The Early Bronze Age Fortifications At Tell Es-Safi/Gath, Israel

Abstract

Tell es-Safi/Gath is a multi-period site located on the border between the Judean foothills (Shephelah) and the southern coastal plain in central Israel, which has been subject to survey and excavations over the last two decades. Excavations by Bliss and Macalister in 1899 exposed a fortification system which was dated to the “Jewish period”. In this paper, we present updated data on these fortifications which have led to fresh insights. In two separate excavation areas, we excavated portions of the fortification system that surrounded the site which can now be dated to the EB III of the southern Levant. The EB fortification system influenced the location of later fortifications at the site. The nature of the construction techniques of these fortifications and the character of the settlement which they surrounded suggest that Tell es-Safi/Gath was a major regional urban centre during the EB III and was governed by a centralised administrative hierarchy.

Keywords:

• Early Bronze Age III
• fortifications
• Tell es-Safi/Gath
• Bliss and Macalister

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The excavations and research at Tell es-Safi/Gath are conducted as part of the Ackerman Family Bar-Ilan University Expedition to Gath. The authors would like to acknowledge the financial, intellectual, and physical help of many individuals and institutions, who are too numerous to detail here. In particular, we would like to thank the Tell es-Safi/Gath excavation team with its many hundreds of volunteers and professionals whose efforts enabled us to realise the results described in this report. Administrative and financial support are from Bar-Ilan University, the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the University of Manitoba, St. Paul's College, Yeshiva University, and Brigham Young University.

ORCID

Haskey J. Greenfield http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6703-932X

Aren M. Maeir http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3230-292X

Notes

1 It should be noted that there is an extensive lower Philistine city on the terrace above the Elah Valley riverbed just to the north of the tell.

2 Based on the importance of the site during the Iron Age, Avissar and Maeir (2012, 117) dated it to the Iron Age IIA.

3 It seems that this was already the case in the EB II, as Stratum E7 in Area E is dated to this phase (Shai et al. 2014, 23, 28).