Philistine Gath after 20 Years: Regional perspectives on the Iron Age at Tell eṣ-Ṣafi/Gath

The ongoing archaeological project at Tell eṣ-Ṣafi/Gath, now at the beginning of its third decade in the field, is in the envious position of being one of the longestrunning, ongoing projects currently working in the region of the Shephelah (fig. 1). As such, we have benefited in our research from the various projects that have worked in this and adjacent regions before us and alongside us, and most importantly, from the “boom” of projects that have commenced in the Shephelah in the last few years. This situation enables current research, at Tell eṣ-Ṣafi/Gath specifically and the region in general, to move beyond “the basics”—such as the rudimentary study of the regional material culture—and to deal with various, and in many cases, broader issues. In the following pages, I do not intend to recapitulate the many finds and results from the Iron Age that have been found at Tell eṣ-Ṣafi/Gath since the beginning of the project (see, e.g., Maeir 2012a; 2012c; 2013a; Maeir and Uziel in press) but rather to utilize this platform to discuss a choice set of specific finds and issues that relate to the site itself, as well as to consider wider issues that are of relevance to the understanding of central issues in Iron Age archaeology in the Shephelah and beyond.