The Beacon of Lachish
The most important biblical site you might not have heard of.
Tel Lachish doesn’t have the holiness of Jerusalem, or the apocalyptic aura of Megiddo, and nor are its extant remains that impressive, but unlike those sites its history is uniquely corroborated by the Bible, archaeological finds, and extra-biblical sources. This is important because it proves that Jewish history in the land isn’t just rooted in the Bible, but also the material history of the country. The power of the site has even reverberated into the present day, with the mysterious murder of its pioneering excavator, James Leslie Starkey, during the Arab Revolt.
First mentioned in the Armana Letters (est. 1360-1332 BCE), Tel Lachish is located around 40 kilometers southwest of Jerusalem. Known as Tell ed-Duweir in Arabic (“small round mound”), it’s around 18 acres in size. In the Bible it was conquered by Joshua, and then abandoned for two or three centuries, before becoming the second-most important city in the Kingdom of Judah after Jerusalem. It was a fortified city with massive walls, ramparts, and a royal palace, one of several fortified cities that protected the approach to Jerusalem from the coast.
In 701 BCE it was placed under siege and conquered by the Neo-Assyrians following Hezekiah’s revolt, a biblical event that has been corroborated by both external sources and archaeological findings. Remains of the Assyrian siege ramp have been found, as well as 1,500 skulls and hundreds of arrowheads. Meanwhile, in the Lachish reliefs, which were found in Nineveh and can be seen at the British Museum, we see Assyrian soldiers firing arrows and slingstones before approaching the walls of Lachish using mudbrick ramps, sheltering behind wicker shields, and deploying battering rams. We see the walls and towers of Lachish crowded with defenders firing arrows and throwing rocks and torches at the attackers. We also see the Assyrian soldiers removing plunder and Judean prisoners being taken into exile. It is the ancient equivalent of a news report, with a caption that reads: “Sennacherib King of the Universe, King of Assyria, sits on a throne and the spoils of Lachish are paraded before him.”
Another important find from Lachish is over 400 ‘LMK seals’ – jars with stamps reading “of the king,” a sort of ancient royal warrant. More of these have been found in Lachish than anywhere else (Jerusalem is in second place with more than 300). All of them date to the reign of Hezekiah.
If nothing else had been found at Lachish the LMK seals and the evidence of the siege would be enough to secure its reputation as a major site, but this was followed by an arguably even more intriguing find, one that confirmed Tell ed-Duweir was indeed Lachish. These are the ‘Lachish Letters,’ ancient Hebrew inscriptions written on clay ostraca and discovered by James Starkey in early 1935. Unlike the siege finds, these date to the sixth century BCE, towards the end of the even more fateful Babylonian conquest. According to Jeremiah 34:7, Lachish and Azekah were the two last Judean cities to fall to the Babylonians before the conquest of Jerusalem: “When the king of Babylon’s army fought against Jerusalem, and against all the cities of Judah that were left, against Lachish, and against Azekah: for these defended cities remained of the cities of Judah.” Most of the letters were written to Yaush, possibly the commanding officer at Lachish, by Hoshayahu, a military officer stationed in a city close to Lachish (possibly Mareshah), and discuss the fate of a prophet, for whom only the suffix of his name, ‘yahu,’ has survived.
The suffix ‘yahu,’ which refers to one of God’s names, is today most famous for being carried by Benjamin Netanyahu. His father Benzion was born Benzion Mileikowsky, before Hebraizing his name. Many early Zionists did something similar; David Gruen became David Ben-Gurion; Golden Meyerson became Golda Meir etc. Today, many critics of Zionism use this as evidence of Zionism’s settler colonial origins, while neglecting the fact that surnames were essentially imposed on Jews as part of their assimilation into European society and often replaced more traditional Hebrew names reminiscent of Arabic (I, for example, might have been Alex ben Michael); arguably a form of internal colonialism. Either way, the first of the Lachish Letters is a list of people: for example, Gemeryahu, son of Hazilyahu; Ozniyahu, son of Tavshalem Mivtahiyahu, son of Yermiyahu.
The most famous of the letters is number four, which reads: “Let my lord know that we are watching over the beacon of Lachish, according to the signals which my lord gave, for we cannot see Azekah [my italics],” another important Judean city. Some have interpreted the letter to mean that only Lachish was yet to be conquered, while others (for example Benny Begin, in his book Beacons of Lachish) argue that it should be understood differently: Azekah could only be seen from Lachish (20 kilometers away), meaning that Hoshayahu literally didn’t know what was happening at Azekah. Alongside Masada, this letter is probably the most poignant reminder of the fragility of Jewish sovereignty in the land.
Like all great archaeological sites, Lachish’s importance resonates into the present. On January 10, 1938, James Leslie Starkey was murdered on his way from Lachish to Jerusalem, not long after his excavation camp had been attacked. This was at the height of the Arab Revolt, and was believed to be a terror attack. The alleged perpetrators – Hussein Ahmed el-Kut from Halhul (near Hebron) and Ahmed Abdul Kader Taha from Hebron – were quickly arrested and hung.
However, as Prof. Yosef Garfinkel has argued in a recent paper, much about the story doesn’t make sense. Why did a gang wait in ambush on a road used almost only by Arabs before stopping the only vehicle with a British passenger? Starkey can’t have been mistaken for a Jew, as he spoke fluent Arabic and talked for a while with his murderers before being shot. The medical examiner’s report noted that Starkey had “good relations with the workmen and people of the surrounding villages,” but this wasn’t the case. Prior to its discovery, Tel Lachish was cultivated by Palestinian farmers from the nearby village of Qubeibeh. When archaeologists were interested in privately owned land, they usually compensated the owners and employed them and their families on the digs.
Lachish was divided into three parts, each with separate owners: the ancient cemeteries, the slope, and the summit. The excavators quickly came to an agreement with the owners of the first two, but the owners of the summit, which was of course the most important area, were more hesitant. As a result, on April 12, 1934, the summit was officially expropriated, and the mukhtar of Qubeibeh refused to accept the post-expropriation compensation. According to Garfinkel, Starkey was murdered because of this dispute.
If this theory is true (and of course there’s no way of knowing), then the mukhtar understood what every visitor to the land should understand: Our historical sites are also ancient ones. Lachish’s history was a great boon to the Zionist movement, and whether he wanted to leverage this fact to get a better deal out of Starkey or to try to prevent the site’s excavation, the mukhtar may have realized its importance. Today, too, Israelis and Palestinians clash over historical sites in a way that might seem bizarre to those for whom ancient history is ancient history, but makes perfect sense given that the war of narratives remains so important, and unresolved.
Qubeibe was captured by Israel towards the end of Operation Yoav on 28 October 1948, after its inhabitants had fled. The village was destroyed, and moshav Lachish was established on village lands to the southwest. Tel Lachish was excavated by Yohanan Aharoni in the 1960s, David Ussishkin in the 1970s, and Yosef Garfinkel in the 2010s. In the last few years, it has been opened as a national park; the photo above was taken during a recent visit.