Author Description

In 1912, R. A. S. Macalister published reports on his PEF excavations at Tell Gezer in central Israel, including notice of having traced more than 1,400 meters (almost a full mile) of defense walls around the site. Now, a century later, a detailed reassessment of these fortifications is provided in the publication of Gezer VII: The Middle Bronze and Later Fortifications in Fields II, IV, and VIII, edited by Joe D. Seger and James W. Hardin. This volume features work at Gezer sponsored by Hebrew Union College and Harvard University between 1968 and 1974, reporting on excavations at Macalister's "Southern Gate" (Field IV) and along his "Inner" and "Outer" wall systems both on the southern (Field II) and northern (Field VIII) flanks of the site. These excavations produced much new data, enabling a confident dating of the Southern Gate complex and the Inner Wall system to the latter part of the Middle Bronze period (1700–1500 B.C.E.) and of the Outer Wall to the Late Bronze II and subsequent Hellenistic eras. Among a rich array of cultural remains, intramural occupation of the Middle Bronze Age yielded a gold jewelry hoard and early evidence of alphabetic writing.