Tel Lachish

Did You Know?

• The siege ramp at Lachish is the oldest known in the world and the sole example found in the ancient Near East.
• One of the Lachish letters, written in 597–587 BCE, warns that Azekah is not seen.
• The site was initially identified by Flinders Petrie as Tell el-Hesi before William F. Albright suggested Tell ed-Duweir in 1929.

History

Occupation at Lachish began during the Pottery Neolithic period (5500–4500 BCE), with flint tools found from that time. During the Chalcolithic (c. 4500-3800/3500 BCE), a settlement existed as part of the Ghassulian period. Major development started in the Early Bronze IB (3300–3000 BCE), and by the end of Early Bronze IIIA (c. 2750-2500 BCE), Lachish had become a large settlement, with most recovered pottery being Khirbet Kerak Ware. Drier conditions in Early Bronze IIIB (c. 2500-2350 BCE) led to an urban crisis, and severe drought in Early Bronze IV (c. 2350-2000 BCE) caused many sites to be abandoned. The mound was resettled in Middle Bronze I (2000-1820 BCE), with remains of a cult place and votive vessels found in Area D. In Middle Bronze IIB-C (1630-1550 BCE), Lachish became a major city, with a glacis-like structure and a large mudbrick fortress excavated in Area P, containing scarabs of local Canaanite and Hyksos style. The city was destroyed by fire at the end of Middle Bronze IIC. In the Late Bronze Age (1550–1200 BCE), Lachish was re-established and became prosperous, first attested as rkjšꜣ in Papyrus Hermitage 1116A. It came under the Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt after the Hyksos were expelled.

Archaeological exploration

The first expedition at Tell ed-Duweir, from 1932 to 1939, was led by James Leslie Starkey and included Olga Tufnell, Gerald Lankester Harding, and Charles Inge, funded by Charles Marston and Henry Wellcome. They identified the site as Lachish and uncovered well-stratified pottery and the Lachish letters. Starkey was murdered in 1938 while traveling to Jerusalem; Tufnell, Harding, and Inge completed the 1938–1939 season. Tufnell later worked at the Institute of Archaeology in London, publishing Lachish IV in 1957. A second Israeli expedition, directed by Yohanan Aharoni, took place in 1966 and 1968, focusing on the Solar Shrine. A third expedition, from 1973 to 1994, was led by David Ussishkin of Tel Aviv University, concentrating on Late Bronze and Iron Age levels; its five-volume report set a new standard. Excavations continued in 2012 under Nissim Golding-Meir. A Linear A inscription was also found at the site.

Select inscriptions

By 2022, as many as 12 purported Proto-Canaanite inscriptions had been discovered at Lachish, with six from the Starkey-Tufnell excavations, two from Ussishkin's excavations, and four from more recent work. At least three are likely figural pottery designs or pseudo-inscriptions. Well-known legitimate inscriptions include the Lachish Ewer, Lachish Bowl, the Cypriot Bowl Fragment, and the Ivory Lice Comb. In 2016, an inscribed elephant ivory lice comb dating to about 1700 BCE was found, bearing what may be the oldest sentence in early Canaanite script, reading: 'May this tusk root out the lice of the hai[r and the] beard.' In 2018, a Cypriot White Slip II milk bowl rim fragment from the mid-15th century BCE was discovered, with nine letters suggesting the words ʿbd ('servant, slave') and npt ('honey, nectar'). The Lachish jar sherd from Level VI (c. 1130 BCE) contains nine discernable letters that cannot be convincingly combined into words, but is of palaeographic interest for the evolution of alphabetic script.

Fake Darius inscription

In 2022, Eylon Levy found an inscribed potsherd at Tel Lachish bearing an Aramaic inscription reading 'Year 24 of Darius,' which would have dated to 498 BCE. Saar Ganor of the Israel Antiquities Authority initially concluded it was authentic, leading to international press coverage. The Israel Antiquities Authority later stated the sherd was not authentic; an expert had created it as a demonstration for students, using an original pottery scrap from the site, and discarded it in the tourist section.