Tel Eton is a large site whose richly layered history spans millennia from the Early Bronze Age into the Hellenistic period. Located at the edge of a valley between the Judean lowlands and the Hebron hill country, the site lies at an important ancient crossroads. Excavations have focused on the large eighth-century B.C. Judahite town identified with Biblical Eglon, which was destroyed by the Assyrian emperor Sennacherib in 701. The widespread destruction layer sealed artifacts and architecture in situ, giving a clear look at not only how the residents interacted with their architectural spaces and material culture, but also how the city fell.
BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGY: FROM THE GROUND DOWN
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6 miles southeast of Lachish and 23 miles southeast of Ashkelon
Early Bronze, Middle Bronze, Late Bronze, Iron, Persian, Hellenistic
Avraham Faust is a professor in the Martin (Szusz) Department of Land of Israel Studies and Archaeology at Bar-Ilan University. He is the author of award-winning books on ancient Israel’s ethnogenesis and Iron Age archaeology, as well as numerous articles on broader subjects in Israeli archaeology. He has been the director of the Tel Eton excavations since 2006.