Some info on what we found in Tibneh

As promised, a post on why I was unable to find time to make the second part of the Shiloh destruction posts for over a month. It was because, as previously mentioned here, I had gone on a month-long excavation in Tel Tibnah/Tibna/Tibneh (however you want to spell), an archeological tel in Southwest Shomron (Samaria). We were quite busy there and between the archeological work and my work as a volunteer translator of our social media posts, as well as occasional breaks, I couldn't find the time to make the post.

I thought I would use the following post to discuss some of the Tanachic-era findings from the site. Not everything has been properly studied yet, though, so there's not that much to say right now.

The site is identified by pretty much all scholars with the Roman-era regional capital city Timnah. Some scholars also identify it with Timnat Serach or Timnah Cheres, the city of Yehoshua bin Nun. During this first season of excavations, we mostly found Roman and Hellenistic-eras stuff, but about a week and a half into the dig we find the remains of a small structure dated to the Iron Age I (circa the time of the Judges) and during the last days of the dig, we found a destruction layer currently dated to the Persian period, right at the end of the Tanachic era. Both findings were discovered in Area A of the excavation, on the northern side of the top of the tel.

I had the honor of being part of the team who found the Iron Age I structure. One of the squares above us had the Persian destruction layer, so it'd be safe to say that more Tanachic stuff would have been found in the vicinity, had we had more time and more manpower. Hopefully next year we might redirect some efforts towards that general area (on the eastern side of our area).

Here's our square after the first day of digging:


And here's our square on the last day of digging:


Just in case it's not clear, while some squares were enlarged as needed, ours stayed the same length and width. We just kept going down, stubbornly removing many layers of dirt until we hit bedrock on almost all sides of the square. The unusual rock formation that looks like a haphazard fortification made by a couple of kids is the remains of the Iron Age I structure. During the last couple of days of the season I got to dig down through it. My area head thought it would be about ten minutes of work. But it turned out to be significantly deeper than originally thought and sadly, I was not able to finish it before the end of the season. Findings within the structure: There was some ash, several animal bones (among them at least one that seems to have been decorated) and fairly-large pottery fragments, one being a handle of an Iron Age I cooking pot:


and here is one of the bones:


and an Iron Age I vessel rim fragment:


And a better view of the inside of the structure:


In terms of the Persian destruction layer, it had been found within a structure that had already been found to have been destroyed during the Great Revolt, so evidently this was a destroyed structure beneath a destroyed structure, from two different time periods. The Persian destruction layer consisted of a number of pottery vessels and a number of impressive sword fragments. Presumably the excavation's heads are trying to track down similar Persian-era weapons to be able to identify what kind of sword it was and by whom might have been used. Was it a local weapon or an official Imperial Persian military one? Or something else?

So, the big question: Is this Timnat Serach? It has a lot of potential in terms of location. I won't list all of the sources here, at least not right now, but trust me. I did a lot of research into this before the dig. But like many archeological sites, we have yet to find an inscription that clearly says: "Welcome to Timnat Serach". So it's difficult to know right now (though personally, I think it'd be cool to find a local copy of the "Yehoshua the robber" inscription...).






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