Image Details

A massive rampart surrounded the 50 acre city of Dan—then called Laish—in the 19th–18th centuries B.C. The base of the rampart was over 175 feet thick. Here, looking toward the outside of the city, we see a cut through the rampart. In the cut we may identify remains of the 20- to 25-foot stone core against which earthworks were piled on both sides. The large boulders in the foreground are from an Early Bronze wall (about 25th–24th century B.C.) which was reused in the later rampart. These boulders, as well as the smaller stones seen in the trench, are part of the rampart core.