quote:Lachish was one of the most important cities of the Biblical era in the Holy Land. Situated southwest of Jerusalem, it is represented today by a huge, impressive mound, named Tel Lachish or Tell ed-Duweir. [...] During the Late Bronze Age it was a large Canaanite city-state, and a few letters from Lachish were found in the fourteenth century royal Egyptian archives at El-Amarna. Lachish played a major role in the story of the Israelite conquest of Canaan as related in Joshua 10. […] Three decorative columns stood along the eastern wall of the main hall, to the left of the staircase, and their round stone bases were found in situ. The columns were attached to the walls, each forming a kind of pilaster. The broken stone columns were discovered near the side entrance. They were tapering and octagonal and they were crowned by square capitals. Similar stone bases, columns and capitals were fashionable in Egypt; thus our columns form another indication of the Egyptian influence at Lachish during that period.
The rich equipment of the temple was robbed or smashed prior to the destruction of the building by fire. A small room which opened into the central hall served as a storeroom, and most of the finds were found there. They included pottery stands and bowls, fragments of imported Mycenaean vessels as well as Egyptian alabaster and faience vessels, beads and pendants, a decorated stone cover, a bronze chisel, many gold leaves and broken ivory plaques and, finally, pieces of oxidized iron—a metal which was still rare during that period.
quote:Tel Lachish, the mound of the ancient city of Lachish, is located in the lowlands of the Judean Hills, some 40 km. southeast of Jerusalem. The abundance of water sources and the fertile valleys of the area favored the existence of a prosperous city over a considerable period of time.
The mound of the city was first excavated during the 1930s. Systematic and in-depth excavations of large areas of the mound were again conducted between 1973 and 1987.
The Canaanite City
A large, fortified Canaanite city was established at the beginning of the 2nd millennium BCE on a hillock dominating the surrounding area. It was fortified by a wall and a glacis, a ramp-like structure of compressed earth with a hard, smooth surface of lime plaster. The fortification was completed by a fosse (moat) at the foot of the glacis.
A large palace of numerous rooms and a courtyard, probably the residence of the Canaanite King of Lachish, stood on the acropolis - the highest part of the city. It could not be completely exposed, as a later Israelite palace was built above it.
From letters sent by the kings of Lachish to their overlords, the pharaohs of Egypt (the 14th century BCE el-Amarna correspondence) it may be deducted that Lachish was an important urban center and the seat of the Egyptian governor of southern Canaan.
Two temples are known from this period at Lachish. Finds from the Fosse Temple, at the western foot of the mound, include cult vessels, offering bowls and imported items of pottery, faience and ivory, all evidence of wealth. The temple on the acropolis, with Egyptian architectural elements, included an entrance chamber, a main hall (16 x 13 m.) and a raised holy of holies. Two octagonal stone columns supported the wooden ceiling, while the walls were decorated with painted plaster.
Canaanite Lachish was totally destroyed by fire at the end of the 12th century BCE. According to one theory, the destruction was wrought by the Philistines of the nearby Coastal Plain; according to another, more widely accepted theory, it was wrought by the Israelites, whose capture and destruction of the city is recorded in the Bible. (Joshua 10:31,32)
The Israelite City
Rebuilt as a fortress-city of the Kingdom of Judah, Lachish gained in importance after the split of the kingdom into Judah and Israel. As the largest city on the western border of the Kingdom of Judah facing the Philistines of the Coastal Plain, Lachish was fortified with a double line of massive mud-brick walls on stone foundations. The main city wall on top of the mound was 6 m. wide, with a sloping glacis supported by a revetment wall along the middle of the slope. The city gate, in the southwestern wall, is one of the largest and most strongly fortified gates known of this period. It consists of an outer gate in a huge tower built of large stones which protrudes from the line of defenses. The gatehouse, on top of the mound, consists of three pairs of chambers with wooden doors on hinges.
A palace-fortress was built on the acropolis and probably served as the residence of the governor appointed by the King of Judah. During the 8th century BCE a new wing was added to the palace, enlarging it to 76 x 36 m. Next to the palace was a courtyard with stables and storerooms; the whole complex was surrounded by a wall with a gatehouse.
The city of Lachish was destroyed by the Assyrian army during Sennacherib's campaign against the Kingdom of Judah in 701 BCE. The destruction was total; the buildings were burned to the ground and the inhabitants exiled. The Assyrian campaign, during the reign of King Hezekiah, and the encampment of the Assyrian army at Lachish are described in detail in the Bible. (2 Kings 18:14-17; 2 Chronicles 32:9) The conquest of Lachish is depicted in monumental stone reliefs found at Sennacherib's palace at Ninveh, providing a rare contemporary "photograph" of the battle and conquest. These relief-images of the Assyrian attack have been confirmed by archeological evidence at the site: the attack on Lachish was launched from the southwest; the attackers built a siege ramp against the slope of the mound, which according to calculation contained some 15,000 tons of stones and earth! The ramp was covered with plaster to allow the Assyrian battering ram to be moved up to the city wall and breach it. The city's defenders constructed a counter-ramp inside the city, thus raising the city wall, which forced the Assyrians to raise the height of their ramp in order to overcome the city's new defenses. The fierceness of the battle is attested to by the remains of weapons, scales of armor, hundreds of slingstones and arrowheads.
During the reign of King Josiah (639-609 BCE), the city of Lachish was rebuilt and fortified. This much poorer city was captured and destroyed by the Babylonian army in 587/6 BCE. (Jeremiah 34:7) In one of the rooms, which opened onto a courtyard outside the city gatehouse, a group of ostraca were found during the excavations in the 1930s. Now known as the Lachish Letters, they constitute an important corpus of Hebrew documents from the First Temple period. Written in paleo-Hebrew script on pottery sherds, they are messages sent by the garrison commander of a small fortress to his commanding officer in Lachish.
In a guardroom at the Lachish city gate, 18 letters providing a rare glimpse into the final days of the Kingdom of Judah, were discovered. The letters, inscribed in ink on potsherds (ostraca), were written in biblical Hebrew similar to that of the Book of Kings and the prose chapters of Jeremiah. Some letters deal with the fate of a prophet. Another, which seems to have been written shortly before the fall of Lachish to the Babylonians in 586 BCE, infers the fall of nearby Azekah from the fact that its fire signals were no longer visible.
Translation: "May Yahweh give you good news at this time. And now, your servant has done everything my lord sent (me word to do). I have written down everything you sent me (word to do). As regards what my lord said about Bet-HRPD, there is no one there. As for Semakyahu, Shemayahu has seized him and taken him up to the city. Your servant cannot send the witness there [today]; rather, it is during the morning tour that [he will come (to you)]. Then it will be known that we are watching the (fire)-signals of Lachish according to the code which my lord gave us, for we cannot see Azeqah."
From the Israel Museum publications: Hestrin, Ruth, Israeli, Yael, Meshorer, Yaakov, Eitan, Avraham, Inscriptions reveal: Documents from the time of the Bible, the Mishna and the Talmud, The Israel Museum, Jerusalem, 1973, English / Hebrew
quote: Front side of a replica of Lachish Letter III, Phoenician script / Paleo-Hebrew script
YHWH on Lachish letters number 2
The Lachish Letters or Lachish Ostraca, sometimes called Hoshaiah Letters, are a series of letters written in carbon ink in Ancient Hebrew on clay ostraca. The letters were discovered at the excavations at Lachish (Tell ed-Duweir).
The ostraca were discovered by James Leslie Starkey in January–February, 1935 during the third campaign of the Wellcome excavations. They were published in 1938 by Harry Torczyner (name later changed to Naftali Herz Tur-Sinai) and have been much studied since then. Seventeen of them are currently located in the British Museum in London,[1] a smaller number (including Letter 6) are on permanent display at the Rockefeller Museum in East Jerusalem.[2] The primary inscriptions are known as KAI 192-199.
Great question... the location for Lacish is debatable. Petrie was sure it was located in southern Judah, at Tel Hesi... the first sight ever dug in Palastine.. Original name of Lachish Lachisa is Rakisha, maybe that would be helpful? Also, search for anything regarding Panehesy.. I think Petrie had his reasons for going to Tel Hesi first..and that was his clue. Maybe in relation to the Half Canaanite half Nubian lower egyptian pharaoh.. Nehesy Aasehre (Nehesi) was a ruler of Lower Egypt during the fragmented Second Intermediate Period. He is placed by most scholars into the early 14th Dynasty
A question, saw a rumor online ( could be fake news) that the 1935 dig took 190 skeletal remains found at Tell ed- Duweir where taken to England? Do you know anything about that?
-------------------- It's not my burden to disabuse the ignorant of their wrong opinions Posts: 2699 | From: New York | Registered: Jun 2015
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quote:Originally posted by Yatunde Lisa: Great question... the location for Lacish is debatable. Petrie was sure it was located in southern Judah, at Tel Hesi... the first sight ever dug in Palastine.. Original name of Lachish Lachisa is Rakisha, maybe that would be helpful? Also, search for anything regarding Panehesy.. I think Petrie had his reasons for going to Tel Hesi first..and that was his clue. Maybe in relation to the Half Canaanite half Nubian lower egyptian pharaoh.. Nehesy Aasehre (Nehesi) was a ruler of Lower Egypt during the fragmented Second Intermediate Period. He is placed by most scholars into the early 14th Dynasty
Yes, their known place of origin is at Tell ed-Duwei/ Tel Lachish. And I have found some information on. Tell ed-Duwei and that I need to read. I wonder about the history of them in Northeast Africa. The Lacish were the original Hebrew population, so that is what makes them interesting.
quote:Originally posted by Yatunde Lisa: A question, saw a rumor online ( could be fake news) that the 1935 dig took 190 skeletal remains found at Tell ed- Duweir where taken to England? Do you know anything about that?
No, I don't know anything about it, but I managed to find this:
quote: The publication of David Ussishkin's beautiful new large- format book The Conquest of Lachish by Sennacherib (Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University Publications of The Institute of Archaeology, no. 6 [1982]; 135 pages, 13 x 13 inches) coincided appropriately enough with the fiftieth anniversary of the commencement in 1932 of archaeological excavation at Tell ed-Duweir, the site now generally thought to be ancient Lachish.
quote: Risdon, D. L. “A Study of the Cranial and Other Human Remains From Palestine Excavated at Tell Duweir (Lachish) by the Wellcome-Marston Archaeological Research Expedition.” Biometrika 35 (1939): 99-166.
quote: Vaughn criticizes the new position of Lipschits and others as one primarily from silence and assumption. Thus, Vaughn argues that all the lmlk handles discovered at Lachish show evidence of a late eighth-century origin. (This older consensus had been brought into question because of the excavation history at Lachish.) While Vaughn argues that the whole lmlk system begins and ends with Hezekiah, he and Lipschits agree that it testifies to a strong, centralized government in Judah at the end of the eighth century. [..] Historical developments in Judah were very different. Most of the major Iron IIB Israelite cities, like Lachish, Beersheba, and Beth-Shemesh, were destroyed by the Assyrians (Ussishkin 2004, 71; NEAEHL 5, 1648), and although Judah also became a vassal of the Assyrian Empire, it was of only minor importance for most of the seventh century (Machinist 1992, 74). While Lachish did undergo a resur- gence at the end of the seventh century (Ussishkin 2004, 91), Beersheba survived as only a small off-tell settlement (Gophna and Yisraeli 1973, 115–16) and Beth- Shemesh was not resettled at all (Bunimovitz and Lederman 2011, 48).
quote:Tel Lachish is one of the most important archaeological sites in Israel. During that period – around the middle of the 2nd millennium BCE – it was a Canaanite center.
The city is also mentioned several times in the Bible.
According to the Book of Joshua, the Israelites destroyed it as they conquered the Land of Israel at the end of their wanderings in the desert after the Exodus from Egypt.
Lachish later became an important Israelite city in the Kingdom of Judah, until it was destroyed by the Assyrians in the 7th century BCE.
The inscription was dated very precisely to 3,500 years ago, thanks to the numerous organic samples collected with it, such as seeds, which allowed the researchers to employ radiocarbon dating.
“Another inscription was found in the 1930s, which some believe might go back to 100 years earlier, but because it was excavated such a long time ago, it is not possible to use radiocarbon dating,” Höflmayer explained. “Moreover, many experts have doubts regarding the alphabet script used.”
The new finding is especially significant because it narrows the gap between the earliest testimonies of alphabetic script uncovered in the Sinai region and more recent evidence of Semitic alphabets.
“We know that the early alphabet was invented in Sinai in approximately the 19th century BCE,” he said. “It resurfaced in southern Levant much later, only around the 13th and 12th centuries, but we had no clues about what happened between these two periods.”
Before the discovery of the inscription, experts believed that writing might have been brought by Egyptians to the Levant, as archaeologists often referred to an area that includes modern Israel, Palestinian territories, parts of Lebanon, and Jordan.
“In the Late Bronze Age, between 1550 and 1200 BCE, the region was under the Egyptian empire,” said Höflmayer. “The Egyptians imposed their administrative system and their own writing, and many experts thought that the early alphabet might have been introduced in this context. But now we can see that it was already in use at least by the 15th century BCE, when there was not such large-scale Egyptian domination.”
Höflmayer said that even though the letters identified on the sherd bear names and compose words that might sound familiar to a modern Hebrew speaker, the alphabet was not the Hebrew alphabet, but rather an alphabet from which the Hebrew one would evolve centuries later.
The inscription bears letters that the researchers identified as ayin, bet and daled, (e-v-d) forming a word that can be “eved” – which back then, as well as in modern Hebrew, means “slave.” The second word deciphered on the sherd features nun-peh-tav, (n-p-t) or “nectar.”
“All alphabets have somewhat evolved from hieroglyphs, the Phoenician one, the Hebrew one, the Greek one, the Latin one and so on,” Höflmayer said. “Now we know that the alphabet was not brought to the Levant by the Egyptian rule. Although we cannot really explain yet how it happened, we can say that it was much earlier and under different social circumstances.”
quote:Lachish is one of the key sites in the Bible’s account of the Israelite conquest of Canaan.
[...]
The plan of this Canaanite temple at Lachish seems to have originated in Egypt. Similar temples have been uncovered at Deir el-Medina near Luxor, and also at Tell el-Amarna. Deir el-Medina was the village of the ancient Egyptian workmen who cut the tombs of the Pharaohs in the Valley of the Kings. At Deir el-Medina, Chapel G, among others, consists of an antechamber, main hall with two central columns and a cella; the entrances and their staircases are aligned along a central axis. Various other characteristic features in our Canaanite temple at Lachish were adopted from the Egyptians—the octagonal columns, the shapes of the column bases and capitals, the staircase and its parapet, the brick-paved floor and the painted plaster. In short, our Canaanite temple at Lachish (as well as the contemporaneous Canaanite temple at Beth-Shean) displays strong Egyptian influence.
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^ This issue of Lachish affinities was discussed before.
Yes, metrically the Lachish population resembled Nile Valley Africans as Keita and others have shown but metric traits are not good indicators of genetic relations, non-metric traits are!
Keita (1993) in his Studies and Comments Paper cites Berry: Berry et al (1967) showed that numerous Egyptian series from different regions and epochs usually showed greater affinity to one another than to Sudanese, Palestinian (Lachish), and West African (Ashanti) series. Notably missing from their study were the A, C, X, and Meroitic Nubian groups. Numerous inconsistencies were apparent in that successive regional populations sometimes had less affinity to one another than to some from greatly different time periods and regions. For example, early Nakada predynastic crania had less affinity with late Nakada series than the even earlier predynastic Badari did with the late dynastic northern Gizeh groups! Overall, when the Egyptian crania are evaluated in a Near Eastern (Lachish) versus African (Kerma, Jebel Moya, Ashanti) context, the affinity is with the Africans. The Sudan and Palestine are the most appropriate comparative regions which would have "donated" people, along with the Sahara and Maghreb. Archaeology validates looking to these regions for population flow (see Hassan 1988).
Ullinger & Sheridan et al. (2005) Paper on Dental Nonmetrics of the Southern Levant: The proposal that Lachish was comprised of Egyptian immigrants (Risdon, 1939) was not supported. Rather, the current findings support the theory that the people of Lachish were indigenous to the southern Levant (Keith, 1940; Arensburg, 1973; Arensburg etal., 1980; Smith, 1995), as Dothan and Lachish were both significantly different from Lisht. Dothan, however, may have had slightly more Egyptian genetic influence than Lachish. The location of Dothan along a major international highway between Egypt and Mesopotamia (as well as the Mediterranean and Mesopotamia) during the Late Bronze Age may shed light on this finding (Mullins, 2002). Teeth from Dothan and Lachish show more resemblance with each other than they did with Iron Age Italy, Byzantine St. Stephen’s, or the Natufians. There were significant differences between Dothan and Lachish in individual traits; however, the two sites showed overall similarity. Dentally, there was no evidence of a markedly different foreign population in the Iron Age southern Levant. These data support the view that material culture changes in the Iron Age cannot be explained simply by the arrival of markedly different peoples into the region. Although dentally similar new groups might have introduced novel cultural traits, this issue cannot be fully evaluated with the present database, as other biological systems need to be considered.Posts: 26236 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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