Philistine Pottery. These pottery pieces from Ashkelon bear early Philistine decorations. Photo: © The Leon Levy Expedition to Ashkelon.

The Philistines are best known from the Bible as the Israelites’ enemies, but they were much more than that. Recent archaeological discoveries help inform our understanding of their culture, economy, and even origins. In the Spring 2022 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review, Daniel M. Master of Wheaton College looks at the biblical and archaeological evidence for the Philistines’ roots in “Piece by Piece: Exploring the Origins of the Philistines.”

Who Were the Philistines?

In the Bible, the Philistines are remembered as an uncircumcised people with advanced technology and a formidable military (Judges 14:3; 1 Samuel 13:19–20; Exodus 13:17). The Philistines frequently encroached on Israelite territory, which led to some battles, including the famous clash between David, the Israelite, and Goliath, the Philistine (1 Samuel 17). They were condemned for being idol worshipers (1 Samuel 5:1–5) and soothsayers (Isaiah 2:6). In short, the Philistines are portrayed quite negatively in the Bible.

They lived in the cities of Ashdod, Ashkelon, Ekron, Gath, and Gaza—the heartland of ancient Philistia on the Mediterranean Sea’s southeastern shore. Ashdod, Ashkelon, Ekron, and Gath have been excavated in recent decades. The findings from these cities show that the Philistines had distinct pottery, weapons, tools, and houses. They also ate pork and had vast trade networks.

Philistine culture flourished during the Iron Age (12th through sixth centuries B.C.E.). Similar to the kingdoms of Israel and Judah, the Philistines lost their autonomy toward the end of the Iron Age. They became subservient and paid tribute to the Assyrians, Egyptians, and then Babylonians, the great superpowers of the region who severely punished rebellion. For example, the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar destroyed disloyal Ashkelon and Ekron and carried off many Philistines into exile.

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Where Did the Philistines Come From?

In his article, Daniel Master looks at archaeological and biblical evidence for the Philistines’ origins. He considers the accounts at Ramesses III’s mortuary temple at Medinet Habu. In the 12th century B.C.E., during the reign of Ramesses III, a confederation of tribes from the “islands” of the “northern countries” attacked Egypt—several times, both on sea and land. The Peleset, whom scholars connect with the Philistines, was named as one of these tribes.

Battle Ships. This drawing of a relief at Medinet Habu shows a sea battle between the Egyptians and people from the “islands,” who had invaded Egypt in the 12th century B.C.E. Photo: Public Domain.

On the way to Egypt, the confederation had traveled through the eastern Mediterranean and destroyed numerous cities, including Ugarit on the Syrian coast. Ammurapi, the last king of Ugarit, had written to surrounding kingdoms for help, when the “seven ships of the enemy” had arrived to ransack his kingdom. By the time help had come, though, it was too late: Ugarit lay in ruins.

Egypt defeated the confederation, as recorded on one of the temple walls at Medinet Habu. A relief from that temple also depicts a sea battle between the island tribes and the Egyptians. In it, the islanders wear distinct headdresses, which clearly set them apart from the Egyptians. After being defeated, some of these tribes settled on the southern coast of Canaan—in what would become the land of the Philistines. Egyptian sources, thus, seem to record a migration of people from the “islands” to Philistia.

Philistine Portrait? A confederation of island tribes, including the Peleset (Philistines), attacked Egypt in the 12th century B.C.E. This relief from Medinet Habu records a sea battle between the two forces. Photo: Olaf Tausch, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Master also examines the evidence for Philistine origins in the Bible. The biblical authors remembered the Philistines as coming from a foreign land, from “Caphtor” (Genesis 10:14; Deuteronomy 2:23; 1 Chronicles 1:12; Amos 9:7; Jeremiah 47:4). Scholars have long drawn a connection between Caphtor and Crete. This is largely based on Egyptian inscriptions and paintings of “Keftiu” from the 15th and 14th centuries B.C.E., wherein the Keftiu are linked to the Minoan civilization, which was centered on Crete.

Migration Map. Who were the Philistines, and where did they come from? New archaeological evidence suggests that many of the Philistines originally came from Crete, called “Caphtor” in the Bible. Map: © Biblical Archaeology Society.

Excavations have shown that the Philistines had a distinct assemblage of artifacts. Master notes parallels between some early Philistine objects, especially from the 12th and 11th centuries B.C.E., and Aegean and Cypriot artifacts. Elements of Philistine material culture, then, also hint at an Aegean or Mediterranean origin for the Philistines.

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New evidence from Ashkelon further supports this connection. The Leon Levy Expedition excavated at Ashkelon from 1985–2016 under the direction of the late Lawrence Stager at Harvard University; for the last decade, Daniel Master co-directed excavations. They found some infant burials from the 12th century B.C.E., as well as a Philistine cemetery with burials from the 11th through eighth centuries B.C.E. Teaming up with scientists at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, they were able to analyze DNA from seven of these individuals. When they looked at the 12th-century infants’ DNA, they discovered that the infants had some European ancestry. Crete proved to be one of the best matches for the infants’ heritage—when considering all of their genetic material. Yet other places in the western Mediterranean, such as Iberia, also provided a good match.

Interestingly, in the later individuals from Ashkelon’s cemetery, this European ancestry had been so diluted to barely register. Master explains that, by the tenth century B.C.E., enough intermarriage had taken place between the Philistines and the local Levantine population that the Philistines looked a lot like their neighbors:

While there was some evidence of the same Western European Hunter-Gatherer genetic input, for all statistical purposes, it could not be identified for certain. The best models showed that these people [the tenth- and ninth-century individuals buried in Ashkelon’s cemetery] were descendants of both the 12th-century inhabitants and the earlier Bronze Age inhabitants. It appears from these results that so much intermarriage had taken place between the original immigrants and the people around them that the genetic makeup of Ashkelon’s inhabitants had lost its immigrant distinctiveness.

Yet Master clarifies that, at this point in history, the Philistines still thought of themselves as distinct, as evident in a seventh-century inscription from the Philistine city of Ekron. The inscription names Ekron’s king as Ikausu, which means “Achaean” or “Greek.” The name Ikausu (or Achish) also appears in 1 Samuel 21:10 as Gath’s king.

The Philistines remembered their foreign origins

Master concludes that the new DNA evidence, coupled with the biblical and archaeological testimonies, suggests that the Philistines originated in Crete. That is not to say that the Philistines were a homogenous group, all coming from the Aegean world, but it seems that many Philistines did indeed migrate from there, bringing with them vestiges of Minoan culture. Learn more about this ancient people in Daniel M. Master’s article “Piece by Piece: Exploring the Origins of the Philistines,” published in the Spring 2022 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review.

Subscribers: Read the full article “Piece by Piece: Exploring the Origins of the Philistines” by Daniel M. Master in the Spring 2022 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review.

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This article first appeared in Bible History Daily on March 23, 2022.

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Stela of Baal with lightning, from acropolis Ugarit. Courtesy Photo Companion to the Bible, Genesis.

After nearly a decade and a half, archaeologists have returned to northwestern Syria, digging in the shadow of the important Late Bronze Age (c. 1550–1200 BCE) city of Ugarit. With the conclusion to the lengthy Syrian civil war, which halted nearly all foreign excavations in Syria, a joint Italian-Turkish team has broken ground at Tell Semhane, an unexcavated mound just a few miles from ancient Ugarit that archaeologists believe had close connections with the larger regional center.

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Exploring an Ugaritic Settlement

Ugarit was an important Bronze Age city, renowned as a coastal mercantile kingdom with trade connections across the eastern Mediterranean, including with Egypt, Cyprus, the Aegean, the Hittites, Syria, and Canaan. Since Ugarit had particularly close cultural ties to the southern Levant, archaeologists, historians, and biblical scholars have frequently turned to the site for clues about Canaanite culture, thanks especially to the thousands of cuneiform tablets that were discovered there. These tablets were written in various languages, including Ugaritic, an ancient language closely related to Canaanite and biblical Hebrew. The tablets served as a treasure trove of historical information and provided a fascinating look into broader Levantine cultural and religious traditions.

The Tell Semhane excavations aim to add even more to our understanding of ancient Levantine life by examining a previously unexplored settlement within the Ugaritic sphere. “Our goal is to uncover a Bronze Age settlement in its entirety,” Adahan Güney, one of the Turkish Ph.D. students working at the site, told Arkeonews. “In Near Eastern archaeology, most projects focus on temples or palaces. Here, we have the rare opportunity to study a complete settlement context, which could transform our understanding of everyday life in the Bronze Age.”

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The early alphabetic text from Beth Shemesh. Courtesy Fossé et al.

An early alphabetic text discovered at Beth Shemesh in central Israel has drawn the attention of Assyriologists and archaeologists for nearly a century. Although the roughly 3,300-year-old tablet is not the oldest alphabetic text discovered in Israel, it is still incredibly rare, as it was written in cuneiform. Publishing in the journal Tel Aviv, archaeologists from Ben-Gurion University set out to better understand the Beth Shemesh tablet, suggesting it could have been the school exercise of a young scribe.

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An Early Alphabetic Scribe at Beth Shemesh

While cuneiform was the most widespread script of the time, the Beth Shemesh tablet was different than the typical logo-syllabic cuneiform used for writing Akkadian or Hittite. Instead, it was alphabetic cuneiform, an offshoot of the cuneiform script developed around a century earlier in the ancient city of Ugarit, located about 270 miles to the north. Measuring roughly 6 by 2 inches, the Beth Shemesh tablet is the earliest example of alphabetic cuneiform found in the southern Levant, having been written at a time when the proto-Canaanite script that would birth the modern alphabet was still taking hold.

Although we might expect the tablet to contain correspondence between cities or possibly some important literary text, the actual purpose of the Beth Shemesh tablet is something far more mundane. It is an abecedary—an ordered list of letters used to learn one’s ABCs. Of course, it took years for scholars to crack the mystery and, for a while, some even thought it could be an early example of a South Semitic script. Recent studies, however, have shown that it is nearly identical to another abecedary discovered at Ugarit, although the Beth Shemesh tablet appears to have been written by a less experienced scribe.

Hand copy of the inscription. Courtesy Fossé et al.

But none of this solved the question of how the tablet ended up at Beth Shemesh. Enter the study by the Ben-Gurion team. While previous studies had looked mainly at the text of the inscription itself, the Ben-Gurion team took another path. They examined the tablet’s material and composition. Analyzing the clay of the tablet, they were able to pinpoint its origin to somewhere near Beth Shemesh. While this might not seem very surprising, it turned out to be deeply significant, as it provided unique evidence of an alphabetic cuneiform scribal school outside of Ugarit.

Noting the tablet’s misshapen form, several scribal emendations, and even a child’s fingerprint impressed in the clay, the team concluded the tablet must have been a young scribe’s school exercise. As Jonathan Yogev, an expert in Ugaritic, told Haaretz, “It’s probably a dictation exercise. The teacher stands next to you and dictates the letters: ‘A, B, C, R, V,’ and sometimes he repeats ‘R, R, R,’ especially if you make a mistake.” Interestingly, another unique aspect of the Beth Shemesh tablet is that it was written right to left, as opposed to the more typical left to right of cuneiform, putting it more in line with the region’s proto-Canaanite script.

So why was there a scribal student in Beth Shemesh practicing what appears to be a Ugaritic abecedary? Unfortunately, the answer to that question is less clear. Perhaps it was intended to teach the student to correspond with cities outside of the region, or perhaps it hints at some internal Canaanite communication. Regardless, it certainly tells us that the history of the alphabet’s development in the southern Levant was less univocal than it sometimes appears.

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This article was first published in Bible History Daily on May 27, 2024.

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The base of Shalmaneser III’s throne from Nimrud, c. 845 BCE, detail from the central register. Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The theme of covenant is central to the Hebrew Bible. It provides the background to many of its most memorable stories where Yahweh establishes alliances with figures such as Noah (Genesis 9), Abraham (Genesis 12; Genesis 15; Genesis 17), Moses (Exodus 19; Exodus 24), Aaron (Exodus 29; Numbers 18:19), and David (2 Samuel 7).

Yet modern biblical scholarship has marginalized the covenantal aspects of the Hebrew Bible in favor of the many individuals and events associated with such arrangements, which are generally reduced to their legal aspects and interpreted as obligations subsumed under the law (Hebrew: torah). The word torah even serves to designate the first major division of the Hebrew Bible. Reading the Bible in its wider Near Eastern context, however, rehabilitates the covenant as a crucial factor in diplomacy as well as political and private alliances.¹

Archaeological discoveries in the Levant and Mesopotamia have brought to light numerous figural depictions of covenant-making. These depictions are often “mirror representations,” in which the featured figures are arranged symmetrically around a vertical axis that serves to illustrate the intermediary space of the alliance. Such imagery first appears in several richly decorated cylinder seals from the Old Babylonian period (beginning in the 18th century BCE). The same arrangement can be found on a 14th-century BCE stela from Ugarit, which attests the iconography’s presence in the Canaanite sphere.

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In Assyria, a frieze on a small alabaster vase from the Jazirah region of northern Syria reproduces, in simplified form, the larger, monumental version we find reflected on the base of King Shalmaneser III’s throne at Nimrud (see image above). The vase probably served in a ritual of covenant-making that included the rite of anointing, as referenced in Hosea 12:1 and attested already in the third millennium BCE from a tablet found at Ebla. This cuneiform treaty tablet bears a simple title, “tablet of the oil offering,” which illustrates the importance of this rite in covenant-making.

In Jerusalem, a clay seal impression (bulla) was excavated in 2018 at the Western Wall Plaza (see image below). Dating from the seventh century BCE, it depicts two standing persons, facing each other in a mirror-like manner, clad in striped knee-length garments, and jointly holding a crescent. The bulla’s Old Hebrew inscription reads lsrʿr, “belonging to the governor of the city.” This find shows that the long-standing ancient Near Eastern iconographic theme of alliance was present in ancient Judah’s capital as well.² The “governor” was the city’s highest official, who ruled over Jerusalem on behalf of the king. The scene probably depicts a loyalty oath.

Bulla found at the Western Wall Plaza in Jerusalem, seventh century BCE. Courtesy of Benjamin Sass.

This scene represents the crystallization of a particular vision of the world, one conveyed by both texts and images. Such iconographic and textual evidence leads me to suggest that the Hebrew term for covenant, berit, does not mean “binding” or “obligation,” as it is traditionally interpreted, but rather “alliance,” probably derived from the Babylonian preposition biritu, “between,” which describes the space in-between two parties who are in an alliance. This latter term better captures the idea of intermediary space, with all the elements of an agreement or pact, implying both sincerity and ethical obligations. Such expressions of sincerity are well attested in early Mesopotamian treaties, with the stereotypical Old Babylonian formula ina libbim gamrim “in the fullness of heart,” which also appears in the Shema Israel in Deuteronomy 6:4–9: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart.”

In the ancient Near East, the theme of alliance is historically rooted in Syrian and Mesopotamian covenantal traditions that date well before the Mosaic law and the “Book of the Covenant” (Exodus 24:7). If we understand the Hebrew word berit as “alliance,” rather than “obligation,” it shifts our focus from legal commitments to the space in-between and the relationship between two parties.

Notes:

1. Adapted by Daniel Bodi, Professor of History of Religions of Antiquity at Sorbonne University, Paris, from two studies of Jean-Georges Heintz: “Nouvelles recherches sur l’Alliance dans le monde de la Bible,” Hokhma 116 (2019), pp. 133–146, and “Nouvelles recherches sur l’Alliance dans le monde de la Bible: Entre Dieu et nous, l’espace de l’Alliance,” L’Almanach Protestant (Strasbourg: UEPAL, 2021), pp. 72–77, which, in turn, are popular versions of studies published in Jean-Georges Heintz, Prophétisme et Alliance: Des Archives royales de Mari à la Bible hébraïque (Fribourg and Göttingen: Academic Press and Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2015), pp. 265–349.

2. Tallay Ornan, Shlomit Weksler-Bdolah, and Benjamin Sass, “A ‘Governor of the City’ Seal Impression from the Western Wall Plaza Excavations in Jerusalem,” in Hillel Geva, ed., Ancient Jerusalem Revealed: Archaeological Discoveries, 1998–2018 (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 2019), pp. 67–72.

Jean-Georges Heintz is Professor Emeritus of Old Testament at the Faculty of Protestant Theology, University of Strasbourg, and of Semitic Epigraphy at École du Louvre, Paris.

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A depiction of Ramesses II slaying enemies during the Battle of Kadesh. This relief, along with Ramesses’s victory song, is carved into the walls of his temple at Abu Simbel.
Credit: CC BY-SA 3.0

Whenever we think of the Exodus story, our minds are immediately filled with visions of the devastating plagues that Israel’s God visited upon the land of Egypt, or more specifically, the events of Passover. While these events are indeed spectacular and memorable, it is the climactic episode of the Exodus story—the crossing of the Red Sea—that seals Yahweh’s victory and allows the early Israelites to overcome the forces of Egypt—gods and the pharaoh alike. In his article “A Sea Change? Finding the Biblical Red Sea,” Barry J. Beitzel discusses several possible locations for this memorable event.

Immediately after the Red Sea crossing, Yahweh’s final victory over the Egyptians is celebrated in what is thought to be one of the earliest passages of the Hebrew Bible—the Song of the Sea (Exodus 15:1–18).

Victory songs celebrating battles, with both cosmic deities and earthly kings, are found throughout the ancient Near East. Tales of the glorious battles of the gods were typically written on scrolls or tablets to be read aloud at festivals or other times of celebration. This was most likely the case with the Song of the Sea as well. One can easily imagine the Israelites gathering in the Temple courts to celebrate the Passover while one of the Levitical priests recited the song celebrating Yahweh’s great victory.

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The chaotic sea deity was often the enemy of the storm god in the ancient Near East. The famous Babylonian epic Enuma Elish records Marduk’s great victory over Tiamat, the goddess of the primordial sea. A closer parallel is found among the Canaanite literature of ancient Ugarit. In this lengthy victory song, the Canaanite storm god Baal does battle with Yam, the god of the sea, before his throne is established on the heights of Mount Zaphon.

Earthly rulers would commonly inscribe songs onto large stone monuments known as victory stelae. A notable example is the victory song of Ramesses II commemorating the Battle of Kadesh against the forces of the Hittites. The great “victorious” king went so far as to inscribe this song in at least eight different places including the temples of Abydos, Luxor, Karnak, Abu Simbel, and the Ramesseum. The song celebrates the Egyptian pharaoh’s glory and military might:

I was like Re when he rises at dawn.
My rays, they burned the rebels’ bodies.
They called out to one another:
“Beware, take care, don’t approach him,
Sekhmet the Great is she who is with him,
She’s with him on his horses, her hand is with him;
Anyone who goes to approach him,
Fire’s breath comes to burn his body.”¹

The biblical victory song reads much like those of Baal and Ramesses but with an ironic twist. Instead of the chaotic sea being the great enemy of Yahweh, it becomes his weapon of choice. He has complete control of the sea and uses the waters to destroy the forces of the boastful pharaoh, who has no power whatsoever. If Ramesses II was indeed the pharaoh of the Exodus, as many scholars believe, this victory song contains even further irony, as the forces of the mighty and unbeatable pharaoh—who claimed protection from divine fire—are “consumed like stubble.”

While the location of the crossing of the Red Sea (or Sea of Reeds) is debated, Barry J. Beitzel presents several different possibilities in his article in Biblical Archaeology Review. He argues that the crossing of the Red Sea took place near the area of the modern Suez Canal, but ultimately leaves it to readers to decide.

To learn more about the location of the Red Sea crossing, read “A Sea Change? Finding the Biblical Red Sea” by Barry J. Beitzel, published in the Spring 2022 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review.

Notes:

1. Miriam Lichtheim, Ancient Egyptian Literature: The New Kingdom, vol. 2 (Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 2006), p. 70.

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