it was not settled by Jews returning from the Babylonian exile in the 4th century BCE.

In the Egyptian literary text known as the Story of Wenamun, the main character visits Dor and is received by Tjekker prince named Beder.

Dor had an unfailing freshwater spring near the edge of the sea and to its south a lagoon and sandy beach enclosed by a chain of islets.

It stood atop a rocky promontory and was protected on its landward side by a marshy swale that formed a natural moat.

During the Hellenistic period, Dor became a strategic site frequently contested by the Ptolemaic Kingdom and the Seleucid Empire, both vying for control of the region.

[14] In 138 BCE, Seleucid king Antiochus VII Sidetes and Jewish leader Simon Thassi besieged Dor, which was occupied by the usurper Diodotus Tryphon.

[13] At the beginning of the reign of the Hasmonean king Alexander Jannaeus, Dor was under the control of the tyrant Zoilus, who also ruled Straton's Tower and Gaza.

Agrippa responded by appealing to Petronius, the legate of Syria, who ordered the statue's removal and reaffirmed Jewish rights to practice their customs freely under imperial decree.

Epigraphical evidence indicates a thriving urban life during the Roman era, with dedications to emperors and local officials.

The victims of the 1948 Tantura massacre are buried in a mass grave under a car park for the nearby Tel Dor beach.

Ephraim Stern, of the Institute of Archaeology at the Hebrew University, directed twenty seasons of excavations at the site between 1980 and 2000, in cooperation with the Israel Exploration Society.

[19] The eleven excavation areas opened have revealed a wealth of information about the Iron Age, Persian, Hellenistic and Early Roman periods.

[21] In 2020, archaeologists discovered evidence of a tsunami that destroyed middle Pre-Pottery Neolithic B coastal settlements in Tel Dor, Israel as it traveled between 3.5 to 1.5 km inland.

[23] The historic 'Glasshouse' museum building, located in kibbutz Nahsholim, some 500 meters south of the site itself, now houses the Center for Nautical and Regional Archaeology at Dor (CONRAD), consisting of the expedition workrooms and a museum displaying the finds from Tel Dor and its region such as documenting the city's importance in the ancient world as a manufacturer of the prestigious azure and crimson colours from sea snails.