Timnath-heres
Timnath-heres or Timnath-serah, later Thamna, was the town given by the Israelites to Joshua according to the Hebrew Bible. He requested it and the people gave it to him "at the order of the Lord". He built up the town and lived in it.
According to the Septuagint version of the Book of Joshua, Joshua placed there "the stone knives, with which he had circumcised the children of Israel".
According to the Bible, Joshua was buried there. Jewish tradition also places the tomb of Caleb there.
In 2022, excavations by Israeli archaeologists were launched at Khirbet Tibnah in the West Bank, a hilltop site commonly identified as biblical Timnath.
Etymology
In and, the town is called Timnath-serah, whereas in it is named as Timnath-heres.In the Talmud the town is mentioned in Bava Batra 122b, where "heres" is translated as "earthenware," in reference to fruits in the area being as dry as earthenware prior to the arrival of Joshua. The word's inversion, "serah" is defined as "rotting," that after Joshua's arrival, the fruits became so juicy that they could quickly rot.
Location
The town was located in the mountainous region of Ephraim, north of Mount Gaash. It has been variously identified with two possible locations, Kifl Hares and Khirbet Tibnah.Both E. Schürer and archaeologist W. F. Albright identified Timnath-heres with Thamna, mentioned in Greco-Roman sources including the writings of Josephus. Eusebius, in his Onomasticon, mentions the site under the entry of Gaas, a mountain in Ephraim, "near the village of Thamna."
Conder & Kitchener of the Palestine Exploration Fund, steering clear of committing themselves to pinpointing the position of the biblical Timnath-heres in either Kifl Haris or Khirbet Tibnah, mention only the classical references to the place Thamnatha / Thamna, saying that this place is to be identified with the present ruin Tibneh, and that "some have identified it with Timnath-heres."
During the first-century CE until its destruction, Thamna served as an administrative district.