Photo by: Richard Wiskin
Temple found in Philistine home of Goliath By BEN HARTMAN
07/29/2010 03:31
Kiryat Gat discovery sheds light on Samson. Talkbacks (3)
Archeologists have uncovered a Philistine temple and evidence of a major
earthquake in biblical times, during digs carried out at the Tel Tzafit
National Park near Kiryat Gat. The site is home to the Philistine city
of Gath, the home of the ancient warrior Goliath.
Prof. Aren Maeir, of Bar-Ilan University's Martin (Szusz) Department of
Land of Israel Studies and Archaeology, said on Wednesday that the
temple may shed light on the architecture in Philistia at the time when
Jewish hero Samson purportedly brought the temple of Dagon down upon
himself.
Maier said the architecture of the Philistine temple, the first ever
found at Gath, sheds light on what the temple of Dagon would have looked
like, in particular the two pillars that anchored the center of the
structure.
"We're not saying this is the same temple where the story of Sampson
occurred or that the story even did occur," Maeir said. "But this gives
us a good idea of what image whoever wrote the story would have had of a
Philistine temple."
Maeir said that seismologists who examined the site confirmed that a
major earthquake occurred there, one that they estimated would have
measured 8 on the Richter scale. The main evidence was the presence of
several brick walls that had been thrown apart and had collapsed "like a
deck of cards."
"If the seismologists are right, an 8 on the Richter scale would have
leveled a major city. The intensity of the energy required to move the
walls seem to have been from something very powerful," Maeir said.
"We know that there is a very famous earthquake mentioned in the book of
Isaiah and the book of Amos... What we have here is very strong
arch-evidence of a dramatic earthquake, a natural event that left a very
significant impression on the biblical prophets of the time."
The site in Tel Tzafit National Park, which contains one of the largest
ancient ruin mounds in Israel, saw near-continuous human habitation from
the fifth millennium BCE until today.
Other major finds there were evidence of the destruction of Gath by
Hazael King of Aram- Damascus around 830 BCE, and evidence of the first
Philistine settlement in Canaan.
Maeir said the items include the siege equipment used by Hazael during
the attack on Gath, the oldest archeological finds of their sort ever
unearthed.
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