A second-century BCE military stronghold was established at Ashdod-Yam, according to excavations and interim results reported by the Institute of Archeology at Tel Aviv University (TAU).
The research, published November 20, focused on the site’s Hellenistic period and used numismatic and ceramic evidence. Ashdod-Yam contains remains of occupations from the Late Bronze Age to the early Islamic period, according to the TAU Institute of Archeology.
Numismatic evidence includes coins and other forms of currency. The excavation team found a total of 234 coins on the acropolis, the majority of which were concentrated in the Hellenistic period and the Late Roman to early Byzantine periods. The report stated that 122 coins identified as Hellenistic were divided into royal and civic issues.
The institute summarized that the base was violently destroyed towards the end of the second century BCE and that a “massive stone construction” that was found with “associated pottery, coins, and weaponry supports the interpretation that it had a defensive military function.”
Emphatic significance
Nearby mudbrick structures, which researchers believe to be supplementary to the main fortress, showed signs of abandonment and a collapse that could be the result of an earthquake, according to the excavation team. “The site’s strategic significance during the Hellenistic period appears relatively emphatic: a garrison was likely stationed there as part of the Seleucid empire’s control of the territory, later contested by Hasmonaean forces,” the team wrote in the report.
The research article, titled “Hellenistic Ashdod-Yam in Light of Recent Archaeological Investigations,” was published in Tel Aviv last month, the peer-reviewed journal of the Institute of Archeology at TAU. The journal publishes articles on archaeological investigations in the southern Levant and studies related to the history and culture of Near Eastern civilizations, with a focus on biblical and protohistoric periods.