Hebrew Hebrew (; ''ʿÎbrit'') is a Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages, it was natively spoken by the Israelites and ...

Negev The Negev ( ; ) or Naqab (), is a desert and semidesert region of southern Israel. The region's largest city and administrative capital is Beersheba (pop. ), in the north. At its southern end is the Gulf of Aqaba and the resort town, resort city ...

coastal plain A coastal plain (also coastal plains, coastal lowland, coastal lowlands) is an area of flat, low-lying land adjacent to a sea coast. A fall line commonly marks the border between a coastal plain and an upland area. Formation Coastal plains can f ...

Israel Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...

kibbutz A kibbutz ( / , ; : kibbutzim / ) is an intentional community in Israel that was traditionally based on agriculture. The first kibbutz, established in 1910, was Degania Alef, Degania. Today, farming has been partly supplanted by other economi ...

Re'im Re'im () is a secular kibbutz in southern Israel, and one of the Gaza vicinity villages. Located at the confluence of Besor Stream and Gerar Stream in the north-western Negev desert, it falls under the jurisdiction of Eshkol Regional Counc ...

Mediterranean The Mediterranean Sea ( ) is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the east by the Levant in West Asia, on the north by Anatolia in West Asia and Southern ...

Nahal Besor Wadi Gaza () and Besor Stream (, ) are parts of a river system in the Gaza Strip in Palestine and the Negev region of Israel. Wadi Gaza is a wadi (river valley) that divides the northern and southern ends of the Gaza Strip, whose major tributar ...

Nahal Gerar Nahal Gerar, also ''Nachal Grar'' () is a wadi in Israel, in the Negev desert. Its Arabic name is Wadi esh-Sheri'a (also Wady el Sharia and other variations). Along this wadi, there are several important ancient Bronze Age archaeological sites. D ...

Brook of Egypt The Brook of Egypt () is a wadi identified in the Hebrew Bible as forming the southernmost border of the Land of Israel. A number of scholars in the past identified it with Wadi al-Arish, an ephemeral river flowing into the Mediterranean sea nea ...

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
. '' Assyrian structure, probably a palace, from the Assyrian occupation of the

northern Kingdom of Israel The Kingdom of Israel ( ), also called the Northern Kingdom or the Kingdom of Samaria, was an Israelite kingdom that existed in the Southern Levant during the Iron Age. Its beginnings date back to the first half of the 10th century BCE. It c ...

, and a grain storage facility from the time of the

Ptolemaic Kingdom The Ptolemaic Kingdom (; , ) or Ptolemaic Empire was an ancient Greek polity based in Ancient Egypt, Egypt during the Hellenistic period. It was founded in 305 BC by the Ancient Macedonians, Macedonian Greek general Ptolemy I Soter, a Diadochi, ...

.Gus w. van Beek, "Digging up Tell Jemmeh", ''

Archaeology Archaeology or archeology is the study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of Artifact (archaeology), artifacts, architecture, biofact (archaeology), biofacts or ecofacts, ...

'', Vol. 31, No. 1, January/February 1983, Archaeological Institute of America pp.12–19Ben-Shlomo and van Beek, 2014, p. 1-3 The mound is 23 metres high and dominates its surrounding plains, which are excellent for agriculture. It spans an area of 12

acre The acre ( ) is a Unit of measurement, unit of land area used in the Imperial units, British imperial and the United States customary units#Area, United States customary systems. It is traditionally defined as the area of one Chain (unit), ch ...

s or 43

dunam A dunam ( Ottoman Turkish, Arabic: ; ; ; ), also known as a donum or dunum and as the old, Turkish, or Ottoman stremma, was the Ottoman unit of area analogous in role (but not equal) to the Greek stremma or English acre, representing the amo ...

s. Tell Jemmeh is located about 10 kilometres from Tell el-Farah (South) and Tell el-Ajjul, which allows for them to communicate by signal fires. This orientation of the sites suggests it was a border zone. The ancient inhabitants of Tell Jemmeh probably depended on spring water from the nearby Besor Stream. Most of the building material used in the site is sun-dried mudbrick. Tell Jemmeh was first settled as a hunter-farmer village during the

Chalcolithic The Chalcolithic ( ) (also called the Copper Age and Eneolithic) was an archaeological period characterized by the increasing use of smelted copper. It followed the Neolithic and preceded the Bronze Age. It occurred at different periods in di ...

period, six thousand years ago. It was inhabited for 200 years and then abandoned until it was rebuilt in the Middle Bronze Age. From here the site would be settled for 1,600 years. It is identified with

Yursa Yursa was a town from the 1350–1335 BC Amarna letters correspondence. The site, a city/city-state, is probably in the southern Canaan close to Gaza. Some scholars identify it with Tell Jemmeh. In the 382–letter correspondence it is the l ...

, mentioned in the Egyptian Amarna Letters from 1350–1330 BCE.

Geography

The site of Tell Jemmeh is a mound located on the southern bank of the Besor River. The natural hill is about 45 meters high, with the accumulation of layers representing human activity, spanning from the

Chalcolithic The Chalcolithic ( ) (also called the Copper Age and Eneolithic) was an archaeological period characterized by the increasing use of smelted copper. It followed the Neolithic and preceded the Bronze Age. It occurred at different periods in di ...

through the

Persian Persian may refer to: * People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language ** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples ** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...

periods, adding about 18 meters to the height of the hill. The tell suffers from continuous

erosion Erosion is the action of surface processes (such as Surface runoff, water flow or wind) that removes soil, Rock (geology), rock, or dissolved material from one location on the Earth's crust#Crust, Earth's crust and then sediment transport, tran ...

due to the

flood A flood is an overflow of water (list of non-water floods, or rarely other fluids) that submerges land that is usually dry. In the sense of "flowing water", the word may also be applied to the inflow of the tide. Floods are of significant con ...

ing of the Besor River located on the north side of the mound. This phenomenon is intensified because of the fragile character of the local

loess A loess (, ; from ) is a clastic rock, clastic, predominantly silt-sized sediment that is formed by the accumulation of wind-blown dust. Ten percent of Earth's land area is covered by loesses or similar deposition (geology), deposits. A loess ...

soil.

Excavation and identification

Gerar

Tell Jemmeh was excavated for the first time by W. J. Phythian-Adams of the

Palestine Exploration Fund The Palestine Exploration Fund is a British society based in London. It was founded in 1865, shortly after the completion of the Ordnance Survey of Jerusalem by Royal Engineers of the War Department. The Fund is the oldest known organization i ...

in 1922. His expedition lasted only one day because of security problems. He identified the site with biblical

Gerar Gerar ( ''Gərār'', "lodging-place") was a Philistine town and district in what is today south central Israel, mentioned in the Book of Genesis and in the Second Book of Chronicles of the Hebrew Bible. Identification According to the Internati ...

(mentioned in the

Book of Genesis The Book of Genesis (from Greek language, Greek ; ; ) is the first book of the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Old Testament. Its Hebrew name is the same as its incipit, first word, (In the beginning (phrase), 'In the beginning'). Genesis purpor ...

), as he found remains of human occupation by the Middle Bronze Age, the supposed time of biblical

Abraham Abraham (originally Abram) is the common Hebrews, Hebrew Patriarchs (Bible), patriarch of the Abrahamic religions, including Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. In Judaism, he is the founding father who began the Covenant (biblical), covenanta ...

and

Isaac Isaac ( ; ; ; ; ; ) is one of the three patriarchs (Bible), patriarchs of the Israelites and an important figure in the Abrahamic religions, including Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and the Baháʼí Faith. Isaac first appears in the Torah, in wh ...

. A nearby

Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire centred on Constantinople during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Having survived the events that caused the fall of the Western Roman E ...

site called Umm Gerar, some 3.6 kilometres south on the Besor river, further convinced him that Tell Jemmeh is biblical Gerar.

Flinders Petrie Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie ( – ), commonly known as simply Sir Flinders Petrie, was an English people, English Egyptology, Egyptologist and a pioneer of systematic methodology in archaeology and the preservation of artefacts. ...

excavated the site in 1927 for five months and accepted the identification with Gerar.

Yursa/Arsa/Yarda/Orda

In 1952,

Benjamin Mazar Benjamin Mazar (; born Binyamin Zeev Maisler, June 28, 1906 – September 9, 1995) was a pioneering Israeli historian, recognized as the "dean" of biblical archaeologists. He shared the national passion for the archaeology of Israel that also at ...

from the

Hebrew University of Jerusalem The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJI; ) is an Israeli public university, public research university based in Jerusalem. Co-founded by Albert Einstein and Chaim Weizmann in July 1918, the public university officially opened on 1 April 1925. ...

challenged this identification. He believed Tell Jemmeh should be identified with

Yursa Yursa was a town from the 1350–1335 BC Amarna letters correspondence. The site, a city/city-state, is probably in the southern Canaan close to Gaza. Some scholars identify it with Tell Jemmeh. In the 382–letter correspondence it is the l ...

, a city mentioned in the Amarna Letters; Yarda, mentioned by Jewish-Roman scholar

Josephus Flavius Josephus (; , ; ), born Yosef ben Mattityahu (), was a Roman–Jewish historian and military leader. Best known for writing '' The Jewish War'', he was born in Jerusalem—then part of the Roman province of Judea—to a father of pr ...

; and Orda, in documents from the Byzantine period. Today, most scholars accept this identification. The association of Tell Jemmeha with Yursa is based on the site's prominence and strategic positing, controlling the coastal route on the southernmost edge of the

Canaan CanaanThe current scholarly edition of the Septuagint, Greek Old Testament spells the word without any accents, cf. Septuaginta : id est Vetus Testamentum graece iuxta LXX interprets. 2. ed. / recogn. et emendavit Robert Hanhart. Stuttgart : D ...

ite territory. This identification is further substantiated by the

petrographic Petrography is a branch of petrology that focuses on detailed descriptions of rocks. Someone who studies petrography is called a petrographer. The mineral content and the textural relationships within the rock are described in detail. The classi ...

provenancing of two Amarna letters written from Yursa's governor

Pu-Ba'lu Pu-Ba'lu, (another spelling, also Pu-Bahla) was ruler/mayor of Yursa, (a city/city-state in Canaan(?)), identified with Tell Jemmeh, of the 1350–1335 BC Amarna letters correspondence. His name translates in west semitic as well as in Akkadia ...

to the king of Egypt. The next excavation of the site was spread across nine seasons from 1970 to 1978 and was conducted by a team of archaeologists from the

Smithsonian Institution The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums, Education center, education and Research institute, research centers, created by the Federal government of the United States, U.S. government "for the increase a ...

,

Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with ...

,

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

. They returned to the site four more times between 1982 and 1990. The expedition, headed by Gus W. Van Beek, found evidence to support Mazar's identification, and also identified the site with Arsa from

Neo-Assyrian The Neo-Assyrian Empire was the fourth and penultimate stage of ancient Assyrian history. Beginning with the accession of Adad-nirari II in 911 BC, the Neo-Assyrian Empire grew to dominate the ancient Near East and parts of South Caucasus, Nort ...

inscriptions. Circular structures initially discovered by Petrie were deemed "beehive granaries" which was later, at first, confirmed in the Van Beck excavation. Further work by that team showed that they were actually conventional granaries. Four seventh century BC

ostraca An ostracon (Greek language, Greek: ''ostrakon'', plural ''ostraka'') is a piece of pottery, usually broken off from a vase or other earthenware vessel. In an archaeology, archaeological or epigraphy, epigraphical context, ''ostraca'' refer ...

were found.

Archaeology and history

Chalcolithic period

The first human settlement to be found in Tell Jemmeh is from the fourth millennium BCE during the

Chalcolithic The Chalcolithic ( ) (also called the Copper Age and Eneolithic) was an archaeological period characterized by the increasing use of smelted copper. It followed the Neolithic and preceded the Bronze Age. It occurred at different periods in di ...

period. The people were hunters and farmers and it was one of the small settlements which existed along the Besor Stream. This settlement lasted for only 200 years. From then the site was abandoned for more than a thousand years as the region became a hub for nomadism.

Bronze Age

Middle Bronze II

A settlement appeared during the Middle Bronze Age II period, around 1800 BCE. The site saw continuous human settlement for the next 1600 years.

Late Bronze II

During the Late Bronze Age II, subsequent with the golden age of the

New Kingdom of Egypt The New Kingdom, also called the Egyptian Empire, refers to ancient Egypt between the 16th century BC and the 11th century BC. This period of History of ancient Egypt, ancient Egyptian history covers the Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt, Eighteenth, ...

(ca. 1450–1200 BCE), the region of

Canaan CanaanThe current scholarly edition of the Septuagint, Greek Old Testament spells the word without any accents, cf. Septuaginta : id est Vetus Testamentum graece iuxta LXX interprets. 2. ed. / recogn. et emendavit Robert Hanhart. Stuttgart : D ...

, to which Tell Jemmeh belongs, was under the control of the Egyptian Empire and the city at Tell Jemmeh saw its height as well. During this particular period, Tell Jemmeh was known as

Yursa Yursa was a town from the 1350–1335 BC Amarna letters correspondence. The site, a city/city-state, is probably in the southern Canaan close to Gaza. Some scholars identify it with Tell Jemmeh. In the 382–letter correspondence it is the l ...

and was mentioned in some Egyptian sources. First, it was mentioned in the list of 119 cities conquered by Pharaoh Thutmose III in his campaign to thwart a Canaanite rebellion against Egypt (1468 BCE). Yursa is mentioned with

Sharuhen Sharuhen () was an ancient town in the Negev Desert or perhaps in Gaza. Following wars against the Hyksos in Egypt in the second half of the 16th century BCE, Sharuhen became a target, which some scholars argue was a city under Hyksos control. Th ...

as the southwestern border of

Canaan CanaanThe current scholarly edition of the Septuagint, Greek Old Testament spells the word without any accents, cf. Septuaginta : id est Vetus Testamentum graece iuxta LXX interprets. 2. ed. / recogn. et emendavit Robert Hanhart. Stuttgart : D ...

. One of the passages in the story of Thutmose's conquests states that Sharuhen remained loyal to the Pharaoh and served as a garrison town, while Yursa turned on Egypt. According to the Egyptian source, Yursa was captured and thus included in the list of cities taken by Thutmose. Also, it is later mentioned in the two of the Amarna Letters (1350 BCE - 1330 BCE). Its king was called

Pu-Ba'lu Pu-Ba'lu, (another spelling, also Pu-Bahla) was ruler/mayor of Yursa, (a city/city-state in Canaan(?)), identified with Tell Jemmeh, of the 1350–1335 BC Amarna letters correspondence. His name translates in west semitic as well as in Akkadia ...

and his kingdom was important to the Egyptians as it was on the main route connecting Egypt with the rest of the

Fertile Crescent The Fertile Crescent () is a crescent-shaped region in the Middle East, spanning modern-day Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, and Syria, together with northern Kuwait, south-eastern Turkey, and western Iran. Some authors also include ...

, dubbed in modern times as the ''

Via Maris Via Maris, or Way of Horus () was an ancient trade route, dating from the early Bronze Age, linking Egypt with the northern empires of Syria, Anatolia and Mesopotamia – along the Mediterranean coast of modern-day Egypt, Israel, Turkey and S ...

''. The most prominent archaeological feature of this period is a huge structure (19x16 meters) which served as either a palace or a large house with a big courthouse. This settlement was the first to be fortified. Remains of the wall and a gateway are found in the northeast side of the mound. A large quantity of imported ware was found, including ware of Mycenaean and Cypriot origin.

Iron Age

Tell Jemmeh was conquered by the

Philistines Philistines (; LXX: ; ) were ancient people who lived on the south coast of Canaan during the Iron Age in a confederation of city-states generally referred to as Philistia. There is compelling evidence to suggest that the Philistines origi ...

at around 1175 BCE, along with what were to become the five major Philistine cities: Gaza,

Ashkelon Ashkelon ( ; , ; ) or Ashqelon, is a coastal city in the Southern District (Israel), Southern District of Israel on the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean coast, south of Tel Aviv, and north of the border with the Gaza Strip. The modern city i ...

,

Ashdod Ashdod (, ; , , or ; Philistine language, Philistine: , romanized: *''ʾašdūd'') is the List of Israeli cities, sixth-largest city in Israel. Located in the country's Southern District (Israel), Southern District, it lies on the Mediterranean ...

, Gath and

Ekron Ekron (Philistine: 𐤏𐤒𐤓𐤍 ''*ʿAqārān'', , ), in the Hellenistic period known as Accaron () was at first a Canaanite, and later more famously a Philistine city, one of the five cities of the Philistine Pentapolis, located in pr ...

. Tell Jemmeh appears to have been a daughter-town of Gaza, under its control. The only Philistine ceramic

kiln A kiln is a thermally insulated chamber, a type of oven, that produces temperatures sufficient to complete some process, such as hardening, drying, or Chemical Changes, chemical changes. Kilns have been used for millennia to turn objects m ...

in Israel was found in Tell Jemmeh. It was an enormous, technologically advanced installation, the most prominent structure discovered from the Philistine period. Only a small part of the settlement of the 10th to 8th centuries BCE was excavated. The main part of these settlements was located mostly on the western side of the site. At least two fortification systems of that period were discovered. The better-preserved wall was constructed in the 8th century BCE and is a

casemate A casemate is a fortified gun emplacement or armoured structure from which guns are fired, in a fortification, warship, or armoured fighting vehicle.Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary When referring to antiquity, the term "casemate wall" ...

wall (double city wall, with transversal walls creating separate chambers).

Assyrian period

During the 7th century BCE, the

Neo-Assyrian Empire The Neo-Assyrian Empire was the fourth and penultimate stage of ancient Assyrian history. Beginning with the accession of Adad-nirari II in 911 BC, the Neo-Assyrian Empire grew to dominate the ancient Near East and parts of South Caucasus, Nort ...

expanded and under Tiglath-Pileser III,

Sargon II Sargon II (, meaning "the faithful king" or "the legitimate king") was the king of the Neo-Assyrian Empire from 722 BC to his death in battle in 705. Probably the son of Tiglath-Pileser III (745–727), Sargon is generally believed to have be ...

and

Sennacherib Sennacherib ( or , meaning "Sin (mythology), Sîn has replaced the brothers") was the king of the Neo-Assyrian Empire from 705BC until his assassination in 681BC. The second king of the Sargonid dynasty, Sennacherib is one of the most famous A ...

,

Israel Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...

and

Philistia Philistia was a confederation of five main cities or pentapolis in the Southwest Levant, made up of principally Gaza, Ashkelon, Ashdod, Ekron, Gath, and for a time, Jaffa (part of present-day Tel Aviv-Yafo). Scholars believe the Philist ...

were conquered.

Esarhaddon Esarhaddon, also spelled Essarhaddon, Assarhaddon and Ashurhaddon (, also , meaning " Ashur has given me a brother"; Biblical Hebrew: ''ʾĒsar-Ḥaddōn'') was the king of the Neo-Assyrian Empire from 681 to 669 BC. The third king of the S ...

, the son of Sennacherib, is mentioned in some texts as having taken a city called Arsa near the River of Egypt, and its king Asuhili was taken back to the Assyrian capital Ninveh in the year 679 BCE. Esarhaddon probably built a military camp at Tell Jemmeh to defend the new frontier of his empire and to use as a base camp in his later campaigns against the Egyptians in 674, 671 and 669 BCE. A large structure, with mudbrick self-supporting arch roof, was discovered and dated specifically to a period between 679 and 630 BCE. It is believed to have been the seat of a military governor or general. As preserved, the structure measures 12.5 m long and 10 m wide. The original length of the structure is unknown because of previous archaeological work of Petrie and due to

erosion Erosion is the action of surface processes (such as Surface runoff, water flow or wind) that removes soil, Rock (geology), rock, or dissolved material from one location on the Earth's crust#Crust, Earth's crust and then sediment transport, tran ...

. The structure has at least six rooms, three large and long and three short and small. Its plan corresponds with common Assyrian buildings (categorised as "Reception Suite Type F"). The Assyrians built a new casemate wall atop of the destroyed eighth-century wall. The large Assyrian structure was still in use after Esarhaddon's death in 660 BCE, as it was during the reign of

Ashurbanipal Ashurbanipal (, meaning " Ashur is the creator of the heir")—or Osnappar ()—was the king of the Neo-Assyrian Empire from 669 BC to his death in 631. He is generally remembered as the last great king of Assyria. Ashurbanipal inherited the th ...

. It was likely abandoned rather than destroyed as the Assyrians withdraw from the region.

Hellenistic period

At the beginning of the Hellenistic period, the

Ptolemaic Kingdom The Ptolemaic Kingdom (; , ) or Ptolemaic Empire was an ancient Greek polity based in Ancient Egypt, Egypt during the Hellenistic period. It was founded in 305 BC by the Ancient Macedonians, Macedonian Greek general Ptolemy I Soter, a Diadochi, ...

ruled the region. Tell Jemmeh transformed into a significant grain storage center, and the residents moved to settle in the areas around the hill. The site was finally deserted at the beginning of the 2nd century BC.

Tell replaced by lower city

Later periods are not represented on the tell, indicating that the location of the settlement (especially during the

Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire centred on Constantinople during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Having survived the events that caused the fall of the Western Roman E ...

and

Mamluk Mamluk or Mamaluk (; (singular), , ''mamālīk'' (plural); translated as "one who is owned", meaning "slave") were non-Arab, ethnically diverse (mostly Turkic, Caucasian, Eastern and Southeastern European) enslaved mercenaries, slave-so ...

period) likely shifted to the lower city south of the tell.

Ottoman period

During the

Ottoman period The Ottoman Empire (), also called the Turkish Empire, was an imperial realm that controlled much of Southeast Europe, West Asia, and North Africa from the 14th to early 20th centuries; it also controlled parts of southeastern Central Euro ...

, the area was inhabited by the

Bedouin The Bedouin, Beduin, or Bedu ( ; , singular ) are pastorally nomadic Arab tribes who have historically inhabited the desert regions in the Arabian Peninsula, North Africa, the Levant, and Mesopotamia (Iraq). The Bedouin originated in the Sy ...

tribe The term tribe is used in many different contexts to refer to a category of human social group. The predominant worldwide use of the term in English is in the discipline of anthropology. The definition is contested, in part due to conflict ...

of 'Arab al-Jubarat (عرب الجبارات).

References

Bibliography

* David Ben-Shlomo and Gus w. van Beek (2014)
''The Smithsonian Institution Excavation at Tell Jemmeh, Israel, 1970–1990''
Smithsonian Institution Scholarly Press *Rahmani, L.Y. (1971), "Silver Coins of the Fourth Century from Tell Gamma" ''Israel Exploration Journal'' 21, pp. 158–160, 1971 *Wapnish, Paula (1988), and Brian Hesse, "Urbanization and the Organization of Animal Production at Tell Jemmeh in the Middle Bronze Age Levant", ''Journal of Near Eastern Studies'', vol. 47, no. 2, pp. 81–94, 1988 {{doi, 10.1086/373259

External links

Official Website

The mystery ancient toys puzzling archaeologists - BBC - 16 August 2022
Tells (archaeology) Ancient Jewish settlements of Judaea Hebrew Bible cities Biblical geography Ancient Jewish history Former populated places in West Asia Archaeological sites in Israel

Geography

Excavation and identification

Gerar

Yursa/Arsa/Yarda/Orda

Archaeology and history

Chalcolithic period

Bronze Age

Middle Bronze II

Late Bronze II

Iron Age

Assyrian period

Hellenistic period

Tell replaced by lower city

Ottoman period

See also

References

Bibliography

External links