Using radiocarbon dating, researchers provided new data for the biblical city of Gezer. The 35 measurements of charred seeds – mainly olive pits from seven sedimentary layers – provide insight into the earlier development of the then important Bronze and Iron Age site.
Tel Gezer in the southern Levant is now a well-known archaeological site in Israel. The area includes modern-day Israel, Jordan and the Palestinian Autonomous Territories.
The site of Gezer, mentioned in many Egyptian, Biblical and Assyrian texts, was once one of the most important sites of the Bronze Age and Iron Age (3rd to 1st millennium BC) and, according to tradition, was also a center of power. battles and conquests. The period from the 13th to the 9th centuries included several destructive events and reconstruction phases.
Recent excavations have provided access to a continuous series of layers, making it possible to “provide for the first time a reliable chronology for the important site,” the OeAW said in a press release.
“History of Gezer on a fixed timeline”
The team led by Lyndelle Webster from the Austrian Archaeological Institute of the ÖAW made 75 measurements of charred seeds from different layers of occupation and destruction. The 35 measurements presented in the study from Late Bronze Age and Iron Age strata date from the 13th to 9th centuries BC. “This allows us to place the history of Gezer on a fixed timeline for the first time.”
Source: Krone
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