Dor - "dwelling", or in Hebrew, "generation," the Dora of the Greeks and Romans, an ancient royal city of the Canaanites, (Joshua 12:23) whose ruler was an ally of Jabin king of Hazor against Joshua. (Joshua 11:1,2). In the 1100's the town appears to have been taken by the Tjekker, and was ruled by them at least as late as the early 1000's BCE

It appears to have been within the territory of the tribe of Asher, though allotted to Manasseh, (Joshua 17:11; Judges 1:27) It was one of Solomon's commissariat districts (Judges 1:27; 1 Kings 4:11). It has been placed in the ninth mile from Caesarea, on the way to Ptolemais. Just at the point indicated is the small village of Tantura, probably an Arab corruption of Dora.

The city was known as Dor even before the Greeks arrived or had contact with the peoples in Israel. When the Greeks came to the city and learned its name to be Dor, they ascribed it the identity Dora, the Hellenization of the name. The "a" is merely the noun ending to the word. The God/cult of Dor, where the term Doric, as in the column, comes from, was ascribed to the city. Hence, in hebrew, Dor, in Greek/Latin, Dora.

Current excavation is being conducted by the University of California at Berkeley, Hebrew University and Haifa University.

Today, Dor sits on the resort beach site of Nahsholim, a former kibbutz, now privatized into a family beach resort. A Museum, an old glass making factory from the 19th century, serves as an educational aspect of the resort, as well as the lab for archaeologists on site.