Site: Deir el-Balah
Excavators: Trude Dothan (1972-1982)
Site Information: Deir el-Balah is located along the well-known “Ways of Horus” as part of six Canaanite sites that functioned as Egyptian strongholds during the New Kingdom in the Late Bronze Age. When Trude Dothan conducted salvage excavations there after extensive looting immediately following the 1967 Six Day War, she dated the site to the 14th and 13th centuries B.C.E. She also revealed a cemetery and an associated settlement from the Late Bronze Age that contained an abundance of Egyptian artifacts. Notably, the site contains a large crater that has been interpreted as a crude cistern or pool, though this has been challenged.
The Residential Complex: A large structure built with mudbrick has been identified as a residential structure. It sits northeast of the crater. Its first phase includes 15 interconnected rooms and is divided by a streambed. Pottery recovered from the building were Egyptian and Canaanite style, and most likely locally made. The styles of pottery are equally represented. It is likely this building included a potters’ workshop, since several kilns were found in the building on both sides of the wadi.
The Administrative Complex: The first phase of this building is poorly preserved and was destroyed in antiquity very suddenly. The material remains indicate an administrative or domestic function. The second phase of this building is a “square-shaped monumental mudbrick structure that served an administrative or possibly military function” (Ann E. Killebrew, Paul Goldberg, and Arlene M. Rosen). It shows Egyptianizing features including a building technique where “sand is laid along the base of the foundation walls” and “a foundation deposit consisting of two bowls and a lamp” (Ann E. Killebrew, Paul Goldberg, and Arlene M. Rosen, 19).
The Cemetery: The cemetery provides the most convincing evidence for Egyptian occupation and use of the site, with grave goods consisting of Egyptian jars, amulets, and jewelry, just to name a few. Perhaps most significant are the anthropoid coffins, which emulate Egyptian sarcophagi. Interestingly, these coffins did not usually hold just one burial, but two or three.
Citation:
Dothan, Trude. “Anthropoid Clay Coffins from a Late Bronze Age Cemetery near Deir El-Balaḥ (Preliminary Report).” Israel Exploration Journal 22, no. 2/3 (1972): 65-72. http://www.jstor.org/stable/27925330.
Killebrew, Ann E., Paul Goldberg, and Arlene M. Rosen. “Deir El-Balah: A Geological, Archaeological, and Historical Reassessment of an Egyptianizing 13th and 12th Century B.C.E. Center.” Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, no. 343 (2006): 97-119. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25066966.
Mazar, Amihai. Archaeology of the Land of the Bible. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press (2009): 280.
Photograph courtesy of https://ferrelljenkins.blog/2013/01/07/the-significance-of-gaza/