Ashkelon : The Philistine Cemetery

From 2013 to 2016, the Leon Levy Expedition to Ashkelon excavated an Iron Age cemetery located immediately outside the rampart of the ancient city. This cemetery dates from the period when Ashkelon was a Philistine city, and it is the first one excavated at any of the core Philistines cities. The Philistines are known today mainly as they are portrayed in sources written by others, such as the Hebrew Bible, in stories told by their enemies. In Ashkelon 10, the Philistine story is retold using archaeological evidence. As such, the Philistine cemetery is not only an important reference for the history of the Philistines but a critical piece for understanding the broader puzzle of death and burial in the southern Levant in the first millennium b.c.

The excavation of the Philistine cemetery produced not only human remains but a wealth of objects, including pottery, jewelry, metals, and personal seals. In this volume, the material culture is addressed by scholars who frame their work within the larger world of southern Levantine cultural patterns.

In the process of excavating the area of the Philistine cemetery, an examination of the broader landscape in this part of Ashkelon led to the discovery of a Roman vineyard covering the Iron Age remains. This is one of the few vineyards excavated in the region, and the findings are also presented in this volume.

This five-hundred-page volume features hundreds of full-color illustrations and includes a catalog of 141 separate burial events. It represents an important contribution to the study of the peoples of the eastern Mediterranean in the first millennium b.c.

Daniel M. Master is Jonathan Blanchard Professor of Archaeology at Wheaton College and was codirector of the Leon Levy Expedition to Ashkelon from 2007 to 2016. He currently oversees the publication of the Ashkelon final report series and is codirector of the ongoing excavations at Tel Shimron. He is also coeditor of Dothan I: Remains from the Tell (1953–1964) and general editor of The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Bible and Archaeology.

Adam J. Aja is Chief Curator at the Harvard Museum of the Ancient Near East and chief stratigrapher at the Tel Shimron excavations. He served as grid supervisor and later as assistant director for the Leon Levy Expedition to Ashkelon. He also worked for several seasons at the Tel Miqne-Ekron excavations and at Tel Tayinat in Turkey.

Rachel Kalisher is a bioarchaeologist whose research focuses on life history, kinship, and maternity in antiquity. She has been with the Ashkelon team since 2015 and is also the staff bioarchaeologist at the nearby Tel Shimron and Tel Megiddo excavations.