Oren has mentioned that the ceramic typology of seventh-century Tel Sera` fits in well with the ceramic typology at another site, that of Mesad Hashavyahu. This site is north of Ashdod, near where the Nahal Sorek of Ekron and Timnah empties into the Mediterranean. He has also mentioned that the person who destroyed Tel Sera` late in the seventh century may have been King Josiah of Judah. Earlier, we linked this king to the destruction of the incense altars at Arad. This reformer king of 2 Kings 22-23 and 2 Chronicles 34-35 has also been linked to Mesad Hashavyahu. This site was occupied only in the last third of the seventh century B.C. In addition, it was a small settlement, covering only about one and one-half acres, with an L-shaped fortress enclosing a courtyard area of approximately one acre. Why include mention of this site in our study of the Philistines? At least two things make Mesad Hashavyahu significant -- the abundance of East Greek pottery found there and the presence of ostraca with Hebrew inscriptions.

King Manasseh (687-642) and his son Amon (642-640) were evidently vassals to Assyria, but by Josiah's time (640-609) Assyria was weak enough for Josiah to try to make Judah independent once again. (Nineveh, Assyria's capital, would fall to Babylon in 612 B.C.) This process of seeking independence may have started already in Josiah's father's time, and this may have been the reason for Amon's death. "The people of the land" (2 Kings 21:24) in turn killed Amon's assassins, perhaps because they felt that Judah was not yet ready for independence from Assyria (Bright 1981, 316). However, Josiah, Amon's son, felt strong enough in 628 B.C. to spread his religious reforms throughout Judah (2 Kings 23:15-20; 2 Chron. 34:1-7) and into what once was the land of Manasseh, Ephraim, and Naphtali. Perhaps Mesad Hashavyahu fits into the historical framework of this period.

Josiah appears to have taken over Samaria, Megiddo (2 Kings 23:30; 2 Chron. 35:22), and perhaps the northern coastal plain south to Mesad Hashavyahu (Aharoni 1982a, 270-71; Miller and Hayes 1986, 389). Mesad Hashavyahu is a fortress that was in existence only from approximately 630 to 609 B.C., within the years of Josiah's reign. From the abundance of Greek pottery found, as well as the Hebrew ostraca, it is generally assumed that Greeks were there as well as Josiah's men. The excavator, Joseph Naveh, believes that, since the structure was a fortress and since there was a workshop for producing iron, the Greek inhabitants were soldiers, not merchants. Some of the other scholars using Naveh's reports refer to the Greeks as mercenaries of Egypt (Miller and Hayes 1986, 389; Aharoni 1968, 11, 14), but Naveh points out that neither Egyptian pottery nor scarabs have been found at Mesad Hashavyahu. He also believes that the Greek soldiers were there first, and that Josiah's men then took the fortress at some point before 609 B.C., the year of Josiah's death. E. Stern believes that this fortress was Judean from its inception, with Josiah using the Greeks as mercenaries until his death in battle against the Egyptian army (Stern 1975, 37). The fortress, on Josiah's Judean border facing the Philistine city of Ashdod, was abandoned in 609 or shortly thereafter.

Along with the beautiful and distinctive East Greek pottery found at Mesad Hashavyahu, locally manufactured pottery was uncovered as well, and this pottery is readily identifiable as typical seventh-century ware (Naveh 1962, 100-103). Throughout Naveh's preliminary report are references to the East Greek pottery in its various forms (1962, 104-13, figs. 6-10). It is referred to as East Greek since much of it comes from western Turkey (Anatolia) where the Greeks had established colonies such as at Ionia. Quite a few Ionian cups, for example, were found in various areas of the fortress. Similar pottery from this period can be seen in numerous museums on Cyprus, Rhodes, and other Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean islands. Also, quite a bit of this East Greek pottery is being recovered at Ekron and Ashkelon. A few fragments were also excavated at Tel Batash-Timnah, and at Timnah the excavators suggest that the pottery was unloaded at Mesad Hashavyahu and then transported inland (Kelm and A. Mazar 1989, 49). Remember that Mesad Hashavyahu is located at the end of the Wadi Sorek and on the road that leads inland to Timnah and Ekron. It is exciting to dig up this East Greek pottery, because it comes out of the dirt very clean, is a shiny black, and is decorated with striking paint or etched drawings. We will return to this pottery later when we return to Ekron.

The Greek historian Herodotus records that the Egyptian king Psamtik I (664-610 B.C.) often used Ionians and their neighbors, the Carians, as mercenary troops, and for this reason it is sometimes suggested that the Greeks of Mesad Hashavyahu were mercenaries in the employ of Egypt. Psamtik I apparently did used Ionian and Carian mercenaries in his twenty-nine-year siege of Ashdod, which lies just to the south of Mesad Hashavyahu (Herodotus 2.152, 154, 157, Rieu 1954, 163-64; Naveh 1962, 98). However, as I mentioned earlier, Naveh did not find any Egyptian artifacts at Mesad Hashavyahu, which one would expect if its Greek soldiers were in the employ of the Egyptians. It is possible that the Greeks there were mercenaries hired by Josiah to guard his access to the sea from the Philistines (see also Tadmor 1966, 102 n. 59). Additional support for this theory may be found at Arad, where some Hebrew ostraca have been recovered that date to this period, the end of the seventh century, towards the end of Josiah's reign. Several of these ostraca refer to a "Kittim" people and the rations that should be given them at Arad. The Kittim are probably Greeks from the Aegean or perhaps from the Kition site on Cyprus (Aharoni 1968, 13-14). The presence of Greek mercenaries at both Arad and Mesad Hashavyahu should not be a surprise, for the Judean kings perhaps were continuing a tradition dating back to David and his Aegean Philistine bodyguard from Ziklag.

The other distinctive artifacts from Mesad Hashavyahu are its Hebrew ostraca. Naveh surmises that Josiah quartered his soldiers at the fortress, and also placed a governor there to administer the area. What follows is a translation of one of the ostraca, which may be the most important one found yet and is composed of fourteen lines in Hebrew. It opens with a formula phrase that can also be found in 1 Samuel 26:19, where David makes a plea to Saul.

So a picture emerges from the soil of this small settlement. In the second half of the seventh century B.C. a fortress was erected at the northern extent of Philistia, perhaps even to guard against Philistine encroachment. It was inhabited by Greek soldiers, possibly mercenary, and at some point also by Hebrews of King Josiah's day, before its destruction and abandonment soon after 609 B.C. The Hebrew ostraca found in the guardroom seem to indicate that biblical principles were practiced; the ostracon cited above brings to mind Old Testament law:

It appears that a reaper had had his garment confiscated by his overseer, who may have thought that the worker had skipped some work. The worker appealed to the governor in the fortress that he indeed was working, in the heat of the day, and that his fellow workers would witness to this. Old Testament law required that the garment be returned before sunset, since it may be needed as a blanket.

The Egyptians killed Josiah at Megiddo (2 Kings 23:28-30) and quite possibly destroyed Mesad Hashavyahu shortly before or after they did so. Egyptian presence can also be detected at Philistine sites in the final years of Assyrian control over Philistia and Judah. It was not Egypt, however, but was the rising star of Babylon that caused the destruction of Assyria and the Philistine sites that will be the focus of our final chapter.