Today, we started the small and short summer season at Safi, to check out an interesting feature near the site.

More information when available!

Glad to report the appearance of a new paper describing a unique find from Tell es-Safi/Gath.

In the paper we describe a new find—a bone whistle—discovered in an Iron Age IIA context at the Philistine site of Tell es-Safi/Gath. We contextualize the find within the corpus of coeval finds and depictions of aerophones from the region, review parallels of this type of instrument, create a modern reconstruction of the object, and make suggestions on how it was used.

I hope this will be music to your ears!

The paper’s full reference is: 

Horwitz, L. K., R. Kehati, M. Eniukhina, and Maeir. A. M. 2026. “The Sounds of the Past: An Iron Age Bone Whistle from Tell es-Safi/Gath and Contemporaneous Aerophones.” In Music in the Ancient Near East: Archaeological, Historical, and Societal Considerations, edited by H. Köpp-Junk and S. M. Thompson. Archaeopress Ancient Near Eastern Archaeology 14, 46–68. Oxford: Archaeopress.

If you are interested in a PDF – drop me an email!

Aren

Despite sensationalist reporting that is circulating in the last few days (such as here and here and here), I would like to stress, and stress again, that the Ark of the Covenant, or the Tabernacle, have NOT BEEN FOUND at Shiloh, and they are nowhere near finding it! All that they have found are more finds related to the cultic site that existed at Shiloh, during the Middle and Late Bronze Ages, the early Iron Age and the Iron Age II. The fact that this place is related to the traditions of Shiloh as being the location of the “Tabernacle” is nothing new. This has been accepted by all scholarship for more than a century!

A) As the team excavating there are biblical literalists (directed by S. Stripling of the Associates for Biblical Research [ABR]), even from their perspective, they should know that the biblical text does not say that the ark should be found in Shiloh, as according to the biblical text, the Philistines took the ark from Shiloh. Even if they are about to find the Tabernacle (which I doubt), the ark won’t be there!

B) None of the finds that they have had in recent years (and the little that they have had is barely and often poorly published…), point that they have found the ark, the tabernacle or anything like it. What they have found is evidence of activities (including cultic) on the site during the MB, LB, Iron I and Iron II. From various reports they are claiming that they have a city gate and the foundations of a large building associated with the Tabernacle, but none of this has been published in any comprehensive manner, and from conversations with colleagues, this interpretation is questionable.

C) The reports put out by COGAT (the arm of the Israeli Civial Administration in charge of archaeology on the West Bank/Judea and Samaria, such as here) tell a very different story than the yarn that has been sold to the media by the ABR team.

One of the basic problems with the ABR team’s interpretations is that they are deep believers that the Exodus of the Israelites from Egypt took place in the mid-15th century BCE, during the early stages of the Late Bronze Age. This is a position without any basis (at all!), both regarding the very historicity of the Exodus, but primarily due to the fact that all the archaeological and historical evidence relating to the Late Bronze Age in the Land of Israel disproves this. They have been arguing this for years, without basis, and time and again, sites they have suggested as proving this theory have fallen through. And no, this is not a position that many scholars hold – it is a fringe, minority opinion!

It’s a pity that the ABR team is SO unproffesional about their excavations and their interpretation – and it’s too bad that some of the media is SO lacking in basic reporting skills!

Today, after a short visit to Safi with the safety engineer (to get safety guidelines for the short season which starts next week), I had a chance to visit the excavations at Ashdod, a project of Ariel University (Itzik Shai) and Lipscomb University (Steve Ortiz). In addition to seeing a lot of old friends – and meeting a few new ones, Itzik and Steve showed me around the excavations. They are reexcavating the Area M 6 chamber gate that Moshe Dothan excavated years ago, trying to better understand its function, dating and plan. This project, the newest major project in Philistia, which hopefully will continue for many years, will only get more and more interesting as time goes by!

Here’s a view of the excavations from afar:

Glad to report the publication of a new issue of the Israel Exploration Journal, which I have the honor and pleasure of serving as a co-editor:

ISRAEL EXPLORATION JOURNAL VOL. 76, 1 (2026)

CONTENTS

1 Sofia Rastorgueva, Orit Shamir, Josef Mario Briffa, Hadar Ahituv and Danny Rosenberg: Base Mat Impressions in the Southern Levant and a Case Study from Late Chalcolithic Teleilat el-Ghassul

33 Itzhaq Shai, Chris McKinny, Marcella Barbosa Rigsby, Deborah Cassuto, Aharon Tavger, Tina Greenfield, Jane Gaastra, Andrea Orendi and Steven Ortiz: The Late Bronze Age Canaanite Town at Tel Burna

49 Harel Shochat and Shay Bar: The Late Iron Age in the Samaria Highlands: A View from Mras ed-Din

85 Robert Hoyland and Yana Tchekhanovets: Arabic Inscriptions from Nessana and Their Early Islamic Context

106 Ido Wachtel, Uri Davidovich, Nava Panitz-Cohen and Naama Yahalom-Mack: Settlement History at Tel Abel Beth Maacah in Northern Israel: Integrating Survey and Excavation Results

This week, the archaeological community in Israel was fortunate to experience two big wins against the “Sons of Darkness.”

Amihai Eliyahu, who is a member of the ultra-right wing party Otzma Yehudit (=Jewish Strength), whose leader, Itamar Ben-Gvir has been found guilty of crimes numerous times, including for supporting terror, and who himself has made statements that support mass murder, is unfortunately, the Minister of Heritage in the current Israeli government. As such, he has ministerial oversee over the Israel Antiquities Authority.

And indeed, his very problematic, messianic, ultra-nationalist and far right wing worldview has time and again surfaced in things relating to archaeology in general and the Israel Antiquities Authority specifically (most recently, I had it out with him as reported in this article)

Last year, he attempted to prevent Prof. Rafi Greenberg from presenting at the annual conference of archaeology in Israel, but the archaeological community rallied to prevent this – by changing the venue of the conference, so that the Eliyahu had no say on the issue.

More recently, Eliyahu and his henchmen tried to push forward two things:

1. To create an official Israeli government authority that would be responsible for archaeological heritage in the West Bank/Judea and Samaria, replacing the existing Staff Officer for Archaeology. This would have been against international law, and the entire archaeological community came out against this, in the knesset, in the media, and other places.
2. As he didn’t get along with the current director of the IAA, Eli Escusido, whose term was up, he didn’t ask him to continue (despite being very successful in his job directing the IAA), but instead had a totally inappropriate person chosen to be the next director, someone without any relevant experience and background, and in fact it appears that this candidate’s CV was not accurate and claimed things that were not true. Here again, the entire archaeological community came out against this, once again in the knesset, in the media (such as here and here), and other places.

This week we received great news! Both of Eliyahu’s attempts failed. The proposed bill was cancelled by Bibi, as apparently he realized that he didn’t need another mixup with international law (as is, the ICC has issued a warrant for his arrest on other issues…). And just at the end of last week, a committee who looked into Eliyahu’s candidate for director of the IAA found the candidate completely inappropriate for the job!

So – both of this goon’s attempts to change things for archaeology in Israel failed.

This is a small win for the “Sons of Light” over the “Sons of Darkness” – and a very nice example how a community can get together to meet and challenge – and stop – unjust and evil behaviour!

Here’s a head’s up about the book series – Archaeology of the Biblical Worlds – that I co-edit with Prof. Haim Goldfus. This series has been active for several years now, and six volumes have already appeared (see a list of the volumes here) and several more are on the way. If you have book size research relating to the Biblical Worlds – from the Bronze Age to the medieval periods, from the land and cultures from which the Bible appeared, was influenced and influenced, please do consider submitting a proposal to us for publication. We accepted monographs, collections of articles and archaeological site reports.

Here’s our flyer:

Glad to report two new papers that just appeared on various stuff related to the Philistines.

Here are the details:

 Maeir, A. M. 2026. “The Feast in Philistine Society: Cultural, Technological and Social Aspects in the Early Iron Age.” In Hebrew with English Abstract in In Centro, Volume 6, edited by I. Koch and et al., 23–31, 122*. Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University.

In this paper (which is in Hebrew with an English abstract), I discuss the archaeological evidence and significance of feasting in early Iron Age Philistia.

* Maeir, A. M. 2026. “The Philistines and Sea Peoples in Light of the Excavations at Tell es-Safi/Gath.” In Lexham Geographic Commentary on the Historical Books, Volume 1: Joshua-Ruth, edited by B. J. Beitzel, 171–89. Bellingham, WA: Lexham.

This paper is a general summary of the Philistines and their culture with particular emphasis on the finds from Tell es-Safi/Gath. Do note, however, that I was not sent the final proofs before publication, so some of the illustrations were not OKed by me (such as the picture of finds from Tell es-Safi/Gath, which are in fact a photography of unconnected EB finds from the site in the archaeological museum in Istanbul)…(caveat emptor).

If you want PDFs, drop me an email!

Aren

So the countdown begins! Two weeks before we commence our short season, with a small team, at Safi. Yesterday, I was out on site doing some preparations. More details as things develop!