The stage has been set. We have looked briefly at the biblical references to the Philistines. We have also looked briefly at the archaeological record of Tel Miqne-Ekron, one of the five major Philistine cities mentioned in the Bible. We have examined the possible origins of the "Sea Peoples," a diverse and extensive collection of tribes which likely included the group we know today as the Philistines, and we have seen that they came from Greece, Crete, and western Anatolia. In this chapter we will utilize the archaeological records of Tel Miqne-Ekron as well as those of other Philistine sites along the eastern coast of the Mediterranean, and, in conjunction with data from ancient Egypt and the Aegean, we will develop a chronological record of events that allows us a better understanding of the social and religious life of God's people Israel in its encounters with the Philistines.

We begin this study at the end of the Late Bronze Age and the beginning of the early Iron Age. The traditional date for this transition is 1200 B.C., but period shifts are of their very nature gradual. The various dig sites in an extended basin frequently indicate a gradual shift, and the dig results throughout the Eastern Mediterranean support this fact. The history of this area during the Late Bronze Age was full of momentous events. The last half of the thirteenth century B.C. witnessed the collapse of the Hittite empire in Anatolia, the Trojan War, the collapse of Aegean civilization and culture at numerous Greek mainland and island sites, and the end of Egypt's domination over Syro-Palestine.

This collapse of the dominant powers allowed for the maritime migration of various ethnic groups out of the Aegean to travel, plunder, trade, and settle along the Anatolian coast and in Cyprus, Syria, Palestine, and Egypt. The material remains uncovered in excavations on Cyprus and along the coast of Syria and Palestine indicate not just a destruction level in many sites, but also evidence of a new people moving in to establish new cultures. For example, along the southern coast of Canaan, there is no mistaking the new "Philistine" pottery for the earlier Canaanite pottery of the Late Bronze Age. At the various dig sites a sequence of cultures is seen, as well as an overlap of Aegean, Canaanite, Egyptian, and Israelite cultures. Although this study focuses on the Philistines, who settled primarily south of modern Tel Aviv to the Negeb and from the Mediterranean to the mountains of Judea, it is important to realize that there are sites within this area that were not affected by the Philistines and their culture. While it is not possible to establish an "absolute" chronology of events -- even when considering Egyptian historical records that list the various pharaohs and their actions against the Sea Peoples and the Canaanites -- "low" and "high" Egyptian chronologies have been developed upon which archaeologists generally agree. The two chronologies differ by only about fifteen years.

The chart below includes the Egyptian rulers most relevant to our study of the Philistines and other Sea Peoples.

High Chronology Low Chronology

Merneptah 1224-1214 B.C. 1212-1202 B.C.

(Queen) Tausert 1209-1200 1193-1185

Ramesses III 1198-1166 1182-1151

Figure 1 incorporates the chronologies with the dating of the stratigraphic levels of the digs at various sites. The identification of the bulk of the finds at each level is indicated by the shaded bars.

There are clearly two locally made pottery types associated with the Philistines, the monochrome Mycenaean IIIC:1b and the later Philistine bichrome ware. Some scholars, such as T. Dothan, refer to two waves of migrating Sea Peoples beginning in the second half of the thirteenth century B.C., with the Philistines coming in the second wave early in the twelfth century (during the reign of Pharaoh Ramesses III). According to this theory, the first wave of invaders made the monochrome Mycenaean IIIC:1b pottery, and the second wave made the bichrome pottery, which replaced the monochrome. Other scholars, such as Stager, speculate that there was one basic group of Philistines that moved into the area in the twelfth century (during the reign of Pharaoh Ramesses III); this group soon adapted its Mycenaean IIIC:1b pottery style to that encountered locally and developed the Philistine bichrome. All scholars, however, agree that the Philistines were on Canaan's seacoast by the middle of the twelfth century B.C.

The events surrounding the scriptural references to the Philistines and their first encounters with Israel in the Promised Land probably occurred shortly after the beginning of the twelfth century B.C. It was then that the Lord said to Joshua, "You are old and advanced in years. . . . This is the land that still remains: all the regions of the Philistines . . . " (Josh. 13:1-2).

In Exodus 13:17 we read that when Pharaoh let the Israelites go, they were not immediately led to the land of the Philistines, even though that land was nearest Egypt, for God is said to have thought, "If the people face war, they may change their minds and return to Egypt." Later, while at Mount Sinai, Israel was told that the borders of the Promised Land would be "from the Red Sea to the sea of the Philistines, and from the wilderness to the Euphrates" (Exod. 23:31).

The exodus is generally placed in the first half of the thirteenth century, during the reign of Ramesses II or earlier. To date, archaeologists have not found any evidence of Philistines living in Canaan prior to the turn of the twelfth century. Evidence for Sea Peoples, yes, but there is no record of a group of people called by the name Philistines until Ramesses III names and describes them at Medinet Habu. For this reason, some biblical scholars have concluded that this early reference in Exodus 13:17 to the Philistines is an anachronism. They believe the word Philistine is used in Exodus to speak to a later audience who by then knew this way into the Promised Land as the "Way of the Philistines."

Historical records inform us that the Egyptians knew this coastal artery leading to Canaan and Syria as the "Way of Horus." Fortunately, recent archaeological digging has uncovered material relevant to understanding the Exodus 13:17 passage. Digging has uncovered evidence of six fortresses on this route described in Exodus as the road through the Philistine country. The most dramatic of these finds is the fortress found at Deir el-Balah (T. Dothan 1982a and c). This site is located approximately seven miles south of Gaza and a scant mile east of the Mediterranean. For centuries the prevailing westerly winds have blown the beach sands there, creating dunes which long ago covered the settlement.

Extensively excavated in the 1970s and the early 1980s, this Gaza Strip town, Deir el-Balah, covers a large residence or palace that dates back to the mid-fourteenth century B.C., the Amarna period of Pharaoh Akhenaton. Superimposed on the large residence was a fortress with massive walls seven feet thick. This second structure and the artifacts it contained can be dated to the period of Pharaoh Seti I, the father of the great Ramesses II. Seti I recorded his achievements on the Temple of Amon at Karnak in Upper Egypt. The reliefs there also describe the Way of Horus and the fortresses built along this highway. The pottery analysis at Deir el-Balah has led T. Dothan to conclude that the existence of this fortress continued through the reign of Ramesses II (ca. 1304-1237 B.C.), who is thought by many to have been the pharaoh of the exodus. In the sediment immediately above the fortress a settlement was found containing artisan quarters and an industrial area with kilns that probably were used to prepare clay burial coffins. The next higher layer proved to be a Philistine settlement containing numerous pits holding Philistine pottery. This was the layer immediately under the covering sand dune, which was over forty-five feet deep. The Philistine pottery in the top layer has been dated to the end of the twelfth or the beginning of the eleventh century B.C.

The most striking finds in this Deir el-Balah dig site were uncovered while excavating the cemetery, namely, anthropoid clay coffins with removable lids in the shape of heads. None of the heads pictured on these coffins, however, wore the feathered headdress of the Sea Peoples (see p. 59); their headgear was of an Egyptian style. Nonetheless, these Egyptian clay coffins, dated to the fourteenth-thirteenth centuries B.C., may have influenced later Philistine burial customs, as the Philistine settlement succeeded that of the Egyptian fortress built on the Way of Horus.

To date there are no Philistine burial sites positively identified as belonging to any one of the five chief Philistine cities mentioned in the Old Testament. Tel el-Far`ah, in southern Israel (see pp. 70-71), has numerous tombs in its cemetery 500 containing Philistine grave goods, and Beth-shean (see p. 163) has Philistine clay coffins. Because the clay coffins found at Deir el-Balah contained numerous Mycenaean and Cypriot pottery imports, T. Dothan would like to reexamine all the artifacts from its cemetery in order to study more precisely the cultural influences on the Philistines.

The Deir el-Balah site serves as an important link to understanding Exodus 13:17. The site confirms that the Egyptians of the fourteenth-thirteenth centuries B.C. had a string of fortresses on this route that they called the Way of Horus and that Exodus calls the "way of the land of the Philistines." First mentioned by Pharaoh Seti I (ca. 1316-1304), Deir el-Balah was possibly used later by Pharaoh Ramesses III as a location to settle the Philistines he conquered during the twelfth century B.C. The finding of forty anthropoid clay coffins holding artifacts from the Aegean world, Cyprus, and Canaan, as well as from Egypt, not only reflects the international flavor of the area, but also explains where the Philistines may have picked up the idea of using clay coffins like those found at Tell el-Far`ah in the Negeb and at Beth-shean.

The archaeology done at Deir el-Balah shows that Philistines were on the southern coast of Canaan in the twelfth century B.C. Their presence is even more evident archaeologically at the five sites mentioned in Joshua 13:2-3: "This is the land that still remains: all the regions of the Philistines . . . ; there are five rulers of the Philistines, those of Gaza, Ashdod, Ashkelon, Gath, and Ekron. . . ." Also, in the allotments of the Philistines given to Judah, Simeon, and Dan, we read of two additional cities that must be considered in this study: Timnah (Josh. 15:10; 19:43), which we will encounter later in the Samson stories, and Ziklag (Josh. 19:5), which was given to David by Achish, the king of Philistine Gath.

What the archaeological record says about these various sites is more than simply interesting, since the biblical record is at best ambiguous and at times confusing. In Joshua 13:6 we read, "I will myself drive them [the Philistines and other enemies] out from before the Israelites; only allot the land to Israel for an inheritance, as I have commanded you." And in Judges 1:18 we read, "Judah took Gaza with its territory, Ashkelon with its territory, and Ekron with its territory." Yet, the following verse states, ". . . but [Judah] could not drive out the inhabitants of the plain, because they had chariots of iron." Then, two chapters later, in Judges 3:1, 3, we read, "Now these are the nations that the Lord left to test all those in Israel who had no experience of any war in Canaan . . . : the five lords of the Philistines. . . ." What exactly happened on the coastal plain of Canaan and in the hills of Judea?

Due to the political situation, the Gaza Strip has not been excavated extensively since 1967. In fact, Tell Harube, which may be the biblical Gaza, has not been examined by archaeologists since 1922. Even in that year only a few soundings were done on the mound itself. Philistine pottery was found, but since both the excavation and the publication of the material have been incomplete, all that can be said currently is that the Philistines were present at the site.

The Ashkelon site on the coast north of Gaza is being worked today (Stager 1985b, 1986, 1987, 1991a). It is a huge site topped by impressive ruins left by the medieval crusaders. The debris layers there are up to forty-two feet deep. The Philistine layers have been exposed to any great extent only since 1985. In spite of the massive amount of debris present at Ashkelon, Philistine fortifications were finally uncovered there during the 1990 season. An impressive mudbrick tower, thirty-four feet by twenty feet, was revealed. This tower was part of the fortification system protecting a Philistine city of over one hundred fifty acres. (Jericho and Jerusalem in the same time period covered approximately thirteen acres each.) What had been found at the extensively excavated Ashdod site has now been found true for Ashkelon as well: the imported pottery from Greece (Mycenaean IIIB) was present exclusively during the Late Bronze Age and was followed by monochrome Mycenaean IIIC:1b, the locally made pottery.

The later monochrome pottery has been tested by neutron activation analysis. This analysis has confirmed that -- as was true for Ashdod and Ekron in Israel and Enkomi, Kition, and other sites on Cyprus -- local clays were used to make the IIIC:1b pots. For Stager, the excavator at Ashkelon, the presence of an abundance of locally made Mycenaean pottery marks the arrival of the Philistines on the East Mediterranean coast. This pottery is in turn followed by the classic Philistine bichrome variety.

This is the same pottery sequence found at most Philistine sites. However, Mycenaean IIIC:1b does not show up at Timnah nor at Tell Qasile (in modern Tel Aviv). A. Mazar, the excavator of both Timnah and Qasile, believes that the Philistines arrived at those sites later than they did at Ashdod, Ekron, and Ashkelon.

Quite naturally, the pottery sequence plays an important role in determining precisely when the Sea Peoples first arrived on the southern seacoast of Canaan. While nearly all scholars agree that this occurred around the end of the thirteenth century B.C. or the beginning of the twelfth century, they do not agree about the exact date. The Egyptian reliefs discussed in chapter 3 and the many excavated Philistine artifacts are all major factors in attempting to date the stories of the judges and to understand Israel's encounters with the Philistines. What happened at Ashkelon figures very importantly in the argument.

Three Egyptian inscriptions need to be considered. First is the stele inscription of Pharaoh Merneptah relating how he repulsed the invasion of the Sea Peoples allied with the Libyans (ANET, 376-78) in the fifth year of his reign (during the final quarter of the thirteenth century). This was found alongside his list of invaders, which was cited in chapter 3 (p. 64). Second, on the bottom of the same stele, sometimes referred to as the "Israel Stele," is an inscription from Merneptah that may allude to an earlier campaign into Canaan. This inscription contains the only mention of the name Israel in Egyptian writings of the period. That part of the Israel Stele reads:

The third inscription is a series of reliefs on a wall at Karnak in Upper Egypt, which in the past had been credited to Merneptah's father, Ramesses II, and to Merneptah's brother, Khaemwase. Stager, in a detailed article, presents the case that Merneptah's cartouche (name), and not that of his father, was the original one mentioned in parts of the battle scene reliefs (1985b; Yurco 1990, with pictures).

Stager believes that four of the battle scenes on the reliefs at Karnak are likely to have originated with Merneptah rather than with his predecessor, Ramesses II. He also argues that credit for the four Merneptah battle scenes was later usurped by Merneptah's successors. In stating his conclusions, Stager focuses his attention on the Ashkelon battle scene. He points out that in it the inhabitants of Ashkelon, which is a named city on the relief, are dressed and armed as Canaanites, not as Sea Peoples. (We know the dress of the Sea Peoples from the later reliefs of Ramesses III at Medinet Habu.) In addition, these people at Ashkelon on the Karnak reliefs are seen to be besieged within their citadel high on a mound. The picture presented above the Ashkelon scene is the same, except for one major change -- the besieged people being vanquished are missing both a mound and a fortress with walls. They are fighting, instead, in open, rolling countryside. Though the top part of this relief, where the mound or fortress could have been, is missing, Stager believes, after closely studying the battle scenes, that this particular enemy had no citadel (see also Yurco 1990, 27-32). The other two battle scenes at Karnak are similar to the Ashkelon scene, in which the besieged inhabitants are within their citadel on a mound. Stager concludes his article by arguing that the three citadels with mounds are those of Ashkelon, Gezer, and Yano'am, even though only Ashkelon is specifically named. He points out that the determinative that Egyptians regularly used on stelae for cities, countries, and provinces is syntactically feminine, and this is how the three cities are presented on the Israel Stele. The type of determinative usually used by Egyptian scribes for people without a fixed city is used for Israel. The linguistic gender of this determinative is masculine: "his seed is not" (Stager 1985b, 60-61; Yurco 1990, 28). Stager does not believe this to be a haphazard designation.

Using the reliefs at Karnak and the Israel Stele, Stager drives home his point that during the reign of Pharaoh Merneptah, Ashkelon (as well as Gezer and Yano'am) was a Canaanite city and not yet a city belonging to the Sea Peoples. If all four battle reliefs at Karnak are credited to Merneptah and correspond to the stele, then this conclusion by Stager (and Yurco) is obvious. In addition, if the enemy without the mound or fortress on the relief is indeed the Israel mentioned on the stele, that would constitute pictorial evidence for Israel's presence in Canaan by the end of the thirteenth century. The depiction on the relief also fits well with our conception of a non-urbanized Israel during the beginning years of the conquest (see Stager 1985b and Yurco 1990 for additional discussion on Israel). The main focus of the Israel Stele, however, is the attack on Egypt by the Libyans and their Sea People allies; therefore, the stele and the four battle reliefs at Karnak have important implications for dating the arrival of the Sea Peoples into Canaan. If Stager's evaluation is correct, Ashkelon clearly was still a Canaanite city during the reign of Merneptah.

Keeping the pottery sequence and the reliefs in mind, we can propose a well-informed dating of the Sea Peoples' arrival at Ashkelon. If the imported Mycenaean IIIB ware was still used and in place there through the reign of Merneptah, and if Canaanites controlled Ashkelon during the fifth year of Merneptah, then the Sea Peoples could not have controlled the city before Ramesses III defeated them (ca. 1175 B.C.) and settled them in southern Canaan.

We do not have evidence of an early wave of Sea Peoples coming down and settling in Ashkelon before the attack on Egypt during Merneptah's reign, circa 1207 B.C. Stager is convinced that the Philistines arrived at Ashkelon a generation later, circa 1175 B.C., during the reign of Ramesses III. These people began to make Mycenaean-style pottery (IIIC:1b) from the local clays. It was still another generation later, circa 1150, according to Stager, before the inhabitants of Ashkelon made the classic Philistine bichrome pottery assimilating Egyptian, Canaanite, and other motifs. As will be demonstrated when we look at the archaeological evidence of Ashdod and Ekron, this arrival date of 1175 B.C. is twenty-five years or so later than archaeologists date the settlement of the Sea Peoples at those sites.

Ashdod, according to Joshua 15:45-47, was allotted to Judah, but Ashdod is missing from the list in Judges 1:18 (except in the Septuagint) of the Philistine cities that Judah captured. Instead, Ashdod was probably one of the cities referred to in verse 19: "but [Judah] could not drive out the inhabitants of the plain, because they had chariots of iron." In any event, Israel could not effectively control any of the Philistine territories for very long, according to Judges 3:1, 3: "Now these are the nations that the Lord left to test all those in Israel . . . ; the five lords of the Philistines. . . ."

Ashdod was on the trade and military route to and from Egypt that also went through Ashkelon and Gaza. The city was not mentioned in Pharaoh Merneptah's inscription on the Israel Stele about his attack on Ashkelon, Gezer, and Yano`am. This may indicate that it, like Gaza (which was Egypt's headquarters for the area), remained loyal to Egypt; indeed, Ashdod's last Late Bronze stratum indicates that it was a Canaanite-Egyptian fortress at the time. Its Late Bronze city held local Canaanite pottery forms, imported Mycenaean IIIB and Cypriot pottery, a Ramesses II scarab and cartouches, and a stone doorpost with a hieroglyphic inscription possibly dating to the Ramesses II period or earlier. This Late Bronze stratum of the mound suffered destruction circa 1200 B.C., most likely due to the Sea Peoples; the destruction debris was up to 40 inches deep in places. Only parts of the mound were immediately resettled; other parts remained abandoned. At Ashdod the classic scenario for sites connected with the Sea Peoples -- in this case, perhaps, the ones we will be naming the Philistines -- is evident. Its Late Bronze inhabitants used imported Mycenaean IIIB pottery, which was replaced by locally made Mycenaean IIIC:1b pottery, which, in turn, was followed by the classic Philistine pottery.

The sequence is the same as cited earlier for Ashkelon, but the Ashdod excavator has a basic disagreement with the excavator of Ashkelon in interpreting the presence of Mycenaean IIIC:1b pottery. The excavator of Ashdod, Moshe Dothan, believes that, on the basis of the cultic artifacts, the pottery and its decorative styles, and the architecture, there were clearly two waves of migrating Sea Peoples: the first arriving circa 1200 B.C., after Pharaoh Ramesses II but before Ramesses III, and using locally made Mycenaean IIIC:1b pottery; and the second wave during the days of Ramesses III and using the classic Philistine pottery. Remember that Stager confirms the same pottery sequence at Ashkelon, but believes that no Sea Peoples/Philistines arrived at the site before the time of Ramesses III (ca. 1175 B.C.). I am convinced that Stager's conclusions about the four battle reliefs and Merneptah's stele are correct concerning the chronology of events -- for Ashkelon, that is.

Before proceeding with the Ashdod site material, note the importance of what has been presented thus far in the verses from Joshua and Judges about the Philistines. According to Joshua 15 and Judges 1, the coastal plain was to belong to Israel, but if Israel ever conquered the Philistines there, it governed the area only for a short period of time. Remember, too, that, using the available archaeological data, we have seen that the Sea Peoples did not appear on the southern seacoast of Canaan until the twelfth century B.C. or, at the earliest, the very end of the thirteenth century.

At Ashdod, the transition from the people of the Late Bronze Age (imported Myc. IIIB pottery) to the Sea Peoples (locally made Myc. IIIC:1b pottery) was not a smooth one, as the deep destruction layer displays. However, the transition from the Sea Peoples with the Mycenaean IIIC:1b pottery to the people making the classic Philistine bichrome does appear to have been a smooth one, although the materials in the two strata reflect distinct cultural differences between the peoples whose possessions are contained therein. Whereas Stager attributes the transition at Ashkelon to assimilation to local Canaanite and Egyptian influences, Moshe Dothan believes that there are enough distinct cultural differences in the two Ashdod strata to indicate two waves of Sea People migration. The first Sea Peoples to arrive were the vanguard for those who would come later (M. Dothan 1979, 131; 1989, 67). The second wave, arriving in Canaan during the reign of Ramesses III, included the Philistines who had been defeated by him and, as he describes it, had been settled "in strongholds, bound in my name. Their military classes were as numerous as hundred-thousands. I assigned portions for them all with clothing and provisions from the treasuries and granaries every year" (ANET, 262).

For Moshe Dothan the most distinctive element illustrating cultural differences between the two waves is the figurine known today as the "Ashdoda," which is representative of a ceramic motif introduced into Canaan during the Philistine period. Moshe Dothan believes that this seated clay figurine links the Philistine world with the Mycenaean world through their shared mother goddess, and he also points to other examples of Mycenaean influence. The Ashdoda figurine is unique among all those of its type in that it was found in such fine condition, but the Ashdod excavations have also come up with numerous fragments of similar figurines. These finds, along with other artifacts such as jewelry, metal, gold objects, faience, scarabs, a stamp seal bearing an inscription, and ivory, reflect Aegean and Egyptian origins for this second wave of Sea Peoples. One specific indicator of the connection between Egypt and this second wave is that Philistine bichrome pottery makers had by then adopted an Egyptian jug form as one of their own, adapting it by using their white slip with bichrome paint but using Egyptian motifs such as the lotus flower. For Moshe Dothan, it was this second wave of immigration bringing the Philistines that "established the foundation of a long-lasting political and cultural entity at Ashdod" (M. Dothan 1989, 67).

Stager believes that during Pharaoh Merneptah's military campaign into Canaan Ashkelon was Canaanite, and I believe Stager is correct. But Pharaoh Merneptah did record his battles with the Sea Peoples, and it is logical to assume, on the basis of the artifacts at Ashdod as well as the extensive corpus of ceramics and other artifacts at Ekron, that some of the Sea Peoples on the pharaoh's list had settled in other parts of the southern coast of Canaan during his time or shortly thereafter -- perhaps at Ashdod and Ekron, for example. It is also logical to assume that, since Ashkelon was a large seaport city (more than 150 acres) serving the entire Eastern Mediterranean, it would have had among its polyglot population some Aegeans (with Myc. IIIC:1b pottery). Ashkelon, however, remained under Canaanite control at least until the time of Ramesses III.

Checking various excavations along the coast of Canaan, Syria, and Cyprus to determine when Mycenaean IIIB pottery ended and IIIC:1b began, one learns that this break occurred some time during the reigns of Merneptah and Tausert and before the reign of Ramesses III. Ugarit, Tell Abu Hawam (near Haifa), Tell Deir Alla, and other Syro-Palestinian sites show clear signs of attack and destruction in the levels corresponding to the days of Merneptah or some time before Ramesses III. Artifacts dated to the pharaohs just prior to Ramesses III have also been recovered from these levels (M. Dothan 1979, 125-34; 1989, 67-68; T. Dothan 1982a, 289-96; 1985, 166). I believe that the evidence from Cyprus and the Mediterranean coast along Syria, as well as from a few other sites in Canaan (some still to be discussed in this chapter), clearly demonstrates an initial settlement, or wave, of Sea Peoples in Canaan before the attack on Egypt by a second wave during the time of Ramesses III. It was this second movement of Sea Peoples -- of which the Philistines were a part -- that became a dominant force in the history of Canaan.

As was already mentioned, when the Late Bronze fortress of Ashdod was destroyed by the first wave of Sea People, only parts of the mound were resettled and rebuilt. But during the Philistine bichrome days the city became a thriving, fortified metropolis, which flourished until the mid-eleventh century B.C. The archaeological evidence does, then, reflect the situation recorded in Joshua 15 and especially in Judges 1 and 3. The Sea Peoples' presence at Ashdod at the end of the thirteenth century was not very strong, not until the time of Ramesses III early in the twelfth century when the Philistines moved in.

One of my first memories of the Timnah excavation, or Tel Batash, was of the volunteers wearing T-shirts saying, "Samson dug Timnah and so do we." It is easy to see why the volunteers would enjoy working there. The mound is small but impressive and is square, an unusual shape for a tell. It measures about six hundred feet on a side, and the ruins rise about forty feet above the floor of the plain. Whereas Ekron lies on the eastern edge of the coastal plain, Tel Batash is in the area called the Shephelah, the foothills beginning just five miles east of Ekron which surround part of the Sorek Valley. The valley runs east-west, and Ekron and Timnah are both in the western part of it. Driving to Timnah from Ekron, one passes by fertile cotton fields, as well as groves of almond trees, fed in part by the perennial stream that also flowed by Timnah in the ancient past. Even today a glimmer of the city's past glory is visible whenever the train speeds past the mound on its run to Jerusalem, for the tell sits astride an ancient east-west highway that followed the Sorek Valley and linked the coastal plain on the west to the Judean hills and Jerusalem on the east.

The unique shape of Timnah dates back to the Middle Bronze Age (ca. the eighteenth century B.C.), when its inhabitants constructed a huge earth rampart in the shape of a square of approximately six acres. (These may be the years of the Judah and Tamar story of Genesis 38.) I wish to focus here, however, on the transition years between the Late Bronze Age and Iron Age I, the thirteenth/twelfth century B.C. At Tel Batash-Timnah the Late Bronze Age witnessed a flourishing Canaanite town with an international flavor, but also a town that suffered continual attacks as at Ashkelon and Ashdod. The excavators believe that a large Canaanite building, razed in the fourteenth century B.C. and uncovered in stratum VII, may have quartered the governor (see A. Mazar 1985c, 67 for drawing). Among the debris of this Late Bronze building were seals and scarabs from Egypt, as well as numerous imported Cypriot and Mycenaean objects. A storage room beneath the steps leading to the second floor contained five storage jars, three of which still contained carbonized kernels of wheat. Nearby, the base of a jug containing almonds still in their outer shells was recovered; the almonds were also carbonized. A poignant reminder of what may have happened here became visible with the recovery nearby of two human skeletons surrounded by bronze spearheads and arrowheads. Canaanite occupation of the city continued through stratum VI to the thirteenth century, until the Philistines appear on the scene. In the Old Testament, it is the Book of Joshua that first mentions Timnah in this Philistine context.

Joshua 15:10-11 puts Timnah on a roughly east-west line along with Beth-shemesh and Ekron as part of the territory that will belong to the tribe of Judah. On the other hand, Joshua 19:43 squeezes the tribe of Dan between Judah and Ephraim and states that Timnah and Ekron are to be Dan's. Verse 47 adds, however, that Dan could not hold its inheritance and later migrated north.

The excavators associate Timnah's next stratum, stratum V, with the Philistines and the Samson stories. Stratum V is the earliest Iron Age level city (ca. 1150-1000 B.C.) and will be the focus of this section. A basic question that needs to be asked is whether or not the pottery sequence here is the same as that of neighboring Ekron, namely, the Mycenaean IIIB imports of the Late Bronze Age, followed by the locally made Mycenaean IIIC:1b pottery, which in turn is followed by the classic Philistine bichrome ware. As with Ashkelon and Ashdod, pottery sequences are crucial in trying to pinpoint when the Philistines arrived at the site.

As already noted, imported Mycenaean IIIB ware was found in the Late Bronze Age stratum in the building that may have housed the area's governor. However, the locally made Mycenaean IIIC:1b ware so prevalent at the neighboring Ekron is not present at Timnah. The excavators interpret this to mean that the Philistines arrived at Timnah later than they did at Ekron. Since Timnah's Philistine ceramics began with the classic bichrome ware, the Philistines probably arrived there sometime around 1150-1100 B.C. This phase of Philistine occupation apparently ended around 1000 B.C.; it appears that the city was then abandoned for a period of time.

Amihai Mazar, one of the principal excavators of Tel Batash, agrees with Stager of Ashkelon that both pottery forms, Mycenaean IIIC:1b and the classic Philistine bichrome ware, represent just one group of people -- the Philistines. Furthermore, just as the excavators on Cyprus refer to the makers and users of Mycenaean IIIC:1b ware as Achaeans, Mazar calls the pottery makers of Mycenaean IIIC:1b ware in Canaan Mycenaean Greeks or Philistines. For Mazar, the logical conclusion is that the Achaean immigrants on Cyprus were the same peoples as the Mycenaean Greek refugees on Canaan's coastal plain. Mazar, like Stager of the Ashkelon excavations, believes that the Philistines initially came to Canaan during the reign of Ramesses III, circa 1175 B.C., made their monochrome IIIC:1b pottery locally, and then after a couple of decades started producing their bichrome pottery in the decoration of which the Philistines used adaptations of Egyptian and Canaanite motifs (1990, 307-8). Thus, for Mazar, there was only one wave of Sea Peoples to this area, and since at Timnah there is no Mycenaean IIIC:1b pottery, the Philistines must have arrived at Timnah later than at Ashkelon, Ashdod, and Ekron.

Before we look at the Samson stories in this context, I would like to mention a couple of interesting finds from stratum V at Tel Batash. To date, no archaeologist has found a Philistine "archive," and we still do not have clear evidence of Philistine writing. However, a stone seal used to make identifying impressions on clay seals, or bullae, for papyrus documents was found at Timnah. It showed a stick figure playing a lyre. A bulla from the same Philistine period was also recovered. The climate at Timnah is not conducive to preserving papyrus, but these two artifacts give an indication that evidence of writing may yet be found there.

Both the seal and the bulla are examples of Philistine glyptic (stone carving) art. At Ashdod, a better specimen of a Philistine seal from the same time period has been recovered. Ashdod's stamp seal is more than just an example of glyptic art; it also has a linear script on it similar to a script on some clay tablets found at Deir Alla in the Transjordan by the Jordan Valley. The Deir Alla tablets were uncovered in association with Philistine pottery. The script on Ashdod's seal and on the Deir Alla tablets is still undeciphered, but it may be related to a Cypro-Minoan script, providing another link between the Philistines and the Greeks from the Aegean. The tablets, seals, and bullae provide hope that a Philistine archive will be uncovered eventually, and when Philistine writing is found, the script may well be Mycenaean Greek.

Now let us continue with Judges 13 and the Samson stories. Samson, of the tribe of Dan, was from Zorah, which today is believed to be under the ruins of the Arab village of Sar'ah some five miles east of Tel Batash-Timnah, on the northern ridge of the Sorek Valley just north of Beth-shemesh. Zorah was also mentioned in Joshua 15:33 as a town assigned to Judah, but later, in 19:41, it was assigned to Dan. It was also from Zorah that the tribe of Dan, after the Samson stories, left to stake out a new land for the tribe far to the north (Judg. 18).

Before his birth, Samson's mother was commanded to abstain from "wine or strong drink" (vv. 4, 7, 14). The injunctions that a Nazirite must follow are found in Numbers 6:1-8. In the New International Version, Judges 13:4, 7, and 14 read "wine or other fermented drink," and in all likelihood this strong or fermented drink was beer, which may have been higher in alcoholic content than wine, since wine was generally mixed with water. It is interesting to note this possibility since beer jugs were very common vessels in the days of Samson, judging from the quantity of ceramic sherds recovered at various Philistine sites.

". . . for the boy shall be a nazirite to God from birth" (Judg. 13:5). While Samson was growing, "the Lord blessed him. The spirit of the Lord began to stir him . . ." (Judg. 13:24-25). Imagine how chagrined his parents must have been when suddenly Samson told them to get a Philistine girl for his wife. A young Israelite man, a Nazirite, one who had vowed "to separate [himself] to the Lord" (Num. 6:2), wanted a wife from the uncircumcised Philistines! The Bible is quick to point out that God would use this deed to help deliver Israel from Philistine domination (Judg. 14:4). The wife Samson chose was from Timnah, the Timnah referred to earlier -- stratum V. This is the Philistine layer with the distinctive pottery and the Philistine seal and bulla. This was the Timnah with the surrounding wheat fields and almond groves. According to the excavators, the Samson stories had to have taken place some time after 1150 B.C. Timnah at this time was an urban center with numerous mudbrick houses.

Samson continued to be reckless with his Nazirite vows, for while on the way to get his wife, he killed a lion, and sometime later he noticed a beehive in the carcass and scraped some honey from it into his hands. This is in violation of the Nazirite code of Numbers 6:6: "they shall not go near a corpse." Samson knew this and did not tell his parents where he had gotten the honey that he shared with them.

While at the wedding feast, no doubt a drinking feast, Samson told a difficult riddle involving the lion that he had killed earlier. He fooled the Philistines with his riddle, but he in turn was fooled by them. He wreaked vengeance on thirty victims in Ashkelon, also a Philistine city at this time. In a rage Samson returned home to his parents; his in-laws believed that he was divorcing their daughter, and they then gave her in marriage to his best man, evidently a resident of Timnah. Later, about the time of the wheat harvest (which would have been preceded by some hot, dry weather), Samson returned to Timnah. He was carrying our equivalent of a dozen roses -- a young goat. Samson expected to be given his "wife" again, but the father-in-law, who followed practices normal for the age, graciously offered his younger daughter to Samson instead, trying not to compound the problem. Samson's retaliation of setting the fields on fire led to the death of his former wife and her family in Timnah by Philistine hands.

Samson countered by smiting the Philistines "hip and thigh with great slaughter" (Judg. 15:8) before escaping to the south or southeast. Here another interesting event developed. Samson was evidently in the territory of Judah, and the men of Judah mounted up a force -- not to fight the Philistines but instead to stop Samson and turn him over to his pursuers. They pointed out to him, "Do you not know that the Philistines are rulers over us?" (Judg. 15:11). It is rare to find references to Judah in the Book of Judges (except in the opening chapters), but they are included in the promise of Judges 13:5: "It is he who shall begin to deliver Israel from the hand of the Philistines."

So Samson exacted a promise from the Judahites that they would not harm him; then he allowed them to tie him up and take him to a place called Lehi, which means jawbone."When he came to Lehi, the Philistines came shouting to meet him . . ." (15:14). In other words, the Philistine jaws were clamoring for revenge, but Samson used the "fresh jawbone of an ass" to stop them! The Spirit of the Lord helped him out of this situation, and the Lord also provided him with water after the battle.

However, the man who could kill a lion with his bare hands and kill an armed Philistine force with a donkey's jawbone could not control his sexual lusts. Samson went next to Gaza, another one of the five Philistine cities, where he found a prostitute. Some of the Gazaites, hearing he was spending the night with her, lay in wait all night at the city gates to kill Samson. He instead got up at midnight and carried off the city gates. Unfortunately, Gaza is a site, as mentioned above, that will not be excavated in the near future. However, from what we know about the city gates of other Philistine sites, the Gazaites evidently were hiding in one of the guardrooms in the gate complex. Why would Samson have taken the gates and carried "them to the top of the hill that is in front of Hebron" (Judg. 16:3) in Judah's territory rather than towards his own home or elsewhere? Perhaps he was embarrassing weak-kneed Judah for turning him over to the Philistines.

Next we come to one of the last episodes in the life of Samson -- his intriguing relationship with Delilah. She is a puzzle. Scripture does not state specifically where she was from, only that she came from the valley of Sorek, meaning the "valley (wadi) of the choice vine." This name would, no doubt, have been affirmed by Samson, since both his wife and now Delilah were from the valley. Samson's home was just to the north of the Sorek, with Ekron and Timnah to the west down in the Sorek Valley.

Where Delilah lived in relation to these towns we do not know. But the lords of the Philistines, which would have included the lord of Ekron, came to her with a lavish offer -- pounds of silver if she could figure out the secret to Samson's strength so that they might subdue him. There is no sure way of determining if Delilah was even a Philistine. Would the Philistine lords have to have made such an extravagant offer if she was one of them? Her name may mean "flirtatious" (Boling 1975, 248), which seems appropriate. But it may also be a pun on the Hebrew word for night (laylah), whereas Samson's name is related to the Hebrew word for sun (semes). The night would win, and the sun would forever be taken away from Samson.

Samson had always been able to move about Philistine territory freely, as attested by his marriage to a daughter of Timnah and his trips to Ashkelon (Judg. 14:19) and Gaza (Judg. 16:1). Apparently the Philistines were confident in their domination over Israel. The location for this story with Delilah is in the Sorek Valley but probably is not Timnah, considering what havoc Samson had created there earlier. Ekron cannot be excluded as a possibility, since the text states that "the lords of the Philistines came to her" (Judg. 16:5). And again, later "she sent and called the lords of the Philistines. . . . Then the lords of the Philistines came up to her, and brought the money in their hands" (Judg. 16:18). Ekron would have been a logical location for the gathering of the Philistine lords; however, we cannot be certain. The lords, though, did travel to her with the money unobserved, implying that this was not Israelite territory.

Samson was a Nazirite who never seemed to take his vows seriously. While he was in the arms of Delilah, his hair was cut in violation of those vows (Judg. 13:5). Sadly, he was so captivated by his lover that "he did not know that the Lord had left him" (Judg. 16:20). Samson had forgotten that God was the source of his strength; he was captured and blinded and taken deep into Philistine territory, to Gaza, scene of an earlier escapade of his. The words down to Gaza (Judg. 16:21) provide another clue that the scene with Delilah took place up in the valley, in or near the foothills, since Gaza is on the coastal plain down by the Mediterranean Sea.

We are not yet finished with Samson. What was perhaps the most significant victory of his life occurred at the moment of his death in a Philistine temple at Gaza. Questions have been raised about what this temple looked like. To give a possible answer, I would like to move to another Philistine site, that of Tell Qasile, which has a temple and, unlike Gaza, has been excavated.

Tell Qasile, on the north side of the Yarkon River and encompassed by modern Tel Aviv, was not one of the five chief Philistine cities. We do not know its name during the Philistine period, and we do not know which biblical site would correspond to it. The material remains excavated here identify it as a Philistine site. This tell is a small one, encompassing only four acres, and was first settled in the twelfth century B.C. -- the Philistine/judges period. The town was constructed at the mouth of the Yarkon River and was used as an inland port. Archaeologist Benjamin Mazar, excavating here in the late 1940s and 1950s, identified it with the "Sea of Joppa" where the cedarwood from Lebanon for the temples of Solomon and Zerubbabel arrived.

Excavation beginning in 1971 under Amihai Mazar, nephew of Benjamin Mazar, has uncovered three Philistine temples built in succession on top of one another over a time span of approximately 180 years. The first temple was built when the site was first settled in the mid-twelfth century B.C. and was in use into the eleventh century. The second temple, which seems, more precisely, to have been a second phase of the first temple, was built in the eleventh century. The final temple, the most elaborate one, was used from the eleventh century into the tenth and was destroyed by fire in approximately 980 B.C. The destruction of the settlement and this final temple may be attributed to the conquest of Philistia by David, according to both Benjamin Mazar and Amihai Mazar.

Several miles to the south of Qasile lies Gaza, and Gaza is where the captive Samson milled the grain in darkness. We are led to suspect that something is going to happen when the biblical writer states: "But the hair of his head began to grow . . ." (Judg. 16:22).

The third and final temple of Tell Qasile appears to have had a construction similar to the biblical description of the Philistine temple at Gaza, but smaller. Its roof was supported by two cedarwood pillars resting on cylindrical limestone bases. The temple measured approximately forty-seven by twenty-six feet -- not the size of the temple in the Samson story, but remember that this is Tell Qasile and not Gaza. The orientation of the temple was east-west, and the sacred rites were performed at the west end. The entrance from the courtyard on the north side of the temple led into an antechamber that had inside dimensions of nineteen by twelve feet. Next, a ninety-degree turn to the west led into the main hall with its two supporting pillars. This main hall measured twenty-four by nineteen feet. The north and south walls of this room had stepped benches that had been plastered over. The walls of the antechamber also had similar benches. A raised platform approximately three feet high was constructed near the west wall of the main hall. In Hebrew this type of platform is referred to as a bamah. The bamah ran up to the benches on the north wall, and at the south end of the bamah were two steps leading up onto it. The lower of the two steps covered the stone base on which one of the two wooden pillars had rested. The imprint of the pillar had been visible on the stone base so that the excavators could measure its dimensions. The two pillars had been placed on an east-west line in the main hall, with the bamah just to the north and in front of the western pillar (A. Mazar 1990, 322 for drawing). Anyone entering the main hall would have had an unobstructed view of the bamah and the objects that were placed on or by it.

Near the third temple was a courtyard containing a square stone structure four feet by four feet. Due to the numerous animal bones found in the courtyard around the structure, the excavators believe that the temple sacrifices were conducted here. Just west of the temple and abutting its west wall was a small shrine (called temple 300) containing benches, a bamah, and numerous Philistine vessels, including cultic ones. The excavator believes that it was dedicated to a minor god or to the consort of Qasile's god (Shanks 1984, 57-59 with pictures). Also, on the south side of the third temple and abutting its south wall stood a house with two square rooms and a courtyard whose partial roof was supported by wooden pillars with stone bases. Among the numerous artifacts found there were Philistine storage jars, as well as two imported Egyptian ones. The wealth of the finds in these rooms and the proximity of these buildings to the third temple suggest that their use may have been linked to that of the temple and its priests.

It is easy to picture Samson between the two main pillars of a temple like this third one, with the jeering crowd seated both in front of and behind him along the north and south walls. The sacred objects, including Dagon, would have been nearby on the bamah. And since Samson "brought the house down" with his performance, Dagon, all the cultic objects, Samson himself, and the merry crowd both within the temple and on the roof would have been crushed.

In the third and final temple at Tell Qasile, which may have been brought down by David and his men, some beautiful cult objects have been recovered among the heaps of ashes and burnt wooden beams. These cult objects, quite eclectic in nature, have Canaanite, Egyptian, and Aegean origins. Vessels have also been found that are unique to Qasile. For A. Mazar, two pottery motifs indicate the continuation of the Mycenaean traditions of the Philistines (1990, 323-26). The first is the Ashdoda (see p. 102), fragments of which were found during excavation at Qasile. The second depicts a woman mourning, with her hands on or above her head; the representative find at Qasile is a clay figurine. Variations on this mourning-woman motif are seen throughout the museums of Cyprus and Greece that have Mycenaean material on display.

According to its excavators, the architecture of the third temple at Qasile has no close parallels among other temples in Palestine, but it does resemble temples in Mycenae, as well as others on the Aegean island of Melos and at Kition on Cyprus. The similar temples at these three places date to the thirteenth and twelfth centuries B.C., and themselves do not have earlier architectural roots elsewhere in the Aegean. These places are linked, however, to the Sea Peoples, and other references will be made to them.

Chronologically, the third temple at Qasile dates to slightly later than the Samson era. Qasile, like Timnah, does not have the Mycenaean IIIC:1b pottery indicative, in my view, of the first wave of the Sea Peoples. Qasile seems to have been settled around the time of the Philistine phase of Timnah (stratum V), approximately 1150 B.C. The two earlier temples at Qasile, underneath the one described in detail above, were considerably smaller and not as elaborate. The earliest one, circa 1150 b.c., was approximately twenty-one by twenty-two feet. The second one was twenty-five by twenty-eight feet. Both of these earlier temples had benches and a raised platform (bamah) for the cult objects, but neither had pillars. These first two temples would have been the ones that belonged to the Samson era.

The final minutes of Samson's life brought to light the only recorded prayer of Samson the Nazirite.

Reckless Samson turned to the Lord and the Lord heard his cry. Note that his family was able to come en masse into Philistia to retrieve the body. There is no hint that Samson's body was violated, a treatment totally different from what King Saul would receive. Samson died honorably doing the task that was prophesied of him in Judges 13:5: "It is he who shall begin to deliver Israel from the hand of the Philistines." The Philistines, I have no doubt, recognized the valor of Samson in spite of their tremendous losses.

Chapter 1 pointed out that in the books of Joshua and Judges, Ekron is assigned to both the tribes of Judah and Dan, but evidently neither tribe could drive the Philistines from the city. The Book of Judges also tells the stories of Samson, which are set in the Sorek Valley but do not even mention Ekron. The "lords of the Philistines" visited Delilah, but the specific cities they came from are not named. The biblical record tells us very little about Ekron during this Late Bronze/Iron I period of the judges before Samuel. What does the archaeological record tell us?

This is an appropriate time for such a question, since Ekron is currently part of an ongoing interregional study of the settlement pattern in the Shephelah and on the coastal plain of Canaan during the Iron Age. The archaeologists of the sites that have been discussed thus far are constantly consulting with one another about the finds of their respective sites. A wealth of new information has come to light that demands a reassessment of the Philistines, who became residents of the coastal plain during the transition years of the Late Bronze Age to the Iron Age I. This reassessment also demands that the archaeological evidence on Cyprus be reexamined, since this island seems to have been the staging area for Philistine migrations to Canaan.

We have already noted that there are diverse opinions among archaeologists on four key issues: 1) Were there one or two waves of Sea Peoples who settled on the coast of Canaan? 2) Do the two major pottery forms, Mycenaean IIIC:1b and Philistine bichrome, indicate one group of invading people who assimilated neighboring forms or two groups of invaders, the second of which included the Philistines who introduced the bichrome pottery? 3) Did the Philistines settle in Canaan just after the reign of Pharaoh Merneptah or later, during the reign of Ramesses III? 4) Is the high chronology or the low chronology of the Egyptian rulers more accurate?

Most archaeologists agree that by the first half of the twelfth century B.C. the generic term Philistines was the appropriate name for the invaders of Canaan and Egypt who evidently came by land and sea. Furthermore, they are in agreement that these Philistines were either Mycenaean Greeks (which may include Cretans) or western Anatolians who, from various points in the Aegean, fled the collapse of their society that is exemplified in the Iliad and the Odyssey.

At Ekron striking discoveries from the end of the thirteenth century B.C. have been made at a couple of places in the Late Bronze layer of the tell. This is the period of the Canaanite Ekron from which ceramic imports from Cyprus and elsewhere in the Aegean world (Mycenaean IIIB) have been uncovered. A few dark brown krater sherds bearing wavy incised decorations with heavy burnishing have also been recovered. This type of pottery is commonly called Trojan ware or Anatolian grey polished ware. These few sherds do not necessarily indicate that Trojans or Anatolians had migrated to Ekron. They may simply indicate the movements of pots as objects of trade.

However, the abundance of Mycenaean IIIC:1b pottery found at Ekron and Ashdod does indicate, I believe, the arrival of a new ethnic element. The pottery, as mentioned numerous times above, is locally made but is definitely linked stylistically and decoratively to Cypriot sites as well as to other sites in the Aegean. On Cyprus, archaeologists link similar locally made pottery to the arrival of Achaean immigrants. One such distinctive pottery find at Ekron which has created considerable interest is the recovery of numerous lekane bowls. In Cypriot and Greek literature, these bowls are also referred to as kalathos bowls. They were well known from the end of the Late Minoan period (corresponding to the Late Bronze Age; see Cottrell 1957, 234-37).

At Ekron, along with the lekane bowls and numerous other Mycenaean IIIC:1b pottery sherds from the Iron I period, some kilns were uncovered, including a large square kiln. No evidence has been found in connection with this kiln to reveal whether it was used for pottery or for metal items. The whole field I area was enclosed by a massive eleven-foot-thick mudbrick wall, which evidently encompassed the entire fifty-acre tell. Twelfth-century B.C. Ekron was a site worthy of a Philistine lord.

Enough Mycenaean IIIC:1b pottery has been recovered from Ekron for Trude Dothan to posit the following chronology. The Canaanite city of Ekron in the Late Bronze Age (more specifically, the thirteenth century B.C.) was destroyed during the first third of the twelfth century, and its northeast sector (field I of the tell; see map, p. 121) was replaced with an industrial area (stratum VII) in which appears locally made Mycenaean IIIC:1b pottery with plain horizontal bands or spirals similar to those found on sites on Cyprus and in the Aegean. The final two-thirds of the twelfth century saw still another change; architecturally this northeast sector (field I) changed to domestic dwellings (stratum VI) in which were found a slightly altered style of pottery called Elaborate Mycenaean IIIC:1b. These vessels were pictorial, with highly stylized fish and bird decor. The same trend is seen at sites on Cyprus. It is in stratum VI that we also find the earliest Philistine bichrome pottery at Ekron. T. Dothan sees through this data the influx of two waves of peoples -- those of stratum VII followed by those of stratum VI -- both tied to Cyprus and the Aegean. According to T. Dothan, the first wave came at the beginning of the twelfth century (after the reign of Merneptah) and the second came still during the first third of that century (the reign of Ramesses III). The Philistine bichrome pottery, according to her, is an outgrowth of the Elaborate Mycenaean IIIC:1b pottery of stratum VI. This schema seems entirely possible when one considers that the Egyptian records of Merneptah do tell of attacks by the Sea Peoples at the end of the thirteenth century, and some of these peoples could have settled in Ekron and Ashdod (Breasted 1906, 4:41). It is also possible that Ashkelon continued to be Canaanite throughout the reign of Merneptah, as did Timnah.

It is the second wave during the reign of Ramesses III that T. Dothan sees as the Philistine invasion. Ramesses III specifically identified one of the attacking groups as the Philistines, and I believe they became the dominant group in Palestine and, therefore, are named as such in the Bible. The Ekron of stratum VI with the Elaborate Mycenaean IIIC:1b pottery and the Philistine bichrome ware is the city associated with the defeat of the Sea Peoples by Ramesses III (according to his own records), around 1175 B.C. Two pieces of evidence that Trude Dothan cites are the cartouche of Ramesses III found in the same stratum with Philistine pottery at Gezer and the scarab of Ramesses III likewise found in the Philistine stratum at Ashdod.

Another intriguing find of stratum VI was uncovered in a pit in the northeast sector of the tell (field I). There, a bovine scapula was found alongside large fragments of lekane bowls. (More cattle scapulae have been found in stratum V.) The well-defined, cylindrical pit in which the scapula was discovered was not cut haphazardly, leading me to surmise that perhaps this was a favissa, where objects used in cultic observances were discarded. This whole area was strewn with objects that may have been of cultic significance: clay figurines reminiscent of the Ashdoda, miniature vessels, clay fragments of various sexual body parts, and a lion-headed rhyton, that is, an Aegean drinking cup. The lekane bowls have ties to Cyprus, and the scapulae found in the pit may be related to scapulomancy, the divination technique using sacrificed oxen mentioned earlier (pp. 87-88). Oxen were the chief sacrificial animals on Cyprus. These scapulae will be discussed in detail when I relate the finds of stratum V at Ekron, the period that coincides with Samuel.

I have one final comment concerning the diversity of opinion among scholars about the four questions raised above. I accept Stager's conclusion that Ashkelon was a Canaanite city at the time Pharaoh Merneptah repulsed the Libyans and their Sea People allies. I can also accept that Ashkelon did not become Philistine until the time of Pharaoh Ramesses III, the time when, according to Stager, Mycenaean IIIC:1b pottery was followed generally by Philistine bichrome ware. However, Ashkelon is a very large site with meters of debris above the Philistine strata, and I also believe that Sea Peoples could have been living in Canaanite-controlled Ashkelon, a polyglot seaport, while making and using their Mycenaean IIIC:1b pottery. A. Mazar believes that the Philistines came to both Tell Qasile and Timnah in the mid-twelfth century; at these sites there was no Mycenaean IIIC:1b pottery, only the Philistine bichrome. This too, I believe, is a correct conclusion. The excavators of Ekron and Ashdod have concluded that the Sea Peoples came earlier to these cities, perhaps at the end of Pharaoh Merneptah's reign. From my involvement in the Ekron project since 1984, I have been convinced that we have unearthed sufficient artifacts along with ceramics to warrant this conclusion, as well.

Is it possible for regional cultural changes and movements of peoples to be uniform and simultaneous? I think not. The Egyptian records of Merneptah and the succeeding pharaohs speak of migrations occurring over a period of years. The Iliad and the Odyssey speak of wars and movements of peoples stretching also over a long period of time. Even the biblical exodus and the subsequent conquest occurred over many years. Perhaps it was at Ekron and Ashdod where the core of the Sea Peoples first settled before the second wave moved down into Canaan -- the complete Sea People migration thereby spanning some fifty years.

Samson was unable to provide any permanent solution to the Philistine problem; he afforded only temporary local relief. Where Samson belongs in the picture chronologically is not known definitely, but he probably fits best into the second half of the twelfth century B.C. or slightly later. The Philistines were on the coastal plain, and the tribe of Dan felt the pressure some time after Samson to move north (Judg. 18). At least one of the tribal representatives sent north to spy out a new land was from Zorah, Samson's hometown (Judg. 18:2). The territory that appealed to them was in the area of Laish north of the Sea of Galilee, formerly under the sphere of influence of Sidon. Sidon too had suffered attacks from the Sea Peoples, the occurrence of which may have aided the Danites in their conquest of Laish, soon to be renamed Dan. Laish was far removed from Sidon and isolated from the coast by mountains. The presence of the Sea Peoples on the coast would have hindered the Sidonians from exercising their control over any territory to the east.

During Samuel's time, the tribal league of Israel was at war with the confederation of the five Philistine city-states. The Philistines appear to have had parts of Israel almost completely surrounded. They lived on the coastal plain that extended north to the Mount Carmel Range. They controlled the Jezreel Valley, which would figure in the battle with Saul, and they also controlled parts of the Jordan Valley south towards Jericho (that is, to Deir Alla). Samson obviously was a big thorn in the side of the Philistines, and maybe because of the damage Samson had inflicted, the Philistines decided war with Israel was a necessity. Further war between the Philistines and the Israelites began some time around 1050 B.C. The Philistines decided on a bold thrust to cut a gap through the center of Israel. "In those days the Philistines mustered for war against Israel; . . . [Israel] encamped at Ebenezer, and the Philistines encamped at Aphek" (1 Sam. 4:1).

The biblical Aphek is believed to have been east of modern Tel Aviv near the source of the Yarkon River, which flows through Tel Aviv into the Mediterranean Sea. Aphek would then have been east of Qasile, which is at the mouth of the Yarkon River. At Aphek also, the Canaanite culture ended in the second half of the thirteenth century B.C., and here, too, the excavator believes that the destruction of the Canaanite city was due to the "enigmatic `Sea Peoples' that marauded the coasts of the Levant and brought an end to the Late Bronze civilization" (Kochavi 1981, 81). The culture that followed the Canaanite one was the Philistine culture, with its ubiquitous pottery among other features. The Yarkon River may have been the northern border of Philistine territory, and it is from Aphek that the Philistines made their attack on the Israelites, who were in the hills to the east of Aphek. The neighboring eastern hills of Ephraim show what are believed to be signs of Israelite settlement, and it is one of these settlements, `Izbet Sartah, that is believed to have been the Ebenezer of 1 Samuel 4. The material culture of both Aphek and `Izbet Sartah display the fluidity of the times. When the Philistine culture at Tell Aphek later was buried into the ground, perhaps during King David's time, the Israelite occupation at `Izbet Sartah also ended, perhaps because Israel was now able to leave this outpost in the hill country.

Here, then, in the area of Aphek, is where the fateful battle of 1 Samuel 4 took place. This battle was the nadir, the lowest point in Israelite history up to that time, and it may be the source of the negative reputation that Philistines have been accorded to this day. The Israelites lost the initial battle with heavy loss of life. Therefore, they resolved to do a deed not unknown among their neighboring cultures; they brought the presence of their God into the battlefield area. Earlier, when the Israelites had left Mount Sinai and wandered through the desert, had not the ark of the covenant always been in front with the priests? "Whenever the ark set out, Moses would say, `Arise, O Lord, let your enemies be scattered, and your foes flee before you"' (Num. 10:35). And when Israel crossed the Jordan River to enter the land, did not the ark again lead the way? "When the people set out from their tents to cross over the Jordan, the priests bearing the ark of the covenant were in front of the people" (Josh. 3:14). No doubt the Israelites thought of this history as they sent word to Shiloh, twenty miles to the east of Ebenezer, to bring the ark to the battlefield. And so, "The two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, were there with the ark of the covenant of God" (1 Sam. 4:4). The ploy worked -- temporarily -- for the spirits of the Israelites were buoyed: "all Israel gave a mighty shout, so that the earth resounded" (v. 5). And the Philistines in response cried out, "Woe to us! Who can deliver us from the power of these mighty gods? These are the gods who struck the Egyptians with every sort of plague in the wilderness" (v. 8). But someone there was able to remind the Philistines, "Take courage, and be men, O Philistines, in order not to become slaves to the Hebrews as they have been to you; be men and fight" (v. 9).

Note the reference in verse 8 to "gods" (elohim in Hebrew, a word commonly used to refer to deity) in the plural form. This is not unusual, coming from the Philistines. Even though we do not yet have much specific information on their religion, we do know that, as was typical of Aegean peoples, they were polytheistic and that evidently they had adopted the Canaanite pantheon. Verse 9 states that the Israelites had been slaves to the Philistines, which no doubt accurately describes the plight of the Judahites, Danites, and Simeonites who bore the brunt of Philistine forays into the Judean hills.

Israel lost the battle near Aphek, and even more importantly, it lost the ark of the covenant. The phrase "and they fled, everyone to his home [tent]" (v. 10) illustrates just how bad the situation was; the soldiers were deserting the army in fear (McCarter 1980, 107). The Israelites had given up on God; the Philistine gods were apparently more powerful than the Holy One of Israel. (Even when the ark was returned later, it was still rejected by Israel for at least twenty years, during which they accepted other gods, "Baals and the Astartes" [1 Sam. 7:4]). The ark of the covenant, containing the tablets of the law, a pot of manna, and the rod of Aaron (Exod. 16:31ff. with niv Study Bible notes; 25:16, 21; Num. 17; and Heb. 9:4), was now gone. The Philistines evidently continued their attack deep into Israelite territory and destroyed Israel's religious center at Shiloh. Eli died at Shiloh, and the place where Samuel grew up played no further role as a religious center in the life the nation.

Shiloh is a fairly easy site to find, thanks in part to a clear geographical description in Judges 21:19: "So they said, `Look, the yearly festival of the Lord is taking place at Shiloh, which is north of Bethel, on the east of the highway that goes up from Bethel to Shechem, and south of Lebonah.'" The tell of Shiloh, though a small one of eight acres, is a rich one going back to the Middle Bronze IIB period of approximately 1750 B.C. Its excavators believe that already during this period Shiloh had a Canaanite shrine. Destroyed during the sixteenth century B.C. and occupied in part during the Late Bronze period, Shiloh was abandoned before the end of the Late Bronze Age. It was reoccupied in the twelfth century B.C. by Israelites. The material remains in that layer are typical of those associated with the Israelites, namely, collar-rimmed storage jars (according to some but not all archaeologists) and stone-lined silos (five feet in diameter). These are the same type of remains as found from this period at Ebenezer (`Izbet Sartah), twenty miles to the west (see also A. Mazar 1990, 330-48). A total of twenty large storage jars have been found, together with numerous stone-lined silos and other vessels. Carbonized raisins have been recovered, as well as large quantities of carbonized wheat from two of the silos, offerings such as those Hannah brought on a yearly basis (Judg. 21:19; 1 Sam. 1:21, 24; 2:19). With all these discoveries, 1 Samuel 1:24, which describes Hannah's offering to the Lord at Shiloh, comes alive.

Shiloh suffered a fiery destruction in the mid-eleventh century B.C., a destruction its excavators associate with the Philistine defeat of Israel near Aphek and Ebenezer. The excavations at Shiloh attest to the fact that this religious center never regained its prominence. This brings to mind the words spoken by Jeremiah some 450 years later:

It was mentioned earlier that after the battle near Aphek and Ebenezer the Israelites fled to their tents, demonstrating that they were no longer willing to fight in the army of the Lord. In losing the ark of the covenant, they believed that they had lost their God. What Israel did not realize in the eleventh century B.C. and again 450 years later in Jeremiah's time was that the Lord God of Israel was in control. The sequence of events in 1 Samuel 5 teaches this lesson, but the lesson was not learned at the time. There is also an irony in Jeremiah 7:15b, "as I cast out all your kinsfolk, all the offspring of Ephraim." The Judeans of Jeremiah's day would realize that Jeremiah was referring to the conquest of the northern tribes by Assyria in 722 B.C., but Jeremiah's words also applied to Israel of the eleventh century B.C., for Shiloh was located in Ephraim. The Lord God could not tolerate what the sons of Eli were doing, nor the fact that the Israelite army was trying to manipulate God by bringing the ark of the covenant into the battlefield without seeking his will.

She named the child Ichabod, meaning "The glory has departed from Israel."

[1 Sam. 4:21]

In addition to the capture of the ark, 1 Samuel 4 records the deaths of numerous Israelites, including Eli and his daughter-in-law, the wife of Phinehas. Eli, we are told, had judged Israel for forty years but was unable to control his sons, who served as priests at Shiloh. Earlier, a "man of God" had come to Eli and had predicted doom on Eli's house (1 Sam. 2:27-36), a prediction that was fulfilled in part in the battle during which the ark was captured by the Philistines. The crushing blow for Eli, which brought on his death, was not the death of his two sons in battle but the realization that they had been instrumental in the loss of the ark. The wife of Phinehas grieved for the loss of the ark as well as for the loss of her father-in-law and husband. Her dying wish, after a traumatic childbirth, was that her infant son be named Ichabod, for "the glory has departed from Israel, for the ark of God has been captured" (1 Sam. 4:22).

The focus of the passage is on the ark, the object that the Israelite army thought they could use to manipulate God and the outcome of the battle. God, though, had not been defeated, nor had he abandoned them. He was definitely in control, as the events of chapters 5 and 6 would show.

The Philistines then took the ark to Ashdod: "When the Philistines captured the ark of God, they brought it from Ebenezer to Ashdod; then the Philistines took the ark of God and brought it into the house of Dagon and placed it beside Dagon" (1 Sam. 5:1-2).

The stratum or layer of earth at Ashdod that is believed to belong to the period of Samuel and Saul is stratum X (mid-eleventh century B.C.). However, archaeologists have not yet uncovered the remains of a temple from that period in the areas excavated. At this time Ashdod was a well-built Philistine city with a distinctive pottery now referred to as Ashdod ware. (It was the earlier strata XIII-XI that had the Mycenaean IIIC:1b and the Philistine bichrome ware). The Ashdod of this period expanded outside its walls and was not destroyed until the tenth century B.C., perhaps by King David or by the Egyptian pharaoh Siamun, who conducted a military campaign in this region around 960 B.C. It was Ashdod stratum XII of the late twelfth century that produced the Ashdoda, and the building associated with the Ashdoda may have had cultic significance. But it was the still earlier stratum XIII of the early twelfth century where the Philistine "High Place" was found. The High Place contained a square altar of plastered bricks and a round stone pillar base, which may have been used as a stand for the god of the city; it may have been this type of altar and pillar base that appeared in our story of the ark.

First Samuel 5 tells us that the god of Ashdod was Dagon. The god Dagon was also mentioned in the earlier Samson story when the Philistines of Gaza thanked him for having delivered "Samson our enemy into our hand" (Judg. 16:23). The Philistine god of Ekron of the eighth century B.C., whom we will be studying later (2 Kings 1:2), was Baal-zebub (or Baal-zebul). As has been explained previously, very little epigraphic material of any type has been recovered at the Philistine sites thus far; therefore, no one is sure if the Philistines simply adopted the local gods of Palestine or if they identified the gods of their places of origin with the local gods. Dagon is known to have been an ancient Semitic god of the northern Mesopotamian area, who was worshiped as far back as the third millennium B.C. A northwest Semitic word for grain is dagan, so it is thought that Dagon was the god of grain, a fertility god. This Semitic god is well known from the excavated eighteenth-century B.C. archives at Mari in the mid-Euphrates Valley. The name Dagon is used not only in reference to the god, but also as part of a Semitic personal name and even in the name of a month.

Additionally, Dagon is known from some Ugaritic materials as the father of Baal Haddu. Ugarit was on the East Mediterranean coast just opposite the island of Cyprus. It was a major seaport, accepting trade on the east-west routes between Mesopotamia and Greece as well as on the trade routes moving north-south between Egypt and Anatolia. Ugarit was destroyed at the beginning of the twelfth century B.C., and for a time its excavator, Claude Schaeffer, suspected that the Sea Peoples, of whom the Philistines were a part, had razed it on their march south towards Egypt. Schaeffer later determined that a major earthquake had destroyed Ugarit, implying that the Sea Peoples may have bypassed its ruins (Schaeffer 1983, 74-75). Because of Ugarit's prominent role in the Eastern Mediterranean as a trading center and the importance of Dagon there as a major fertility god, it is unlikely that Dagon would have remained unknown to anyone conducting trade in the region.

A great temple was dedicated to Baal at Ugarit, as well as a house for Baal's high priest, but just to the east of this was a still greater temple, one dedicated to Dagon (Curtis 1985, 36, 88, 91). Two dedicatory stelae in Dagon's name have been found there. Another site, Beth-shean in lower Galilee, also had a temple dedicated to Dagon (Douglas 1962, 287 with picture). The Philistines evidently had a garrison in Beth-shean, which is located in the Valley of Jezreel north of Philistia. This was the place where Saul's body would be hung after his death in battle with the Philistines. The temple there is in the correct time frame for our 1 Samuel 5 story, but we will leave Beth-shean for now and will return later.

Ashdod evidently had a temple dedicated to Dagon that was used until around 150 B.C., for 1 Maccabees 10:83-84 and 11:4 describe Jonathan Maccabeus going there and "burning down the temple of Dagon with all the fugitives who had crowded into it." Presently, however, in order to find a temple in Philistia, a "house of Dagon" comparable to the temple the Bible refers to in 1 Samuel 5, we must turn to the three successive temples at Tell Qasile (see pp. 113-18). It is the third of these temples that is the largest and that fits into the time frame of the Philistine capture of the ark. Again, this is the stratum X (ca. 1050-980 B.C.) temple, referred to in the archaeological literature as temple 131. Tell Qasile is not Ashdod, but viewing the temples at Qasile provides an excellent glimpse into the Philistine cult. T. Dothan believes that the architecture of the temples at Tell Qasile demonstrates links between the Aegean and the Philistine worlds. She mentions that at Qasile there is evidently a fusion of Canaanite temple styles and of temple styles from Mycenae in Greece, from shrines on the isle of Melos in the Cyclades, and from shrines at Kition on Cyprus (T. Dothan 1985, 170). Amihai Mazar, the excavator at Qasile, has elaborated on the nature of this fusion (1980, 61-73). He compares various architectural components of some of the temples of the Late Bronze Age in Palestine (among them the temples at Lachish and Beth-shean), with thirteenth-century temples of Mycenae and Cyprus. He also includes in his comparisons the twelfth-eleventh-century temples at Tell Qasile and on Cyprus. The architectural components that he surveys are 1) the entrances, 2) raised platforms within the temples, 3) benches, 4) pillars, 5) chambers in the backs of the temples, 6) the location and orientation of the temples, and 7) courtyards containing sacrificial altars.

Amihai Mazar suggests that the architectural tradition of the temples at Qasile differs from the West Semitic temple traditions of the Late Bronze and Iron Ages in Palestine. He believes, however, that a connection between the temples of Qasile and those of Cyprus and other Aegean sites is undeniable (1980, 68). He recognizes that this may be due in part to trade between the Near East and the Aegean during the fourteenth and thirteenth centuries B.C., but adds that this resemblance could also be due to the coming of the Sea Peoples during the thirteenth/twelfth century B.C. Through the work of T. Dothan and Mazar, we are better able to understand the journey of the ark of the covenant from one Philistine shrine to the next. As the ark of the Lord was brought into Ashdod and carried into the temple, the people would probably have gathered in the temple courtyard as they would have gathered during cultic ceremonies. First Samuel 5 describes a contest between two gods, Dagon and the Lord God of Israel. It is true that the ark of the covenant had been captured, but does this mean that God had also been captured?

At Qasile, each of the three successive temples had a "holy of holies" where the god would have been venerated. Two of the three definitely had a stepped, raised platform, a bamah in the holy of holies (see diagram on p. 114). It is easy to picture Dagon falling off such a platform to a prostrate position before the ark of the Lord.

For the Israelites in the Lord's army at Ebenezer, the loss of the ark meant that their God had been vanquished. The final outrage for a captured god was to be paraded through a city and then placed in the victor's temple, as at Ashdod. The Israelites were to understand only later that the Lord had allowed this to happen, perhaps to show his displeasure with Eli's sons at Shiloh.

The battle between the deities in Ashdod's temple was not witnessed by any Philistine priest, but was fought at night. After the third night the Philistines realized which deity had been victorious. This realization was reinforced by the fact that the people of Ashdod were afflicted with "tumors," which, when linked to the Philistine remedy "five gold tumors and five gold mice" (1 Sam. 6:4), has been thought to have been the bubonic plague (McCarter 1980, 123; Lind 1980, 97).

This is the passage that I cited earlier and linked with the plague account in the Iliad (pp. 71-76). Note that the biblical writer describes this plague as coming from the "hand of the Lord" (1 Sam. 5:6). The Lord had used this means before to wreak havoc on an enemy (Mendenhall 1973, 106-8). When the Philistines learned that the Israelites had brought the ark of the covenant into their camp before battle, they said, "Woe to us! Who can deliver us from the power of these mighty gods? These are the gods who struck the Egyptians with every sort of plague in the wilderness" (1 Sam. 4:8). And after the plague of tumors had struck them, the Philistines wondered, "Why should you harden your hearts as the Egyptians and Pharaoh hardened their hearts?" (1 Sam. 6:6). The events in Egypt, where the Philistines had also been and had fought, were similar enough to the present plague to influence their response. God would deliver the ark as he had delivered Israel from Egypt (Lind 1980, 97-98).

"So they sent and gathered together all the lords of the Philistines. . . " (1 Sam. 5:8). The word used in reference to the Philistine rulers in this passage, in the Samson saga, and later in 1 Samuel 29:2 is seren (plural seranim), a word whose precise meaning remains unclear to philologists. Most scholars believe it to be a Philistine word with either a Greek origin or a hieroglyphic Hittite origin (McCarter 1980, 123; ISBE 3:158). Here again is another possible signpost on the quest to determine the origin of the Philistines.

The Philistine lords operated together when necessary, as we have seen in the Samson stories (Judg. 16). In 1 Samuel 5 the lords decided to send the ark from Ashdod to another Philistine site. We are not told their reasoning here, but it seems a strange decision, knowing, as they did, that the ark was the source of their problems. One commentator suggests that perhaps the ark traveled to Ashkelon and Gaza before arriving in Gath as reported in 1 Samuel 5:8 (McCarter 1980, 101). This is hinted at later perhaps in 1 Samuel 6:4. However, we are told plainly that "the hand of the Lord was against the city [Gath], causing a very great panic; he struck the inhabitants of the city, both young and old, so that tumors broke out on them" (1 Sam. 5:9). So the ark was sent on to Ekron.

Here the story builds to a climax, for the ark's notoriety had preceded its arrival. "As the ark of God was entering Ekron, the people of Ekron cried out, `They have brought the ark of the god of Israel around to kill us and our people'" (v. 10 NIV). The Ekronites did not want the ark to enter their city due to what had happened at its previous stopping points. Ironically, as seems evident today, it was not the ark that was spreading the plague but the bearers of the ark and those who accompanied it ("Beware of Greeks bearing gifts"). The Ekronites even accused the bearers of trying to kill them. Note the phrase us and our people. These words may reflect a city-state mentality as found in their former homes in the Aegean.

Recent excavating seasons at Ekron have brought to light several intriguing finds that may help locate the events of this story. Remember that the city of Ekron was surrounded at the time by a massive mudbrick wall nearly eleven feet thick. A gateway has been uncovered that may have been the location for the scene where the Ekronites tried to prevent the ark from entering the town. This Iron II gateway, probably covering an Iron I gateway, is on the southern side of the city, and directly north of it, in the center of the city, are the remains of some monumental buildings. Two of them, one on top of the other, are labeled building 351 and building 350. It is the upper one (350) that probably dates to the time of the ark story in 1 Samuel 5. Building 350 was constructed in the eleventh century B.C. with a four-foot-thick foundation of boulder-sized stones, suggesting to the excavators that the structure may have been multi-storied. The mudbrick walls above the foundation were plastered white. Excavators T. Dothan and Gitin believe that building 350 was either a temple or a palace/temple complex, due to its architecture and the finds within.

Like the temple in Qasile, this building had a plastered mudbrick bamah or platform, which in this case was in one of the three rooms to the west of the main hall. If the ark made it into the city and within this building, it would most likely have been placed in front of the bamah. Trude Dothan likens this bamah to others at Qasile and Mycenae and on Cyprus.

Among the more interesting finds from building 350 in Ekron are three bronze wheels, each with eight spokes. These, together with a couple of other bronze pieces, have been enough for Dothan and Gitin to suggest that they were part of a bronze cultic stand like those known from a twelfth-century site on Cyprus. The top of this stand would have supported a basin, and the stand itself would have been a smaller version of those made by King Hiram of Tyre for Solomon's temple in Jerusalem about one century later (1 Kings 7:27-37).

In another one of the rooms of this building a cache of unusual ceramic bottles was found. Some of the bottles were crushed; others were whole or were missing only the neck. The various decorative styles were similar to the Philistine bichrome style of the twelfth/eleventh century. A large, ivory, Egyptian earring was recovered in the same room.

In the third room of building 350 a beautiful, whole specimen of an iron knife, with an ivory handle and bronze rivets holding the handle in place, was found. The Philistines of the Bible were noted for their iron chariots and weapons. Near the knife lay a bronze linchpin, a pin that would have kept the wheel of a chariot in place. This third room also contained a small bamah, and on top if that was a lump of iron, the significance of which is not known. (Perhaps a gift of iron as in the Iliad?)

The entryway into the twenty-six-by-thirty-three-foot main hall of this building was on the north side, and on the north-south axis of the building are two pillar bases seven and a half feet apart. Earlier, in discussing the story of Samson at Gaza, I described a temple at Qasile for comparative purposes. Here now is a possible second example of a temple with pillars.

The main hall also contained a series of three hearths, each about three feet in diameter. A hearth was a common central feature of a megaron at Aegean sites such as Mycenae and Cyprus (see p. 86). The only other Philistine hearths uncovered in Palestine thus far are at Qasile. Each of these hearths built on top of one another was lined with a layer of stream-washed (wadi) pebbles that was covered with a thick layer of ash and charcoal containing a mixture of animal bones.

This hall may have been the location for the gathering of the Philistine lords mentioned in 1 Samuel 5:11: "They sent therefore and gathered together all the lords of the Philistines, and said, `Send away the ark of the God of Israel, and let it return to its own place, that it may not kill us and our people.'" Note the translation its own place. The Hebrew word there is maqom, a common word sometimes used to refer to a shrine or a bamah. This is a reference to the platform upon which the ark would rest in its own sanctuary. The Philistines realized who had been afflicting them and wished to make amends by returning the ark of the Lord to Israel (McCarter 1980, 124).

The Philistine lords decided on an immediate but appropriate response to the God of the ark, "For there was a deathly panic throughout the whole city. The hand of God was very heavy there; those who did not die were stricken with tumors, and the cry of the city went up to heaven" (vv. 11b-12). Exodus 2:23-24 records another cry to heaven, which God heard and answered. Here in 1 Samuel, we should not anticipate such a favorable response (McCarter 1980, 124). According to Mendenhall, the Philistines used diviners and priests to accomplish the following: "[1] a consultation of the gods through various kinds of specialized divination to ascertain the cause of the outbreak, usually identified as a moral or ethical delict, [2] a confession of sin, and [3] appropriate action as a propitiatory ritual in order to remove the cause of the wrath" (1973, 107).

First Samuel 6 reports all three activities:

Is it possible that the models of the mice and the tumors were crafted at Ekron? Kilns and other industrial installations have been uncovered at two different locations in the tell thus far. Near the gateway in the industrial area of the city a large installation with a crucible containing traces of silver was found. This installation was lined with hamra, a hard, red, rough, sandy plaster. This is solid evidence that some metal crafting was being done there during the early Iron Age I. A gold, double-coiled hair ring was also found in the area. Several kilns were uncovered in field I (the upper tell), including a well-preserved one. It is certainly possible that the models of the tumors and mice were crafted in one of these kilns.

From Ekron the ark of the covenant was drawn on a cart by cows up the Sorek Valley to Beth-shemesh. Ownership of this city was disputed, according to archaeological research and biblical references (Josh. 15:10 assigns it to Judah; Josh. 19:41 to Dan [Ir-shemesh]). According to 1 Samuel 6:8-15, it was then an Israelite town. Its tell has only one Iron Age I level, which contains much Philistine pottery. As has been noted, its material culture is indistinguishable from that of its neighbor Timnah. The contention over this city alerts one to the care required in trying to determine ethnicity of material cultural remains. At the time that the story of the ark took place, Beth-shemesh, whose name means literally "House of the Sun (god)," evidently was controlled by Israelites but had a Philistine presence (A. Mazar 1990, 312; Wright 1966, 74-76; T. Dothan 1982a, 50-51). Disaster struck there, just as in the Philistine cities where the ark had been, for quite a few inhabitants died, according to the 1 Samuel account. The plague probably killed those men as well, but in this case they were said to have died because they had "looked into the ark of the Lord" (1 Sam. 6:19 niv, RSV). Perhaps because Beth-shemesh did not appear to have priests present or perhaps because the people feared further judgment from the Lord, the ark was sent on to Kiriath-jearim, to remain there for some twenty years.

Before beginning our study of the life and times of Saul and his encounters with the Philistines, let us look briefly at 1 Samuel 7, which deals with Samuel in his role as judge. There is little in this chapter about Philistia, but the battle between Samuel and the Philistines and its results are well known: " . . . the Philistines drew near to attack Israel; but the Lord thundered with a mighty voice that day against the Philistines and threw them into confusion; and they were routed before Israel" (v. 10). It was after this battle that Samuel set up his stone of help or "Ebenezer." We have encountered the name before, in 1 Samuel 4, since it was at Ebenezer that Israel had lost an earlier battle and the ark of the covenant. Now, twenty years after the recovery of the ark, Israel was able to push back and defeat the Philistines at Ebenezer through the help of the Lord God. Whether or not the Ebenezer of chapter 7 is at the same location as the Ebenezer of chapter 4 is difficult to determine, but the significance of the name would not have been lost on the Israelites (McCarter 1980, 146-47, 149).

The most intriguing verse of this passage, however, is 14: "The towns that the Philistines had taken from Israel were restored to Israel, from Ekron to Gath; and Israel recovered their territory from the hand of the Philistines." Perhaps what is meant here is that due to Samuel the cities up to the borders of Ekron and Gath were restored to Israel but not Ekron or Gath itself. The excavations at Ekron have not detected any type of destruction or transition of material culture during this time, but it is possible that the environs around the city were taken by Israel. The verse goes on to say, "There was peace also between Israel and the Amorites." However, there soon would be no peace between Israel and Philistia.

The battle of Mizpah where Samuel raised his Ebenezer demonstrated to Israel what God could do for his people. Alas, though, Samuel grew old, his sons did not follow in the ways of the Lord, and the people came to Samuel with a request for a king, a man to lead them as kings in the surrounding nations did. The Israelites had forgotten what the Lord could do, and they wished instead to follow a man who would lead them against the Philistines.

They were rebelling against God as back in the days of Moses: "they have rejected me from being king over them" (1 Sam. 8:7). After the people were warned about what a king would do (1 Sam. 8:10-22), they were sent home, and God set in motion the choosing of the king. Saul was anointed and crowned, but not everyone supported him until after the battle for Jabesh-gilead against Nahash the Ammonite. God was willing to operate through Saul (chap. 11), and Saul's kingship was reaffirmed by "all the Israelites" (v. 15) at Gilgal. However, his kingship was soon repudiated.

It is in chapter 13 that we again encounter the Philistines. The text is broken in verse 1, which tells Saul's age when he began to reign and the length of his reign. However, the following story took place shortly after 1050 B.C. Saul was in command of the main Israelite striking force at Michmash, and Saul's son Jonathan seemed to be the head of the reserve force back in Gibeah. It was Jonathan who began this episode of what would turn out to be a long conflict with the Philistines by making a preemptive strike against them; Jonathan left Gibeah and successfully hit the Philistine garrison at Geba (or was it Gibeah? McCarter 1980, 181-82, 227, as well as 1 Sam. 10:5 and 13:3). This led both the Philistines and Israelites to muster their men.

Saul took his men down to Gilgal where Samuel was to meet them, but Saul, in a wrongheaded attempt to keep his force together, took on the role of the priest and offered the burnt offering just before Samuel made his appearance. Therefore, Samuel denounced Saul and his kingship, declaring that Saul would not leave a dynasty after him. Samuel then left for Gibeah.

What follows are verses that can be better understood now that pertinent artifacts are being excavated and studied.

That the Philistines had iron has been shown by the excavations throughout Philistia. Recall a previous section where I stated that an iron knife with an ivory handle and bronze rivets, as well as an ingot of iron, had been recovered during a recent season at Ekron. These and other metal implements belong to stratum V, around 1050 B.C. They date to the time of our story in 1 Samuel 13. An iron knife with a similar ivory handle and bronze rivets was recovered at Tell Qasile from an earlier period (stratum XII), cirea 1150-1100 B.C. (A. Mazar 1985b, 1, 6-8). At both Qasile and Ekron the knives were found in context with the Philistine pottery, and at Ekron they were found beside a bamah, a high place. "Such iron knives with bronze rivets have been found in twelfth to early eleventh century contexts throughout the Aegean and the eastern Mediterranean, from Perati in Attica to Hama in Syria, almost always uncovered in association with typical Mycenaean IIIC1 pottery of the twelfth century B.C. (or its local imitations)" (Muhly 1982, 49).

The ingots and iron knives call to mind several passages in the Iliad. At the funeral and games for Patroclus after the death of Hector by Achilles' hand, the animals were sacrificed with an iron knife: "Many a white ox fell with his last gasp to the iron knife . . ." (23.30-31, Rieu 1950, 413). The Iliad also contains several passages where iron is offered either as part of a ransom or as a prize. For example, when one Trojan is captured, he begs his captor, "Take me alive, son of Atreus, and take appropriate ransom. In my father's house the treasures lie piled in abundance; bronze is there, and gold, and difficultly wrought iron . . ." (6.46-48, Lattimore 1951, 154). And at the funeral games for Patroclus, prizes for a chariot race included a woman skilled in the fine crafts and a large tripod as the top prize; two talents of gold as fourth-place prize, and a third-place prize of a bright grey iron kettle (23.257-70, Rieu 1950, 419). In another contest the prize was a lump of pig iron, large enough, according to Achilles, "`to keep the winner in iron for five years or more, even if his farm is out in the wilds. It will not be lack of iron that sends his shepherd or his ploughman in to town. He will have plenty on the spot'" (emphasis mine; 23.833-35, Rieu 1950, 434).

The Philistines possessed the technology of working with metal for both weapons and farming implements, according to 1 Samuel 13:19-22. Likewise, the Iliad presents the Aegean Greeks as having the technology for producing both iron weapons and iron farming implements. Moses, in Deuteronomy 8:9, mentions that among the blessings of the Promised Land are its mountains of iron. Yet, in the days of Saul, the Israelites were not yet as skilled in working with metal as the Philistines were. Even three hundred years earlier and probably at least a full century before Moses, Pharaoh Tut-ankh-Amon was buried in a tomb containing, among other things, a beautiful iron knife. Iron was known in the Late Bronze Age, but the technology for working the ore was not available throughout the Near East until well into the Iron Age.

First Samuel 13:19-22 includes a word that has been troublesome for a long time. The word is pim in verse 21. That word is used only once in the Hebrew Bible -- here in this verse. Neither the translators of the King James Version nor those of the Authorized Version knew what it meant, so they translated it as "file," an implement for sharpening farm tools. The translators of the Revised Standard Version knew it to be a weight used for payment but did not know its value. By now, however, at least a dozen weights bearing the inscription pim have been uncovered at various sites such as Tells Gezer, Timnah, Ashdod, and Ekron. The weight of a pim is about one-fourth of an ounce of silver, or two-thirds of a shekel. This is the way that the New International Version and the New Revised Standard Version have translated the word. Interestingly enough, one Bible encyclopedia mentions that pim is probably a non-Hebrew word belonging to the Philistines (ISBE 4:1054). This reasoning may be due to the fact that the word occurs only here, in a Philistine context. In any case, the Philistines charged around one-fourth of an ounce (of silver) to sharpen a plow or a mattock and half that for sharpening an axe or setting the point on an oxgoad.

The mention of "no smith" in 1 Samuel 13:19 has also puzzled readers for a long time. We assume that the reference here is to iron and the working of iron (see, for example, the NIV Study Bible note, p. 393). This assumption leads to other questions. What was the secret in making iron weapons? Was it so difficult that the few accomplished people could keep the technique to themselves for such a long time? And, if the protagonists in the Iliad had iron ingots and gave iron as gifts, why did they fight with bronze weapons? Thanks to the definitive works of James Muhly and Jane Waldbaum pertaining to metalworking in the ancient Near East, these questions and others can now be answered (Muhly 1982; Waldbaum 1978, 1990; A. Mazar 1990, 356-66).

Bronze weapons were made of an alloy of 90 percent copper and 10 percent tin. Iron ore was more plentiful in the Near East than copper ore and easier to dig out. Tin had to be imported from, it is thought, as far away as England and Afghanistan. Why, then, did the ancient Near Eastern peoples continue to make bronze weapons instead of iron ones? There are two reasons, according to Muhly, and Waldbaum adds a third.

First, fashioning iron into feasible weapons required melting it in a kiln that could heat to 1530 degrees Celsius, whereas melting copper required a temperature of 1100 degrees Celsius. Weapons made from iron not heated to this high temperature were inferior to those made of bronze.

Second, archaeology in recent years has demonstrated that there was extensive trade throughout the ancient Near East and to regions beyond it during the Late Bronze Age. While this extensive trade, which included tin, lasted, there was no need to devise kilns that could melt the iron at 1530 degrees Celsius. Around 1200 B.C., the Near East and the Aegean witnessed the collapse of empires, the Trojan War, and the movements of the Sea Peoples. Needless to say, trade was disrupted. It appears that tin was then in short supply. Necessity became the mother of invention, and a better kiln was developed.

It also appears that many of the early iron implements that were around in the Late Bronze Age, like those mentioned in the Iliad, were made of wrought iron rather than of the carburized iron produced in the hotter kiln. Wrought iron is shaped by hammering, and this was done after the iron was smelted and was still in a pliable state. Since iron weapons produced in this manner are inferior to bronze weapons, the plentiful supplies of iron ore in the ground were worthless until the turmoil at the end of the Bronze Age forced the smithy to develop a hotter furnace in order to work an ore other than copper and tin.

Even when the hotter furnace is used, a superior weapon does not automatically result. The process is still quite complicated, and a smithy would probably have to have done considerable experimentation before discovering that iron, after it has reached its melting point, must be quenched (by plunging it into a vat of cold water) and tempered (by further heat treatments at different temperatures). Only then does a carburized iron implement superior to any bronze one result. The people who possessed this technology could garner power, as 1 Samuel 13:19-22 explains. The Philistines restricted the spread of their superior metalworking technology to maintain their power over the Israelites.

Interestingly, the word for iron is not even used in the 1 Samuel 13:19 passage, nor is there any reference there to a Philistine monopoly of iron. Perhaps the passage intends to show that the Philistines were technologically superior to the Israelites in all metalworking and were able to control access to the metals and the technology. However, tests that have been done on iron artifacts from Philistine sites do not show a consistent pattern of carburizing the iron.

Jane Waldbaum suggests a third reason for a switch from bronze weapons to iron, an ecological one. Bronzeworking required two to four times more wood charcoal than ironworking. Perhaps the ancient Near East was becoming deforested and the smithy was forced to develop a better way. Waldbaum recognizes, however, that at present there is not enough evidence to support this hypothesis.

The technological advance in ironworking could only be used for implements having a simple shape to mold; therefore, iron was used for weapons of war and for farming tools. Bronze, evidently, had been the metal of choice for making weapons in the eleventh century B.C. before iron began to dominate, and through the centuries bronze has continued to be chosen for casting objects with a more intricate design, such as statues.

Tests have been conducted on some Iron Age objects excavated in Israel and Cyprus to determine if they were carburized or wrought, and one hopes this testing will become a standard practice in order to better determine when and where advanced iron technology developed. No tests have been conducted yet on the iron knife with the ivory handle found at Ekron during the 1988 season. The iron knife from King Tut's tomb that I mentioned also has not had any technical tests done on it, but it is suspected that it was made from meteoritic iron rather than from iron ores found naturally in the earth. Other iron objects from the Late Bronze period that have been tested have been shown to be from meteorite iron.

Based on tests of iron artifacts from the 1200-900 B.C. time frame, Muhly believes that iron technology was developed in the East Mediterranean -- the dominant role belonging to the Greeks and the Greek colonists who arrived on Cyprus early in the twelfth century. These are the same people who made the Mycenaean IIIC:1b pottery. He further believes that from Cyprus the iron metallurgy was introduced to Canaan via the Sea Peoples, which included the Philistines.

First Samuel 13:19-22 states that the Israelites had to go to Philistia to maintain their metal farm implements. Of the iron artifacts found in Israel from this Iron I period, iron weapons (such as the iron knife at Ekron) are found only at Philistine sites, whereas iron farm implements (such as an iron plowshare found at Gibeah, Saul's hometown) have been found throughout Palestine. Muhly believes, however, that Philistine control over the Israelites was political rather than simply technological. King David was the Israelite who would break the Philistine confederation.

There is an interesting anecdotal story from World War I in connection with the events related in 1 Samuel 14 (Gidal 1985, 9-10). In the biblical account, the Israelites under Saul were facing the Philistines at a site five miles northeast of Gibeah and fifteen miles west of Gilgal. This was an unusual locale for the Philistines since it is in the central hill country, at Michmash, and not on the coastal plain. Michmash was strategically important, since it guarded the entrance of a pass to the Israelite highlands. The Israelite army was gathered on the opposite side of the pass at Geba with additional forces at Gibeah. Jonathan with his armor-bearer decided to try to break the stalemate by conducting a frontal assault on the Philistine outpost at Michmash. Jonathan waited for the Lord to give the proper sign, climbed the crag, and successfully routed the Philistine troops in the outpost, leading to a general rout of the enemy. Saul joined in chasing the Philistines back towards the coastal plain.

The World War I anecdote involves the English forces who were battling the Turks in the area of Michmash. Orders were given to take the Turkish outpost there. It is said that an English staff officer remembered dimly a biblical story happening in the area. He went to his Bible and found the incident of 1 Samuel 14. The officer then went to his general and read him the account of how Jonathan defeated the Philistine garrison by climbing the crag and killing about twenty Philistines in an area no larger than a half an acre. Some versions of the story say it was General Allenby himself who then devised the plan for the British.

In any event, scouts were sent out to find the trail that Jonathan might have taken up to this half-acre site. They found a pass with a "rocky crag on one side and a rocky crag on the other. . . . One crag rose on the north in front of Michmash, and the other on the south in front of Geba" (1 Sam. 14:4-5). Allenby's staff officer, a brigadier, sent a detachment of men up this trail to the half-acre plot before the Turkish squad awoke, and the Turkish army, a short distance away, was routed by the English as the Philistines had been routed by the Israelites.

There is another interesting part to the story in the Bible. The passage in 1 Samuel 14:21 states, "Those Hebrews who had previously been with the Philistines and had gone up with them to their camp went over to the Israelites who were with Saul and Jonathan" (NIV). Evidently because of Philistine domination, some Israelites had gone over to the Philistine side, but now that the Philistines were on the run, these Hebrews switched sides again. Later, we will encounter other examples of Hebrews in the Philistine camp (or hiding, as in v. 22) and the consequences of their actions.

The seventeenth chapter of Samuel contains one of the best-known stories of the Bible. The battle it describes between David and Goliath took place in the foothills, the Shephelah, some fourteen miles west of Bethlehem. This would have been a day's journey away from home for young David, who was sent by his father to deliver food to his brothers at the battle front. The valley the Philistines and Israelites were fighting over led out onto the coastal plain. Later, in 2 Chronicles 11:7, Rehoboam would build a fortress at Soco in the same valley, but by the time of 2 Chronicles 28:18, the Philistines would capture it (Myers 1986b, 290).

First Samuel 17 contains several episodes reminiscent of the Iliad with its encounters between the Achaean Greeks and the Trojans. Since the Philistines came from the Aegean orb, it is logical to assume that they shared some customs with the heroes of the Iliad. Consider, for example, the armor that Goliath wore:

The Iliad describes the armor for the one-on-one combat between Paris and Menelaus in book 3, lines 330-40 (Rieu 1950, 72-73):

Note that I made two additions in brackets in the quote from 1 Samuel. Where the New Revised Standard Version reads "coat of mail," the New International Version has "coat of scale armor," similar to the Anchor Bible's "plated cuirass" or plated armor. My second addition, from the Anchor Bible, illustrates the dissimilarity between its translation and those of the New Revised Standard and New International Versions. I prefer the translation scimitar because descriptions and reliefs of battle scenes of warfare in the ancient Near East never show a javelin "slung between [the] shoulders" (see Yadin 1963, 1 and 2). In addition, the translations of 17:5-7 do not mention that Goliath carried a sword. Yet, later, in verse 45, David points out, "You come to me with sword and spear and with a javelin [read scimitar]. . . ." And lastly, note verses 50-51: "So David prevailed over the Philistine with a sling and with a stone, striking down the Philistine and killing him; there was no sword in David's hand. Then David ran and stood over the Philistine; he grasped his sword, drew it out of its sheath, and killed him; then he cut off his head with it."

The translation problem lies with the Hebrew word used in verse 6 -- kidon. Both the New International Version and the New Revised Standard Version translate the word "javelin," but the 1 Samuel Anchor Bible Commentary (McCarter 1980, 284, 291-93) and its supporting references suggest that a kidon was a scimitar (see also Molin 1956). This was a sword with a single-edged, curved cutting blade on its outer, convex side. The Joshua volume of the Anchor Bible series uses a similar word, sicklesword, to translate kidon in Joshua 8:18, 26. These and two references in Job 39:23 and 41:29 are the only biblical references to a kidon. Yadin, in his discussion of the Egyptian sicklesword (a khopesh, meaning the "foreleg of an animal," which it does resemble), states that it was a very common weapon used from Anatolia to Egypt and that it continued to be used into the twelfth century B.C., the period of the judges (Yadin 1963, 2:349-50; pictures in 1:172, especially 204-7, where Pharaoh Ramesses III is shown carrying one). The sicklesword was out of use by the end of the eleventh century B.C. (Boling and Wright 1982, 240).

All this suggests that 1 Samuel 17:45 should read, "You [Goliath] come to me with sword and spear and scimitar. . . ." The first weapon mentioned, the double-edged, pointed sword, was used for thrusting, and the scimitar, in contrast, was used for slashing. The Hebrew word for sword used here and in verses 39, 47, 50, and 51 but omitted in the description of Goliath in verses 5-7 is hereb, a very common word for a sword. David used the hereb, the double-edged sword, to decapitate Goliath, even though the scimitar would have worked better. It is Goliath's double-edged sword that David later picked up from Ahimelech the priest when he was fleeing from Saul in chapter 21.

The Anchor Bible suggests that the references in 17:7 and in 2 Samuel 21:19 ("the shaft of his spear was like a weaver's beam") are actually describing a device attached to the spear for slinging purposes, making the spear into a type of javelin. These are depicted in battle scenes from both Egypt and Greece and in the Iliad, where the spear is tossed first by one contestant and then the other in one-on-one combat.

Goliath's armor, for the most part, was similar to that of the protagonists in the Iliad. His cuirass, though, was probably a coat of mail or scale armor, whereas those described in the Iliad may have had two solid halves clasped together. Although it may have been Aegean in type, Goliath's armor was not similar to Philistine dress as pictured on the Egyptian reliefs at Medinet Habu. This is not necessarily an obstacle to assigning Goliath an Aegean heritage, since the biblical Philistines were a confederation of several group of Sea Peoples, one of which would have included Goliath's forebears.

The challenge shouted by the champion Goliath was typically Aegean; similar calls are found repeatedly in the Iliad. In book 3 Paris, the new husband of the lady Helen, challenged Menelaus, her former husband, to a duel that would decide once and for all who would receive her. Afterward, the others were to have made a treaty of peace. Alas, the duel did not settle the matter (neither did the duel between David and Goliath), and there would be more challenges before the Achaeans sailed for home. This type of battle, choosing representatives from each army to fight to decide an outcome without heavy loss of life, was foreign to the Israelites, but it was not foreign to the Aegean Philistines.

In the biblical story, the Philistines fled and were chased by the Israelites to Gath and the gates of Ekron to continue their battles another day: "The troops of Israel and Judah rose up with a shout and pursued the Philistines as far as Gath and the gates of Ekron, so that the wounded Philistines fell on the way from Shaaraim as far as Gath and Ekron" (1 Sam. 17:52).

Gath, Tell es-Safi, has not been excavated extensively, but the excavations at Ekron do show that Ekron was a large urban center with strong fortifications during the time depicted in 1 Samuel 17 (stratum V). In fact, the city was then at a peak according to the excavations thus far; the rich, eleventh-century finds (described earlier) include the particularly fine iron knife with an ivory handle and bronze rivets. The city had a large industrial area, including kilns and cultic areas. The bronze wheels of an incense stand and the bronze pin for a chariot wheel reflect its Aegean background. The time frame of Ekron's stratum V is the end of the Iron I period there and elsewhere in Palestine and coincides with the arrival of David, who would later become king over Israel.