Ekron

Sy Gitin, Ekron II: The Late Philistine Period, Iron Age II, Strata III-1, 10th-6th Century BCE

The grant will cover the costs of the final preparation for publication of Ekron II: The Late Philistine Period, Iron Age II, Strata III-1, 10th-6th Century BCE. This volume is one of the final synthetic reports of the Tel Miqne-Ekron excavations, jointly sponsored by the W.F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research and the Hebrew University. Conducted for 14 seasons during the years 1981-1996, the excavation project was directed by Trude Dothan and Seymour Gitin. Tel Miqne has been identified with Ekron one of the five Philistines capital cities. Located at map reference 1356-1362/1315-1321, it overlooks the ancient network of highways leading northeast from Ashdod to Gezer and inland via the Nahal Soreq to Beth-Shemesh.

Ekron II will present evidence that changes our perception of Philistine history by showing that, contrary to earlier scholarly opinion, the Philistines were not primarily an Iron Age I phenomenon, but existed through the end of the Iron Age II. Our research demonstrates thatthere was both an early and a late Philistine period. Ekron II also documents the process of acculturation, which provides an answer as to why the Philistines disappeared from the pages of history. The evidence to support these two conclusions comes from a well-stratified database that covers all the phases of the Iron Age II, the most important of which is the last phase, that is, the 7th century BCE, when Ekron achieved the zenith of its growth and prosperity. These phases are examined within the context of Ekron's development, that is, its physical contraction and expansion that reflect stages of urbanization caused by political and commercial factors. The Iron Age II database includes the largest and most complete Philistine Coastal Plain ceramic corpus excavated to date. This provides the raw data for a unique study of the functional relationship between industrial, public, and cultic buildings and their contents, based on a comprehensive data retrieval and quantification program.

The project is planned for three years, producing a ca. 350-page manuscript divided into seven chapters, summarizing all of the excavated Iron Age II data. The volume will be user¬friendly, containing primarily conclusions accompanied by block plans, isometric drawings, and other graphics integrated into the text. The pertinent technical data, such as sections, plans, photos, and locus descriptions, will already have been published in the 13 field reports of the Ekron Limited Edition Series (ELES). Ekron II will be in press within 12 months after the final year of the grant, published by the Israel Exploration Society (IES) jointly with the Albright Institute and the Hebrew University.