PUBLIC MARKS from msgbeepa with tag archeology

The City of Ugarit was a well-known city and kingdom which flourished during the second millennium BCE, located on the coast of the Mediterranean in today’s northern Syria. The location of the city was unknown until 1928, when a grave discovered by accident in the village of Ras Shamra turned out to be part of the Ugarit necropolis.

The main source of water in ancient Jerusalem was the Gihon spring, located just outside the city walls. When the Assyrians waged an attack against Judah towards the end of the 8th century BCE, led by king Sennacherib, king Hezekiah realized that in order to sustain throughout an Assyrian siege, the city must be better protected and the water must be accessible from inside the walls of the city.

The patriarchal age is one of great importance for the people of Israel: it begins with Abraham’s journey, a daring voyage to a strange land led by faith in a then new, single God, who said unto him: “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you” (Genesis 12:1).

The city of Lachish, located in the maritime lowlands of Judea, is first mentioned in the Bible during Joshua’s conquest. After the Gibeonites deceptively made a covenant with Joshua, many of the Canaanite kings were alarmed that they might be conquered with Gibeonite assistance, and therefore set out to fight the Gibeonites. Joshua took over all of these rebellious cities, and Lachish, being one of them, was later part of the territory assigned to the tribe of Judah.

The name Canaanites denotes the inhabitants of the land of Canaan who inhabited the land prior to the Israelite settlement, and remained among the Israelites throughout the First Temple Period. The Bible stresses that the Israelites must stay apart from them, and the Patriarchs set an example for proper behavior by not marrying Canaanite women despite the fact that that would have been the easy and obvious choice.