SOLVING A CENTURY-OLD PUZZLE: NEW DISCOVERIESAT THE MIDDLE BRONZE GATE OF TEL BETH-SHEMESH

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At Ain Shems (Beth-Shemesh) in –, Duncan Mackenzie exposed a massive city wall and its ‘SouthGate’. Mackenzie published only a schematic plan of the gate, which he dated back to the ‘Canaanite period’,and covered it at the end of his work. The gate comprises one of the finest examples of Middle Bronze city gatesknown from the Land of Israel, yet its asymmetrical plan and final date of use remained a puzzle for almost acentury. Combining archaeological clues on the ground with a study of Mackenzie’s unpublished documents in thePEF archive, the authors’ renewed excavations at Tel Beth-Shemesh, located the hidden ‘South Gate’ andexposed it anew. The new excavation revealed unknown details about the gate’s plan and determined LateBronze IIA as the terminus ad quem for its function as a gate. A reassessment of the ‘South Gate’ archi-tecture, roofing, and system of closure provides new insights concerning its daily functioning, and raises doubtsabout the conventional uniform reconstruction of known MB gates. The role of Beth-Shemesh as a fortifiedMBIIB-C city in the northern Shephelah is discussed vis-à-vis its neighbouring sites: Tel Batash, TelMiqne, and Gezer.

Keywords: Tel Beth-Shemesh, Shephelah, Sorek Valley, Duncan Mackenzie, Middle Bronze Age, city gates

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Tel Beth-Shemesh is among the first tells to have been archaeologically excavated in the Landof Israel. Back in , Scottish archaeologist DuncanMackenzie—excavator of the city of Phy-lakopi on the island of Melos and Sir Arthur Evans’s right-hand man in the uncovering of thelegendary palace of King Minos in Knossos, Crete—had begun unearthing the remains of bib-lical Beth-Shemesh. These excavations were conducted under the auspices of the PalestineExploration Fund, and it was during this time that Mackenzie determined the site’s basic stra-tigraphy and uncovered the Bronze Age city wall and gate (dubbed by Mackenzie as the‘Strong Wall’ and ‘South Gate’; Mackenzie ; –; Fig. ).

Soon enough Mackenzie’s conduct stirred aversion among his employers, he was dis-missed from his position as the PEF’s ‘Explorer’ in Palestine, and was requested to returnto England (for details on the Mackenzie affair see Momigliano ; , –).However, an unexpected donation of £ allowed him, against his patron’s will, to continueand complete the excavation of the city’s gate early in the winter of (Mackenzie –,, ). At the end of his excavations, Mackenzie returned the surface of the site to its formerstate as according to the Ottoman law. He backfilled the excavation trenches, covered the areawith dirt, and returned to Britain. Owing to the dispute between Mackenzie and the directorsof the PEF no full report of his excavations at the gate area was published. In a later phase of hiscareer, Mackenzie returned to the excavations at Knossos in Crete, and was nominated as thecurator of the site. His excessive partiality towards alcohol got the better of him, his mind wasclouded and his end was unfortunate. He was committed to a shelter home in Italy by his sisterand died in (Momigliano , –).

Address correspondence to: Zvi Lederman, Tel Beth-Shemesh Excavations Project, Institute of Archaeology, TelAviv University, Tel Aviv , Israel, zvi.lederman@gmail.com

Palestine Exploration Quarterly, , (), –

© Palestine Exploration Fund : ./Z.

The ‘South Gate’ at Beth-Shemesh was perceived to be impressive by all who were fam-iliar with it. Father Hugo Vincent (, ), for example, found it difficult to imagine ‘a betterexample of a fortified gate built in the ancient Syrian or Asiatic fashion’ while other knowledge-able persons praised it as ‘one of the finest monuments of its kind in Palestine’ (Mackenzie–, ). Since its exposure, the gate has been established as one of the typical examplesfor the planning of city gates in the Land of Israel during the Middle Bronze Age IIB–C, that is,a Syrian-styled ‘three-entrance’ gate with a direct passageway flanked by two towers with threepairs of piers projecting into the passage (see, for example, Albright , ; Herzog , –; Kempinski , ; Mazar , ). While these gates are typically symmetrical, thelayout of the Beth-Shemesh gate seems to indicate that part of the eastern tower is missing(Mackenzie –, Pl. III).1 The question of longevity of the ‘South Gate’ is another openissue. Mackenzie believed that the gate was used in two of the three ‘cities’ he uncovered at thetell – the ‘Canaanite city’ and the ‘Philistine city’ – and went out of use with the demolition ofthe latter at the hand of the Israelites early in the Monarchy period (Mackenzie –, –).

The expedition led by Elihu Grant of Haverford College, Pennsylvania, that excavatedlarge portions of Tel Beth-Shemesh during the years –, did not revisit the ‘SouthGate’. Notwithstanding, G.E. Wright, having processed and summarized the results of theseexcavations, assigned the foundation of the gate to the seventeenth–sixteenth centuries .

Fig. . Tel Beth-Shemesh: map of excavations areas, –.

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He also speculated that the gate was partially destroyed at the end of the Middle Bronze Age,hesitantly accepting Mackenzie’s suggestion regarding the continued use of the gate during theLate Bronze Age and Iron Age I (Strata IV and III of the Haverford expedition). Either way,Wright stressed that during the Iron Age II (Stratum II) houses were built over the gate (Grantand Wright , , ).

In , when we resumed the archaeological excavations at Tel Beth-Shemesh with theobjective of re-examining the stratigraphy and the cultural history of the human communitiesthat lived there, we also addressed the issue of the city gate.2 However, the surface revealed noclue of the city wall or its southern gate. It would take too long to describe the details of ourhunt in the field and at the PEF archives in London for any piece of information thatwould help lead us to these two important finds. Eventually, in , the Bronze Age wallwas found at the south edge of the mound (Bunimovitz and Lederman ). While wewere looking for the wall and gate, Nicoletta Momigliano—Mackenzie’s biographer—located some of his documents that had been kept safe for over years by his nephew in Scot-land. Among the documents were original field diaries from the Tel Beth-Shemesh excavation,including his hand-written unpublished manuscript from the final excavation season in thewinter of (Momigliano ; Mackenzie n.d.).3 Subsequent to these finds, in weopened Area Z at the south of the site, where Mackenzie’s ‘South Gate’ was indeed uncovered,and new details were found, shedding new light on its plan and history. In the current article,we wish to bring forth new insights concerning the southern gate of Canaanite Beth-Shemeshas they are delineated a century after its first discovery.

. ‘ ’ - ’ The highlight of Mackenzie’s excavation at Beth-Shemesh was his discovery of the ‘StrongWall’—a solid fortification system that surrounded the site. Mackenzie traced the city wall atthe circumference of the site by the known methods of his time: open trenches and undergroundtunnels. The discovery climaxed with the finding of a massively constructed city gate at the southedge of the site, which established that the city rose above the Sorek Valley, introducing it with acontinuous defensive front while the entrance to the city was from the south (Mackenzie , ).

On both ends, the gate was directly linked to the solid city wall and partially built of verylarge—‘megalithic’ in Mackenzie’s words—fieldstones, similar to the wall. The flanking gate iscomprised of two rectangular towers with a narrow passageway in between with three pairs ofpiers (for a description of the gate’s structure see Mackenzie , –, Fig. , Pl. XIV;–, –, Pls. II–III, XV; n.d., –) (Fig. ).4 For the most of it, the gate is foundwithin the city’s premises while only a small portion protrudes outwards beyond the citywall. The gate towers are asymmetrical in size as well as plan. The western tower includes arelatively large room that opens towards the gate passageway. Mackenzie perceived thisroom to be a guard room. In the northern end of the tower, Mackenzie described two smallclosed chambers alongside which lies an elongated corridor with an opening to the city. It islikely that the corridor served as a stairway leading to the upper storey of the gate (Herzog, ; and see below). The eastern tower of the gate boasts two square chambers withoutopenings, which Mackenzie suggested were used as dungeons into which prisoners could belet down from the more important outlook rooms located on the upper floor of the tower.The northeastern corner of the gate tower is missing from Mackenzie’s plans, leading to thespeculation that this part was destroyed but originally hosted another room which could beentered from the city (Herzog , Fig. ).

The entire gate passage was full of intensely fired fallen mud bricks (Mackenzie –, ,, Pls. II, XV). The brick debris also revealed burnt remains of wood beams, and Mackenziehypothesized that at least in part these represented the remains of the gate doors which would

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have been located near the piers even though no evidence was found of hinge sockets. Moreover,during the initial excavation stages, Mackenzie was certain that the fired bricks and charredwooden remains originated in the debris of adjacent structures that were thrown from the cityinto the gate passage. Later, however, Mackenzie concluded that the bricks originated in thegate’s superstructure which collapsed during the intense destruction that struck the gate. Unfor-tunately, no remains of this structure remained in situ (Mackenzie n.d., –). The floor of thepassage was made by levelling away the bedrock surface (Mackenzie , –).

Another interesting detail found in the gate passage is a stone wall that considerably nar-rowed the inner opening of the passage. According to the gate’s plan and photograph (Mack-enzie –, Pl. III; Fig. ), it appears that the lower wall courses connected the twoinnermost piers, creating a sort of elevated doorstep over the passage floor. This suggeststhat the gate passage had changed its function with the construction of this partial blockingwall, no longer allowing for the passage of chariots and wagons. Indeed, Mackenzie proposedthat the wall was constructed during the last phase of the gate’s use in order to impede theentrance to the city during times of danger or siege (Mackenzie n.d., –). Behind thewall, Mackenzie left a strip of unexcavated grounds separating the gate from the central

Fig. . The ‘South Gate’ after its exposure in December (looking north). Mackenzie’s site-keepercAlayan is standing at the opening of the ‘Guard Room’ (courtesy of the PEF).

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excavation area. His intention was to preserve a stratigraphic section of the debris in this areaas he was convinced that the gate passage would lead to the main city road. Yet his hope wasshattered and rather than a street, a deep well was uncovered north of the gate, probably of theIron Age. Moreover, excavation of the strip between the gate structure and the well showedthat the quarrying of the well severely damaged earlier remains around it, cutting off thegate from the city structures (Mackenzie –, , , Pl. II; n.d., –).

According to Mackenzie, the ‘South Gate’ was established along with the city’s first for-tification works, when the city of the ‘Canaanite period’ (Middle and Late Bronze Age intoday’s terminology) was established. As an experienced archaeologist Mackenzie was awareof the challenge in dating the longevity of the city gate since its role as daily passage hinderedthe accumulation of debris over time. Notwithstanding, in a vertical section cut through thedebris accumulating within the gate passage Mackenzie identified a well-preserved clayfloor set over the collapsed bricks after their destruction. Moreover, he related this floor,which marked the end of the gate’s use, to the foundations of houses from the ‘Israeliteperiod’ (the Iron Age II period) that were built over the gate and the attached wall. Mackenzietherefore concluded that the ‘South Gate’ and the ‘Strong Wall’, which were built togetherduring the ‘Canaanite period’, were used during this period and the sequential one, whenBeth-Shemesh would have been under Philistine rule. In his view, both fortification com-ponents went out of use with the Israelite conquest of Beth-Shemesh, and he later concludedthat the Judahite city that was built on the site was not fortified (Mackenzie –, –; n.d., ). The new excavations at Tel Beth-Shemesh show that Mackenzie’s interpretation of thegate-related finds was only partially accurate.

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The renewed excavations at Tel Beth-Shemesh aimed to uncover Mackenzie’s ‘Strong Wall’due to its potential role as a stratigraphic anchor. Eventually, we found a section of the wall inarea RD at the south side of the tell (Fig. ).5 It appeared that the wall was built directly overthe levelled bedrock, and pottery uncovered in a room adjacent to the wall date the wall to theMiddle Bronze Age IIB (Bunimovitz and Lederman , ). Finding the wall, our interest inMackenzie’s ‘South Gate’ was rekindled, especially when the eastern end of the uncoveredwall seemed to disclose a glimpse of a structure speculated to be the outer corner of thewestern gate tower. The surface revealed no clue or remains by which to assert this notion,but knowing that Mackenzie covered his excavations we believed that the gate could be uncov-ered anew, its plan restudied, and the stratigraphic assessment be updated. We thereforeopened Area Z specifically for the achievement of this objective (Figs. and ).6

A second section of the ‘Strong Wall’ (F) was found early in our excavation of this newarea, alongside the eastern tower of the ‘South Gate’ (Fig. ; Square A). The wall was built ina manner identical to that of the wall that was uncovered in area RD: an exterior courseconstructed of large fieldstones and an inner course of large stones that are somewhatsmaller than the exterior ones. Between the two courses, a fill of medium-sized fieldstoneswas found. On its inner face, the wall was preserved to the height of three, sometimes four,courses, and it appeared to be integrated within the gate structure. Behind the wall wasfound a mass of mud brick debris mixed with ashes, undoubtedly the remains of the uppercourses of the wall, which collapsed in destruction. Clearing of the brick debris led to the dis-covery of pebble floor F, over which was found a typical Middle Bronze Age scarab.7

The finds in Square A demonstrated that Mackenzie focused mainly on the exposure ofthe inner side of the gate and had thus not damaged any of its outer areas. We thereforeextended the excavation in an attempt to detect residential strata in the vicinity of theeastern gate tower.

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The excavation revealed that this area (Square A) was severely damaged by a largerobbing pit, probably dating from the Late Bronze Age (the pit contained pottery of thisperiod, including imported Cypriote vessels). It seems that the pit had also damaged the north-eastern chamber of the gate, the upper courses of which are missing (below). Notwithstanding,deep under the pit’s fill, a sturdy wall (F) was uncovered, set on an east–west axis and builtof a single course of large fieldstones. The western section of the wall is missing. It seems thatthe wall, which is parallel to the city wall, was attached to the city tower, creating a wide case-mate similar to that created by wall F, uncovered in Square W and also running parallelto the city wall. This phenomenon of casemates or rooms adjacent to the city gate has beenobserved in other Middle Bronze Age sites in the Land of Israel (such as Shechem andHazor—Campbell , ; Yadin , ; Herzog , , , Figs. . and .D).Still, both the rooms we uncovered by the gate structure at Beth-Shemesh revealed testimonyto daily life such as clay ovens (tabuns), so that it became clear that their role was greater thanmerely structural (and see below).

. The Eastern Gate Tower

The city wall (F) was integrated within the structure of the eastern gate tower, as mentionedpreviously. At the point of convergence a small chamber (F) was found whose floor is fully

Fig. . Updated plan of the Middle Bronze ‘South Gate’ after its re-excavation in .

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levelled while its role is unclear. The southeastern corner of the tower is built of huge boulderssimilar to the massive stones of the exterior wall of the tower (F).

The southernmost chamber of the tower was partially excavated to the depth ofthree courses and found to be full of Mackenzie’s fill—small fieldstones and gray dirtmixed with pottery sherds from Medieval and recent periods. The central chamber ofthe tower was also partially excavated until it became clear that it, too, was filled withmodern fill.

The northern chamber of the east tower was unknown and does not appear on Macken-zie’s plans. The walls closing the room from the north and from the east were found to be par-tially robbed by the Late Bronze Age pit of Square A, and only their lowermost coursessurvived. The study and analysis of our sections in the area of the northern chamber clearlyshow that Mackenzie’s excavations were shallow here reaching only to the top of thewestern and southern walls of the room which stood to their full height. This is how Mackenziecame to overlook the northeastern corner of the gate tower, which was mostly robbed and pre-served only to a lower level—some cm below the adjacent walls tops. Following our finding,Mackenzie’s plan of the city gate must be adjusted and a third chamber should be added to the

Fig. . Aerial view (looking north) of the re-excavated ‘South Gate’ in Area Z (photograph by SkyView).

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eastern tower, whose layout and measurements are nearly identical to those of the other tworooms. Moreover, it appears that this chamber was also closed by walls on all sides, and unlikethe prevailing reconstruction it did not boast an opening into the city. With the finding of thethird chamber, the general plan of the gate is now balanced and symmetrical, similar to thelayout of other Middle Bronze Age IIB–C sites.

Debris that probably pertains to the fill of the robbing pit was dug to the full depth ofthe third chamber. Among other things, the pit yielded a Late Bronze flask, almost intact. Atthe bottom section of the chamber a layer of fallen bricks was uncovered in which large bodysherds of a pithos and a jar were found. It is difficult to determine whether these are in situ, relat-ing to the Middle Bronze Age, or whether they are part of a later disturbance.

. The Western Gate Tower

Most of the western gate tower was excavated a second time. As may be recalled, in the north-ern end of the tower, Mackenzie described in his plans an elongated corridor on the side ofwhich were two small chambers. The excavation of this area showed that the wall separatingthese two chambers was merely a random pile of fallen bricks. As it turned out, then, the orig-inal tower plan included, in addition to the ‘guard room’ in its southern section, two elongatedrectangular chambers of identical size. A particularly interesting find is a four-handle storagejar found by our team in situ set into the northern end of the eastern chamber (Fig. ; and seethe Discussion below). Undoubtedly, this find was not visible to Mackenzie who seems to havekept the dig shallow here, too. The jar was supported all around by fieldstones that have pene-trated deep (some four courses) into the chamber. The chamber was filled with brick debris,probably the remains of the gate’s upper structure, under which was found a thick layer(– cm) of white-gray ash, the remains of some vegetative material stored within thechamber.8

The western chamber, typically considered to be a stairway, was fully excavated by usthroughout its length with a deep section in its northern end. The chamber did not containany in situ debris but only later fill, the result of Mackenzie’s covering activity.

. The Gate Passage

The gate passage was cleared throughout from Mackenzie’s cover fill in order to expose thepiers, which were found to be built of very large fieldstones that were integrated within thegate towers. Just next to the innermost pier of the eastern tower a solid wall (F) was discov-ered built of two rows of medium-sized fieldstones that narrowed down the gate passage at thispoint while also elevating the threshold. This wall is clearly visible in Mackenzie’s photographs,and since it is not integrated in the original structure of the pier, it appears that the wall wasbuilt at a phase when the people of Beth-Shemesh wished to obstruct the passage into thecity—perhaps an emergency time that ended with the destruction of the gate.

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For years Mackenzie’s asymmetrical plan of the ‘South Gate’ at Beth-Shemesh was a puzzlingriddle. Its re-exposure within the current framework of the new excavations elucidated thegate’s original plan. Moreover, the occupation levels we exposed on both sides of the gatefrom within the ‘Strong Wall’ allowed us to date the foundation of the wall and gate and essen-tially the founding of the first fortified city at Beth-Shemesh to the Middle Bronze Age IIB.This allows for an up-to-date discussion of the plan and role of the ‘South Gate’ amongother Middle Bronze Age gates in the Land of Israel and Syria.

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. Architecture and Construction Techniques

It is clear that the gate was built along with the solid city wall directly over the limestonebedrock of the hill. The builders of the fortifications levelled the rock and even slightly duginto it to set up the lowermost courses of stones. Throughout the extended excavation of thecity wall and the southern gate (in Areas RD and Z) no evidence of a rampart or glaciswere found outside the wall or in front of the gate towers. The stone foundations of the walland gate were therefore free of cover, support, or any other external protection. This mightexplain the use of huge boulders in the exterior walls of the gate. It is important to notethat this method of Middle Bronze Age fortification construction used at Tel Beth-Shemesh

Fig. . A Late Bronze Age installation (F) set into the eastern chamber of the ‘South Gate’ westerntower. A four-handled storage jar (.) was found lined around by supporting field stones.

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differs from that used at Tel Batash, only km to the west. The latter was built in the SorekValley over flat land as a rectangular complex surrounded by earthen ramparts that werepoured towards a brick wall without stone foundations (Mazar , –). It thus seemsthat at both of these neighbouring sites methods of construction of the fortifications wereadapted to local conditions.

The connection between the wall and gate at Beth-Shemesh is direct necessitating nospecial constructions such as those used in the construction of gates at rampart enceinteswhere the gate had to be connected to the ramparts rising on both of its sides (Gregori, –; and see, for example, the lower city of Hazor—Yadin , –). The twowide rooms found on either side of the Beth-Shemesh gate were clearly used for residentialor daily life, so their purpose is clearly different from the constructional enclosures found adja-cent to the gates in rampart sites. Similar wide rooms were found, for example, flanking thenorthwestern gate at Shechem. Sellin, the first excavator of Tell Balatah-Shechem, perceivedthese rooms as two palace wings (e.g. , –). The American expedition interpreted thesouthern wing as a temple and the northern wing as a residential unit or guardrooms (Camp-bell , –). In either event, these rooms were part of the Shechem acropolis duringthe Middle Bronze Age IIB–C.

The upper face of both the city wall and the stone gate walls were found levelled and seemto have survived to the full height of their original stone-construction—some –. m. A similarpicture emerges from the gate section published by Mackenzie (–, Pl. III) as well as aphotograph of the gate taken upon its full exposure (Fig. ): the site keeper stands on the orig-inal gate floor—the levelled bedrock (mud had accumulated over the floor due to the rainyweather of December , the time when the photograph was taken). A superstructure ofmud bricks was built over the wall and gate. Large portions of this structure, which had col-lapsed into the gate passage as it was destroyed, were removed by Mackenzie while we haduncovered blocks of fallen bricks at the foot of the wall’s stone courses.

In comparison with other Middle Bronze Age IIB gates in the southern Levant, the gate atBeth-Shemesh appears to be of intermediate size (for comparative data see Herzog , ,Table D; Gregori , , Tables –; Mazar , , Table V.I). Similar to these othergates, it is built of two rectangular towers between which is found a long, straight passage,made narrow by three pairs of piers. Morphologically speaking the tower gates of Beth-Shemesh comply with towers that boast chambers in their stone foundations (see Gregori, ), although only one relatively large chamber in the western gate tower opens to theentrance passage. Mackenzie called it the ‘guard room’ judging from position at the forefrontof the gate structure. Gregori, too, perceives such chambers to be guard rooms or customstations used to monitor people entering and leaving the city as well as their merchandise.During peaceful times, the gate would have been open for passage (Gregori , ). Onthe other hand, the elongated chamber we excavated in this tower and the three chambersfound in the eastern gate tower—including the northern chamber fully exposed by us—have no openings. Similarly sealed chambers were found, for example, at the gate towers ofAlalakh, Carchemish, Yavneh-Yam, and Tell el Farcah (S) (Herzog , Figs. , –). Con-templating the use of these chambers, Gregori (, ) rejected the possibility that they weremerely meant to save time, effort, and building material as the towers were erected. Based onthe finds of Alalakh VII, where such a chamber was found with plastered walls and floor, shehesitantly and reluctantly suggested (for lack of any evidence) that these blind chambers wereused for storage, accessed through wooden trapdoors set in the floors of the upper gate tier. AtBeth-Shemesh,Mackenzie found no clue for the role of the chambers in the eastern gate tower nordid we find any evidence to a floor or storage usage in the third chamber we uncovered. As for theplant remains found in the elongated chamber of the western tower, they are likely to have beenrelated to whatever activity took place in the vicinity of the gate during the Late Bronze Age as

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may be inferred from the Canaanite storage vessel found stuck within it (further discussed below).We therefore suggest that the sealed chambers of the eastern tower whose plans vary are merelystructural (similar to the ‘boxes’ that characterized some of the contemporaneous earthen ram-parts; see Kempinski , ). It is likely that they were filled with dirt, carrying the weight ofthe upper gate tower structure along with the stone foundation surrounding them.

. Roofing and Closure

In the brick piles exposed by Mackenzie within the ‘South Gate’ passage no clear indication wasfound attesting to the roofing of the gate, with the exception of certain charred wooden beamswhich he associated with the gate doors. Two Middle Bronze Age mudbrick city gates foundin Israel—at Tel Dan and Ashkelon—revealed clear evidence for the roofing over the gatepassage in the form of a brick barrel dome (Biran ; Stager , –). WhileGregori believes this roofing method was prevalent in the southern Levant during that time,she also notes that flat roofs within which wooden beams were incorporated should not beruled out, especially with respect to the gate passage whose roof was probably lower than thetowers rising on each of its sides (see also Stager , ). Furthermore, she emphasizes the roleof the central pair of piers in distributing the load of the passage roofing contending that thiswas indeed their purpose rather than just creating recesses for housing open door-leaves(Gregori , –; and below). It is thus possible that the wooden remains found byMackenzieamong the gate debris originated in the passage roof rather than the gate doors.

The closing of ‘three-entrance’ gates raises essential questions with respect to the gate’sfunction during both peaceful times and during emergencies. Since Mackenzie found the

T :: Pottery illustrated in Figs. and .

No. Vessel Reg.No.

Layer Elevation Comments Comparisons

Carinatedbowl

. L . Panitz-Cohen (, –)(BL )

Flask . L . Self-slip andburnish; paintedconcentric circles

Amiran (, , Pl. );Ben-Arieh (, , Fig. :,Pl. ); Panitz-Cohen (,) (FL )

Jug . L .

Storage jar . L . Grant and Wright (, Pl.LVI:); Panitz-Cohen (,–) (SJ )

Storage jar . L . Grant and Wright (, Pl.LVI:); Panitz-Cohen (,–) (SJ )

Storage jar . L . Large jar; onehandle (of four?)preserved

Grant (, ; , Pl.XL:–); Panitz-Cohen (,) (SJ b)

Storage jar . L . Large jar; onehandle (of four?)preserved

Grant (, ; , Pl.XL:–); Panitz-Cohen (,) (SJ b)

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gate at Beth-Shemesh entirely sealed by fallen bricks from its upper structure, it should be con-sidered a ‘sealed locus’ with a primary, undisturbed context. Surprisingly, no hinge socketswere found for the supposed wooden gate doors.9 It is also difficult to imagine how hingesockets would have been set over the flattened bedrock which was used as the gate’s floor.In such a case, one would assume that round concavities would have been cut into thebedrock to serve the expected door sockets, yet Mackenzie exposed the entire passagewithout finding any such elements.10 Almost all other Middle Bronze Age IIB–C gates inIsrael also did not reveal any gate sockets for their doors, with the exclusion of a singlesocket found at the gate of Hazor in Area P (Mazar , , Photos V.–). Herzog(, ) suggested that gate sockets were robbed upon the demolition of the gates for thepurpose of placing them in new gates or for domestic use as mortars or stone bowls. Thishypothesis should be ruled out at Beth-Shemesh, since the brick debris within the gate’spassage was found in situ with no traces of post-destruction interference. Reconstructing themanner by which the contemporaneous gates were closed is therefore based mostly uponthe southwestern gate of Tell Mardikh, where all sockets were found in situ, as well as onclosing devices of the gate doors at Tell Tuqan. The sockets at Tell Mardikh were found inpairs within the exterior and interior piers, indicating that the gate had two set of doors,internal and external, both of which opened inwards. At Tell Tuqan, too, the devices attestto locking from within the gate passage. The single socket found upon the Hazor gate ofArea P also indicates that the door was opened inward towards the gate passage (Mazar, and Plan V. on p. ). It is thus easy to deduce that once the doors were closed,the gate would have been made into an independent fortress, isolated from its surroundingsboth inside and outside the city (Herzog , –, –, Fig. ; Gregori , –,Figs. –; Mazar , –). Following the notion that the gate towers boasted asecond floor, Herzog suggested that the rooms of the Middle Bronze Age IIB–C gate towerswere used to accommodate soldiers of the guard and to store weapons and ammunition.Closing the gate on both ends, according to this view, served to safeguard equipment perma-nently stored in the gate as well as to protect the gate fort in the event of a rise within the cityand any attempt of the residents to overcome it (Herzog , ).

However, as already emphasized, no hinge sockets were found with the Beth-Shemeshgate. Furthermore, following Herzog and Gregori, reconstructing the opening direction ofthe doors inward towards the recesses created by the exterior and central pairs of piers (seealso Mackenzie n.d., ) would result in the blocking of the western tower ‘guard room’ ren-dering it non-functional. In this respect, the gate of Beth-Shemesh differs, for example, fromthe Hazor gate in Area K, where the piers are long enough to allow the doors to turn °,which means that they can open without blocking the access to the gate chambers (Yadin, –; Yadin et al. , –).

Moreover, the narrow passage of the western gate tower of Beth-Shemesh, which wasprobably used as a stairway to the upper floor, opens into the city so that the closing of thegate doors would not have prevented entrance from within the city. In other contemporaneousgates (such as at Alalakh, Carchemish, Megiddo, Shechem, and Yavneh-Yam—Herzog ,Figs. , –, –) similar corridors used as stairways to gate tower superstructures openonly towards the gate passage and thus remain within the closed compound of the gate. Theseare not the conditions set by the Beth-Shemesh gate, and along with other challenges men-tioned above in reconstructing the closing method of the ‘South Gate’ they raise questions con-cerning the defense approach embraced at Beth-Shemesh. These issues also raise doubtsconcerning the potential existence of wooden doors in this gate as well as in other MiddleBronze Age city gates. Perhaps the gate at Beth-Shemesh was open at all times and itsguard served only to supervise traffic. Such an interpretation can also explain wall F thatseems to have been built during times of distress in order to narrow the passageway

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between the innermost pair of gate piers and impede entrance to the city. Erecting this wall andcreating an elevated threshold would have completely changed the function of the gate. Ratherthan a wide passage that allowed for the transition of chariots and wagons, the narrow and elev-ated passage would have allowed for only the transition of pedestrians and animals. It is alsounclear, should there have been doors here originally, why was there a need to build the wall?

Themain functionof city gates of enclosed, fortifiedcities is to funnel daily traffic in andout thecity through one checkpoint, defendable in times of emergency. In accordance with the archaeo-logical evidence it seems that the defense of the Middle Bronze gate of Beth-Shemesh relied onthree main elements: () the overall plan of the gate as a strong fortress, especially the massivetowers on both sides of the gate’s passage, () the employment of guards at the entrance to thegate and defending the gate passageway from the roofs of its upper storey of the side towers, ()quick blockingof the gate’s passagewith builtwalls and stones anddebris backfill in times of distress.

The finds of the ‘South Gate’ at Beth-Shemesh thus raise questions concerning the gen-erally accepted reconstruction of Middle Bronze Age gate functionality, which might havebeen more varied than hitherto considered.

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Mackenzie believed that the ‘South Gate’ was used continuously from its initial constructionand until the Israelite conquest of the ‘Philistine city’ at Beth-Shemesh, early in Iron Age II or

Fig. . Exposing a pottery assemblage within Late Bronze Age IIA destruction debris lying over floorF.

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late Iron Age I in today’s terms. However, our excavations at the gate and its close vicinitybring to light new evidence meriting the revision of Mackenzie’s century-old assumptions.

Like Mackenzie, we too wished to establish the lifetime of the ‘South Gate’. As our exca-vation confirmed that all strata above the gate had indeed been removed in earlier excavations,we were left to examine the area behind the gate (Squares X-Z/–)—that is, the same stripof land excavated by Mackenzie just before he concluded his work at Beth-Shemesh—in orderto stratigraphically connect the gate with the city structures. This area was also covered byMackenzie’s dirt cover. However, to our delight, some finds remained in situ, and these sheda new light on the chronicles of the gate following its destruction.

The most important find we discovered in this area was a thick plaster floor (F) cover-ing the northwest corner of the gate structure and continuing into the city (Fig. ). It turned outthat this floor was built over a fill that sealed the northern end of the stairway passage in thewestern gate tower. Since the fill comprised dirt and stones rather than bricks that had fallenfrom the upper gate structure, it appears to have been intentional. It seems that the floor wouldhave covered additional areas of the gate structure, but a wide trench running along the north-ern face of the western tower disconnects the wall from the plastered floor, except for its pre-served part in the northwestern corner. All evidence shows that Mackenzie was responsible fordigging this trench alongside the face of the tower, probably in his attempt to outline the gatestructure. Mackenzie’s allusion to a floor that was set directly over the gate’s fallen remains

Fig. . A flask (Reg. No. .) from the Late Bronze Age IIA pottery assemblage, found over floorF.

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Fig. . A bowl, flask, and jug dated to Late Bronze Age IIA, found over floor F.

Fig. . Head-chopped storage jars, dated to Late Bronze Age IIA, found over floor F (cont.)

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seems to refer to the floor we had uncovered. Assuming that this is indeed the case, the floorcovered additional areas of the gate’s stone foundations and was removed by Mackenzie’steam as they worked to expose the gate in full.

The plaster floor F was found covered by a thick destruction layer comprising fallenbricks and much ash. The collapse had buried a line of some ten storage jars that were seton the floor as well as some other vessels: a jug, a flask, a carinated bowl, and other vessels(Figs. –). The upper part of all jars is missing, and indeed in the northern section a diagonalslit is apparent descending from near the surface towards the west through the bricks and ashesthat lay over the plaster floor. This late disturbance caused either during Mackenzie’s exca-vations or in some earlier time explains the disappearance of the upper parts of thesevessels. Also missing are the walls of the structure linked to the floor over which the jarswere found. Stratigraphically, it is clear that the plaster floor and its vessels represent the ter-minus ad quem of the gate in its original form as the construction of the floor over its stone foun-dations manifests the end of its role as part of the city fortifications during the Middle BronzeAge.

While the majority of the vessels found in situ among the destruction debris over the plasterfloor were damaged by a late disturbance, they may nevertheless serve for a fertile typologicaldiscussion. The pottery assemblage of this floor may be extended to include the large storagejar (Reg. No. ., Fig. ) found set within a stone facility built within the rectangularchamber of the western gate tower. As with the floor vessels, the presence of this jar atteststo activity within the gate area following its destruction. Most of these vessels are comparable

Fig. . Storage jar (Reg. No. .) found in the Late Bronze Age installation F set into thewestern tower of the Middle Bronze Age ‘South Gate’.

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to finds of the Late Bronze Age I–IIA at both Beth-Shemesh (Grant andWright’s Stratum IVa)and other nearby sites of the Shephelah.11 The pottery assemblage may thus be assigned to thebeginning of the Late Bronze Age, and no later than the Late Bronze Age IIA (fourteenthcentury , Amarna period). This would have been the time at which the Late Bronze Agestructures, built over the Middle Bronze Age city gate, were destroyed.

Indications of a similar destruction have been growing since at the northern slope ofthe tell, in Areas A and D, where a large structure was found, probably a palace, that wasdestroyed in a fierce fire and covered by collapsed bricks. The structure is assigned to ourLevel , and the rich pottery assemblages revealed among its rooms under the fallen bricksshow that it was destroyed during the fourteenth century . In light of the similar strati-graphic sequence found in both the north and south of the tell, it is highly likely that theLate Bronze Age structures built over the gate should also be assigned to Level and thatthe Late Bronze Age IIA city spanned the entire tell. At the northern end of the tell, wefound that the Middle Bronze Age city wall was incorporated into the structure of the laterpalace as part of its defense line towards the Sorek Valley. We may therefore suggest thatour finds at the area of the gate as well as the Late Bronze Age finds uncovered by Mackenzieon the floor of the ‘guard room’ (probably the remains of a Cypriote White Slip ‘milk bowl’;Mackenzie –, ) are sufficient to indicate similar use of the Middle Bronze Age fortifi-cations at the southern end of the tell. Notwithstanding, Mackenzie’s removal of all structuralremains from above the gate hinders our proper understanding of the role carried out by thearea of the gate following its destruction. It is even more difficult to accurately determine whenthe Late Bronze Age structures were erected in this area and the plaster floor set over the gatetowers. Was this done immediately after the destruction of the gate, or only after some timehad elapsed? In either event, it is clearly discerned that during the Late Bronze Age the‘South Gate’ had no longer functioned as the city gate of Beth-Shemesh as it had when estab-lished during the Middle Bronze Age.

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The renewed exposure of the Middle Bronze Age fortifications at Tel Beth-Shemesh raisesquestions of great consequence with respect to the role played by the site in the sociopoliticalarena of the Shephelah at this time. Who was responsible for the foundation of the ‘StrongWall’ and the ‘South Gate’? Was it initiated by the community of Beth-Shemesh itself, orwas this part of a grander scheme commanded by an outer and greater political entity?

Assuming that the construction of Middle Bronze Age earthen and stone fortificationsrequired human resources far beyond the reach of the settlements that were protected bythem, these impressive construction works were described as representing territory-basedsociopolitical power centers (Finkelstein ; but see Bunimovitz for a differentapproach). It was thus suggested that the southern Coastal Plain and the Shephelah weredivided during the Middle Bronze Age IIB–C among five political bodies, each ruling overexpansive territories, centered at Gezer, Lachish, Tell es-Safi, Ashkelon, and Tell el-cAjjul (Fin-kelstein , ). Allegedly, Beth-Shemesh would have been under the control of the Gezeror Tell es-Safi ‘kingdoms’. Nevertheless, it seems that during this period, it was Tel Miqne thatwas the largest fortified site in the northern Shephelah (Maeir and Uziel ), leading to thepossibility that this site, rather than Gezer or Tell es-Safi, was in control of the Soreq Valleyand its settlements (see also Mazar , ). Alternatively, the two fortified cities erectedduring the Middle Bronze Age IIB in the Sorek Valley, namely Beth-Shemesh and TelBatash, were independent. Owing to their proximity (only km apart), Mazar () feltthat the Middle Bronze Age IIB settlement at Tel Batash must have fallen under the wingsof the city-state that formed at Tel Miqne. The different forms of fortifications characterizing

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Tel Batash and Beth-Shemesh—earthen ramparts at the former versus a solid stone and brickwall at the latter—may have reflected the different topographic settings of each site as TelBatash is situated within the alluvial plain of the valley while Beth-Shemesh crowns a hill over-looking the valley. At the same time, it is possible that these differences reflect varyingapproaches to the issue of fortification and its architecture—namely, a mountainous traditionas opposed to rampart settlements that were prevalent during the Middle Bronze Age in theplains and valleys of the Land of Israel and Syria.

Elsewhere we have suggested that during the Late Bronze Age IIA (Amarna period) Beth-Shemesh was a sovereign city-state, as may be deduced from Amarna letters – (Ziffer,Bunimovitz and Lederman ). It is, of course, difficult to discern whether this situationwas already established as early as the Middle Bronze Age or whether it was the result ofthe changing political map of the Shephelah following the destruction of many sites, includingBeth-Shemesh, at the end of the Middle Bronze Age. With its relatively isolated geographicalsetting, far enough from any large settlement centres of the Shephelah, Beth-Shemesh mayhave indeed been able to maintain its political sovereignty during both the Middle BronzeAge and the Late Bronze Age.

1 Indeed, some have speculated that the northern end

of this tower was destroyed and that originally there wasanother long and narrow room at that location, openinginto the city (Herzog , , Fig. ; see also Gregori, Fig. ). As we shall see below, this reconstructionis not inline with the finds in the field.2 The renewed excavations at Tel Beth-Shemesh have

been directed by the authors since and are currentlyconducted under the auspices of the Institute ofArchaeology at Tel Aviv University. Pottery restorationwas performed in the laboratories of the Institute ofArchaeology by Rachel Pelta and Yafit Wiener. Thevessels were drawn by Yulia Gottlieb andphotographed by Pavel Shrago. The site’s map andthe gate’s plan were made by Zvi Lederman. Weextend our thanks to Marilyn and Norman Tayler andthe Goldhirsh Foundation for their generous andcontinuous support of the excavations project. Thestudy was also supported by the Israel ScienceFoundation (Grants /, /, and /).3 Our gratitude is extended to Rupert Chapman,

Jonathan Tubb, Shimon Gibson, NicolettaMomigliano, and Felicity Cobbing, who allowed us tostudy Mackenzie’s original field diaries and reportsfound at the PEF archives in London.4 In his publications, Mackenzie offered only

schematic plans of the gate and not a singlephotograph of the gate following its full exposure. Thephotograph in Fig. , published here for the first time,as well as other photographs were located by thecurrent authors in the years and whilestudying the PEF archives in London.5 A larger section of the ‘Strong Wall’ was found in

recent years in the northern part of the tell (Areas A

and D) during the excavation of the Late Bronze Agelayers.6 Excavations in Area Z took place in –. Field

director was Professor Dale Manor and area supervisorswere Dr Assaf Nativ and Mark Iserlis (Tel AvivUniversity), Professor Arthur Bankoff (BrooklynCollege, NY), and Laura Crowley (Leiden University).7 The scarab was identified and dated by Dr Nir Lalkin

(Tel Aviv University).8 The ash was tested by Dr Shawn Bubel with the

assistance of Dr Ruth Shahack-Gross at thelaboratories of the Kimmel Center for ArchaeologicalScience, Weizmann Institute of Science.9 For examples of hinge sockets, meticulously carved or

simply shaped like a rough stone bowls, see e.g. TellMardikh—Davico et al. , Pls. VI:–, VII:–;Matthiae , Fig. , Pl. ; Hazor—Mazar ,Photos V.–.10 In the absence of hinge sockets at the Level VIIcity-gate of Alalakh, Wooley interpreted a hole in thefloor near the middle pier of the gate as an indicationof the original existing of a socket for a door leaf.However, Herzog () persuasively denies thisinterpretation.11 For comparisons with the pottery in Figs. and seeTable . Storage jar . in Fig. and jars nos. – inFig. are much larger than normal ‘Canaanite’ jars andwere therefore produced with four handles. This type ofstorage jar, already appearing early in the Late BronzeAge, is known so far from Tel Batash (Panitz-Cohen, ) and Tel Beth-Shemesh. A large assemblageof similar jars was discovered in one of the rooms ofthe Amarna Age palace currently being exposed in ourexcavations.

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Ben-Arieh, S., . ‘Tell Jedor’, ErIsr , –.

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Biran, A., . ‘The triple-arched gate of Laish at Tel Dan’, IEJ , –.Bunimovitz, S., . ‘The Middle Bronze Age fortifications in Palestine as a social phenomenon’, Tel Aviv , –

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Holy Land, Vol. , Jerusalem: The Israel Exploration Society/Carta, –.Davico, A., et al., .Missione Archeologica Italiana in Siria: Rapporto preliminare della Campagna (Tell Mardikh), Rome:

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College.Grant, E., and Wright, G. E., . Ain Shems Excavations (Palestine), Part V (Text), Haverford, PA: Haverford College.Gregori, B., . ‘Three-Entrance’ city-gates of the Middle Bronze Age in Syria and Palestine’, Levant , –.Herzog, Z., . The City-Gate in Eretz-Israel and its Neighboring Countries, Corpus of Early Building in Israel , Tel Aviv:

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Palestine Exploration Fund transcribed from the original manuscript by Nicoletta Momigliano, , PEFArchive, London.

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Matthiae, P., . Ebla: An Empire Rediscovered, London: Hodder and Stoughton.Mazar, A., . ‘Features of settlements in the Northern Shephelah during MB and LB in the light of the excavations

at Tel Batash and Gezer’, ErIsr , –, (Hebrew).Mazar, A., . Archaeology of the Land of the Bible ,- B.C.E., Anchor Bible Reference Library, New York:

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