No title

The BIBLICAL

ARCHAEOLOGI

Published by THE AMERICAN SCHOOLS OF ORIENTAL RESEARCH Jerusalem and Bagdad Room 102, 6 Divinity Avenue, Cambridge, Mass.

VOL. XXIX

September,1966

- qu

No. 3

Trr

meo

Fig. 1. Tell Shari'ah (Gath?) from the south. The view is partially blocked by the embankment of an old Turkish railroad which ran to Beersheba. Its bridge has been washed away down the Wadi Shari'ah. Photo by James L. Swauger (from a Kodacolor print, Carnegie Museum 5718).

Contents Fresh Evidence for the Philistine Story, by G. Ernest Wright .......................... Philistia under Assyrian Rule, by Hayim Tadmor ............... ...................... Announcement and Recent Books Received .......................................

70 86 103

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THE BIBLICALARCHAEOLOGIST

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is published quarterly (February, May, September, December) The Biblical Archaeologist by the American Schools of Oriental Research. Its purpose is to meet the need for a readable, non-technical, yet thoroughly reliable account of archaeological discoveries as they relate to the Bible. Editor: Edward F. Campbell, Jr., with the assistance of Floyd V. Filson in New Testament matters. Editorial correspondence should be sent to the editor at 800 West Belden Avenue, Chicago, Illinois, 60614. Editorial Board: W. F. Albright, Johns Hopkins University; G. Ernest Wright, Harvard University; Frank M. Cross, Jr., Harvard University. Service Agency, 31 East 10th $2.00 per year, payable to Stechert-Hafner Subscriptions: Street, New York, New York, 10003. Associate members of the American Schools of Oriental Research receive the journal automatically. Ten or more subscriptions for group use mailed and billed to the same address, $1.50 per year for each. Subscriptions run for the calendar year. In England: seventeen shillings per year, payable to B. H. Blackwell, Ltd., Broad Street, Oxford. Back Numbers: Available at 600 each, or $2.25 per volume, from the Stechert-Hafner Service Agency. No orders under $1.00 accepted. When ordering one issue only, please remit with order. The journal is indexed in Art Index, Index to Religious Periodical Literature, and at the end of every fifth volume of the journal itself. Second-class postage PAID at Cambridge, Massachusetts and additional offices. Copyright by American Schools of Oriental Research, 1966. PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, BY TRANSCRIPT PRINTING COMPANY PETERBOROUGH, N. H.

Fresh Evidence For The Philistine Story

G. ERNESTWRIGHT Harvard

University

In the BA for 1959 the writer reviewed some of the archaeological evidence which has brought the Philistines into clearer historical focus.1 The article, entitled "Philistine Coffins and Mercenaries,"drew especially upon recent work by Dr. Trude Dothan, whose forthcoming book on these intriguing people of antiquity represents the first attempt to bring together all of the archaeologicalevidence in a critical study.2The story now may be reconstructedsomewhat as follows. During the course of the vast disruptions and movements of peoples toward the end of the 13th century and during the 12th century B.C., the whole ancient world was in turmoil. The great empires of the Hittites in Anatolia and the Myceneans in Greece, for example, were brought to an end by forces unknown. Out of the wreckage of that world there suddenly appeared along the southeast Mediterranean littoral, a people whom the Egyptians called the "Sea Peoples." On the walls of the temple of Rameses III (ca. 1175-1144 B.C.) at Medinet Habu in Upper Egypt the Pharaoh shows them attempting to storm his realm by land and by sea. He claims their defeat, but says nothing of what disposal he made of them. It is clear that these strange people were seeking a new homeland and could not go back whence they came. Biblical tradition recalls them as settled along the southern coastal plain during the 12th and 11th centuries 1. BA, XXII (1959), 54-66, reprinted in the Biblical Archaeologist Reader, 2, ed. by E. F. Campbell, Jr. and D. N. Freedman (1964), pp. 59-68. 2. For her preliminary articles see p. 60, n. 9 of the above mentioned BA article. The first attempt evidence is that of R. A. S. Macalister, at a historical treatment from archaeological of Chicago. recently reprinted by Argonaut Incorporated (1913), (1965)

The Philistines

1966, 3)

71

THE BIBLICALARCHAEOLOGIST

B.C. Dr. Dothan's studies have demonstratedcolonies of them living during the same period in the Nile Delta and on Egypt's southern frontier in Nubia (Sudan). Furthermorethese far away groups kept in touch with their relatives in Palestine, because even in Nubia Palestinian vessels were included in their tombs.

47& 4-

61~

LWjjkK77

i ;AT I 7/

V

V

Fig. 2. The clash of the Sea Peoples and the Egyptians depicted on the temple walls at Medinet Habu; note the characteristic headdress and armor of the invaders. Courtesy the Oriental Institute, University of Chicago.

Several different groups were present among the Sea Peoples accordto the records of Rameses II. Biblical tradition remembersthem largely ing the name of one group, the Palishtu or Philistines, who may have been by dominant element along the southern coast." The Egyptian Tale of the Wenamon, dating from shortly after 1100 B.C., places still another group, the Tsikal (Sicilians ?), at Dor, a port city along the coast immediately south of the tip of Mt. Carmel. This city was within the tribal claim of Manasseh, though it was not actually possessed by Israel until after the conquests of David (Judg. 1:27; I Kings 4:11). There can be only one hypothesis which interprets the data mentioned 3. Another group who later served in David's personal bodyguard are called "Cherethites" or Cretans (II Sam. 15:18), though the Philistines were also thought by Israel to have come from Crete (e.g. Amos 9:7). Genesis 10:14 also distinguishes the two groups but derives them from Egypt; however, as elsewhere in the Table of Nations the reference is to political rather than ethnic derivation.

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above. Instead of destroying the Sea Peoples after his defeat of them, Rameses III hired them as his mercenaries, or vassals, whom he placed strategically where he hoped they would preservehis imperial interests. This would explain the situation at Beth-shan in the northern Jordan Valley, a city which the Philistines soon controlled. There they carefully preservedimportant Egyptian objects installed by an Egyptian garrison in the temples, a garrison which had held the city from the time of Seti I (ca. 1303-1290 B.C.) to that of Rameses III, during whose reign the Sea Peoples presumably replaced the native Egyptian troops, if such they were.4 Recently an increasing number of hints have come to attention suggesting that the groups of Sea Peoples which appear in the time of Rameses III were not the first wave to attack the Svro-Palestinian coast. Scholars have usually assumed that the fall and abandonment of such great Syrian cities as Ugarit and Alalakh must have been caused by the ravages of Sea Peoples who disrupted the sea trade and turned normal life along the Mediterranean coast into chaos. Since the last war the major effort of the French expedition at Ugarit, headed by C. F. A. Schaeffer, has been the excavation of the royal palace which was destroyed in the city's final days. Large numbers of clay documents have turned up in the ruins, including several in a furnace which were being baked for preservationin the royal archives, though the end came before they could be taken from the furnace. These tablets deal with nearly every phase of life in that north Syrian city of the 13th century B.C.5 Most dramatic of all are those which speak of the approach of the enemy, and of an initial devastationwhile the fleet and army are with the Hittite army in south-centralAnatolia. Other letters from the oven find both armies much nearer to home, east of Tarsus and then in Mukish to the north of Ugarit. The king of Ugarit wrote back to his mother: "And thou, my mother, be not afraid and do not put worries into thy heart." Still another letter, found elsewhere than in the oven, may refer to the final battle; it says that "our food in the threshing floors is sacked (or burned?) and also the vineyards are destroyed. Our city is destroyed, and mayst thou know it." The last letter may, of course, refer to an earlier raid when the enemy as got far as the citadel and no further. Clearly, however, the fate of Ugarit was sealed with the fall of the Hittite empire. There were houses in the excavated city which were not burned. The inhabitants evidently fled the enemy, and never returned. Like Biblical Ai the enemy made Ugarit "a 4. This argument is based upon the Egyptian objects found by the expedition directed by Alan Rowe and sponsored by the University of Pennsylvania and the ASOR; they include a statue of Rameses III and an inscribed lintel of his time. It is known, further, that the policies of Rameses III with regard to the Sea Peoples were simply a continuation of those of his predecessors in the 13th century, who also hired them as mercenaries. 5. Note, for example, Anson F. Rainey, BA, XXVIII (1965), and references there cited. 102-125,

THE BIBLICALARCHAEOLOGIST

1966, 3)

73

tell forever"(Josh. 8:28).6 From chronologicalindicators in the clay archives Dr. Albright has concluded that Ugarit must have fallen to an early wave of Sea Peoples not far from ca. 1230 B.C. Another hint comes from Tell Deir 'Alla in the Jordan Valley where a Dutch expedition headed by H. J. Franken has been working. One stratum contained Philistine pottery, suggesting that rapidly advancing tentacles of Philistine power were reaching down the Jordan Valley as far as the Jabbok River directly east of Shechem in the hills to the west (see below). If the tell is to be identified with the Biblical Succoth, as has been generally assumed for almost a century,' then the Philistine occupation of the city probably falls later than Gideon's defeat of the Midianites wherein Succoth plays a role and is clearly within the control of Israelite elders (Judges 8:4 ff.). Judging from the evidence unearthed at Shechem for the Abimelech destruction (Judges 9), especially in 1964 and 1966, the Gideon conflict must be dated early, some time during the 12th century B.C. r 'C'~it rl' ..

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Fig. 3. One of the tablets from Deir 'Alla, now thought to represent the Philistine language. The inscription runs for three more signs on the edge of the tablet. From Vetus Testamentum, XIV (1964), Plate I, reproduced by permission.

Under the stratum with Philistine pottery there was another with Late Bronze pottery, a sanctuary and some tablets with strange writing on them. Father Roland de Vaux, William F. Albright, and Frank M. Cross, Jr. independently have suggested that these tablets must have been written by the "Sea Peoples." This hypothesis is based on a process of elimination. We have a good knowledge of Asiatic scripts of this era. Who else could have been responsible for the Deir 'Alla tablets - especially when the script belongs in the general family of the Cypro-Mycenean style of writing? If these scholars are right, then there were predecessorsof the Philistines, or 6. Michael C. Astour, American Journal of Archaeology, LXIX (1965), 253-258. 7. Cf. most recently Nelson Glueck, The River Jordan (1946), pp. 150-155.

THE BIBLICALARCHAEOLOGIST

74

(Vol. XXIX

there were Philistines themselves, at Deir 'Alla (Succoth) before about the third quarter of the 12th century at the latest, and probably much earlier.8 A third hint to be considered is the bench-tomb, a type of burial cave, made by human agency, which is roughly square or rectangular with a bench on each side and sometimes in the back. This type of tomb was certainly introduced into Palestine by the Sea Peoples and was to have a major influence on subsequent tomb-practicein the coun:ry. Furthermore, it has been shown that the type in question was derived from Mycenean practice in the Aegean.9 Two tombs of this type appear at Tell el-Far'ah (Sharuhen) in southern Palestine, not in the Philistine cemetery with its coffin burials dating ca. 1150-1050 B.C., but in the Late Bronze Age "900Cemetery," dating mainly from the 13th century B.C.'o One also recalls coffin-tomb 570 at Lachish with its pottery of 13th century type." Evidence

for the Twelfth

Century Expansion

of Philistine

Power

In settling the Philistines on the southern coast, Rameses III evidently into their charge as their base of operations the three seacoast city-state put centers, Gaza, Ashkelon, and Ashdod. Only during the course of their expansionist activity did the Philistines add two other cities, Ekron and Gath, to their original three centers for the control of the plain (see below; cf. I Sam. 6:17-18; cf. Josh. 13:3).12 During the winter of 1964-65 the writer with his students at the Hebrew Union College Biblical and Archaeological School in Jerusalem,Israel, spent considerable time in attempting to understand the topography and territorialhistory of the Philistine Plain. During the course of this investigation we were surprisedto see with what clarity the evidence for Philistine occupation and expansionism began to emerge. Before the end of the 12th century they had moved into the Judean lowlands until the border with Judah was pushed back to the slopes of the high hill-lands where the border between Israel and Jordan runs today. Major pieces of evidence for this are the following: 1. The city of Beth-shemeshin the Sorek valley quickly came under the domination of the Philistines (Stratum III of the excavations). This is not 8. See H. J. Franken, Vetus Testamentum, 377-379 and 417-422; and Palestine XIV (1964), 73-78. Exploration Quarterly, XCVI (1964), in the American Journal of Archaeology. 9. See a forthcoming This paper by Jane Waldbaum course under the writer's paper is a revision of a seminar project completed in an archaeological direction at Harvard University. 10. Sir Flinders Petrie, et al., Beth-pelet II, P1. LIX, Tombs 934 and 935. I owe this reference to Mrs. Waldbaum (see n. 9). The tombs were robbed in antiquity. The latest named scarabs in them were of Rameses II; Tomb 935 had fragments of a pottery coffin. Such pottery as is illustrated from these tombs is definitely Late Bronze II. 59-60 and Figs. 6-8. The original publication 11. See the writer, BA, XXII (1959), in Olga Tufdoes not make the type of tomb clear. nell, Lachish IV, pp. 248-49 I No. 7 12. So also B. Mazar, The Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, Proceedings, (1964), especially pp. 4 and 10.

THE BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGIST

1966, 3)

75

* Sidon

Tyre

*Accho

Dor

?Shan

Shiloh Joppa

phek Gezer

Ashdod Ashkelon

Jerusalem

Gaza

*Beersheba ?Fig. 4. The twelfth century penetration of the Philistines is represented by shading on this sketch map of the land of Palestine.

only evident from the amountof Philistinepotterydiscoveredthere,13but seems to be the implicationof the Samsonstoriesin Judges 13-16as well. These storiesenvisage a situationwherein the inner Sorek valley (Bethshemesh and Zorah, Samson'shome) are under Philistine domination,so that Israeliteslike Samsonhave easy access to Philistinetowns (e.g. Tim13. The arguments below are based in no small measure on the hypothesis that to follow the traces of Philistine pottery is also to follow the advance of Philistine military and political power. A few years ago this argument seemed very tenuous. The excavations at Shechem in Jordan, however, furnish powerful support. In the vast amount of pottery sorted from Iron I Shechem only a very rare sherd could be suggested as Philistine. The 12th century occupation at Israelite Shechem and that at Philistine Gezer appear worlds apart, judging from current excavations.

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nah, the home of Delilah between four and five miles to the west, a small, low mound, Tell Batashi, evidently founded by the Philistines). 2. What is true of Beth-shemeshis also true of Debir (Tell Beit Mirsim, Stratum B,) at the southern extremity of the lowlands. 3. Tell es-Safi on the western, or plain end of the Elah valley, became a very large Philistine city, as is known from surface exploration and illicit digging. 4. For two seasons of excavation during 1964-65 the Israeli Department of Antiquities, under the direction of Dr. A. Biran, excavated a small, unfortified mound, named today Tell Sippor. This was a small town of the 14th-13th centuries which the Philistines occupied but did not fortify. Though east of territorial claims of the Israelites at Eglon (Tell el-Hesi) the village could be inhabited without fortification,suggesting that the new Egyptian vassals felt safe enough on their eastern border. Turning northward, one next encounters the site of Khirbet el-Muqenna' in the center of the plain in the Sorek valley drainage. This is a huge site, some forty acres in extent, near the modern Israeli kibbutz Revadim. The outline of some of the fortifications and one city-gate of the city are still visible. Israeli scholars have proposed persuasively that this must be Philistine Ekron.14If so, then one must affirm that it was founded by the Philistines, because neither we nor the Israelis could find anything on it earlier than the 12th century. Its final period of glory ended, evidently, with the Babylonian campaigns against Judah and Philistia (ca. 601-587 B.C.), to judge from the pottery remaining on the surface of the site. Ekron, then, whether here or elsewhere in this area, was founded by the Philistines as their fourth city, to control the plain as it begins to narrow in the Sorek drainage area northeast of Ashdod. Just to the northeast and northwest are the small, low Tell Melat (Gibbethon) and Tell esh-Shelaf (Eltekeh?).15 Both were Late Bronze Age villages which were promptly taken over by the Philistines. Directly east of Tell Melat is the large Tell Gezer, on the last spur of the lowlands as one goes northward. It is a large tell, some twenty-seven to twenty-eight acres in extent on its summit; its hill is completely isolated and well placed to control both the international highway from Egypt to Asia which passed to the west, and the road from Jerusalem down the valley of Aijalon past modern Latrun, in Jordan. This site controlled the In the Westminster 165-170. 14. See J. Naveh, Israel Exploration 87-100, Journal, VIII (1958), Atlas of the Bible the writer, following Albright, identified the site with Eltekeh, while Ekron is however, lends strength to placed at Qatra. The huge size and obvious importance of Muqenna', the Israeli arguments, though Dr. Albright still feels that the defense of such a low site would town be a considerable problem for so important a city as Ekron. In any case the Roman-Byzantine was not at Muqenna', but must still be located in the area. see G. von Rad, Paldstinajahrbuch of the first with Gibbethon, 1933, 15. On the identification see B. Mazar, Israel Exploration Quarterly, X (1960), 65-77, esp. pp. 30-42. On Tell esh-Shelaf, 73-77.

1966, 3)

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largestBronzeAge city-statebetweenLachishand Ashdodto the south and Jett (Ginti-Carmelor Gath-Carmel),Megiddo and Shechemto the north and northeast.New excavationsat Gezer in 1964-65, begun under the writer'sdirectionby the HebrewUnion College Biblicaland Archaeological School,16 confirmedthe impressionone gets from the reportsof R. A. S. Macalister'swork at the site between 1902 and 1909 concerningthe extent of Philistineoccupationof the site. Our Field I is a trenchover the fortificationson the southernedge of the tell. Here the Solomonicwall was robbedout and subsequentstratawere eroded,exceptfor the early Roman period. Strata 3 and 4 here were 11th and 12 centuriesrespectivelyand clearlyunderPhilistinedomination.Stratum5, on the otherhand,is mainly 13th centurywith Cyprioteand Myceneanimportations still present.Gezer surely became a Philistine city during the 12th centuryB.C.17 On the river Yarkonby modernTel-Aviv,furthermore,the Philistines foundedTell Qasilein the 12thcentury'"and continuedto controlthis area from Qasile and Aphek at the head watersof the Yarkonduringthe 11th century (cf. I Sam. 4:1 ff.). Philistinepresencein 12th centuryMegiddo and Beth-shanhas alreadybeen affirmedin the articleon "PhilistineCoffins and Mercenaries."'19 Their presenceshortlythereafterdown the Jordan far as as Tell Deir 'Alla suggeststhe directionof their movement valley and purpose. Moving rapidlyfrom theircoastalbase, the Philistineshad Israelvirtually surrounded.Theirs was a planneddrive for the conquestof the whole country.The next move would obviouslybe a thrustdirectlyinto the center of Israelitepower itself. Accordingto the Biblical record,this took the form of a direct attackfrom Aphek at the head of the Yarkonabout the middle of the 11th century.Israel'stribal army was defeated,the central 16. The second (summer, 1966) and succeeding campaigns will be carried on by the same institution, under the overall supervision of President Nelson Glueck and the writer. The Director and Associate Director of the field operations are the writer's students, Dr. William G. Dever, Senior Archaeological Fellow of the Jerusalem School of Hebrew Union College, and Professor H. Darrell Lance of Colgate-Rochester Divinity School. A report of this excavation will appear in the BA soon. 17. The nature of the shift between Strata 5 and 4 is not yet clear enough to indicate whether the Philistines gained Gezer by a major conquest and destruction of the site. Granted their legal position as vassals and mercenaries of Egypt, they could properly claim control over the city, but whether they had to conquer it would depend on local resistance. At Ashdod the excavations have revealed a major destruction between 13th century and 12th century strata. The same seems to have been true at Tell Deir 'Alla in the central Jordan Valley, though the excavator ascribes the destruction to an earthquake. 18. For the preliminary report see B. Mazar (Maisler), Israel Exploration Journal, I (1950-51), 61-76, 125-140, 194-218. Strata XII-XI at Tell Qasile have been our best stratified evidence for Philistine pottery. Future excavations at Ashdod and Gezer, as well as those concluded at Tell Sippor, will provide welcome additional evidence in quantity. 19. The pottery found at Beth-shan has never been completely published. Hence we do not know whether Philistine ware has been found there or not - except for one or two pieces noted by the writer in the collections of the University Museum in Philadelphia. It is Mrs. Dothan's convincing connection of the coffins (evidently found in bench tombs) with the Philistines that has brought the site into the forefront of the Philistine picture. The fine Philistine pottery found in Megiddo VII A, unpublished but present in the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, has been noted by a number of people, including the writer, BA, XXII. For the presence of the provincial Mycenean IIIC:lb pottery at Beth-shan, thus far unobserved in Palestine though it is the external model for Philistine pottery, see Vronvy Hankey in American Jousnal of Archaeology, LXX (1966), 169-171.

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sanctuary at Shiloh was destroyed, the Ark as the chief religious symbol of the tribal league was captured, and the hill country was garrisoned. Only the installation of a monarchy and the reigns of Saul and David frustrated the permanent success of the Philistine achievement. This story is the main subject of the books of I and II Samuel.

4**w

~psg~iy~~~ C~44 41' .'; r)?

? Ak

5 -C~^2. :~~~bsS~:C~Pil;:~~?~ ~ I~ ~r?:4~u~rra~r.~~Fy

Fig. 5. The tell of Beth-shan, from which coffins attributable to the Philistines have come. Photo courtesy of James B. Pritchard and the University Museum of the University of Pennsylvania. The Location

of Gath

Where is the fifth of the main Philistine centers of which the Bible speaks? If our analysis so far is correct, then it should have been a site added to the original three along the coast at a strategicallyimportant point. If Ekron was founded by the Philistines squarely in the center of the northern plain to control it, as the backstop, so to speak, for Tell Qasile (whatever its ancient name) and Aphek on the Yarkon, then Gath logically should be a site further south to control the inner part of the plain. That would seem to be the implication of such a passage as I Samuel 7:14 about a victory of Samuel which restored Israelite territory "from Ekron even unto Gath." Yet where would that be? With impeccable logic Dr. Albright in the 1920's identified Philistine Gath with a tell called by the Arabs Tell Sheikh Ahmed el-'Areini. It is located on the edge of the plain at the opening of the valley which leads

1966, 3)

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past Lachish in the lowlands, then past Mareshah, and up into the hills of ancient Judah to Hebron. It is an ideal spot for Gath, right at the opening of the most heavily protected pass up into the Judean hill country.20After the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, Israelis quickly prepared new maps, renaming known sites with the older Hebrew names. Thus Tell el-'Areini became "Tell Gath," and the new Israeli inland industrial city nearby was named "Kiriath Gath." During the 1950's an Israeli expedition excavated at "Tell Gath" and found it to be a comparativelysmall settlement during the Iron Age, which produced a small tell, resting upon a very much larger Early Bronze age city.21 In this respect it probably is the same type of thing that we have at Tell Arad in the Negeb, south of Hebron and northeast of Beersheba, a small tell made up of a series of Judean forts on top of one edge of a large third millennium city which was twenty-five acres in extent. Hence Tell el-'Areini simply does not meet the requirements for Philistine Gath, even though all Israeli maps still call it "Tell Gath." Where now was Gath? All eyes then turned to the next major tell out in the plain to the south. This is Tell en-Najileh. An expedition under the archaeologicaldirection of the Israeli archaeologist,Ruth Amiran, and under the administrative direction of R. A. Mitchell who had raised American money for the work, found this site to date mainly from the 18th to the 16th centuries, with only small amounts of later material.22Najileh, then, could not be considered a candidate for Philistine Gath either. Where should one look now? At this point most Israeli archaeologists turned back north to an older pre-Albright identification with Tell es-Safi - for no special reason except that the surface surveys, and even some illegal digging by an amateur, had shown it to be a huge and rich Philistine city. When during February of 1965 our group from Jerusalem's Hebrew Union College visited Khirbet Muqenna', we were immediately impressed by the arguments for the identification of this tell with Ekron. In size, location, and occupational history, the site seemed to fit the requirements in an ideal way. Yet when we looked around us, there was Tell es-Safi (Tell es-Sofit now on some Israeli maps) just a short distance to the southeast over the brow of one ridge and along the edge of the next valley. It was simply too close. What sense would it make to put the fifth Philistine seren (or national lord) at that spot, if the presuppositions about territorial control, outlined above, are valid? This was an identification which to us met none of the military or logical requirements for Philistine Gath. The only thing in its 20. See W. F. Albright, Annual of the ASOR, II-III (1923), 7-12. 21. S. Yeivin, First Preliminary Report on the Excavations at Tel 'Gat', 1956-1958 (Jerusalem, Israel, 1961); cf. Israel Exploration Journal, VI (1956), 258-59; VII (1957), 264-65; VIII (1958), 274-75; IX (1959), 269-71; X (1960), 122-23, 193-203; XI (1961), 191. 22. Ruth Amiran and A. Eitan, Yediot (Bulletin of the Israel Exploration Society), XXVIII (1964), 193-203 (Hebrew); S. Biilow and R. A. Mitchell, Israel Exploration Journal, XI (1961), 101-110.

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favor was that it was large in the 12th-llth centuries, but that is not enough from which to argue.2" It had never been this writer's intention to become involved with this problem. If the Israelis who now live on and farm the old Philistine plain cannot find Gath, how can an outsider ever hope to do so when he simply does not know the country intimately. Yet when the above picture began to emerge, we could not help thinking about the problems. Then of a sudden there came a vivid "hunch," which when investigated and tested in conversation with others, seems to this writer to solve the problem with very few difficulties. As an hypothesis, it seems to the writer and his students more cogent than any other. The line of reasoning and investigation went as follows. First of all, it is necessary to assume that Professor Mazar is correct in his statement that there were many Gaths (the name means winepress) in ancient Palestine, and it is necessary to distinguish at least two in the Philistine plain. One is a Gath which is sometimes called Gittaim and the other is Philistine Gath.24When Israel under Saul defeated the Philistines in the Elah Valley and chased them to the gates of Ekron with the wounded falling as far as Gath (I Sam. 17:52), it is probablethat the northern Gath-Gittaim is being referred to. For Philistine Gath a most important narrative requiring interpretation is I Samuel 27 and 29. In his flight from Saul, David is forced to leave his own people and seek protection in "the land of the Philistines." Taking with him 600 of his followers, he sought the aid of Achish, king of Gath. The latter befriended him and gave him one of his towns as a place to live. The name of that town was Ziklag; we do not know certainly where it was, except that it was in or near the Negeb, the country south and southwest of the Judean hills in which Beersheba was a main point of reference. One would think that Philistine Gath should not be far away, if it owned territoryin the Negeb. In preparation for the last battle against king Saul, in which he was defeated and killed himself, the Philistines staged a military parade, reviewed by the five Philistine lords (serens). It has generally been supposed that 23. To this writer Libnah remains the best identification for Tell es-Safi. The reason is this: During the campaign against Judah in 701 B.C. (or 689 B.C.?) the Assyrian army found that the main fortresses protecting the passes into the hills of Judah were Lachish and Libnah (II Kings In 587 B.C. from both the Lachish letters and Jeremiah 34:7 we learn that the chief 19:8). fortresses were Lachish and Azekah. Azekah, all are agreed, is Tell Zakariyeh within the Shephelah (lowlands) on the valley of Elah. Both this fact and the actual topography itself suggest that the main passes below Gezer for Judah to fortify were those of Elah and Lachish. Tell es-Safi is on the plain end of the Elah valley as it emerges from the lowlands. in SennaConsequently, cherib's time the primary defense of the Elah valley was Tell es-Safi. In the time of Nebuchadrezzar, the defense was moved inside the lowlands to Tell Zakariyeh. This argument originally was that of Dr. Albright, and the writer knows of no other hypothesis which so well accords with the actual necessities of historical topography. 24. B. Mazar, Israel Exploration Journal, IV (1954), 227-235.

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1966, 3)

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Achish, king of Gath, was one of these "lords."Yet Achish is not in the reviewing panel. He himself leads his contingent at the rear of which David and his men are included. At this point the Philistine "lords"reprimand Achish severely. They claim that David's presence is a potential "fifth column" in their midst, and they force David to return to his city. Some have attempted to interpret this narrativeas implying the central importance of Achish in the Philistine hierarchy. Yet the simplest, most direct reading 3

1.

.5 6

*7

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

SITES Tell Qasile T. ej-Jerisheh Aphek Joppa T. esh-Shelaf T. Melat GEZER

8.

ASHDOD

9. EKRON 10. Beth-shemesh SO0 11. Azekah T. es-Safi ~12. 89') 13. ASHKELON 10 A14. "Tell Gath" 15. LACHISH 16. Mareshah 12 17. Moreshet-Gath 17 18. T. Bornat 4 19. T. el-Hesi 6 20. T. Quneitirah

,,13

GAZA

1521.

19?21

.20

22. 23. 24.

22.23

25. 26. 27.

2514

T. en-Najileh T. Beit Mirsim T. esh-ShariCah (Gath?) T. Abu Hureirah (Gerar) Sharuhen Beersheba

26-27

Fig. 6. Sketch map of sites in the Philistine coastal territory. Number 24 is Dr. Wright's candidate for Gath.

suggests instead that he is not one of the five Philistine "lords;"he is simply the client king of Gath who befriends David and defends him to the Philistines (I Sam. 29:3). Let it further be noted that one of the first acts of David when he became king of Judah and then of all Israel, was to cap-

82

THE BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGIST

(Vol. XXIX

ture Gath, make the city-state a buffer between Israel and the Philistines, Achish serving as his friend and vassal, instead of as vassal of the Philistines (cf. I Chron. 18:125). As late as the first part of Solomon's reign, Achish is still a vassal-king who returns to Israel two run-away slaves (I Kings 2:39-40).26 As one looks again for possible tells which might fit the requirements for Gath, we again need to search the area between the falsely named "Tell Gath" and the Wadi Ghazzeh which circles southeastwardfrom Gaza to Beersheba. There remain only two large tells which can be considered suitable at all. Both stand on the northern side of a deep wadi which is a tributary of Wadi Ghazzeh, cutting deeply into the plain in a northeasterly direction. This used to be called Wadi Shari'ah, though on most Israeli maps it is today labelled Nahal Gerar. Directly south of Tell en-Najileh as the next tell in the midst of the plain but in the inner reaches of the Wadi Shari'ah is Tell esh-Shari'ah.In the first edition (1945) of the Westmiiinster Historical Atlas to the Bible, the writer followed older views of Albright in identifying it with Hormah (Num. 14:45; 21:3). Today scholars are almost unanimous, however, in identifying Hormah with Tell el-Milh, east-southeastof Beersheba. Most Israeli maps mark Shari'ah as Gerar, a site important in the biblical narrativesof the Patriarchsin the Beersheba region (e.g. Genesis 20 and 26). Our surface exploration revealed no evidence of Middle Bronze Age (ca. 20th-16th centuries) occupation on Tell esh-Shari'ah. Besides, nearly all scholars are convinced that Gerar should be located three to four miles farther southwest on the Wadi Shari'ah at the great Bronze Age site, Tell Abu Hureirah. Thus Tell Shari'ah is the only major tell in the area, except its Bronze Age predecessor, Tell en-Najileh, which lacks an ancient name. To this writer, Tell esh-Shari'ah fulfills all the requirements for Philistine Gath. It is in precisely the right area. In a visit to the tell with the consortium of Hebrew Union College's Jerusalem School in April, 1965, we found it to be in a horseshoe shape, quite high and of medium to large size. It was founded in the Late Bronze Age; thus in the period between ca. 1500 and 1200 B.C. it had been the center of a Canaanite city-state.Every period appears to be represented from that point down to ca. the 6th century B.C., 25. The parallel passage of this is II Samuel 8:1, where we are told that David subdued the Philistines and took Metheghammah from them. Since we have no idea what that is, we are entitled to assume that I Chronicles 18:1 is an explanation of it - namely that a major city which David took from the Philistines was Gath. This suggests that the city-state of Gath should be on the border between what David considered Israelite and what he considered Philistine territory (see below). 26. This interpretation is also followed by Hanna E. Kassis, Journal of Biblical Literature, LXXXIV (1965), 259-271. The first draft of that paper was presented in a graduate seminar at Harvard University when the problem of Gath was being considered. The section on Gath in the present article may be considered as a supplement to the paper by Kassis.

1966, 3)

THE BIBLICALARCHAEOLOGIST

83

judging from the pottery covering its top and slopes.2"Furthermore,it is on the edge of the Negeb, the dry southland of Israel, and yet near enough to the Judean hills (ca. 18 kilometers) to fit the requirements of the story of David and Achish. As to its strategic importance as the chief control point for the south central plain, to the southeast of Gaza and Ashkelon, let us consider it in the perspective of the military and political strategy of David.

:4-f

4,lrr

Fig. 7. Members of the Hebrew Union College study group on a visit to Tell Shari'ah under the writer's direction in April, 1965. Photo by James L. Swauger (from a Kodacolor print, Carnegie Museum 5724).

In considering the initial conquests of David one must assume, first of all, that he took very seriouslythe older territorialclaims of the tribes. Thus, in his initial struggles against the Philistines he recaptured the tribal area of Dan which stretched from Beth-shemesh to Jaffa and the Yarkon River. If the reconstruction of that territory in Joshua 20:40 46 is to be followed, then one must suppose that David took Ekron from the Philistines also (vs. 43).28 Gath-rimmon on the Yarkon (Tell ej-Jerisheh?) became a Levitical 27. During the past academic year certain top Israeli archaeologists have I cannot be right in this identification, because Tell Shari'ah has no museum of the kibbutz Mishmar ha-Negeb, within whose fields the tell of Philistine pottery from the tell on permanent exhibit. 28. So also A. Malamat, Journal of Near Eastern Studies, XXII (1963),

said in conversation that Philistine ware. Yet the exists, has fine examples 1-17, esp. 11-14.

84

THE BIBLICALARCHAEOLOGIST

(Vol. XXIX

city (Josh. 21:24), as did Gibbethon (Tell Melat) and Eltekeh (Tell eshShelaf?) well out in the plain, east of Gezer. This whole Danite region was then organized by Solomon into his second administrativedistrict with a Ben-deker as provincial governor (I Kings 4:9).29 Gezer does not come into Israelite possession until the time of Solomon, and was understood as Egyptian property which Pharaoh had authority to give to Israel (I Kings 9:16). From this it must be inferred that David purposely refrained from taking Gezer, but left it completely isolated and surrounded.30 We can go further with territory controlled by the Philistines during the 11th century. David evidently took control of the plain of Sharon to the north, and Solomon attached it to his third province of Sochoh (western Manasseh).'3 The territoryof Dor became Solomon'sfourth district (I Kings 4:11), while the Esdraelon plain with Megiddo and Taanach, together with Beth-shan and the northern Jordan valley as far south as Zarathan (Tell es-Sa'idiyeh?) became the Solomonic fifth province (I Kings 4:12). In other words, the territorycontrolled by the Philistines, with which by the end of the 12th century they had sought to split and virtually surround Israel, must all be assumed to have been taken by David, and then organized into the Solomonic system of provinces. As for the southern plain, David certainly pushed the Philistines out of the lowland area of Judah, recovering such sites occupied by Israelites as Beth-shemesh, Azekah, Tell es-Safi (Libnah?), Lachish, Eglon (Tell elHesi, well out in the plain), and Debir. The unfortified Philistine Tell Sippor, on the other hand, was abandoned. With his possible capture of the fourth and certain capture of the fifth Philistine cities (Ekron and Gath respectively), we infer that David pushed Philistine control back to their three primary cities, Gaza, Ashkelon and Ashdod. He did not take over these cities, and the situation with Gezer may provide the clue to his reason. The Philistines were Pharaoh'svassals. David refrained from taking over their original city-state grant for the same reason that he refrained from taking Gezer, namely his respect for Egyptian claims, and his desire not to become involved with Egypt if he could help it. Nevertheless, he quite evidently gave himself the benefit of the doubt in deciding what part of those Egyptian claims would be allowed and what part had to be considered Israelite (e.g., Dor, Megiddo, and Beth-shan). 29. See the writer's forthcoming study of the Solomonic province list (I Kings 4:7-19) in the Sukenik memorial volume of Eretz-Israel. 30. We can no longer assume that Gezer was not taken because it was too strong for David to capture. It seems perfectly clear that David's army was sufficiently powerful to take anything that he wanted. It must be assumed, therefore, that if Gezer was not taken, he had a political, not a military, reason for refraining. 31. Since the territory involved in this province is much debated, the writer can only refer to his forthcoming paper (n. 29) in which the attempt to solve this problem is a central issue of the discussion.

1966, 3)

THE BIBLICALARCHAEOLOGIST

85

In the analysis of Davidic strategy the writer with his students spent a very profitable evening in the home of David Alon (April, 1965) at Kibbutz Mishmar ha-Negeb, discussing the above questions with him and with Ram Gophna, the Inspector of the Department of Antiquities for the Negeb area. Few men know the geography of the Tell Shari'ah area better than David Alon and Ram Gophna. My question to them was this: If you were King David and had confined the Philistines to their three coastal cities, how would you set up a defense system against them in this southern area of the plain? The answer was that there is no natural defense of the area anywhere to the east, except the Judean hills. If a southeasterlydefense point against Gaza were to be establishedin the southern plain, the Wadi Shari'ah is the only feature of military significance. It would certainly have been used, and the key fortification could only be Tell Shari'ah itself. Indeed when one considers the whole picture from a military standpoint, the logical line of Davidic defense against the Philistines would have been a line drawn between three major control points: Tell Shari'ah, Tell el-Hesi, and Tell es-Safi. At this point one final mystery of the area began to make sense. The writer had been puzzled by three tiny tells in use during the Israelite period between the Lachish region and the Tell el-Hesi perimeter. They are too small to have been Israelite villages; in size and shape they are more like the Arad fort-hill. These sites are Tell Bornat, "Tell Gath," and Tell Quneitirah. The last mentioned was certainly occupied in the Late Bronze Age also32 and must then have been an outpost of the Lachish city-state.To consider these tiny cones as Israelite fortressesin front of the Lachish pass and behind the Tell el-Hesi advanced position would solve what otherwise seemed to the writer a very peculiar feature of the archaeologicallandscape in this region. All of the above, however, is by way of pointing to the pivotal significance of Tell Shari'ah. Before David's time it had not been within the area of Israelite settlement. It had been a Late Bronze Age city-state center, and in taking it over the Philistines were establishing control of the whole inner plain at the point where the rainfall per year begins to dwindle and the Negeb begins. For these reasons, and for the others suggested in this article, Tell Shari'ah can be presented as an ideal candidate for Philistine Gath. A citystate bordering on the territoryof Judah, its king a vassal first of the Philis32. The writer must express his gratitude to the Reverend William Broughton whose extensive collection of sherds from the surface of Tell Quneitirah was put at the disposal of Hebrew Union College where they were labelled and added to the collection begun by the writer in the Jerusalem School. Late Bronze sherds were the earliest found on the site.

86

THE BIBLICALARCHAEOLOGIST

(Vol. XXIX

tines and then of David and Solomon, its site refortifiedby Rehoboam (II Chron. 11:8) - all this furnishes a literary interpretation of what must have been in any case the military realities of topographic control.

,k, w

;

-aL

4pw '.

"t'D

.,,

At

'

_. "r

??

.

Fig. 8. A worker sits on the mud-brick wall of a Philistine round house from about the 11th century, B.C. It was found in Area H at Ashdod during the 1965 campaign of the joint expedition of Carnegie Museum and the Israel Department of Antiquities. Photo by James L. Swauger, from a Kodacolor print, Carnegie Museum 5975.

Philistia Under Assyrian Rule HAYIM TADMOR The Hebrew

University,

Jerusalem

Philistia, astride the "Way of the Sea" (Is. 8:23), was throughout its history on the direct route of military expeditions coming from Egypt to Palestine, Syria, and the Euphrates, and of armies advancing upon Egypt from the north. Its position on the major international trade routes, and its possession of convenient ports and a developed maritime trade made it a natural target for conquest. Assyrian rule in Philistia began with the first campaigns of Tiglathpileser III and lasted until about 630 B.C.; it can be divided into (a) the period of military campaigns aimed at the conquest of Philistia proFer the reigns of Tiglath-pileser III and Sargon, and (b) the period of consoli-

1966, 3)

87

THE BIBLICALARCHAEOLOGIST

dation of Assyrian rule in Philistia - the reigns of Sennacherib, Esarhaddon and the early years of Ashurbanipal.' Though subject to Assyria, to a lesser or greater degree the rich Philistine cities managed to retain their semi-independence.Their commercial and internal freedom was bought with high tribute to the Assyrian king and his court. Caught between Assyria and Egypt, the cities developed a Farticular flexibility, continually adapting themselves to the fluctuating political situation, at some periods swearing allegiance to both sides. Thus they had the capacity to endure, while greater, more important kingdoms were totally annihilated. The large Philistine cities fall into three categories: those situated directly on the coast, whose main approach was from the sea - Ashkelon and Jaffa;2 those in the interior - Ekron and Gath;3 and those on the coastal road4 somewhat removed from the coast - Ashdod and Gaza. The latter, together with Ashkelon, were the main Forts between Tyre and the Delta, and the main outlets for the rich Arabian trade, which had been flourishing since the 10th century B.C.5 The Reign of Tiglath-pileser

III (745-727 B.C.)

The first Assyrian invasion into Philistia, reaching as far as the Egyptian border, was the result of a combination of political, military and economic circumstances evolving out of the Assyrian activity in Syria and Phoenicia, rather than out of any preconceived scheme of Assyrian kings for world dominion. Tiglath-pileser, the great conqueror and the founder of the Assyrian Empire, was occupied from 742 to 738 with the conquest of Arpad and the rest of northern Syria and with the war against Azriyau of Yaudi (=Azariah/Uzziah of Judah), the leader of the north Syrian coalition. With the defeat of Azariah and his allies (738),6 direct Assyrian rule extended down to the Biqeah, south of Hamath, and to Phoenicia. This period marks the beginning of the active Assyrian interest in the maritime trade between the main Phoenician cities (Byblos, Arvad, Sidon and Tyre) and Philistia. 1. An article by the author on the Assyrian campaigns to Philistia appeared in Hebrew in 1964,

in The

Military

History

of the

Land

of Israel

in Biblical

Times,

ed. by J. Liver,

That article is the basis for this one. See also W. W. Hallo, BA, XXIII (1960),

pp.

261-285.

34-61. The

abbreviations have been employed: ANET, Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the following Old Testament, ed. by J. B. Pritchard Ancient Records of ARAB, D. D. Luckenbill, (1950); vols. I & II (1926); Assyria and Babylonia, Biblica, vols. I-IV HEB, the Hebrew Encyclopedia Israel IEJ, Exploration Studies; JNES, Journal (1950-1952); Journal; JCS, Journal of Cuneiform of Near Eastern Studies.

2. Jaffa had been under Ashkelon's control apparently from the very beginning of Philistine settlement in Canaan. See further IEJ, X (1960), 54. 3. On the question of whether Gath of the Philistines existed during the 8th century, in spite of Amos 6:2, see B. Mazar, HEB, II, cols. 571-572. 4. On the significance of this road, the Via Maris of the Crusaders, see Y. Aharoni, The Land of Israel in Biblical Times (1962), pp. 33-42 (Hebrew, soon to appear in English translation). Cf. also M. Avi-Yonah, IEJ, I (1950/51), 54-60. 5. G. W. van Beek, BA, XXIII (1960), 70ff. 6. Tadmor, Scripta Hierosolymitana, VIII (1961), 232-271. E. R. Thiele, however, dates Azariah's encounter with Assyria to 743. See the revised edition of The Mysterious Numbers of Hebrew Kings (1965), pp. 90-115. Further evidence in favor of 738 will be adduced in our forthcoming new edition of the Annals of Tiglath-pileser III.

88

THE BIBLICALARCHAEOLOGIST

(Vol. XXIX

A new document from Calah (Nimrud),7 sheds considerable light on the background of the early Assyrian relations with Philistia. It is a letter from an Assyrian official stationed near Tyre, perhaps at Simirra, to Tiglath-pileser, stating that he had sent orders to the people of Sidon not to trade with the Egyptians and the Philistines. It would seem then that the Assyrians were seeking to curb the Phoenicians and to establish a monopoly on their chief export, timber. The exact date of the letter is unknown, but if the proposal to date it at 738-7348 is accepted, the document would lend support to the hypothesis that the first campaign to Philistia in 734 was largely motivated by the Assyrian aim of dominating the Mediterranean seaports and gaining control over their commerce. Once the Assyrian rule over the Phoenician coastal cities was firmly established, Philistia became the next target. The upheaval and unrest that accompanied Judah's rapid decline provided the perfect opportunity for the campaign of 734.9 It is unlikely that this Assyrian expedition was motivated by the appeal of Ahaz to Tiglath-pileser to rescue Judah from the armies of Aram and Israel (II Kings 16:7-9). A re-evaluationof the chronology for the years 734-733 makes it plausible that this appeal be dated after 734.10 Some new details of the first Assyrian campaign to Philistia have recently come to light from a fragmentaryinscription of Tiglath-pileser from Calah. According to this text," the Assyrian army set out from Phoenicia, marching south down the coast. The only Philistine city mentioned is Gaza, which was captured and sacked. Hanun (Hanno), the king of Gaza, managed to flee to Egypt, apparently seeking aid from the king of Bubastis. Having failed, he returned to his city and surprisingly enough, was reinstated as king under Assyrian vassalage. The reconciliation with Hanun was, in fact, in accord with Assyrian policy. The Assyrians were not as yet interested in annexing Philistia. As a rule, they did not annex an area unless it bordered directly on an Assyrian territory, and at that time their southernmost province was Simirra in Phoenicia. Tiglath-pileser therefore incorporated Gaza into his realm of tribute-bearingstates, while allowing it full autonomy as the largest commercial city on the threshhold of Egypt. Having captured Gaza, Tiglath-pileser advanced south as far as the "City of the Brook of Egypt" - near or at modern el-'Arish, where he had set up a stele to mark the southernmostlimit of his empire. 7. H. W. Saggs, Iraq, XVII (1955), 127-128. 8. Ibid., pp. 149-150. 9. The unprecedented into the Shephelah Philistine and the valley of Aijalon (II expansion Chron. 28:18) took place a short time before or, more likely, immediately after the campaign of 734, in conjunction with Judah's defeat at the hands of Pekah and Rezin (II Chron. 28:5-15; Is. 7:1-3). 10. Tadmor, Scripta Hierosolymitana, HEB, IV, cols. 283-287. VIII, 263-265; 11. ND 400, published see A. Alt, Kleine in Iraq, XIII (1951), by D. J. Wiseman 21-24; 150-162. II (1953), Schriften,

THE BIBLICALARCHAEOLOGIST

1966, 3)

89

The above-mentioned inscription from Calah shows that after reachBrook of Egypt, the Assyrians turned upon the Meunites (Mu'unthe ing aia). This is the first reference to the Meunim/Maon in a non-Biblical source.12 According to our restoration of the damaged section of the inscription, they were situated "South of Eg[ypt]" (i.e. south or southeast of el-'Arish), probably in the area of Kadesh-Barnea,on the trade routes coming up from Arabia and Edom and meeting the coastal road at el-'Arish. The extent of Tiglath-pileser'sclaim of having killed 9,400 people indicates the strength of the Meunites in northern Sinai. The erection of the victory stele at the Brook of Egypt symbolized the final military achievement of the Assyrians in 734. Now, having conquered all of Syria and Palestine, from the Taurus to the Egyptian border, the Assyrian Emperor could justifiably declare himself ruler over all the lands "from the Bitter Sea of Bit Yakin . . . as far as Egypt, from the horizon to the heights of heaven" (ARAB I ?787). And indeed, the list of vassal kings who paid tribute that year includes almost all the kings of southern Anatolia, Syria and Palestine, among them Mitinti of Ashkelon, Hanun of Gaza and Mu-she-hu-[. . .],13 apparently of Ekron or Ashdod (ARAB I ?801). During the next two years, 733-732, Tiglath-pileser set about destroythe power of Damascus and Samaria - the "Syro-Ephraimiteleague". ing This new coalition, designed originally to reduce Judah,14 seems later to have included Tyre and Ashkelon. The royal annals relating these events though badly damaged, reveal that after laying siege to Damascus (733), the Assyrian army overran Galilee and proceeded from there along the coast to Ashkelon.15The text seems to imply that Mitinti, king of Ashkelon, upon witnessing Rezin's defeat and the siege of Damascus, fled or perished, and that Rukibti, possibly Mitinti's son, became king in his place (ARAB I ?779). At this point, in conjunction with Ashkelon, the fragmentary annals introduce Idibi'ilu, an Arab tribe, identical with the Adbe'el, a descendant of Ishmael in Gen. 25:13.16 This enigmatic reference to Idibi'ilu is clarified in another text (ANET, p. 282), which states that Tiglath-pileser entrusted to that tribe the office of the "Gatekeeper over the border of Egypt"17 - a most unusual title for a tribe. It would follow then that the Assyrians established the Idibi'ilu as a subordinate force to control the area 12. Cf. A. Musil, The Northern Hegaz (1926),

Bible

pp. 182-183.

(1934),

pp. 243-247; J. A. Montgomery, Arabia and the

13. Or Mu-se-pak[. . . .], but not Mu-su-[ri], as previously read. He was possibly the king of Ekron or of Ashkelon. For the events in 14. Judah, see A. Alt, Kleine Schriften, II (1953), 163-187 (but cf. Scripta Hierosolymitana,

VIII,

250-257).

15. The conquest of Gezer (written Gazru), depicted on one of Tiglath-pileser's reliefs must have occurred during that campaign. It was shortly after the city, very much reduced in size during the 7th century, had been fortified by the Ekronites (cf. Z. Kallai, The Northern Boundaries of Judah [1960], p. 68; p. 71, note 49 (Hebrew). 16. W.

F. Albright,

Studi

Orientalistici

in onore di Giorgio

Levi Della

Vida

(1956),

I, 13-14.

17. See A. L. Oppenheim in ANET, p. 282, note 2; and W. von Soden, Akkadisches Handw5r-

terbuch,

p.

88

(under

atfitu).

90

THE BIBLICALARCHAEOLOGIST

(Vol. XXIX

south of Philistia, possibly in place of the defeated Meunites. This special arrangement entailed neither an actual conquest nor the stationing of a garrison in that remote area. Moreover, it gave Assyria an indirect control over the Arabian trade and its main western arteries, the highways leading from Edom through Kadesh-Barneaand el-'Arish to Philistia. This was an important step towards the Assyrian domination over more distant Arab tribes led by Shamshi the Arabian queen (ARAB I ??817-818).

n, htx V.

j ?:.? Z 'IMF --PIs ~~]~~c

7

SIN'~.?

Ar

k4-.:

wv- 5N,

I ll . Jig

vj tq .4

N&74?4;

_ Naz?:

,

NI

1

li~S

f.?l .:;` I ? f too-:?: ?i'

zi ii

:

lq

Fig. 9. The Assyrian siege of Ekron by Sargon II, as depicted in the reliefs of Hall V at DurSharrukin (Khorsabad). From the drawing of Faucher-Gudin after that of Flandin, published

in Maspero's

The

Passing

of the Empires,

p. 250.

The Reign of Sargon II (721-7015 B.C.)

The effect of Tiglath-pileser'sexploits in Philistia was strongly felt for years thereafter, and it is no wonder that news of his death in 727 - the same year in which Ahaz, king of Judah, died'8 - stirred up waves of agitation throughout the country. It was this occasion that moved Isaiah to prophesy against Philistia: "Rejoice not, O Philistia, all of you, that the rod which smote you is broken, for from the serpent's root will come forth an adder, and its fruit will be a flying serpent . . ." (Is. 14:29 ff.). Philistia, 18. J. Begrich,

Zeitschrift

der Deutschen

Morgenliindischen

Gesellschaft,

LXXXIII

(1929),

213ff.

1966, 3)

THE BIBLICALARCHAEOLOGIST

91

however, seems to have taken no part in Samaria'slast war against Assyria, which ended in the defeat of Samaria at the hands of Shalmaneser V and in her fall. However, when Sargon II ascended the throne at the end of 722 or the very beginning of 721, Hanun of Gaza joined the Syro-Palestinianrebellion headed by Yaubi'di, king of Hamath, and supported by Egypt. The Assyrian documents speak specifically of the connection between Hanun and Re'u, the "Tartan" of the Egyptian Pharaoh, probably Tefnakht of Sais (XXIVth dynasty).19Along with Gaza and Hamath, the rather recently established provinces of Arpad, Hatarika (Hadrach), Simirra and Damascus shook off the Assyrian yoke and revolted. Also Samaria, evacuated by the Assyrian army on the death of Shalmaneser V in 722, joined in the rebellion.20

Despite the vast circumference of the coalition, it soon became clear that all hope for independence was in vain. After consolidating his rule in Assyria and reaching a certain balance in his relations with MerodachBaladan in Babylon, Sargon set out in 720 to suppress the revolt in the western part of his empire. He defeated the coalition near Qarqar in central Syria, conquered Hamath, took Yaubi'di prisoner, and turned south toward Gaza crushing beneath him all of Philistia. In dire straits Hanun called for aid from Egypt, but the Egyptian army was intercepted at Raphiah, south of Gaza. No details of this battle have been preserved in Egyptian records and we have only the Assyrian account which claims sarcasticallythat the defeated Re'u "fled, like a shepherd (re'u in Akkadian) whose flock had been robbed" (ARAB II ?5). Raphiah was taken; and with the retreat of the Egyptian forces, Gaza offered no resistance. Hanun was captured and led to Assyria in chains, and Gaza again became a vassal city. She seemed to have learned her lesson well, and henceforth, despite the unrest which continued to prevail in Palestine during the reigns of Sargon and his successors, remained loyal to Assyria. The relationship between Assyria and Gaza can be best understood in the light of Gaza's economic importance. Controlling Gaza, Assyria could extend her rule further into Arabia while Gaza would continue to reap the profit from the Arabian trade, an arrangement which was mutually advantageous. Continued commercial control over this area, however, demanded a firmer military consolidation than the campaign of 720 had provided, and Sargon had to return to Egypt's doorstep four years later, in 716. This campaign to the "City of the Brook of Egypt," is not mentioned in the annals. It came to light from a fragment of a clay-prism from the 19. On the reading re'u instead of sib'u, see R. Borger, JNES, 64-66. Sais, see H. Goedicke, BASOR, No. 171 (Oct., 1963), 20. Tadmor, JCS, XII (1958), 33-39.

XIX

(1960),

49-53.

On S6'=

92

THE BIBLICALARCHAEOLOGIST

(Vol. XXIX

excavations of Assur, published in 194121: ". .. together with . . . sheep . . . [from the land of . . . I deported] in the land that [. . . I settled, and the cities] on the border of the City of the Brook of E[gypt, a province which is on the shore of] the Western [sea], I settled them; [to the hands of my prefect] the prince of the city of Laban [I entrusted them]. Silkanni king of Egypt - a remote place - the fear of the splendor of Assur my Lord [overwhelmed him and] he brought to me as his present 12 big horses of Egypt, their like not to be found in Assyria." It seems that Sargon established a settlement of exiles to serve as a permanent military garrison on the very border of Egypt. The entire area was then given over to the "Prince of the City of Laban."22It also seems that Raphiah itself was never rebuilt. In committing the area to the rule of a local chieftain, Sargon created a buffer region which though not actually annexed to Assyria, remained loyal for a long time despite its location on the Egyptian border. It appears that the king of Egypt, Shilkanni (apparently Osorkon IV, the last of the Pharaohs of the XXIII dynasty)23was by no means interested in fighting Sargon. Both sides wanted, apparently, peaceful relations and normal trade. And indeed, the economic activities of Sargon on the Egyptian border are illuminated by a new prism inscription, again from Calah. The passage in question says, "I opened the sealed [harbo]r of Egypt. The Assyrians and Egyptians I mingled to[gether] and I made them trade [with each other]."24 This passage of great importance elucidates the economic motives behind the military campaigns on the Egyptian border, and in no uncertain terms declares that the successful economic endeavors were the crowning achievement of a military victory. No indication is given as to the whereabouts of the "sealed harbor"(karu). Sargon may be referring to Pelusium, but since karu is often used to designate any commercial settlement and not necessarily a sea-port, the fortress of Sile may be intended.25 We would also date to this period - sometime after 716 - a letter from Calah informing the king that foreign chieftains from Egypt, Gaza, Judah, Moab and Ammon had arrived at the capital with tributes.26It also mentions the Edomites, Ashdodites, and Ekronites. It is quite certain that 21. E. Weidner, Archiv fiir Orientforschung, XIV (1941), 44-45; and Tadmor, JCS, XII (1958), 41. Also, A. Alt, Kleine Schriften, and ANET, p. 286(c). II, 226-234; 22. Alt, Kleine Schriften, II, 230; also F. W. Abel, Revue Biblique, XLVIII (1939), 539; XLIX 228. (1940), 23. W. F. Albright, BASOR, No. 141 (Feb., 1956), 23-25. 24. JCS, XII (1958), in Trade and Market in the 34, lines 36-48. Cf. also A. L. Oppenheim Early Empires, ed. by K. Polanyi, C. M. Arensberg, and H. W. Pearson (1957), p. 35. 25. On the Egyptian fortresses and harbors in the Delta, see H. Kees in Ancient Egypt (1961), pp. 183ff. 26. ND 2765, published 134. by H. W. Saggs, Iraq, XVII (1955),

93

THE BIBLICALARCHAEOLOGIST

1966, 3)

messengers from Ashkelon are also mentioned, though the passage is badly broken. Gaza's tribute of twenty-four horses (double the amount of Shilkanni's "tribute") - is singled out for special mention. Another interesting example of the rich tribute levied on Philistia is found in a letter sent to Sargon, most probably by Sennacherib, then crown prince.27It is a detailed account of the tribute of two Philistine cities. It was the m.nddattu ( mindah of Ezra 4:13), a fixed annual tribute, and the namurtu (or tamnartu)a gift in honor of a special event. Unfortunately some parts of the letter are 1,4

l :~~i? Ilk"J

1

iNi

fell

Z'k

0

''cliF." 7.i~1

vF.. Air'~

J191, 4L4'!

WITl

Fig. 10. Sargon's siege of Gibbethon in a relief from Hall V at Khorsabad. From the drawing of Faucher-Gudin after Flandin, in Maspero's The Passing of the Empires, p. 239.

broken and the names of the cities are missing. The first may well be Ashdod since "Azu[ri]", the king of Ashdod, is mentioned there. The other might be identified with either Ashkelon or Gaza. The tax consisted mainly of silver, linen suits, robes (the scribe uses the Hebrew word saddin by that time a loan-word in Akkadian), robes of byssus (saddin busi), tent cloth, dried fish, and sheaves of papyrus for the chief scribe. This tribute was pre-apportionedto the royal family and to the various court officials including, in order of their importance, the Queen, the Crown Prince, the Vizier, the turtanu, the Chief Justice, the Chief Eunuch, etc. 27. The latest edition is by WV. J. Martin, Studia Orientalia, VIII/1 (1936),

Pfeiffer,

State

Letters

of Assyria

(1935),

No.

98.

40-49. Cf. a!so R.

THE BIBLICALARCHAEOLOGIST

94

(Vol. XXIX

Recently, an almost identical tribute-list dating from the reign of Sargon (but without the benefactors at the court), has come to light from Calah. Though the tablet is badly damaged, the traces of cuneiform signs in line 17 show that the tribute was paid by Gaza.28 The year 712 marked the last stage of Sargon's military activities in Philistia, the war against Ashdod. A year before that, in 713, Azuri, Ashdod's king, was accused of treachery and deported. His brother Ahimetu was then enthroned in his place (ARAB II ?30). By the end of 713 or by the beginning of 712,29 anti-Assyrianextremistshad overthrownAhimetu and replaced him by a commoner called Yamani. This usurper, a Philistine, and not, as usually believed, a Greek or a Cypriot adventurer,30 turned out to be an enterprising and ambitious man. According to Sargon's account (ARAB II ?30; ANET 286), he contacted his neighbors - the other Philistine cities as well as Judah, Edom and Moab - in an attempt to stir up a rebellion, and he requested Egypt's aid. Anticipating an Assyrian attack he fortified Ashdod against siege, building a deep moat and a high wall (ARAB II ?195; ANET p. 287). When news of Ashdod's revolt reached Sargon, he dispatched his army under the leadership of the commander in chief, the turtanu, explicitly referred to in Isaiah 20:1 as the Tartan "who . . . came to Ashdod and fought against it and took it."31 The campaign is eloquently described in the Annals (ARAB ?30) and in the "Display Inscription" (ibid. ?62) from Dur-Sharrukin (Khorsabad) composed about 707. Two wall reliefs, also from Dur-Sharrukin, must be related to the same campaign. They show the siege of Amqarruna (=Ekron) and Gabbutunu (=Gibbeton).32 Another piece of evidence comes from a small fragment of a tablet33 recording the Assyrian attack on Azaq5 ( Azekah in Judah). This assault on Azekah (Tell ez-Zakariyeh), if correctly dated to 712, was undertaken to intimidate Judah into submission and to prevent Hezekiah from aiding Ashdod; and it indeed succeeded, for Judah remained subjugated to Assyria until Sargon's death. When the Assyrians approached Ashdod, Yamani fled to Egypt for help. However, as the princes of the Delta could not or would not intervene, he was forced to continue to Nubia, but was detained there.34In the 28. ND 2672, published by B. Parker, Iraq, XXIII (1961), 42 and P1. XXII. 29. For the chronological setting of the campaign against Ashdod, see Tadmor, JCS, XII (1958), 79ff.; cf. Hallo, BA, XXIII (1960), 56. 30. JCS, XII (1958), 80, note 217. 31. Sargon himself remained in Assyria that year; see JCS, XII (1958), 79. 32. M. El-Amin, Sumer, IX (1953), 21-33; and Tadmor, JCS, XII (1958), 83, note 283. 33. Republished in JCS, XII (1958), 80-81. 34. The rights of fugitives and political exiles usually honored in Egypt, were not extended to Yamani. He was sent back to Nineveh in chains. It is therefore possible that some sort of a formal agreement, which provided for the extradition of runaway slaves or vassals, already existed between Sargon and the Ethiopian king Shabaka. Diplomatic relations with Shabaka continued after Sargon's death. This is evidenced by a clay seal-impression of Shabaka, originally applied on a papyrus roll, found in Sennacherib's palace in Nineveh; see A. H. Layard, Discoveries in Nineveh and Babylon,

I (1853),

156-159.

THE BIBLICALARCHAEOLOGIST

1966, 3)

95

meantime, Ashdod, her port Ashdod-Yam (Asdudimmu in Assyrian, i.e. Ashdod-on-Sea) and Gath35were captured; with that the campaign came to an end. To commemorate the victory a basalt stele was erected, fragments of which were recently discovered in the excavations of Ashdod.36

lSlr

_4 4t

. ..

Fig. 11. Three chunks of a stele erected by Sargon II in the city of Ashdod, commemorating his capture of the city. Found in the ruins by the joint expedition currently excavating Ashdod. Photos from color slides by James L. Swauger.

According to the Annals, Ashdod was organized as a new Assyrian province ruled by a governor; still, her political status from 712 to the middle of the 7th century poses a problem. There is some evidence that alongside the Assyrian governors- one of them even served as an eponym in the year 669 - local kings were ruling in Ashdod. Two of them are known: Mitinti in 701 and Ahimilki in 677 and in 667 (see Table). A similar arrangement had been made by Esarhaddon in 671; after conquering lower Egypt and organizing it as an Assyrian province he allowed local princes to retain their status side by side with the Assyrian governors (ANET, p. 213a). A new Calah document recently brought to light some evidence that Ashdod was not exceptional already in the days of Sargon. A letter dating almost certainly to his reign mentions a king of Que (Cilicia), and kings of Tabal, Assyrian provinces by that time ruled by governors (ARAB II ??25, 42).37 The Reign of Sennacherib

(705-681 B.C.)

Sargon's death on the battlefield in Anatolia in 705 was the signal for simultaneous rebellion; Babylonia rebelled first and the majority of the vassals in the west were soon to follow. The two Philistine cities, Ashkelon and Ekron, took this time an active part in the rebellion, mainly because 35. On the identity of this Gath, see B. Mazar, IEJ, IV (1954), 231. 36. M. Dothan, IEJ, XIV (1964), 87, and D. N. Freedman, BA, XXVI (1963), 138. The fragments will be published in the forthcoming Sukenik Memorial Volume (Eretz Israel, VIII). 37. Saggs, Iraq, XX (1958), 182-184, 205-207; see also B. Landsberger, Sam'al, I (1948), 73-74 and 78, note 207.

96

THE BIBLICALARCHAEOLOGIST

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of the ominous proximity of Assyria in the province of Ashdod. Revolts broke out in both cities. In Ashkelon the loyal Rukibti was replaced by Sidqa, apparently his younger brother; in Ekron Hezekiah intervened, deposed the loyal Assyrian vassal, took him captive to Jerusalem, and left the city in the hands of local nobility, protagonists of the rebellion. Another factor in the anti-Assyrianstand of Ashkelon and Ekron was the now growing aggressive policy of the Ethiopians. Apparently the Ethiopian king felt that Sargon's death and the unrest that gripped the Assyrian Empire provided the proper opportunityto drive Assyria away from the Egyptian border, to break her commercialmonopoly in Philistia and eventually even to expand into Philistia. For four years Sennacherib took no steps to quell the rebellion in Philistia. But in the year 701, after having settled affairs in Babylon, Sennacherib advanced against Philistia and Judah. The well-known account of Sennacherib's campaign to Palestine has come down from the third edition of his Annals, composed in the year 700 and copied thereafterin all the following editions;38the most famous is the last edition covering eight campaigns - the Taylor Prism and the Chicago Oriental Institute Prism (ARAB II ??233 if; ANET 287). Though subject to detailed study for half a century, the chronological order of the various stages in that campaign, especially that part pertaining to Judah and its relation to the biblical account, is far from clear.39 However, that part of the narrativepertaining to Philistia poses no grave difficulties, although the sites of the battles, Eltekeh and Libnah (II Kings 19:8), have not as yet been identified. This is the apparent sequence of events in 701: (a) the king of Sidon (and of Tyre) Elulaeus, an active participant of the revolt, fled to Cyprus (ARAB II ?309) at the approach of the Assyrians. (b) Sennacherib settled the succession to the throne and accepted near Tyre (ibid. ?310) the homage of most of the vassal kings of Phoenicia and Palestine. The only Philistine ruler present was Mitinti of Ashdod.40(c) From there the Assyrian army marched along the coastal road, reached Ashkelon's territory at the vicinity of Jaffa and conquered Jaffa together with Beth-Dagon, Azor and Bnei-Brak.The road to Ashkelon now lay open, but the annals do not men38. The text of the third recension of Sennacherib's Annals, the so-called "Rassam Cylinder," has actually never been published in full, since it is duplicated by the later recensions. It differs from them only in several minor details. See R. Borger, Babylonisch-assyrische Lesestiicke (1963), Heft III, 59. 39. We assume here that Sennacherib undertook only one campaign to Palestine and not two, as suggested

by some

scholars

since

George

Rawlinson's

The

Five

Great Monarchies

of the Ancient

Eastern World, II, 439-446. See the full bibliography of the supporters of the two-campaign theory in H. H. Rowley's

exhaustive

paper in the Bulletin

of the John Rylands

Library,

XLIV

(1961/2),

405-406, notes 3-4 (add now S. H. Horn, Andrews University Seminary Studies, IV [1966], 1-28). However, the critical discussion of the various theories by L. I. Honor, Sennacherib's Invasion of Palestine (1926) is still very valid. 40. Gaza is not mentioned among the vassal states whose kings swore loyalty to Assyria near Tyre, nor is she listed among those that rebelled. Possibly she fell for a short period under the Nubian domination.

1966, 3)

THE BIBLICALARCHAEOLOGIST

97

tion any siege of the city nor do they describe the plunder which usually accompanied an Assyrian victory. Very possibly Ashkelon surrenderedwithout a battle. The rebel king Sidqa was overthrown in what seemed to have been an internal coup and a new king bearing a typical Assyrian vassal name, Sharru-lu-dari("May the King Live Forever!"), ascended the throne. Sidqa, his family and his gods, were turned over to the Assyrians and led to exile; Ashkelon was spared. (d) The next step was the battle for Ekron (Khirbet el-Muqanna').41 However at this point the Nubian king arrived to aid his allies. Sennacherib relaxed the siege of Ekron and confronted the Nubian army, composed mostly of chariots and archers, near Eltekeh.42 Though Sennacherib's annals describe the defeat of the Ethiopians, it is quite apparent that the "victory"was rather exaggerated; no cogent details of the defeat are given (except the statement about prisoners taken "in the midst of the battle"), no numbers are mentioned, no booty is listed. Instead, the royal scribe introduces the booty taken from Eltekeh and Timna, two small fortresses of the Ekronites. Finally, the Egyptians were not pursued, as would have been natural had they been totally defeated. (e) After the retreat of the Nubian army, Sennacherib resumed the siege of Ekron. Here as in Ashkelon, those loyal to Assyria and to Padi (still held in Jerusalem) got the upper hand, and the city surrendered.Later, after Hezekiah's submission, Padi was released and reinstated as the king of Ekron. Sennacherib's lenient policy towards Philistia is manifested by his attitude towards Ashkelon and Ekron: a change of rulers, usually within one dynasty, sufficed the Assyrians; the frequently rebellious cities were not annexed as provinces nor was their population exiled. Moreover, Sennacherib expropriated territory from Judah and presented it to Ashdod, Ekron, and Gaza and, according to one recension of the annals (ARAB II ?312), to Ashkelon. Thus, the balance of power between the four cities of Philistia was preserved and Philistia was consolidated as a semi-neutral buffer area between Assyria and Egypt. The Reigns

of Esarhaddon

and Ashurbanipal

(680-627 B.C.)

Contrary to his father, Esarhaddonfavored an aggressivemilitary policy as a means of maintaining economic and political control of Phoenicia and Philistia. In 679, approximately a year and a half after his accession, he undertook his first campaign to Philistia, plundered Arsa, a hitherto unknown place on the Egyptian border and took captive its king, Asuhili.43 41. J. Naveh, IEJ, VIII (1958), 87-100. 42. B. Mazar identifies Eltekeh now with Tell esh-Shelaf. See Bulletin of the Israel Exploration Society, XXIV (1960), 8ff. (Hebrew), and the article by G. E. Wright in this issue of BA. 43. R. Campbell Thompson, The Prisms of Esarhaddon and Ashurbanipal (1931), p. 18, lines Asarhaddons 39-46; R. Borger, Die Inschriften von Assyrien (1956), p. 50, Episode 7. The correct reading is Arsa or Arza, not ArzaniK6nigs (as in ANET, p. 292). The older reading Arin Alt's Kleine sa-a-sa-pa (repeated Schriften, III [1959], 53, note 3) was corrected by F. H. Weissbach in Zeitschrift fiir Assyriologie, XLI (1927), 108. In spite of a certain similarity in the names, Arsa may not be identical with el-'Arish (Rhinokulura), as often suggested, but should be sought in one of the mounds between Qal'at el-'Arish and Raphiah.

98

THE BIBLICALARCHAEOLOGIST

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The motives behind this campaign are not clear. It is possible that during the last decade of Sennacherib's reign the southwestern frontier had been neglected, and the new energetic Nubian king, Tirhaka (Taharqa), succeeded in extending Egypt's sphere of influence into Philistia and even to Phoenicia. The campaign against the rather insignificant Arsa was then essentially a show of force demonstratingthat Assyria alone ruled in Philistia and warning Tirhaka against any attempt to assert himself in that area. Two years later, in 677-6, Esarhaddon attacked Sidon, which apparently refused to comply with Assyria's severe economic demands.44Here too his actions were extreme. He destroyedthe city - an unprecedented act toward a major Phoenician port - executed its king and carried his head in a triumphal procession through the streets of Nineveh (ARAB II ?528; ANET p. 291a). At a site near Sidon - possibly Tell Bouraq41 - he founded an Assyrian commercial colony, Kar-Ashshur-ahu-iddina("Port of Esarhaddon"), which was to function as the focal point of Assyrian trade in Phoenicia by eliminating the intermediaries, the Phoenician mercantile cities. It is stated that all the vassal kings of Hatti (Syria) and the sea coast were summoned to build the new city (ARAB II ?527; ANET 290b). Full names of these kings (12 in number!) appearin Esarhaddon'shistorical prism (ANET 291) in conjunction with some other corv6e-workthey performed for the king, apparently during the same year - 677/6.46 The four kings of Philistia were Sil-Bel of Gaza, Mitinti of Ashkelon, Ikausu of Ekron47and Ahimilki of Ashdod (ANET 290). The appearance of Mitinti as the king of Ashkelon poses an interesting problem. According to a contemporaryseal48he was the son of a Sidqa, quite likely the very same Sidqa deposed by Sennacherib and exiled with his family to Assyria. How, then, could Mitinti, the son of a former usurper and rebel, come to rule in Ashkelon in the place of the loyal Sharru-lu-dari or his successor?A possible explanation could be that Mitinti, who grew up in captivity in the Assyrian court, was purposely enthroned by Esarhaddon, so that a prince thoroughly familiar with the Assvrian system of government could safeguard that key city in Philistia. In a similar case Tabua, a former hostage raised in Sennacherib'spalace was appointed by Esarhaddon as the Queen of the Arabs (ANET 291-292). With Mitinti as ruler, AshkeIon assumed a vital role in the Assyrian invasions of Egypt to follow. 44. For the restrictions imposed by Esarhaddon on a Phoenician city, see the treaty between him and Ba'al, king of Tyre; ARAB II ??587-591; Borger, Asarhaddon, ?69. 45. See R. Labat, L'annuaire du Colltge de France, LX (1960), 263. 46. Though the prism dates from 673/2 (Borger, Asarhaddon, p. 64), it is actually an expanded version of Prism B (Prism "A" of ARAB II?? 526ff.), composed in 676. See A. Heidel, Sumer, XII (1956), 9-37. 47. This king bears the only cognate Philistine name (cf. F. Bork, Archiv fiir Orientforschung, XIII (1939-41), 226). The rest of the Philistine rulers have either Canaanite or Assyrian names. 48. See A. Bergman (Biran), Journal of Biblical Literature, XXXV (1936), 224, and B. Mazar, HEB, I, col. 771.

1966, 3)

THE BIBLICALARCHAEOLOGIST

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Esarhaddon conducted three major campaigns against Egypt, the first in 674, the second in 671 and the last, in which he met his death, in 669. Because the Assyrians had suffered a defeat in the first campaign, it was not recorded in the official documents and we have only an agonizingly brief statement in the Babylonian Chronicle (ANET 302b): "Seventh year (=674/3), in the month of Addaru, the 5th day, the army of Assyria was defeated in Egypt." Nothing is known of the third, unfinished campaign.49

~C?s

Fig. 12. Seal of an official serving under Mitinti son of Sidqa, king of Ashkelon. From D. Diringer,

Le iscrizioni

antico-ebraiche

palestinesi

(1934),

Plate

XXI:10.

The single evidence of it is again a brief entry in the Babylonian Chronicle (ANET 303): "Twelfth year. The king of Assyria went to Egypt. He fell sick on the way and died in the month of Arahshamna (=Heshwan), the 10th day." The successful campaign of 671 is the only one relatively well documented. Designated as Esarhaddon's 10th campaign, it is minutely desscribed in the last edition of the royal annals (ANET 292) and further on a victory stele from Zenjirli in southern Anatolia (ARAB II ?580; ANET 293). The Annals give a day by day itinerary indicating the distances covered. Though the Assyrian army passed through the coastal road, no Philistine cities are mentioned. The only names which appear are Aphek (=Ras el-'Ain), on the border of the province of Samaria (Samerina), and Raphiah. The Assyrians hastened to surprise Tirhaka, taking for granted Philistine loyalty. They conquered the Delta and marched to Memphis, which fell after a short siege. Esarhaddon then reorganized Lower Egypt into an Assyrian province deporting the craftsmen and carrying off rich spoil to Assyria (ANET 293-294). Very little is known of Philistia's role during those turbulent years. The last few lines of an extremely fragmentary inscription on the rocks by Nahr el-Kelb, near Beirut, seem to indicate that Ashkelon supported Tirhaka.50 Two other texts, previously neglected, mention Ashkelon in 49. It may well be that before his last campaign to Egypt Esarhaddon bestowed a special honor on Samas-ka'id-ayabi, the governor of Ashdod, by appointing him as an eponym for that year; cf. Alt, Kleine Schriften, II, 246. The appointment of the governor of the southernmost Assyrian province as an eponym at the very height of the campaigns against Egypt can hardly be accidental. 50.

R. Borger,

61-69.

Asarhaddon,

p. 102;

H. Hirschberg,

Studien

zur Geschichte

Esarhaddons

(1932),

100

THE BIBLICALARCHAEOLOGIST

(Vol. XXIX

connection with Esarhaddon'swars against Egypt. They are the queries to Shamash, the oracle god, whom Esarhaddon constantly sought for advice. The fragmentary state of the documents, however, preclude a clear understanding of the references to Ashkelon. The text of some can be restored from parallel queries, as follows:"5 Shamash the Great Lord, regarding my query, reply with a true and trustworthyanswer! Should Esarhaddon,King of Assyria, plan and strive to set out with his troops, his chariots, his armor, and march to the Trans-Euphrates, to Ashkelon? Will the present supplicant, Esarhaddon, King of Assyria, reach Ashkelon safely? Will he return safe and sound? . When Esarhaddon, King of Assyria, his army, his chariots do march to Ashkelon . .. when he pitches his camp in the . region of Ashkelon - be it the Egyptians, [be it the Ethiopians], will they plan and strive to wage war in any way against Esarhaddon, King of Assyria, in the region of Ashkelon? Will they fight against each other, and do battle with one another? Will they defeat [him]? - Thy Great Divinity Knowest! It emerges that Esarhaddon was about to start a campaign against Tirhaka and to set up his camp near Ashkelon. Apparently the Nubians were at that time near enough to attack Esarhaddon'stroops in Philistia. However no Assyrian account of the campaign to Egypt in 671 mentions any battle in the area of Ashkelon, and as yet the whole matter is obscure.52 Assyria's domination in Egypt did not last long. After Esarhaddon's death in 669, Tirhaka reconquered Memphis; therefore in 667 - in his second year - Ashurbanipal hastened to dispatch his army under the turtanu to drive the Nubians out of Memphis ( "the first Egyptian campaign"). The vassal kings of Ebir-nari (the Trans-Euphrates) were mustered to support, providing the Assyrians with auxiliary forces and with boats for transportingtroops along the Mediterranean coast (ARAB ?901). Among them were the same four Philistine kings, Sil-Bel, Mitinti, Ikausu and Ahimilki, mentioned in the Esarhaddon inscription ten years earlier.53 The second Egyptian campaign (663) about a year after Tirhaka's death (ANET 295),54 culminated in Ashurbanipal's crowning achieve51. J. A. Knudtzon, Gebete an den Sonnengott, Nos. 70 and 69; E. G. II (1893), Assyrische Texte aus der Sargonidenzeit Klauber, Politisch-religi6se No. 41. (1913), 52. It is also possible that the events of these years are echoed in Jeremiah 47. Though dated to the year "before Pharaoh smote Gaza" (i.e., 609), the chapter seems to contain much older a practice not uncommon material, quotations from an earlier prophecy in the "oracles against the nations." 53. The list of the vassal kings of Phoenicia, and Cyprus first appears in Prism C, Palestine, edited in 646. There is no doubt, however, that the list is earlier than that, and that it was copied from an earlier recension of the Annals. 54. For 664 as Taharqa's last year, see A. Gardiner, Egypt of the Pharaohs (1961), p. 450; R. A. des Deutschen Parker, Mitteilungen 208Instituts, Abteilung Kairo, XV (1957), Archdiologischen 212; and now E. Hornung, 38-39. Zeitschrift fiir Aegyptische Sprache, XCII (1965),

THE BIBLICALARCHAEOLOGIST

1966, 3)

101

ment and the most spectacular Assyrian victory in the 7th century, the capture and the sack of Thebes, the southern capital of Egypt (Nahum 3:8-9). But here Assyria overreachedherself. Some years later, Psamtik, the loyal prince of Sais, broke free from Assyrian rule and founded a new dynasty (the XXVIth), which subsequently united Egypt and won her independence.55The Assyrian army left Egypt and retreated to Philistia. No reference to the Philistine cities has survived from the latter part of Ashurbanipal's reign. Testimony to the continued Assyrian domination in Philistia are the two Assyrian legal documents from Gezer, written in the customary official style and dating from the years 651 and 649.56 It stands to reason that Ashkelon and Gaza paid tribute as long as Assyria prevailed in Ashdod and in Samaria. THE KINGS OF PHILISTIA DURING THE ASSYRIAN PERIOD*

Tiglath-pileser

Ashkelon

Gaza

Assyria

Ashdod

Ekron

Judah

III

Uzziah Hanun (734i720)

Mitinti I (733)

X

Rukibti Ahaz

(733)

Azuri (713)

Sargon

Ahimetu (713)

Hezekiah

Yamani (712)

Sennacherib Sil-Bel (701;677; 667)

Sarru-lu-dari (701)

Sidqa (701)

Mitinti (701)

Padi (701)

Esarhaddon

Mitinti II (677;667)

Ahimilkid (677;667)

01)

Manasseh

asu (677;667)

Ashurbanipal

Fig. 13. Chart of the Philistine attested synchronisms.

kings; the dates in parentheses after kings' names indicate

Assyria's supremacy in the West rapidly declined after the death of Ashurbanipal in 627.57 This was caused mainly by the strenuous and exhausting war with Babylon, which lasted for fifteen years until Assyria's downfall. Egypt and Judah now became Assyria's heirs to Philistia. The tradition of Herodotus, Book II, 157, that "Psammetichus ruled Egypt for fifty-four years; for twenty-nine of these he sat before Azotus, the great city in Syria, and besieged it till he took it", though enigmatic, should not 55. The exact date of the final Assyrian retreat from Egypt is unknown. See Kienitz, Die politische vom 7 bis Jahrhundert vor der Zeitwende Aegyptens (1953), pp. 17ff. 56. R. A. S. Macalister, The Excavation of Gezer, I (1911), 23-29. 57. For this date, see R. Borger, JCS, XIX (1965), 59-78; Joan Oates, Iraq, XXVII (1965), 135159. Geschichte

102

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be totally dismissed.58It could perhaps be interpreted as referring to the 29th year of Psamtik's reign, 635, as the year in which he laid siege to Azotus - generally held to be Ashdod - and took it. The fact that Psamtik was an active ally of Assyria during her final struggle against Babylon suggests that he took Ashdod only after it had gained its independence. At the same time, Josiah managed to renew Judean rule, although only for a while, in northern Philistia. Evidence for this has been recently unearthed in the excavations of a small fortress, Mesad HIashaviahu,on the sea-shore north of Ashdod. It was built apparently by Josiah and was intended to guard the southern approachesof Yabneh-Maritima,now a Judean fortress.59 With the sudden fall of Nineveh (612), a shock to the ancient world (Nahum 1-3), Philistia seemed to have experienced a resurgence of nationalism with other nations previously subjugated to Assyria. It was this selfassertion which led Gaza to defy Egypt (Jeremiah 50:1),60 and Ashkelon to refuse to pay homage to Nebuchadrezzar, the victor of the Battle of Carchemish.6"Ashkelon was captured and laid waste (winter of 604/3), and her king was exiled.62 Some years later Judah was to suffer the same fate. The last mention of Philistine kings in cuneiform documents is the reference to the kings of Gaza and Ashdod who, together with kings of Tyre, Sidon and Arvad, appear at the end of a list of high court officials as performing certain duties at the completion of Nebuchadrezzar'spalace.63 From this time on Philistia ceases to hold an important position in international affairs. It regains its prominence in another period of international turbulence, when it is again on the crossroadsof rival empires - the Hellenistic Age. 58. It has been often suggested that the "29" years should be linked with the "Scythian rule over Asia for 28 years" in Herodotus II, 106. The latter tradition has been elucidated by I. M. Diakonoff, Istoria Midii (1956), pp. 286-292; and by R. Labat, Journal Asiatique, CCXLIX (1961), 1-12. 59. J. Naveh, IEJ, XII (1962), 89ff. Cf. F. M. Cross, BASOR, No. 165 (Feb., 1962), 42. If, however the presence of the eastern Greek pottery discovered there (Naveh, pp. 96ff.) does indicate the existence of an encampment of Greek or Cretan soldiers, they were not necessarily the mercenaries of Psamtik, but rather those of Josiah. There is no reason to believe that hiring Greek mercenaries was, at the end of the 7th century, a sole monopoly of the Egyptian king (Herodotus II, 152-154). 60. Assuming that Gaza is the Kadytis, "a great Syrian city" of Herodotus II, 159, which Necho took after "defeating the Syrians at Magdolus" (=Megiddo). See M. A. Meyer, History of the City of Gaza (1907), pp. 37-38; A. Malamat, IEJ, I (1950/1), 154-159; and J. Yoyotte, "Nechao," Dictionnaire de la Bible, Geschichte des Altertums,

371-372. Suppl. VI (1958), II [1898], 1-11) and recently

zur However (Forschungen J. V. Prfiek D. J. Wiseman (Chronicles of Chaldaean

Kings [1956], p. 31, note 6) identify Kadytis with Kadesh on the Orontes. For an extensive discussion of the problem see H. de Meulenaere, Herodotos over de 26ste Dynastie (1951), pp. 54-59. 61. It was suggested that the Aramaic letter found in Saqqarah (A. Dupont-Sommer, Semitica, I [1948], 43-68), reporting the advance of the Babylonian army and asking for Pharaoh's military help was sent by the king of Ashkelon in 604. See in detail J. A. Fitzmyer, Biblica, XLVI (1965), 41ff. 62. D. J. Wiseman, Iraq, XIII (1951), 69, lines 15-20. Economic documents from Babylon mention exiles from Ashkelon, and specifically the sons of Agi, Ashkelon's king, as captives or hostages at the court of Nebuchadrezzar; E. Weidner, Melanges Dussaud, II (1939), 298. Cf. W. F. Albright, BA, V (1942), 51. 63. See E. Unger, Babylon (1931), p. 286, lines 23-29 (ANET, 308).

1966, 3)

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ANNOUNCEMENT In last February's issue, the editor recommended the catalogue of the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibition which toured this country and Canada in 1964-65. The response to the invitation that people might buy the exhibit catalogue from one of two Seminary book-stores simply consumed the available supply in a very short time. An attempt to secure the entire remaining stock to meet orders came a cropper when the shipment was lost in freighting. The book-stores are now returning orders and payments. Anyone still pondering ordering this publication please take note, and those who are wondering why there has been such a long delay please understand that the shipment loss is the reason. RECENT

BOOKS RECEIVED

Kathleen M. Kenyon, Amorites and Canaanites. The Schweich Lectures, 1963. London: Oxford University Press, 1966. 88 pp. + xvi, 30 plates and 40 text figures. $7.00. An important technical study by the eminent excavator of Samaria, Jericho, and currently Jerusalem. Miss Kenyon demonstrates the diverse cultural strains which link Palestine and Syria from the 23rd century to about 1600 B.C.; studies of burial practice, of the heavy rampart fortifications of Hyksos times, and of pottery, help to depict the Amorites "as nomads and destroyers of a pre-existing urban civilization," who, in combination with the relics of what they supplanted, ultimately gave rise to Canaanite culture. Byblos is proposed as the focal point of this development. It is tantalizing to realize that this study will be greatly augmented when new discoveries at Murzbaneh and Bab edh-Dhra' in Jordan are published. R. A. S. Macalister, The Philistines: Their History and Civilization. Lectures, 1911. Chicago: Argonaut, inc., 1965. 135 pp. + xix. $6.00.

The Schweich

Professor Wright's article in this issue of BA refers to Macalister's lectures as "the first attempt at an historical treatment from archaeological evidence" of the Philistines. As we await the publication of Dr. Dothan's studies also referred to by Dr. Wright, there is doubtless value in having Macalister's work available again. It is introduced in this edition by an essay of Dr. Abraham Silverstein, who is convinced that the Philistines have not received their due and that myopia on the part of many scholars is at fault. Perhaps the present issue of the BA will encourage him! Dr. Silverstein provides some bibliography of recent works and translations of Macalister's longer Greek and Latin citations. Shirley Gorenstein, Introduction to Archaeology. New York: Basic Books, 1965. 165 pp., 18:figures. $4.50. Basic Books is publishing a "Science and Discovery Series" of which this is one exemplar..The author is a new world archaeologist, but she writes lucidly of the field at large for the non-technical reader. Leonard Cottrell, The Quest for Sumer. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1965. 222 pp., 22 photographs. $4.95. Popular writing at its best, as one expects from Mr. Cottrell, tells the story of Sumer, its writing, its burials, its law and religion, its culture, and once again, that Flood.

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Robert W. Ehrich, ed., Chronologies in Old World Archaeology. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1965. 557 pp. - xii. $7.50, $5.00 in paper covers. Fifteen chronology studies by authorities on the Middle East, Europe and China supersede a 1954 publication entitled Relative Chronologies in Old World Archeology. Albright (Palestine), Kantor (Egypt), Weinberg (the Aegean), and Ehrich (east central Europe) wrote for both volumes. The change in title, omitting the wor.d relative is primarily due to the host of radio-carbon dates now available. A technical p-blication of first-rate importance. The Brooklyn Museum, The Pomerance Collection of Ancient Art. 127 pp. Price not indicated. The beautifully prepared and printed catalogue of an exhibition being hd1 at the Broi:klyn Museum from June 14 to October 2, 1966. Mr. and Mrs. Leoi: Pomerance have assembled a remarkable and tasteful collection of artifacts, many in metal, of which 142 are on display and are described in this volume; they stem from the ancient Near East, Egypt, Greece, and Etruria. Some Luristan, Syrian, and Etruscan bronzes are especially striking. Descriptions of each artifact together with excellent photographs make the catalogue worth owning. Edith Porada, The Art of Ancient Iran. New York: Crown Publishers, 1965. 279 pp., 60 color plates, 125 text figures, maps and pottery charts. $6.95. I cannot speak highly enough about this book. Composed in German in 1962, it now appears in the Art of the World Library, a series of 16 volumes of which 13 are out. Miss Porada is incomparable in her text for this book and the illustrations are simply breath-taking. To get such a combination in a volume costing so little is unbelievable in this day and age. Charles F. Pfeiffer, ed., The Biblical World: A Dictionary of Biblical Archaeology. Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1966. 612 pp. $8.95. A team of 44 contributors has worked with Dr. Pfeiffer in producing a topically arranged dictionary of ancient sites, artifacts, and archaeological subjects. The text is competent and sane, even quite brilliant in places, and a wealth of good photographs have come through printing with remarkably good clarity. A chart of "archaeologists and their work" on pp. 67-84 is the first thing of its kind I have seen and is very useful. A brief bibliography closes many of the over 300 articles, of which about two-thirds are by Dr. Pfeiffer himself. An excellent feature is the extended study of literary pieces from the ancient Near East. Azriel Eisenberg and Dov Peretz Elkins, Worlds Lost and Found: Ihi overies in Biblical Archaeology. New York, London, Toronto: Abelard Schuman, 1961. 208 pp. $3.75. A light, thoroughly enjoyable, and quite absorbing presentation in thirteen chapters of the story of ancient finds. Included are eight stories of literary finds from the Rosetta stone to the Bar Kochba letters, and five stories of excavation and exploration (Megiddo, Beth-shan, Gibeon, Caesarea, and Glueck's work in the Negev). The style is bright, often employing a kind of fictional journalese. I should think young people would be enthralled with this book.