Tell el-Hesi 2002 Overview

Tell el-Hesi: Fields I and III (Neolithic to Modern)
Jeffrey Blakely

Tell el-Hesi is located southwest of the modern Israeli city of Qiryat Gat, at point 12451063 of the Israel grid, or at 34 degrees 43 minutes 50 seconds east longitude and 31 degrees 43 minutes and 45 seconds north latitude. The site was originally excavated between 1890 and 1892 by the Palestine Exploration Fund in a series of five campaigns directed first by William Matthew Flinders Petrie and then by Frederick Jones Bliss. They published their final reports in 1891 and 1894. A second series of excavations began in 1970 at the behest of the American Schools of Oriental Research and its President G. Ernest Wright, the Joint Archaeological Expedition to Tell el-Hesi. The original core staff of directors for the project included John Worrell - Director; Lawrence Toombs - Senior Archeologist, Phillip King - Administrative Director, Tom Frank - Education Director, and W. J. Bennett, Jr. and Lawrence Stager as Field Directors. The project excavated at the site from 1970 to 1983 in a series of eight summer seasons. The project emphasized excavation in two parts of the site: the acropolis and its associated wall system (Fields I and III), and the Early Bronze III (EB III) wall system of the lower city (Fields V, VI, and IX). This proposal is to complete the publication of Fields I and III.

While stratified remains of the Chalcolithic/Early Bronze Age, the EB III, the entirety of the Late Bronze Age (LB), the second half of the Iron Age, the Persian Period, and the Ottoman Period are known, as well as residual Neolithic and Chalcolithic materials, the vast amount of excavation effort was directed towards the Iron-Age, Persian-Period, and Ottoman-Period remains. Lawrence E. Toombs published the Bedouin Cemetery of the Ottoman Period as well as the modern military trenching (Strata I and II) in 1984. W. J. Bennett, Jr., and Jeffrey A. Blakely published the Persian-Period remains of Stratum V in 1989. This report would complete these earlier efforts by publishing the massive Judahite fortress (Stratum VIII) as well as the extensive late Persian-Period occupation of Stratum IV. Also to be included are the far less extensive LB/Iron Age transitional "Pilaster Building" of Stratum X, a re-analysis of Bliss's 10th century City V (Stratum IX) for which we found no stratified remains, the limited late Iron Age occupational remains of Strata VII and VI, and the minor agricultural Roman/Byzantine/Islamic/ Crusader phase (Stratum III). A description of the Chalcolithic/Bronze Age transitional, EB III (of Field III only), and LB remains that were only seen below Stratum VIII, but which were not excavated extensively, will also be provided. This volume will be the sixth in the Hesi series and will be published by Eisenbrauns.