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COURTESY AREN MAEIR/TELL ES-SAFI/GATH ARCHAEOLOGICAL PROJECT

HAZAEL’S DESTRUCTION. In 830 BCE, the army of the Aramean king Hazael destroyed Philistine Gath. These fallen and shattered pottery vessels found in a temple room covered by a thick layer of ash testify to the fury and intensity of the destruction. Following Hazael’s attack, in which much of the population appears to have been killed or displaced, Gath was abandoned for several decades and then further devastated by an earthquake that struck in the mid-eighth century. Gath was then rebuilt as a Judahite city later that century, probably during the reign of Uzziah or Hezekiah.