Robert Chadwick

A six-chambered, two-story gate guarded the main entrance to the settlement. But even with 15-foot thick casemate walls (parallel walls segmented into rooms by perpendicular walls), the fortifications couldn’t keep the town from meeting a violent end sometime late in the seventh century B.C.E.: Burnt timbers—and even the remains of a burnt limestone wall—show that the gate was destroyed in a terrible fire.