Courtesy Ephraim Stern

The city wall. Excavation has exposed this glimpse of the Sikil city’s eastern wall, at center. A 2-foot-high superstructure of flat, square mudbricks rests on a 10-foot-high base of large stones. The outlines of the bricks can be seen most clearly on the left side of the wall. Potsherds found beneath the wall date the wall’s construction to the 12th century B.C.E. Despite having the strongest fortification of this period yet discovered in Palestine, the city was conquered about 1050 B.C.E. by the Phoenicians. The remains of the burnt Sikil city lie to the right of the wall.