Endnote 13 – Eroticism and Infanticide at Ashkelon

See Charles L. Meryon, Travels of Lady Hester Stanhope, from the Completion of Her Memoirs, Narrated by Her Physician, vol. 3 (1846), p. 162. From his drawing one can see the Gorgoneion in the center of the breastplate, with two griffins flanking some object below. A twin of the Ashkelon statue was recently excavated in Roman Beth-Shean—a larger-than-life-size marble statue (head missing) of a cuirassed soldier, probably an emperor, with the same motifs on the breastplate (for a photo, see “Glorious Beth-Shean,” BAR 16:04).

Unfortunately, Lady Hester Stanhope’s basilica has been pillaged of all its masonry. However, Frank Koucky would locate it in an area that today is a parking lot for visitors to the beach, below the north slope of the south mound (al-Hadra) and just north of Grid 38 (lower). He could do this because of the detailed and accurate rendition of buildings and monuments of Ashkelon published in 1855 by David Roberts, as viewed from a perspective on the north mound looking south.