¹ The extinct volcano SE of Bethlehem which Herod the Great had fortified, so that it is also known as Herodium.

² Biblical Researches, II (published simultaneously in the U.S. [Boston], England and Germany, 1841), 46–49Google Scholar.

³ Ibid., 51–68.

⁴ So Conder, C. R. in The Survey of Western Palestine, Memoirs, III (London, 1883), 262Google Scholar; Smith, George Adam, The Historical Geography of the Holy Land (New York, 1894), 233Google Scholar; Guthe, H., Kurzes Bibelwörterbuch (Tubingen and Leipzig, 1903), 416Google Scholar.

⁵ Petrie, Flinders, Tell el-Hesy, Lachish (London, 1891Google Scholar); and Bliss, F. J., A Mound of Many Cities (London, 1894Google Scholar).

⁶ Albright, W. F., Researches of the School in Western Judaea, BASOR 15 (Oct., 1924), 2–11Google Scholar.

⁷ Conder, op. cit. (see n. 4), 290.

⁸ Albright, , The American Excavations at Tell Beit Mirsim, ZAW 47 (1929), 1–18Google Scholar.

⁹ See especially Lachish Letter IV, written to the commanding general of Lachish by a commander of an outpost between Lachish and Azekah in the next valley system, the Valley of Elah, to the north. The letter says that “we are watching for the signals of Lachish according to all the instructions which my lord has given, because we cannot see Azekah” - meaning evidently that the Azekah smoke signals had ceased because the Babylonians had taken the fortress-town: see Albright's translation in ANET, 322, and BASOR 82 (1941), 18–24Google Scholar, for discussion.

¹⁰ Annual of the ASOR, II-III (New Haven, 1923), 1–17, esp. 7ff.

¹¹ The arguments for the identification are summarized by F. J. Bliss, Excavations in Palestine 1898–1000 (London, 1902), 62–66; cf. also Hölscher, G., ZDPV 34 (1911), 49–53Google Scholar.

¹² This identification had already been suggested (with a question mark) by H. Guthe, op. cit., 195, though Albright did not discover this fact until after his own decision had been made.

¹³ For very brief preliminary reports of the excavation of Tell ‘Areini, see IEJ 6 (1956), 259Google Scholar; 8 (1958), 275–76.

¹⁴ See Newsletters of the ASOR, for 1970–1971: No. 5 (Dec. 1970); for 1969–1970: No. 8 (April, 1970), both written by John E. Worrell, Director.

¹⁵ See Y. Aharoni and Ruth Amiran, Excavations at Tel Arad, IEJ, Vol. 14.3 (1964), 131–47; Vol. 17.4 (1967), 233–49; Arad: A Biblical City in Southern Palestine, Archaeology, Vol. 17.1 (Spring, 1964), 45–53.

¹⁶ My thanks are due to the Rev. William Broughton, who carefully collected a group of sherds from the site in the spring of 1965 and brought them to me in Jerusalem. The Late Bronze Age was well represented by easily dated pieces.

¹⁷ So Aharoni, Y., The Land of the Bible (tr. by Rainey, A. F.; Philadelphia, 1967), 381Google Scholar and passim, though always with a question mark. For further support of Tell eṣ-Ṣafī with Libnah see Abel, F.-M., Géographie de la Palestine, II (Paris, 1938), 369–70Google Scholar.

¹⁸ See Campbell, E. F. Jr., The Chronology of the Amarna Letters (Baltimore, 1964), 90–105Google Scholar. For background see also W. F. Albright, The Amarna Letters from Palestine, CAH², Fasc. 51 (1966) for Vol. II, Chapter XX.

¹⁹ See letters 373 and 374 in J. A. Knudtzon, Die El-Amarna-Tafeln (1915); W. F. Albright, BASOR 89 (1943), 15–17; and Ross, James F., BA, Vol. XXX (1967), 69–70Google Scholar.

²⁰ See my remarks identifying this site with Gath of the Philistines in BA, Vol. XXIX (1966), 78–86Google Scholar; and a lengthy reply by Rainey, Anson F., Gath of the Philis-tines, Christian News from Israel, XXII 2–3 (1966Google Scholar), 30–38; XXII 4 (1966), 23–34. Thus far I have not had time to prepare a detailed defense of my position. That of Rainey is disappointing from a methodological standpoint. Beginning with the assumption that Gath is at Tell eṣ-Ṣafī, all arguments not explicitly against that view are taken as favoring it. The author pays little attention in his article to another, which he knows well, that there were at least two Gaths in the Shephelah area, one in the northern sector (Mazar, B., Gath, and Gittaim, , IEJ, Vol. 4 [1954], 227–35Google Scholar). Acceptance of this basic article takes away the basis of nearly all of Rainey's contentions. The matter will remain conjectural, however, depending upon the presuppositions with which one begins. These have to do, among other things, with the purpose of the Philistines. If their primary object was to reconquer for Egypt the whole of Palestine as a mercenary elite, then the establishment of Ekron, the take-over of Gath, the founding on the Yarkon of Tell Qasileh, etc., had their primary purpose in military geography. The argument that Ṣafī is Gath primarily because it was a large city in the Philistine period is not enough. A second presupposition has to do with the placement and importance of Libnah.

²¹ For translation and interpretation see Albright, W. F., A Case of Lèse-Majesté in Pre-Israelite Lachish with Some Remarks on the Israelite Conquest, BASOR 87 (Oct., 1942), 32–38Google Scholar. Following oral comments by my colleague, W. L. Moran, however, I do not think we know anything about the whereabouts of the two Egyptian officials, the one who wrote the letter or the one to whom it was sent.

²² Presumably by David: see, most recently, this writer's article on The Provinces of Solomon, Eretz Israel, Vol. 8 (1967), esp. 64–66.

²³ See Biran, A. and Negbi, Ora, IEJ, Vol. 13 (1963), 338–40Google Scholar; Vol. 14 (1964), 284–85.

²⁴ S. Bülow and R. A. Mitchell, An Iron Age II Fortress on Tel Nagila, IEJ, Vol. 11 (1961), 101–10. For excavations at the site, see Ruth Amiran and A. Eitan, IEJ, Vol. 13 (1963), 143–44. 333–34; Vol. 14 (1964), 219–31; and Archaeology, Vol. 18 (1965), 113–23Google Scholar.

²⁵ Bliss, and Macalister, , Excavations in Palestine, 1898–1900 (London, 1902), 41–47Google Scholar. On the last page Bliss notes that the site's wall belongs to the latest occupation of the tell, because its footing and its gate towers are datable by pottery to “Greek and Roman” times.

²⁶ An addition to the list of Rehoboam's fortifications of Judah (II Chron. 11:5–12) may well be the thirteen-meter wide brick wall surrounding Eglon at the base of the Acropolis, found in 1970 (ASOR Newsletter, No. 5 for Dec. 1970, p. 4). More excavation is needed, however, for more precision in dating. Currently, the wall is dated from typical 10th (or early 9th) cent, chordal burnishing, etc., found on sherds in the foundation trench dug for the wall in the virgin sand of the area.

^{page 448 note 1} Atlas of Israel (1970, 2nd English Edition, Survey of Israel), IV/2, Map A. The mean was calculated for the period 1931–60.

^{page 449 note 2} Ibid., IV/2, Map J. According to the Atlas of Israel, this percentage is based on “the mean of the deviations of rainfall in the individual years from the long-period average, divided by the long-period average itself.” By using another variable called the “relative standard deviation,” D. Sharon (IEJ, Vol. 15 [1965], 169–76) has demonstrated the frequency with which the deviations from the average amount exceed the “mean relative variability.” The “relative standard deviation” index of 35% for Ruhama (just 7 km. south of Ḣesī) indicates that about two-thirds of the time the variability of annual rainfall will be below 35%, usually fairly close to the “mean relative variability” of 26%. But nearly one-third of the time the variability will be 35% or more. And very infrequently (4% of years) it could soar beyond 70%. In the last thirty years, the area around Ḥesî has had four years in which rainfall fluctuated down to the 200 mm. mark. (Atlas of Israel, IV/2, Map K.)

^{page 449 note 3} Amiran, D. H. K., IEJ, Vol. 3 (1953), 250–60Google Scholar.

^{page 449 note 4} The preliminary report on the first season of excavations will be published in a forthcoming issue of BASOR. The Persian pits belong to Bliss' City VIII, although he was unable to recognize many of them until he had reached the stratum below, his City VII. (See Bliss, A Mound of Many Cities, 109ff.)

^{page 449 note 5} Yeivin, S., First Preliminary Report on the Excavations at Tel Gat (Tell Sheykh ‘Ahmed el-‘Areyny), Seasons 1959–1960 (Jerusalem, 1961Google Scholar), 4 and Fig. 2. For seasons 1959–1960, see Ciasca, A., Oriens Antiquus 1 (1962), 23–39Google Scholar; and Yeivin, , RB 67 (1960), 391–94Google Scholar.

^{page 450 note 6} Tufneix, Olga, Lachish III: The Iron Age (Oxford Univ. Press, 1953), 151Google Scholarff. (text) and Pl. 17:3–4; 116 (plates).

^{page 450 note 7} Petrie, Flinders, Gerar (London, 1928), 8–9Google Scholar and Pl. 13.

^{page 450 note 8} Ibid., 9.

^{page 450 note 9} For the feasibility of long-term wheat storage underground, see Bowen, H. C. and Wood, P. D., Experimental Storage of Corn Underground and Its Implications for Iron Age Settlements, Bulletin of the Institute of Archaeology 7 (1968), 1–14Google Scholar.