Lakhish Regional Council

Transcription

Tell Gezer doesn't lok like much a long low hill that hardly rises above the surrounding flat plain it it was perhaps the richest and most powerful city in ancient Judah the main trade route the Via Maris led from Egypt up this flat fertile coastal plain past Gezer to the Carmel Range there it headed past Megiddo through the plain of Jezreel and across to the Jordan valley up the valley past Hazor and through the mountains to Damascus Tell Gezer was important to ancient Judah because it protected Jerusalem from the east, because of the rich fields around in the flat plains and because of the trade route east of Gezer the hills rise slowly into the Shephelah and into the Judean hill country the Ayalon valley cuts like a spear into these hills towards Jerusalem there Saul and Jonathan fought the Philistines and now olive groves anbd other tree crops are grown today south of the tell there are vinyards and orchards of prosperous farming country and the coastal plain in the middle of the southern side of the tel there's a solomonic gate a century ago Mcallister identified it as a Maccabean castle illustrating some of the difficulties of dating on the right of the gate is a barracks and the remains of a casemate city wall looking down into the gateway you can see its shape better despite the overgrowth notice the ashlar lined drain in most ancient cities the main drain went straight out the front gate and so the valley outside the gate becomes main sump and rubbish pit in Jerusalem this valley was called Hinnom Gehenna in Greek the word that Jesus used for 'hell' in the corner of one of the gate rooms with a large stone trough the middle bronze-age south gate is too eroded and overgrown to reveal much it was on different site to the later gates beside this gate is the base of a tower the size of fine construction of the middle-bronze towers are an indication of Gezer's prosperity and power during this period the water system was first unearthed over a century ago before modern ideas of stratigraphy it's rather like those of Megiddo and Hazor and so it probably dates from the Iron II period, the time of the Hebrew monarchies just beyond the water system are the remains of a double skinned or casemate wall the red lines will help you to identify the two walls such case may construction is typical of the Iron II period and give strength at less cost in Beersheba there were rooms in the gap between the walls on the other northern side of the tel is a high place a ine of ten standing stones, monoliths some of them over ten feet tall they probably date for the middle bronze age where reused in the late bronze age it's unclear whether the stone trough alongside them was for cultic use or whether it was a socket for another monolith the huge bulk of such standing stones is impressive today in the Bible, Israel was called upon to erect such stones to commemorate the high points of the story of God's deatings with his people these bronze-age stones at Gezer were once the highest point of the tel but now appear to be in a narrow valley as a result of the continual accretion of material building up the tel century by century looking beyond the stones to the north it's not far until you reach the beginnings of the urban sprawl of modern Tel Aviv