Jezreel Valley

This article discusses Israel's coastal plain in the Bronze and Iron Ages. The article begins by describing the geography of the region, and then describes the settlement in the area from the Chalcolithic period to the Persian period. The article also discusses the place of the region in the Bible, and its historical significance in some of the periods.

The review provides a summary and short critique of Amihai Mazar's well-known Archaeology of the Bible.

1991

2020

Israel Exploration Journal, 2018

This paper discusses the history of research at Deir el-ʿÂzar (Tel Qiryat Yeʿarim), including a discussion of its traditional identification with Kiriath-Jearim and a preliminary report of both the recent archaeological survey and G. Barkay’s salvage excavation, which was carried out in the winter of 1995-1996. Significantly, this paper provides the first modern report on the nature of the archaeology of Kiriath-Jearim (Deir el-ʿÂzar), which includes occupation from the Neolithic period until modern times.

Survey of archaeological evidence in the Southern Levant relevant to the study of the Hebrew Bible.

The site of Ḫirbet Ğazzīr near as-Salṭ is one of the many sites proposed in the scholarly literature to be the biblical site of Jazer (hebr. Yaʿăzēr), mentioned several times in the Old Testament, ever since R. de Vaux visited the region in 1937. Although the location of Ḫirbet Ğazzīr generally seems to fit well with the geographical descriptions given in various written sources for the location of Jazer, a recent re-evaluation of the pottery found at the site and an apparent lack of Iron Age pottery makes it unlikely that an Iron Age occupation ever existed there. The site does not seem to be an actual settlement, but may instead have functioned as an outpost (fortress or watchtower) or perhaps rural farmstead in relation to a settlement in the vicinity, offering good views into the region of the Wādi Šuʿaib towards the Jordan Valley and commanding over the surrounding fields and the approach towards the Transjordanian Plateau. Additionally, just opposite the site of Ḫirbet Ğazzīr, across the wadi bed of the Wādi as-Salṭ (a tributary of the Wādi Šuʿaib), several fragments of Iron Age II pottery were found at the site of Ḫirbet aṣ-Ṣūq, thus making a tentative location of Jazer with this site more plausible. Keywords: Transjordan, Wadi Shuʿaib, Survey, Iron Age II, Jazer See also: https://www.jordantimes.com/news/local/scholar-refutes-tentative-identification-khirbet-jazzir-biblical-site