Tell Qasile: Harbor Town from the Days of the Judges

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Located on the bank of the Yarkon River just a mile from the Mediterranean coast, the Philistine settlement at Tell Qasile was a flourishing harbor town during the biblical period of the Judges (12th–11th centuries BCE). The rich array of finds from its temples and residential quarters has revealed a vibrant, blended community that combined both Canaanite and Philistine traditions.

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Endnotes

1. For the final reports on these excavations, see Amihai Mazar, Excavations at Tell Qasile, Part One: The Philistine Sanctuary (Jerusalem: Hebrew Univ. of Jerusalem, 1980); Excavations at Tell Qasile, Part Two (Jerusalem: Hebrew Univ. of Jerusalem, 1985); Excavations at Tell Qasile, Part Three: The Iron Age Town (Jerusalem: Hebrew Univ. of Jerusalem, 2026); and The Story of Tell Qasile, a Biblical-Period Port Town in Tel Aviv (University Park, PA: Eisenbrauns, forthcoming).

2. I thank Elad Ben-Yehuda and Lidar Sapir-Hen, both of Tel Aviv University, for sharing the results of their unpublished study on the faunal remains from Tell Qasile.