Archaeologists at Israel's Bar-Ilan University announced on Monday the discovery of a massive gate and other fortifications in the ruins of Gath, the hometown of the Bible's Goliath. The ancient gate is one of the largest ever discovered in Israel and evidence of the Philistine city's power in the 10th and ninth centuries B.C.E, head archaeologist Professor Aren Maeir says. It even made a brief appearance in the Bible when David, Goliath's slayer and future king of Israel, "acted like a madman, making marks on the doors of the gate and letting saliva run down his beard."
The research team also discovered an "impressive fortification wall," a temple, a smelting complex, and other buildings in Tel Zafit National Park, which contains the ancient city. King Hazael of Aram-Damascus is said to have razed Gath around 830 B.C.E. — presumably via a single, well-placed pebble — and archaeologists are only now putting the pieces back together.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
How the online world relies on AWS cloud serversThe Explainer Chaos caused by Monday’s online outage shows that ‘when AWS sneezes, half the internet catches the flu’
-
Leonard and Hungry Paul: ‘beautiful, heartfelt’ televisionThe Week Recommends Julia Roberts narrates this ‘charming’ and ‘unexpectedly profound’ adaptation of Rónán Hession’s novel
-
Inside The Peninsula, London’s first billion-pound hotelThe Week Recommends As the capital’s super-luxury hotel scene continues to expand, the respected brand is still setting the standard
-
Nobody seems surprised Wagner's Prigozhin died under suspicious circumstancesSpeed Read
-
Western mountain climbers allegedly left Pakistani porter to die on K2Speed Read
-
'Circular saw blades' divide controversial Rio Grande buoys installed by Texas governorSpeed Read
-
Los Angeles city workers stage 1-day walkout over labor conditionsSpeed Read
-
Mega Millions jackpot climbs to an estimated $1.55 billionSpeed Read
-
Bangladesh dealing with worst dengue fever outbreak on recordSpeed Read
-
Glacial outburst flooding in Juneau destroys homesSpeed Read
-
Scotland seeking 'monster hunters' to search for fabled Loch Ness creatureSpeed Read
