Image Details

COURTESY OF THE TEL KEDESH EXCAVATIONS / SHARON HERBERT & ANDREA BERLIN, DIRECTORS

Kedesh, a site in northern Israel, illuminates the history of the entire region during the Hellenistic period (fourth–first centuries BCE). About 20 miles east of Tyre, Kedesh was a Phoenician settlement, but its location—at the eastern edge of that coastal city’s rural hinterland—meant that its closest neighbors were Judean. It fell under Ptolemaic control in the third century and then Seleucid control in 197 BCE. It served as a valuable imperial investment: a busy administrative center, an active economic hub, and a place to entertain envoys. After some 50 years, it was abruptly abandoned, and it stayed that way for two decades. Later, in the first century BCE, the region was resettled by Judeans and became part of the Hasmonean kingdom.