Lachish—Key to the Israelite Conquest of Canaan? - The BAS Library
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Home > Magazines > BAR > January/February 1987

Lachish—Key to the Israelite Conquest of Canaan?

By David Ussishkin

It is now more than seven years since my first report to BAR readers on the excavation at Biblical Lachish (“Answers at Lachish,” BAR 05:06). At that time, I primarily discussed Iron Age Lachish, the Lachish of the Judean monarchy. Judean Lachish was twice conquered and destroyed. Lachish Level III was conquered and destroyed in 701 B.C. by the Assyrian ruler Sennacherib. Lachish was rebuilt (Level II) and then conquered again and destroyed again in 588/6 B.C. by Nebuchadnezzar the 020Babylonian, as is known from the Bible (see Jeremiah 34:7) as well as from the excavations and from the […]

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Footnotes

1.

“Lachish and Azekah Were the Only Fortified Cities of Judah that Remained,” BAR 08:06, by Rodney Wright.

2.

Also, some excavations, limited in scope and scale, were carried out in 1966 and 1968 by Yohanan Aharoni of Tel Aviv University.

3.

A cella is the central cultic place, the “holy of holies” of the temple.

4.

The excavation of this temple was under the supervision of Christa Clamer.

5.

Chalk is a soft form of limestone.

6.

Under the supervision of Yitzhak Eshel.

Endnotes

1.

Since the beginning of the renewed excavations, we have followed Starkey’s system of labeling the archaeological strata of the mound. This worked very well in the upper strata, labeled by him “Levels I–VI.” However, once we penetrated into earlier levels, it became apparent that Starkey’s Levels VIII–VII would have to be radically modified. Thus Level VII as uncovered and labeled by us in Area S is not identical with Starkey’s Level VII. Starkey’s Levels VIII–VII were still used by us in the chronological table published in “Answers at Lachish,” BAR 05:06, which must therefore be used with caution.

2.

Accordingly, the position of Fosse Temple III in the chronological table published in “Answers at Lachish,” BAR 05:06, has to be changed. The study of the pottery has been carried out by Orna Zimhoni and Eli Yanai of the Lachish expedition.

3.

See “What We Know About the Philistines,” BAR 08:04, by Trude Dothan.

4.

Another type of pottery—a local variation of monochrome Mycenaean IIIC:1b pottery—has to be taken into account. This pottery is derived from Aegean/Mycenaean pottery, and is typologically a forerunner of Philistine painted bichrome pottery. Its appearance in Tel Ashdod and Tel Miqne (ancient Ekron) led Trude and Moshe Dothan, the excavators of these sites, to conclude that this class of pottery represents an earlier wave of invading Sea Peoples into the country at the end of the 13th century B.C. However, the presently available data—first and foremost the fact that this pottery was used concurrently with painted Philistine pottery in these sites—makes the adoption of such a theory very difficult.