{"id":4984,"date":"2012-02-07T09:33:46","date_gmt":"2012-02-07T14:33:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.biblicalarchaeology.org\/?p=4984"},"modified":"2019-05-31T15:29:18","modified_gmt":"2019-05-31T19:29:18","slug":"iron-age-fortress-unearthed-at-ashdod","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.biblicalarchaeology.org\/daily\/news\/iron-age-fortress-unearthed-at-ashdod\/","title":{"rendered":"Iron Age Fortress Unearthed at Ashdod"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Archaeologists with the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) have uncovered the massive, 3-foot-thick walls of an Iron Age fortress at the coastal site of Ashdod south of Tel Aviv. The walls, dated to the late eighth and early seventh centuries B.C.E., were excavated atop the so-called \u201cHill of Jonah,\u201d associated by tradition with the burial place of the Biblical prophet. In addition to the massive fortifications, the excavators discovered an inscribed pot sherd (or ostracon) bearing an Aramaic inscription that records the gift of a certain Ba\u2018altzad to a holy place. IAA archaeologist Sa\u2019ar Ganor said the fortress could have been either an Assyrian fortification or a construction of King Josiah of Judah \u201cwho we know conquered territory from the Assyrians and controlled Ashdod-Yam in the seventh century B.C.E.\u201d<br \/>\n <div id=\"attachment_4986\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-4986\" data-src=\"https:\/\/www.biblicalarchaeology.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/ashdod-walls.jpg\" alt=\"Archaeologists with the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) have uncovered the massive, 3-foot-thick walls of an Iron Age fortress at the coastal site of Ashdod south of Tel Aviv.\" title=\"ashdod-walls\" width=\"300\" height=\"155\" class=\"size-full wp-image-4986 lazyload\" src=\"data:image\/svg+xml;base64,PHN2ZyB3aWR0aD0iMSIgaGVpZ2h0PSIxIiB4bWxucz0iaHR0cDovL3d3dy53My5vcmcvMjAwMC9zdmciPjwvc3ZnPg==\" style=\"--smush-placeholder-width: 300px; --smush-placeholder-aspect-ratio: 300\/155;\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-4986\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Archaeologists with the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) have uncovered the massive, 3-foot-thick walls of an Iron Age fortress at the coastal site of Ashdod south of Tel Aviv.<\/p><\/div> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Archaeologists with the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) have uncovered the massive, 3-foot-thick walls of an Iron Age fortress at the coastal site of Ashdod south [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":4987,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[382,375],"tags":[32,33,34,36,118,179,65,7906,123,10271,86],"class_list":["post-4984","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-biblical-archaeology-sites","category-news","tag-antiquities","tag-antiquities-authority","tag-aramaic","tag-archaeologist","tag-archaeologists","tag-iron-age","tag-israel-antiquities-authority","tag-jonah","tag-judah","tag-ostracon","tag-tel-aviv"],"acf":[],"nelio_content":{"autoShareEndMode":"never","automationSources":{"useCustomSentences":false,"customSentences":[]},"efiAlt":"","efiUrl":"","followers":[],"highlights":[],"isAutoShareEnabled":true,"networkImageIds":[],"permalinkQueryArgs":[],"series":[],"suggestedReferences":[]},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v27.0 (Yoast SEO v27.1.1) - 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