Ashdod (ancient city)
اسدود | |
Location | Ashdod, Israel |
---|---|
Region | Levant |
Coordinates | 31°45′13″N 34°39′42″E / 31.75361°N 34.66167°E |
Type | Ancient Levantine city |
Ashdod (
The first documented urban settlement at Ashdod dates to the 17th century BCE, when it was a fortified
In the Hellenistic period, following the conquests of Alexander the Great, the city became known as Azotus. It was later incorporated into the Hasmonean kingdom. During the 1st century BCE, Pompey removed the city from Judean rule and annexed it to the Roman province of Syria.
Ashdod was a
There was ongoing habitation at the site in the
Name evolution
The ancient Levantine settlement of Ashdod had many names. Its first attestation comes in the form of 11th century BCE Egyptian lists, where is it transcribed as "ísdd", which scholars have determined is derived from the
In the Hellenistic period, the name of the settlement became "Azotus" in Greek and sometimes specifically "Azotus Mesogaias", literally "Inland Azotus", in contrast to
History
Bronze Age
Middle Bronze
The earliest major habitation in Ashdod dates to the 17th century BCE. Ashdod was fortified in
Late Bronze
Ashdod is first mentioned in written documents from Late Bronze Age Ugarit, which indicate that the city was a center of export for dyed woolen purple fabric and garments. At the end of the 13th century BCE, the Sea Peoples conquered and destroyed Ashdod. By the beginning of the 12th century BCE, the Philistines, generally thought to have been one of the Sea Peoples, ruled the city. During their reign, the city prospered and was a member of the Philistine Pentapolis ('five cities'),[13] which included Ashkelon and Gaza on the coast and Ekron and Gath farther inland, in addition to Ashdod.
Iron Age through Persian period
In 950 BCE, Ashdod was destroyed during Pharaoh Siamun's conquest of the region. The city was not rebuilt until at least 815 BCE.
Asdûdu led the revolt of Philistines,
Mitinti (Akkadian: 𒈪𒋾𒅔𒋾 mi-ti-in-ti; Philistine: 𐤌𐤕𐤕 *Mītīt or *Matīt)[19] was king at the time of Sargon's son Sennacherib (r. 705–681 BCE), and Akhimilki in the reign of Sennacherib's son Esarhaddon (r. 681–669 BCE).
Psamtik I of Egypt (r. 664 – 610 BCE) is reported to have besieged the great city of "Azotus" for twenty-nine years (Herodotus, ii. 157); the biblical references to the remnant of Ashdod (Jeremiah 25:20; cf. Zephaniah 2:4) are interpreted as allusions to this event.
The city absorbed another blow in 605 BCE, when
In 539 BCE the city was rebuilt by the Persians.
Hellenistic period
In 332 BCE the city was conquered in the wars of
During the
Despite its location four miles (6 km) from the coast,
Azotus prospered until the
Roman period
Pompey restored the independence of Azotus, as he did with all Hellenising coastal cities.[22][non-primary source needed] A few years later, in 55 BCE, after more fighting, Roman general Gabinius helped rebuild Ashdod and several other cities left without protective walls.[22][21] In 30 BCE Ashdod came under the rule of King Herod, who then bequeathed it to his sister Salome.[22][21] By the time of the First Jewish–Roman War (66-70), there must have been a large enough Jewish presence in Ashdod for Vespasian to feel compelled to place a garrison in the city.[21]
Byzantine period
During the
The prominence of Hellenised, then Christian Azotus continued until the 7th century.
The city was represented at the Council of Chalcedon by Heraclius of Azotus.
Early Muslim period
Azotus came under Muslim rule in the 7th century.
The geographer
Crusader and Mamluk periods
Ottoman period
During the
In the late nineteenth century, Isdud was described as a village spread across the eastern slope of a low hill, covered with gardens. A ruined khan stood southwest of the village. Its houses were one-storey high with walls and enclosures built of adobe brick. There were two main sources of water: a pond and a masonry well. Both were surrounded by groves of date-palm and fig-trees.[29]
British Mandate
In the 1922 census of Palestine, conducted by the British Mandate authorities, Isdud had a population of 2,566 inhabitants; 2,555 Muslims and 11 Christians,[11] where the Christians were all Catholics.[30] The population increased in the 1931 census to 3,240; 3,238 Muslims and 2 Christians, in a total of 764 houses.[31]
1948 Arab-Israeli War
The village of Isdud was occupied by the
Biblical references
The Book of Nehemiah, referring to events in the 5th century BCE, mentions the Ashdodites[38] and the speech of Ashdod, which half of the children from mixed families are described as adopting. Hugo Winckler explains the use of that name by the fact that Ashdod was the nearest of the Philistine cities to Jerusalem.[39]
In I Samuel 6:17 Ashdod is mentioned among the principal Philistine cities. After capturing the Ark of the covenant from the Israelites, the Philistines took it to Ashdod and placed it in the temple of Dagon. The next morning Dagon was found prostrate before the Ark; on being restored to his place, he was on the following morning again found prostrate and broken. The people of Ashdod were smitten with boils; a plague of mice was sent over the land (1 Samuel 6:5).[40]
The 1st century CE Book of Acts refers to Azotus as the place in which Philip the Evangelist reappeared after he converted the Ethiopian eunuch to Christianity.[41]
Archaeology
Ancient Ashdod has today become an archaeological site known as "Tel Ashdod", located a few kilometers south of the modern Israel city of Ashdod. It was excavated by archaeologists in nine seasons between 1962 and 1972. The effort was led during the first few years by David Noel Freedman of the Pittsburgh Theological Seminary and Moshe Dothan.[42][43] The remaining seasons were headed by Dothan for the Israel Antiquities Authority.[44]
References
- ISBN 978-1-85828-248-0. Retrieved 2022-12-22.
Four kilometres out of town and just west of Route 4, Tel Ashdod was the centre of the village of Isdud - ancient Ashdod - and site of the Philistine port. Get off the bus if you like old mounds, derelict Palestinian homes...
- ISBN 978-965-220-047-1. Retrieved 2022-12-22.
Tel Ashdod... Ancient tel, 7 km S. of modern Ashdod within abandoned Arab village of Isdud...
- ^ Moshe Dothan (1990). Ashdod – Seven levels of excavations (in Hebrew). Israel: Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel, Ashdod branch. p. 91. ULI Sysno. 005093624.
- ^ "Ashdod | Israel | Britannica". www.britannica.com. Retrieved 2022-06-25.
- ^ "Tel Ashdod, Esdûd (S); Isdud, Sdud (M)". antiquities.org.il. Retrieved 2022-12-27.
- ^ S2CID 163848559.
- ^ a b Seymour Gitin, 'Philistines in the Book of Kings,' in André Lemaire, Baruch Halpern, Matthew Joel Adams (eds.)The Books of Kings: Sources, Composition, Historiography and Reception, BRILL, 2010 pp.301–363, for the Neo-Assyrian sources p.312: The four city-states of the late Philistine period (Iron Age II) are Amqarrūna (Ekron), Asdūdu (Ashdod), Hāzat (Gaza), and Isqalūna (Ashkelon), with the former fifth capital, Gath, having been abandoned at this late phase.
- ^ a b Khalidi, 1992, p. 110
- ^ a b A. Petersen (2005). The Towns of Palestine under Muslim Rule AD 600–1600. BAR International Series 1381. p. 133.
- ^ Robinson and Smith, 1841, vol 3, 2nd appendix, p. 118 Archived 2015-04-08 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ a b Barron, 1923, Table V, Sub-district of Gaza, p. 8 Archived 2015-04-04 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Dothan 1971
- ^ B.Frenkel (1990). The Philistines (in Hebrew). Israel: Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel, Ashdod branch. p. 119. ULI Sysno. 005093624.
- ^ J. Kaplan (1990). Yamani stronghold in Ashdod-Yam (in Hebrew). Israel: Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel, Ashdod branch. p. 125. ULI Sysno. 005093624.
- ^ "Introducing Ashdod-Yam: History and Excavations". Ashdod-Yam Archaeological Project, website of. The Institute of Archaeology of Tel Aviv University & Institut für Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft, Universität Leipzig. 2014. Archived from the original on 21 May 2015. Retrieved 24 May 2015.
- S2CID 165315779.
- JSTOR 3267741.
- ^ Price, Massoume (2001). "A brief history of Iranian Jews". Iran Chamber Society. Archived from the original on 30 September 2007. Retrieved October 11, 2007.
- ^ NAVEH, JOSEPH. "Writing and Scripts in Seventh-Century B.C.E. Philistia: The New Evidence from Tell Jemmeh." Israel Exploration Journal, vol. 35, no. 1, Israel Exploration Society, 1985, pp. 8–21, http://www.jstor.org/stable/27925967.
- ^ O. Kolani; B. Raanan; M. Brosh; S. Pipano (1990). Events calendar in Israel and Ashdod (in Hebrew). Israel: Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel, Ashdod branch. p. 79. ULI Sysno. 005093624.
- ^ ISBN 9780691009681. Archivedfrom the original on 29 May 2021. Retrieved 5 April 2015.
- ^ a b c d e f g h Josephus Flavius. "The Antiquities of the Jews". Archived from the original on 13 June 2015. Retrieved 5 April 2015.
- ^ "Strong's Greek: 3882. παράλιος (paralios) -- by the sea, the sea coast". Archived from the original on 4 November 2014. Retrieved 29 June 2015.
- ^ S. Piphano (1990). Ashdod-Yam in the Byzantine period (in Hebrew). Israel: Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel, Ashdod branch. p. 143. ULI Sysno. 005093624.
- ^ S.Shapira (1990). Battle of Ashdod (147BC) (in Hebrew). Israel: Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel, Ashdod branch. p. 135. ULI Sysno. 005093624.
- ^ "Madaba Map, numbers 96 (Azotus) and 97 (Azotus-on-the-Sea) with discussions". Archived from the original on 2015-03-31. Retrieved 2018-12-28.
- ISSN 0305-7488.
- ^ Hütteroth and Abdulfattah, 1977, p. 143. Quoted in Khalidi, 1992, p. 110
- ^ Conder and Kitchener, 1882, SWP II, p. 409 Archived 2016-10-28 at the Wayback Machine. Quoted in Khalidi, 1992, pp. 110-111
- ^ Barron, 1923, Table XIII, p. 44 Archived 2017-10-20 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Mills, 1932, p. 4 Archived 2016-06-10 at the Wayback Machine.
- ^ New York Times[permanent dead link] June 8, 1948
- ISBN 965-220-494-3.
- ^ Khalidi, 1992, p. 112
- ^ "Zochrot - Isdud". Archived from the original on 2018-04-28. Retrieved 2018-07-16.
- ^ "From Isdud to Ashdod: One man's immigrant dream; another's refugee nightmare". International Middle East Media Center. April 13, 2006. Archived from the original on 26 September 2007. Retrieved September 21, 2007.
- ^ Morris (2004), p. 471.
- ^ at 13:23,24.
- ^ Geschichte Israels. 1898. p. 224.
- PMID 16520427.
- ^ Acts 8:40)
- ^ M. Dothan and David Noel Freedman, Ashdod I, The First Season of Excavations 1962, Atiqot, vol. 7, Israel Antiquities Authority, 1967
- ^ David Noel Freedman, The Second Season at Ancient Ashdod, The Biblical Archaeologist, vol. 26, no. 4, pp. 134–139, 1963
- ISBN 965-406-178-3