Gezer


Gezer is an archaeological site in the foothills of the Judaean Mountains at the border of the Shephelah roughly midway between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv in central Israel. It is now an Israeli national park. In the Hebrew Bible, Gezer is associated with Joshua and Solomon. Gezer rises to an elevation of above sea-level, and affords a commanding prospect of the plains to the west, north, and east.
Gezer became a major fortified Canaanite city-state in the first half of the 2nd millennium BCE. It was later destroyed by fire and rebuilt. It is first mentioned in several ancient Egyptian inscriptions. Its importance was due in part to the strategic position it held at the crossroads of the ancient coastal trade route linking Egypt with Syria, Anatolia and Mesopotamia, and the road to Jerusalem and Jericho, both important trade routes. In Roman and Byzantine times, the site was sparsely populated. Later, In the modern era, Gezer was the site of the depopulated Palestinian Arab village of Abu Shusha, the residents of which fled, and others were massacred by Givati Brigade during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War.

Late Bronze

Egyptian Period

18th Dynasty. Gezer is first mentioned as part of a list of cities taken by Thutmose III on the walls of the Precinct of Amun-Re, at Karnak. The Amarna letters mention kings of Gezer swearing loyalty to the Egyptian pharaoh.
19th Dynasty. Gezer is mentioned in the victory stele of Merneptah, dating from the end of the 13th century BCE, which states: "Plundered is the Canaan with every evil; carried off is Ashkelon; seized upon is Gezer; Yanoam is made as that which does not exist; Israel is laid waste, his seed is not".

Biblical conquest under Joshua

In biblical times, Gezer, which lay on the outskirts of Jewish land, was incorporated at a later time. The biblical story of the Israelite conquest of Canaan under their leader Joshua mentions a certain "king of Gezer" who had gone to help his countrymen in Lachish, where he met his death.
Gezer is listed in the Book of Joshua as one of the cities allotted to the tribe of Ephraim, as well as a Levitical city, one of ten allotted to the Levite children of Kehoth – the Kohathites. Eusebius, describing the biblical Gezer of his day, writes:
Gazer. The lot of Ephraim, set aside for Levites. And Joshua besieged it, killing its king. Solomon also built here. It is now called Gazara, a village of Nikopolis, 4 milestones from it in the north. The tribe of Ephraim did not expel the foreigners from it.

The Egyptian sack of Gezer

According to the Hebrew Bible, the only source for this particular event, the Sack of Gezer took place at the beginning of the 10th century BCE, when the city was conquered and burned by an unnamed Egyptian pharaoh, identified by some with Siamun, during his military campaign in Philistia. This anonymous Egyptian pharaoh then gave it to King Solomon as the dowry of his daughter. Solomon then rebuilt Gezer and fortified it.
The Bible states:

Identifying the biblical pharaoh

The only mention in the Bible of a pharaoh who might be Siamun is the text from 1 Kings quoted above, and we have no other historical sources that clearly identify what really happened. As shown below, Kenneth Kitchen believes that Siamun conquered Gezer and gave it to Solomon. Others such as Paul S. Ash and Mark W. Chavalas disagree, and in 2001 Chavalas states that "it is impossible to conclude which Egyptian monarch ruled concurrently with David and Solomon". Professor Edward Lipinski argues that Gezer, then unfortified, was destroyed late in the 10th century and that the most likely Pharaoh was Shoshenq I. However, the archaeological evidence recovered at the site indicates that Gezer was previously destroyed in an earlier stratum, around the times of Siamun.
Lindelle C. Webster's excavation team concluded recently that correlation of Stratum IX, in Tel Gezer, with Solomon's era and Siamun " improbable of Tandy Stratum 10A is estimated by within the 11th century BCE, contemporary with the 21st Dynasty of Egypt but too early for Solomon by any estimate," and that correlation of Stratum 7 "with Shishak/'s nd boundary,, the biblical date for Shishak's campaign oes not fit well with current -based estimates for ." They estimate Shoshenq I's reign within the Stratum 8 destruction of Tel Gezer, which has been radiocarbon dated to the mid-10th century BCE.

Tanis temple relief

One fragmentary but well-known surviving triumphal relief scene from the Temple of Amun at Tanis believed to be related to the sack of Gezer depicts an Egyptian pharaoh smiting his enemies with a mace. According to the Egyptologist Kenneth Kitchen, this pharaoh is Siamun. The pharaoh appears here "in typical pose brandishing a mace to strike down prisoners now lost at the right except for two arms and hands, one of which grasps a remarkable double-bladed axe by its socket." The writer observes that this double-bladed axe or 'halberd' has a flared crescent-shaped blade which is close in form to the Aegean-influenced double axe but is quite distinct from the Canaanite double-headed axe, which has a different shape that resembles an X. Thus, Kitchen concludes Siamun's foes were the Philistines, who were descendants of the Aegean-based Sea Peoples and that Siamun was commemorating his recent victory over them at Gezer by depicting himself in a formal battle scene relief at the temple in Tanis. Alternatively, Paul S. Ash had put forward a detailed argument that Siamun's relief portrays a fictitious battle. He points out that in Egyptian reliefs Philistines are never shown holding an axe, and that there is no archaeological evidence for Philistines using axes. He also argues that there is nothing in the relief to connect it with Philistia or the Levant.

Location

Gezer was located on the northern fringe of the Shephelah region, approximately northwest of Jerusalem. It was strategically situated at the junction of the Via Maris, the international coastal highway, and the highway connecting it with Jerusalem through the valley of Ayalon, or Ajalon. The nearest modern-Israeli settlement to the archaeological site is Karmei Yosef.
Verification of the identification of this site with biblical Gezer comes from a dozen bilingual inscriptions in either Hebrew or Aramaic, and Greek, found engraved on rocks several hundred meters from the tell. These inscriptions from the 1st century BCE read "boundary of Gezer" and "of Alkios". The discovery of these boundary stones near the archaeological site makes it the first biblical city to be positively identified.
Today's archaeological site spans an area of 130 dunams, and contains 26 levels of settlement, from the Chalcolithic to the early Roman periods. Most of the remains date from the Middle and Late Canaanite and the Israelite periods.

History

Chalcolithic

The first settlement established at Tel Gezer dates to the end of the 4th millennium BCE during the Chalcolithic period, when large caves cut into the rock were used as dwellings.
At the beginning of the Early Bronze Age, an unfortified settlement covered the tell. It was destroyed in the middle of the 3rd millennium BCE and subsequently abandoned for several centuries.
  • Strata 13 EB IB.
  • Hiatus
  • Strata 12 EB IIA. Resettlement
  • Strata 11 EB IIB. Structural remains.
  • Hiatus until Stratum 10 MB IIB. The lack of EB III is significant, with no Khirbet Kerak Ware.

    Middle Bronze Age

In the Middle Bronze Age IIB, Gezer became a major city, well fortified and containing a large cultic site. It may have grown due to MBIIA-sites like Aphek becoming weaker.
  • Stratum 10 MB IIB
  • Stratum 9 MB IIB-C
  • Stratum XVIII MB III/LB IA
On the north side of the city, the fortifications consisted of at least two lines of defense surrounding the tell. Some excavators have noted as many as three defensive walls built in different periods: an outer earthen rampart, a central wall and an inner wall. In what remained of the outer rampart, it reached a height of about 5 metres, and was built of compacted alternating layers of chalk and earth covered with plaster. The inner wall measured 4 metres in width and was made of large stone blocks, reinforced with towers. The city gate stood near the southwest corner of the wall, was flanked by two towers which protected the wooden doors, a common design for its time.
The tell was surrounded by a massive stone wall and towers, protected by a earthen rampart covered with plaster. The wooden city gate, near the southwestern corner of the wall, was fortified by two towers.
Cultic remains discovered in the northern part of the tell were a row of ten large standing pillars, known as or, singular, oriented north–south, the tallest of which was three meters high, with an altar-type structure in the middle, and a large, square, stone basin, probably used for cultic libations. The exact purpose of these megaliths is still debated, but they may have constituted a Canaanite "high place" from the Middle Bronze Age, ca. 1600 BCE, each masseba possibly representing a Canaanite city connected to Gezer by treaties enforced by rituals performed here. Both the number and size of the standing stones confer a unique character to this cultic site. Such massebot are found elsewhere in the country, but those from Gezer massebot are the most impressive examples.
The area was almost completely cleared by Macalister. The remains were re-excavated in 1968. A double cave beneath the high place was shown to be predating it and not connected to it.

Late Bronze Age

In the Late Bronze Age a new city wall, thick, was erected outside the earlier one. It is a very rare example of Late Bronze Age fortifications in the country, witness for the elevated political status of Gezer in southern Canaan during Egyptian rule.
  • Stratum XVII LB IB
  • Stratum XVI/13 LB IIA
  • Stratum XV/12B LB IIB